National Express derails it customers
National Express have caused potential misery for thousands of travellers by handing back the East Coast (NXEC) rail line. The line which runs from London to Edinburgh was won by the transport company in August 2007 with chief executive Richard Bowker giving it the thumbs up. Almost two years on and Bowker has gone too.
The route was acquired with two other rail franchises which the government has said will have to be handed back also, as they were part of a package and cannot be split. There was confusion on this matter as National Express expressed that they had only defaulted on one of the three franchises. “National Express has taken and received clear and detailed advice from leading legal counsel upon its, and its subsidiaries’, positions under the east coast and other franchise agreements and is confident that the implication of any NXEC default should be confined to the NXEC franchise,” National Express released in a statement.
The government has vowed to keep the route open no matter what the cost for the good of the public, until a new deal can be reached with someone else.
National Express were also recently linked with a take over bid from rivals travel firm FirstGroup. They refused to speak with the potential new owners saying that this was not an appropriate time to discuss the matter with what was going on with NXEC.
Thanks to www.guardian.co.uk for the above quotes, for more on this story please visit their website.
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