Transpennine Express – How they became so hated | Failed Franchises #1 – TPE

Hello & welcome to a new series – Failed Franchises. In this series I’ll look at train companies that have failed at their franchise agreements. Today is perhaps the most recent & infamous example of this – Transpennine Express. Today I’ll go through the history of the Pennines franchise before looking at what led to TPE’s demise with the government stepping in to take over the franchise in May 2023.

As always thank you so much for watching; do consider liking, subscribing & ‘joining’ the channel. Also, please don’t hesitate to leave feedback or corrections below – I am not someone who travels frequently on TPE so I may get things wrong!

Join my channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcqdWB_q4Q52h26dQcChKsQ/join (Get several different brilliant perks such as access to videos early and a mention in each video, from £2.99/month!)
Or donate to my Ko-Fi for similar perks: https://ko-fi.com/vanmanyo

SUBSCRIBE – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcqdWB_q4Q52h26dQcChKsQ

SECOND CHANNEL:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOx87HEbY4zCXGOcVGPjXwQ

X- https://twitter.com/Vanmanyo1

Discord server link – https://discord.gg/QYpCgBZ

Music: https://www.davidcuttermusic.com/

Ⓒ Vanmanyo

Hello and welcome to a new series failed franchises on this series I’ll be looking at the failures of several train operating companies which have either been stripped of their contract or have been deemed a failure by the industry and passengers alike today is perhaps the most recent and prominent example of

The government stripping a train operating company of its franchise that being transparent Express the history of transparan Express Services goes way back to the 1990s when British rail under the regional Railways brand introduced the brand for its Cross penine services operated by class8 and Loco hold stock under privatization the brand was

Incorporated into the Northern Spirit ARA trains North franchise which included the whole Regional Railways Northeast franchise creating a mega company though is difficult to manage and Run Northern Spirit Incorporated their branding with their class 158 being repainted into a maroon color scheme with a golden n and transparent Express logo ARA trains Northern

Continued to operate the same franchise with the same stock and branding eventually in 2000 the decision was made by the Strategic rail authority to reorganize the regional Railways Northeast franchise ran by a re retrains Northern and the Northwest Regional Railway franchise run by first Northwestern the reorganization would

See all local and commuter Services merged into one Northern franchise with the longer distance Regional and inter city services being made into a dedicated transparent Express franchise the franchise Was Won by first group kolis with the ARA trains Northern and first Northwestern Services being transferred to the newly named first

Transparent Express on February the 1st 2004 the remaining Northern commuter franchise Was Won by Circo Bello and commenced on the same day however our interest lies in the transparan franchise and how it can be classed as a failed Franchise The transfer franchise started relatively small with all services passing through Manchester Picadilly the new first transpan IR company also served Manchester airport with four trains an hour leaders in Huddersfield also with four trains an hour Hur scarra CLE fors middlesbor and Newcastle to the Northeast with one train an hour and in

The north Liverpool with one train an hour and the services split between Barrow and windir giving them one train 2 hours services from Manchester Airport to York were operated on a 24-hour basis we’ll look a little later how the franchise expanded but first let’s look at the original first transpar on

Express operations the original contract for the joint venture was expected to end in 2011 a close for the franchise to end in 2014 and again in 2016 to coincide with the end date of the northern rail franchise at the beginning of the franchise transparent Express operated class 158 and class 175s that

Were on high from a reever trains Wales the main commitment of the original franchise was the replacement of the entire fleet with several dmus being looked at the units needed to be able to reach 100 mph with their acceleration comparable to the class 180s and voyages as well as this air conditioning two

Toilets per vehicle with one suitable for disabled passengers large luggage and bike racks CCTV in first class was desired by the operator in September 2003 first transparent Express announced that Seaman had signed a contract for 56 new dmus to be constructed although this is later reduced down to 51 by the

Strategic rail Authority the units were specifically designed to converse the hilly terrain of the Pen’s route so were built with high power output although this proved unnecessary and led to relatively low efficiency with only a few routs benefiting from The increased power output these new units designated

The class 185s entered service in 2006 and proved incredibly popular with off peak Travelers however they were not deemed to be suitable for Peak services with them becoming highly overcrowded at these times to resolve overcrowding issued First transionic Press least eight class 170s from 2006 from Southwest trains

With a ninth obtained from Central trains shortly after the nine2 car 170s were used on Manchester CLE for Hur and New York services with the three car 185s used across the entire network by 2007 the transplanting route was extended to serve Glasgow and eding replacing virgin cross country with a

