In message
"Martin Underwood" wrote:

Graeme Wall wrote in :

All right. If you want to split hairs, maybe I should have said "the
TOC which runs the HEx service".

There isn't a TOC which runs the HEX service. HEX is operated by HEX for
the BAA.

It is not splitting hairs, it is making the point that sounding off about
TOCs and public service obligations is irrelevant in this case. HEX has
no public service obligations, it is a privately owned business that can
do what it legally likes. If you don't like it, don't use it.

OK. So the company that runs the HEx is different to all other train
companies in that it's not a TOC?

Yup. Though not /all/ other train companies are TOCs, I believe (and I sit to
be corrected) that Hull Trains isn't either.

Fair enough. I didn't know that - I've learned something. But if I'm
confused, I can imagine most other lay people will be as well. I had
assumed (always dangerous, I know) that all companies that ran trains on
Network Rail tracks (at least as far as the tunnel into Heathrow!) and
used Network Rail stations were classed as TOCs and had obligations to
pool fares etc. Evidently not.

As you say.


What a mess our rail system has become: some stations owned/operated by
TOCs, some owned by Network Rail; some services operated by TOCs, some
operated by companies that are not TOCs. Maybe I'm biassed because I can
remember a time when the railways were operated as a single entity with
joined-up thinking!



You've got a bloody good memory then, I don't remember that, though
admittedly BR in its final years came closer than the current shower.

--
Graeme Wall
This address is not read, substitute trains for rail.
Transport Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail/index.html