Some time ago, many of you wrote to me on this topic and I am now in the final
stages of writing a report which will find its way to the person who made the
orginal comment within Northern Spirit (my local train operating company), as
well as the managing director. I think the report is likely to be favourably
received but whether anything actually happens as a result is another matter.
However, I hope it will provide an opportunity for me to discuss with the
Managing Director some of the claims which the company is making (and failing
to achieve) whilst being able to show that a variety of people from around the
world have rather similar views. Northern Spirit is a difficult franchise; it
has one good trunk route (which may be taken away when the francise is
re-tendered) but everything else is constrained either by a PTE or by the PSR.
In addition, the subsidy being paid to the company declines over the duration
of the franchise. In the circumstances, I think the company hit on the idea of
being "customer-focussed" as one thing it could actually be outstanding in -
perhaps without realising what some of the implications of the statement were.
There is one person within the company who I have got to know quite well, and
who I believe will be able to move things along.

Because some of the people who wrote to me were within Northern Spirit's
operating area and might need to rely on access to information within the
company, I decided to use first names wherever possible so that everyone could
be anonymous. However, I have just received - as a list-owner - information
from Mailbase about copyright of emails. One of the things it says is that

 o Attribution is given to the author.
   The name of the original sender should always be acknowledged.

so may I ask everyone who replied if they object to what I have done. There is
no question of any attempt to infringe copyright. No email message has been
quoted in its entirely as far as I remember. Anyone is welcome to have a copy
of the report (which is not perfect but is as good as I can manage at the
moment) as long as I can send it to you electronically. What is there will be
a good basis for the start of my dissertation, and I hope it will be useful to others.

Please reply by Friday evening if you have a problem, but I would prefer not
to have a mixture of ways of acknowledging the quotations. If anyone wants to
see the things from Mailbase, please let me know and if any you outside the UK
need more information about PSRs and PTEs please let me knwow. Thank you very much.
-- 
Roy Killey,
MPhil/PhD student, Anglia Polytechnic University, Cambridge


28 Howe Lane,
Nafferton,
DRIFFIELD,
East Yorkshire,
YO25 4JU
Phone 01377 254718

Email 	[log in to unmask]

"Information is power, but people matter more than things"



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%