New Fleet of electric units desired to run these services for the lines from Liverpool to Scotland being fully electrified in 2013 this in turn led to 10 class free 50- forms being ordered with the first services to Manchester from Scotland running on the 30th of December 2013

This led to the class 185s being relocated to other services strengthening the fleet these 10 4car class 350s proed popular of Travelers however once again overcrowding Contin to be an issue across the franchise this was exacerbated in March 2014 when the government and train owner porterbrook announced that the nine class 170s would

Eventually be transferred to Children Railways and converted to class 168 to strengthen the New Oxford services this was hugely criticized by many MPS and residents such as Diana Johnson MP for H with several debates occurring in 2013 and 2014 regarding the issue the unit cascad was delayed until 20 5 to allow

Tpe to acquire diesel Replacements the last four class 170s left the fleet in 2016 the temporary replacements for the class 170s were found in six class 156s which were hired from norn these 156s were supposed to boost a desperately deprived Northern franchise for services from Blackpool North however the 156s

With first transparent Express didn’t last too long with the franchise being up for grabs by 2014 kis had now split from first group and one wanted to operate the franchise instead with goahead however first group themselves won the new TP franchise and commenced operations in April 2016 dropping the first branding and just

Calling themselves transparent Express following this franchise changeover the6 has returned to Northern with transpan Express now no longer operating to windir Blackpool or Barrow the new transpan Express franchise now operat services to Manchester Sheffield CLE forbs Liverpool Preston Lancaster Glasgow Edinburgh Newcastle Durham middlesbor scarra York h and finally

Leads the branding also got changed featuring a slick new black blue and purple color scheme with their class 350s and 185s receiving a new livery but how did this service his affair and what led to this new TP franchise being deemed a failure just before we get onto why I

Just want to say thank you so much to any of my channel members or previous donators a huge thank you to D bb87 G Patterson Jack Railway secrets and Lilo rail for your donations SL membership if you want to join them you can by pressing the join button next to

The Subscribe button on my channel thank you so much well even prior to the new franchise first transparent Express run some of the busiest trains in the country with most Rush Hour Services being full and standing in 2014 the chief executive of the TP franchise suggested that there is not enough

Diesel rolling stock in the country at Peak over 25% of commuters couldn’t get a seat the new transparan Express franchise had a chronic shortage of Rolling Stock so very quickly into the franchise in 2018 TP announced Project Nova this project was see the company transform into focusing its services on

Inter City Star ones rather than Regional ones however they still intended to serve as a commuter operator perhaps a Flor already in the project the project would would more importantly see fre new fleets into service to replace the class 350s and allow the 185s to receive refurbishment and then

Strengthen other areas of the network TP signed deals for around half a billion pounds with manufacturers CF and Hitachi the Nova Fleet will be subdivided into three new sections imaginatively named Nova 1 Nova 2 and Nova 3 Nova one was actually ordered under the previous franchise and would boost rout capacity

Between Liverpool and Newcastle V York these 19 5c car units would also be bu mode and have a top speed of 125 mph with options for 140 mph operation should the infrastructure ever permit these units were designated class 802s and would be built by Hatachi as part of

Their IET offering the buy mode offering according to tp’s head of new trains Robert Davis would allow for the units to run under the wires for green operations and then on diesel lines where overhead line electrification had not been constructed yet Davis also pointed at the possibility of removing the diesel engines should

Electrification ever be wide enough boosting efficiency by up to 15% the Nova 2s would be 12 fully electric calf class 397s built as part of their civity range these units would be used on the services from Manchester Airport to Scotland and would be the only fully electric Fleet the company had the most

Controversial units would be the Nova freeze these class 68 diesel locomotives and Mark 58 carriages would operate from Manchester and New York to scabra the new Mark 5as built by CF would be the first new carriages in Britain since the mark falls in the 1980s the sets would utilize 14 class 68

Locomotives built by Stadler with 52 Mark 5as utilizing 14 driving trailers to negate the need for runarounds or extra Locos the class 68 had been in service since 2014 and were highly Infamous for their noise levels surely this could couldn’t affect TPU though all of the Nova trains first entered

Service in 2019 but did they help to ensure the franchise would be less overcrowded and more punctual well we all know the answer here is no but why it is no is a bit more interesting by 2020 Co had hit and the operator was given an emergency measures contract until May

2023 after the worst of the pandemic was over TP were instantly hit with Nationwide rail strikes Le to Major staff shortages as tpe tried to ramp up their service to pre-co levels in October 2022 tpe canceled 30% of their services within a week during half term most of these Services being PC coded

