DC07- I find it all ironic in that NX has or soon to be had, Roger Bowker in charge who used to be the head of the old Strategic Rail Authority and was keen to castigate other operators for shoddy performance/ poor customer service, yet what do we find with NXEC! Shameless (attempted) profiterring had forgeotten, or is that blanked out the truly dreadful Connex.

While I do feel a little sympathy for TOC's in that when you have a government that wants to redress the farepayer/taxpayer balance from 50/50 to 75/25 of costs the TOC's haven't helped themselves in the manipulation of fares, again Lord Adonis has seen through this and from next year they wont be able to jack fares up on somes routes and less so on others to in order to claim the overall basket increase was only X%

I have to confess I had a soft spot for GNER and was disappointed when they lost the ECML, even more so when I found out it was to NX. I think the only group that will really do well out of all this current situation is the solicitors and barristers.

Behind all these goings on is the approach from Firstgroup to merge with NX, maybe First have realised that NX is in potential trouble with its debt mountain, losing the ECML and with Bowker jumping ship as well. Interesting times ahead I think