"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...
National Express have a monumental task ahead of them if they are to
wring out enough efficiency / savings / extra revenue to pay the premium
back to the SRA that is required from their bid. Expect an interesting
version of typical National Express staffing levels being applied to
former Anglia and First Greater Eastern areas along with cutbacks in
"competing" services e.g. Ipswich.

Its not going to be a good six months or so for Staff, with cuts looming to
save money in an attempt to pay the SRA what they have promosed, which I
believe is just short of £1 Million Per week.

I'm not sure on how the SRA works exactly, but isnt the advise that if you
are putting a job out to contract (for anything), its advisable not to just
go for the one which can promise the most for the least amount of money,
which accoding to GB Railways at the time, is what the SRA have done with
NX.
I think the GB Railways would have been the best option, whatever the cost,
they seem to have the best attitude towards things, customers and staff, as
their record with Anglia proved, plus with the backing of First Group it
could have been good. Oh well.....

"Darren" ] wrote in message
...

I'm not sure on how the SRA works exactly, but isnt the advise that if you
are putting a job out to contract (for anything), its advisable not to
just
go for the one which can promise the most for the least amount of money,
which accoding to GB Railways at the time, is what the SRA have done with
NX.

Sadly that appears to be the only criterion that the SRA are currently
using. Therefore it looks as though we can expect some further surprises,
possibly with the imminent reallocation of the Inter City East Coast (ICEC)
franchise, currently held by Sea Containers and operated as Great North
Eastern Railway.