300: The Rise of Abellio

You good Abellio Greater Anglia commuters, and others who read my blogs, may have heard in recent weeks that my arch nemesis Abellio have won the franchise to run ScotRail from April 2015 to March 2022, with the potential of having the franchise extended for another three years. My first reaction was to feel sorry for the good people of Scotland as, they more than anyone wanted their railways to be re-nationalised. 

But it still wouldn't have been as bad if First won the contract again or if one of the other competing companies, ie: Arriva (CrossCountry, Arriva Trains Wales, Chilton Railways, Grand Central), MTR (London Overground, Crossrail) and National Express (c2c), had won the franchise, they would still manage it better than Abellio would.

But this morning, I woke up to the news that inspired this particular blog entry. I heard from my fellow crusader, Delayed Again, that Abellio are to make 300 (three hundred) Greater Anglia staff redundant from their Norwich customer relations centre and their offices in Colchester and combining it with the customer relations centre in Scotland once they've taken over ScotRail. This is all down to Abellio and the Department for Transport (DfT) being a bunch of money grabbing thieves, they don't have to make any of them redundant at all, but it's cheaper to have 300 staff than it is to have 600 staff, and because they have to protect Scottish jobs, the English staff have to be sacrificed to make this money saving cut. And what's the betting that they can't strike like the people working for Trainsport for London (TfL) do every time staff cuts are announced on the London Underground.

Striking it obviously not the answer though, so if you are a member of AGA staff reading this blog entry, please don't get any ideas. Both Delayed Again and I have tweeted Sir Bob Russell MP (Lib Dem for Colchester) and Chloe Smith MP (Conservative for Norwich North) asking them how they feel about 300 of their constituents getting the boot because Abellio are a bunch of greedy thieves, so far, we haven't got a response. However, I'm sure they will in good time.

I would love to see these jobs safeguarded for the future and the only way to do that, in my mind at least, is to get Abellio out of running our franchise into the ground. They have shown time and time again that they have no regard for you and me, the commuter, but clearly they have no regard for staff either. We need a new franchisee very soon to safeguard these 300 jobs and to bring commuters a good train service with reliable and comfortable trains.

My suggestions for the new Train Operating Company (TOC) to take over from Abellio are: FirstGroup (who you'll all remember when the franchise was First Great Eastern), MTR (who run London Overground and will soon run Crossrail), Govia (who run London Midland, Thameslink & Great Northern, Southeastern and Southern), Stagecoach (who run South West Trains and East Midlands Trains and own 49% of Virgin Trains) or get Stagecoach and Virgin run it together as they do with Virgin Trains.