New face of SWR
A month into his job at the helm of the country’s newest franchise, ANDY MELLORS sets out his vision for the South Western Railway to PAUL CLIFTON
New South Western Railway Managing Director ANDY MELLORS sets out his vision for the country’s newest franchise.
Andy Mellors is a man with a very full plate. In early July, he learned he had got the top job at what we must no longer call South West Trains. Within a few days, he had packed his bags as deputy managing director at Great Western Railway and left the building.
Within a month, he had exchanged contracts on a flat closer to his new job in central London.
And just six weeks after his appointment, on August 20, new franchise owner First MTR replaced Stagecoach.
Filling his in-tray: a massive blockade at Britain’s busiest station; a large fleet of new trains to buy and establish; several other fleets to refurbish; a reform of ticketing; a timetable rewrite; the RMT union threatening a strike ballot over decisions he has not yet even made; and the small matter of getting to know nearly 5,000 staff.
In his first interview, 12 hours before Network Rail started its massive blockade of Waterloo station ( RAIL 833), he sets out his initial impressions.
“Obviously Waterloo has to be the first priority. We take over the tail end of the blockade. We have been involved in the plans, because we had to go through the safety validations.”
From August 5-28 (as this issue of RAIL was going to press), Network Rail has closed Platforms 1-10 to enable Platforms 1-4 to be made long enough to handle ten-car trains. Previously, they could take only eight carriages. To enable that to happen, the ends of Platforms 5-8 have to be altered. But just as Mellors sits down at his new desk, it gets worse.
“In the final days of the possession there are some specific challenges for us. Network Rail is closing 14 of the normal 19 platforms. We will have an army of people on hand - not just the SWT staff, additional people from FirstGroup and MTR are being brought in.”
A fortnight ahead of this bleak prospect, Mellors had not even finalised his top management team. Contracts were still being negotiated… deals had not been signed.
“We change nothing in the first week or two. It will be a ‘soft’ launch. The train plan has been done by the incumbent operator. The controls, the mitigations, contracts for rail replacement bus services and interoperability with Transport for London services have all been done for the entirety of the blockade. We can’t be changing stuff around.
“Monday September 4 is the first full week back after the summer holidays, and that’s when we will launch the brand in full. Then it will be South Western Railway.”
Mellors has a lot of deals to sign off, although the order for new trains shouldn’t be a problem - while at GWR, he had worked on the rolling stock elements of FirstGroup’s bid for South Western. The result: Bombardier will supply 90 suburban trains - 750 carriages to replace all the varied stock maintained at Wimbledon depot.
Controversially, that will include handing back the latest Siemens Class 707 trains, so new that they only begin to enter service this autumn.
“Sixty ten-car and 30 five-car Bombardier trains will start to enter service from mid-2019, with all of them in service for the December 2020 timetable change,” he says. “The ‘455’, ‘456’, ‘458’ and ‘707’ fleets will all be handed back.”
Yet the ‘455/456’ suburban fleets have only recently had a traction upgrade. The ‘458s’ were lengthened to ten cars only two years ago, by incorporating former Gatwick Express vehicles. And the ‘707s’ are currently on test. The new trains may find another use, but it is unlikely that any of the other rolling stock will have a future.
“This will almost halve the average age of the franchise fleet,” says Mellors. “There are clear advantages of a homogenous fleet on suburban services for crew and maintenance staff. For customers, there will be a consistent offer in terms of toilets, air-conditioning, WiFi, at-seat power - all things that are hit-and-miss with the current fleets. Customers will get a much better journey.”
And what about drivers? The Bombardier
We are committed to retention of a second person on board our trains. Andy Mellors, Managing Director, South Western Railway
trains will be equipped for Driver Controlled Operation. In early July, the RMT demanded an assurance from First MTR that it would maintain the role of the guard, including operating doors, on all services throughout its tenure of the franchise. Similarly, it demanded that no ticket offices should close, that no opening hours should change, and that no staff numbers should be reduced.
When First MTR responded that it could not promise to making no changes to staffing at any point in the future, the union promptly threatened a strike ballot.
“We are committed to retention of a second person on board our trains,” says Mellors.
“As with any new train there are different ways of operation. Our bid did not rely on Driver Controlled Operation - it wasn’t mandated in the Department for Transport’s Invitation to Tender.
