Trenitalia pulls out of race for Southeastern rail franchise

THE Italian rail company that entered the UK market earlier this year has pulled out of one of the three franchises it is bidding for to focus its efforts on its prime targets.

Trenitalia began serving UK rail customers in February when it bought the c2c franchise from coach operator National Express and rapidly found itself among the pack for three other rail contracts.

But now it has decided to pull out of the competition for Southeastern, one of the busiest of the UK’S rail franchises, which serves the London-kent line, because the bidding process overlaps with one of those it considers to be a more important contract.

Instead it will focus on the West Coast Partnership bid, which includes working with HS2 to launch the first services on the multi-billion pound high-speed rail project, which will run from London to Birmingham from 2026. A spokesman for the company said the decision had been taken because of the “significant overlap” between the timetables for the Southeastern and West Coast bids.

The West Coast line is run by a joint venture between Stagecoach and Virgin Trains at present, but the pair have enlisted the help of French train company SNCF to retain the contract in the current bidding process.

Besides Trenitalia, which has submitted a joint bid with First Group, another joint bid from Hong Kong’s MTR and China’s Guangshen Railway Company is in the mix. This means the Southeastern franchise is now being fought for by current holders Govia (the joint venture between Go-ahead and Keolis), Stagecoach, and a joint bid from Abellio, East Japan Railway and Mitsui & Co.

Southeastern includes domestic services on High Speed 1, and currently handles around 640,000 passenger journeys every weekday.

Trenitalia said it would remain in the running for the East Midlands franchise, which it is bidding for with First Group. It is battling against incumbent Stagecoach and new bidder Arriva.