Cancellations a pcode cancellation is where the operator cancels the trains but does not show them on the system this is usually used for plan cancellations such as engineering work and allows the operator to cancel Services where them showing is canceled on the passenger system systems which would in turn confuse passengers if

There was engineering work going on tpe were effectively abusing the system to falsely claim that their cancellations were lower than what they actually were the offered for Rail and Road statistics showed that TP reported cancellations of 5.6% and 11.8% in October and November 2022 this is compared to the nearly 20%

Of services that were actually cancelled in the two months these P coded cancellations could be put in the systems the night before so when passengers woke up the next day they would find their service had just disappeared with no way to claim delay repay as the cancellation did not appear

On the industry systems many of these cancellations were to the airport at Manchester with 25% of services to Manchester Airport from September to November 2022 being cancelled or terminated short of the airport this led to a nearly 30% drop in people taking public transport to the airport with Chris Woodroof the airport’s managing

Director toest suggesting it was causing significant cost and inconvenience for passengers Andy Burnham Manchester mayor suggested the loophole was for the interest of the train companies and their profits only claiming the loophole to be outrageous between the 17th and 25th of November a total of 294 TP Services had been canceled the night

Before and many weren’t shown on industry systems 77 of these were on the CLE fors line alone leaving many people on the line without a rail service to Manchester TP suggested the cancellations were due to high levels of train crew sickness and an intensive crew training program which had huge

Backlogs due to covid which didn’t let the company train the staff needed to run the services required going into 2023 things didn’t get much better for the company during the first reporting period of 2023 1,000 tpe trains were at least partially cancelled with tpe still using p coding as a loophole to get

Around staff shortages the official reporting cancellation figure was 5.8 % for March 2023 but this was actually as high as 177% When taking into account pced cancellations however this was still much better than the 25% cancellation rate seen in January 2023 However the fact TP celebrated this decrease

Suggests just how bad it got labor quick to jump on the bandwagon claiming the conservatives were to blame for giving the franchise to First TP in the first place by April 2023 the government was seriously considering removing tp’s franchise Al together suggesting that all options were on the table by May the

Service had not improved with customers slamming tpe for the service becoming less frequent less reliable slower and more expensive it got so bad that many people gave up on tpe using coaches buses Ubers and mainly cars to complete their Journeys with tpe gaining national attention on news networks for its awful

Service eventually the government had enough and to perhaps increase a dft’s reputation and scare of a train operators the tpe franchise was stripped from first and brought under government control on the 28th of May 2023 since the government has taken control of TP there hasn’t been a huge change in

Service although cancellations have been down with most of them now being around 5% and P coding being decreased overcrowding has not decreased and this has been made worse with the Nova 3 class 68 Mark 5 aets being withdrawn from service during the December 2023 timetable the main reason reason for the

Removal of these 12 five car sets is due to noise complaints regarding the class 68 as well as technical issues regarding the mark 5as hence a huge part of tp’s fleet has been withdrawn with Reliance on the class 185s higher than expected leading to huge overcrowding personally I’ve seen this overcrowding firsthand

When I visited Staley bridge last year to ride one of the mark 5 sets before they got withdrawn attempting to return to Manchester I was physically unable to Bor the first Manchester bound service with the guard telling me to take the next one which was also full but at

Least this time I could board TP is still then a pretty bad operator but I think it’s something that will remain the same regardless of who runs it until there is some proper investment the franchise needs more diesel units alth this is something the whole UK needs

Look at the lights of cross country Great Western Railway and Chon for example however the infrastructure needs improving too electrification platform extensions station expansion signaling all things that could and should happen to ensure the north keeps up with the South although the transpan route is currently occurring between Manchester

Huddersfield and Leeds this isn’t happening until at least 2036 with the current infrastructure being Victorian with it basically falling apart so in conclusion then the transpar franchise has always been a very difficult franchise to run we’re first doing a pretty decent job up until the 2020s with the government hopefully being able

To after the elections in 2024 being able to invest in our Railways and tpe can flourish finally becoming a truly good operator rather than a failed franchise thank you very much for watching this first episode in a series that I hope will have five or six

Episodes let me know in the comments who I should focus on next potentially norn or maybe a Rea trains Wales who knows let me know in the comments below do consider liking and subs subcribing if you have enjoyed this episode and also do consider joining my channel for 299

You can get some cool perks such as watching all my videos early as well as getting shout outs in every video thank you ever so much for watching Goodbye