“But customers appreciate having someone to assist them, and we will do that. The precise detail of what we do is something on which we will engage with the workforce and the unions once we are running the franchise. We are not committed at this moment to any specific method of operation. There are options, and we will work collaboratively with our employees.”
For the former South West Trains staff, this may be unsettling. Outgoing owner Stagecoach, the only operator to have remained in exactly the same hands since privatisation 21 years ago, had shown no interest in changing the role of guards. And it had enjoyed a largely harmonious relationship with the unions, certainly a more positive one than its strike-strangled neighbour - Southern.
Says Mellors: “If I reflect on my Great Western experience, we developed some good relationships. We worked on early engagement and we were very transparent, giving the unions the opportunity to see the new kit and understand it, and dispel any myths. I have no intention to cause huge disruption here enacting these changes, and I hope we can have a positive working relationship to get the benefit of our £1.2 billion investment implemented as smoothly as possible.”
He has made DCO work on Great Western. Mellors quietly did a deal with the RMT and ASLEF unions to enable drivers to operate train doors on new Bombardier electric suburban trains, and even on the new Hitachi express trains where they replace Thames Turbo diesel multiple units.
That includes outer suburban trains running to Oxford and Newbury. Will Mellors be looking for a similar deal on the new suburban South Western stock to Reading, Windsor,
We have a hugely ambitious programme of investment, and that’s not just with physical things like rolling stock. It’s about investing in people as well.
Guildford and perhaps Basingstoke? “I think you might reasonably conclude that,” he says, carefully avoiding giving a precise answer.
“As I say, we are not wedded to any one method of operation. We are absolutely committed to the retention of a second person on the train, because we know that is what customers want.”
There should be no such issues on longerdistance journeys. The existing Class 444, ‘450’, ‘442’, ‘158’ and ‘159’ trains running to the South Coast and the South West will all be refurbished by 2020, but all will continue to require guards to operate the doors.
The new franchise promises dramatic journey time improvements to Waterloo: eight minutes faster from Southampton, 11 minutes faster from Salisbury, ten minutes faster from Reading. How? By cutting out the slack in the timetable between Clapham and Waterloo, or by missing out a few stations along the way?
“A bit of both,” Mellors admits. “There is no single formula. We will be increasing frequency on Reading and Windsor from three to four trains an hour, so we have options in terms of semi-fast and stopping services. We will upgrade the traction equipment on the ‘444’ fleet so it matches the Class 450s.
“Portsmouth will have big changes. This is the long-running ‘blue versus white train’ issue.”
The white Class 444 trains have 2+2 seating, but most Portsmouth services use the blue Class 450s that have a tight and unpopular 3+2 arrangement. These will be replaced by Class 442 Wessex Electrics, which were built in the 1980s for Bournemouth services. In recent years, these had transferred to Gatwick Express until being replaced by new trains last year. All are currently in storage.
Mellors explains: “Our consultation showed really strongly that people don’t like the blue trains on such a long journey. The old ‘442’ Wessex Electrics are available - they are familiar to people on the patch.
“You know the history: BR built them cheaply by recycling some really old traction. We will retraction. We have already placed a letter of intent with a supplier to replace the traction motors, the traction control and camshafts, with some upgrades to the braking and wheel slide equipment. A really significant investment to deliver a step change in their performance and reliability. And there will be a full interior refurbishment. We are currently finalising the contract.”
There may be a question mark over the ambition to run the Class 442s four times an hour from Portsmouth. When it was tried in the past, performance was dreadful and the service was soon cut back to today’s more resilient three trains an hour.
A more controversial change comes further west. Mellors is going to remove half the direct services between Weymouth and London. Instead of two trains an hour, there will be only one. In its place will come a new south coast service running between Weymouth and Portsmouth, a route not attempted by SWT at any point during its 21-year tenure.
The move may not go down well in the Dorset seaside resort, which relies on rail services that terminate within walking distance of the old harbour and golden sandy beach. Roads through Dorset are notoriously congested in summer, even after the opening of the Weymouth relief road in 2012. There is not enough power in the tracks west of Poole to run a third service every hour.
“We think this will help to stimulate additional cross-Southampton journeys,” he explains.
“It’s not a change done in isolation - this will also introduce an additional train every hour between Portsmouth and Southampton. You will know how congested the M27 motorway gets at peak times.
“We also think flipping the journey leg from Southampton to link with Portsmouth, not London, will provide some rolling stock efficiencies to exploit. And stations in the New Forest will not lose their peak direct trains to London, which currently start in Weymouth.”
A small thorn in the side of the new franchise will be the Island Line. A huge row broke out on the Isle of Wight as the franchise was put out to tender. It became clear that the Department for Transport planned for little new investment and for the profoundly loss-making lifeline service to be prepared for
separation as a free-standing business. But by the time bidders announced their plans, this was watered down merely to require steps being taken to put the route on “a more sustainable footing”.
“1938 rolling stock needs replacing, and there are challenges to the infrastructure,” concedes Mellors with commendable understatement.
“We have to submit specific proposals to the Department by the end of March next year, so in the first weeks of the franchise we will be putting out a consultation document. You’ll be aware that 2019 marks the end of the 25-year lease agreement put in place at privatisation.”
The Island Line is uniquely structured, with the franchisee in charge of track and trains, as far down as the sleepers. Below that, responsibility for upkeep rests with Network Rail.
Mellors only makes a generalisation: “We need to talk about rolling stock, infrastructure, timetable, ticketing, so we can submit a wellthought-through proposal.”
South Western Railway is to be a test bed for new flexible ticketing, including part-time season tickets. Other train operators have shied away from the unquantifiable financial risk inherent in selling season tickets that are valid for fewer than five days a week. For South Western, it’s a franchise commitment.
Will people largely travel Monday to Thursday - or Tuesday to Thursday - and work at home on other days? Will most choose to spend Friday in the ‘home office’?
Mellors says he recognises that the typical Monday to Friday 9-5 commute is no longer the dominant work pattern. He will not be drawn on the impact on revenue.
So, what will he do differently from Stagecoach, which was widely regarded as doing a consistently solid job on SWT?
“We are not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It has been well run. But we are inheriting a business where some of the incentives have been missing. The franchise has been in revenue support, and that has driven some of the decisions.
“We want to hit the ground running with some marketing. This is a huge commuter franchise, but it also serves a part of England with great tourism destinations, and we are really keen to generate additional revenue outside the peak periods, particularly on the non-London flows where we have plenty of capacity.
“We also need to protect the revenue, so we have a scheme to extend gateline hours, and some additional stations will be gated. And on the West of England Line we will look at some timetable tweaks, although we are very constrained by the infrastructure west of Salisbury.”
Little has been said about the West of England Line. The ageing diesel Class 158/9 fleet will be the last in the company to be refurbished. By 2020 it will appear tired and care-worn compared with the new suburban trains and refreshed South Coast stock. On Exeter services it competes head-on with (sister FirstGroup company) GWR, which already has an entire fleet of new Hitachi trains under construction.
Mellors had unfinished business at Great Western Railway, as deputy managing director. He left just three months before the first Hitachi trains were due to enter service, delivering the start of the transformation that he had worked towards for the past decade.
The delayed and curtailed Network Rail electrification had presented GWR with massive professional challenges. His team earned much credit for keeping the railway running through some enormous disruption, including the rebuilding of Reading station.
So why change to take over an operation with a good record, which is about to enter a rocky period of uncertainty? For the initial few years, the performance figures on the country’s busiest franchise are bound to wobble.
“I am hugely excited. At GWR I am particularly proud of the way EMUs have been introduced for Maidenhead inwards, transforming the customer experience. I’m sad to leave after ten years. But the lure of the commitments here has really enthused me. We can really change things for the better.
“In the early weeks, we will be out there and visible to the 5,000 staff who have transferred across. We have to make sure we bring them with us on the journey ahead. We have a hugely ambitious programme of investment, and that’s not just with physical things like rolling stock. It’s about investing in people as well.”
And on a personal level? Instead of a family summer holiday, the Mellors family had to make do with a hurried handful of days in Wales, in the rain. Mellors lives in Swindon, at the heart of the Great Western. Unable to move his children’s education, he faces living away on weekdays in southwest London.
“I’ve just had an offer accepted on a flat on the patch. Hopefully I will be moving in around the weekend of the handover. My feet are not going to touch the ground!”