West Midlands Worrying Matters 2

 To Bring Us Up-to-date - Perhaps

With privatisation, West Midlands Travel takes on a new and dramatically innovative name which shocked bus watchers everywhere. West Midlands Travel becomes Travel West Midlands.

Then comes another new livery.

iI is not long before a new name appears on the front of this rather garish red white and blue paint job.

The lads have sold out to National Express.

In all this budgetary largesse for new paint, Coventry retains a slightly different identity.

The red stripe becomes blue, sky blue after some local sports team, fbb understands. And the red wedge also becomes sky blue.

The operator is a separate outfit, now called ...

... National Express Coventry.

Meanwhile, in Big Brother Brum, liveries are changing again. Basically it is all-over red with added red.

The West Midlands PTE did, at one stage, decide that all tendered buses should be red -  a bit like London.

It didn't last.

Then it was, and still is, a boring grey ...

... with assorted varieties of bright route branding. Or you could have route branding withiut a route number!

But the bus is electrified so that makes it all right, then.

In Coventry, guess what, the flashes of colour are sky blue ...

... or not!

... when they are red! But you do have small ...

... very small route numbers.

So that is what the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) is buying, to, so they say, ensure continuity of service for the good folk of the West Midlands.

Which is absolute nonsense!

The new "arms length" bus company, although owned by the WMCA, is not allowed, in law, to have any preferential treatmeint in the tendering process. This means that, unless there is some dodgy and illegal dealing (which there won't be), the WMCA-owned bus company could fail to win any franchises offered by its owners!

What is dafter is that National Express Bus is happily bidding for franchises in other areas.

It would be really perverse if the West Midlands owned bus company were to end up running franchised uses in West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire or Bridgwater (etc) but NOT in the West Midkands.

And There's More

The rumours are that NatEx (Bus) is losing money by the truck full, buoyed up by various deals and various monies from WMCA. These deals are designed to keep fares low and to maintain the current levels of service - all for political reasons. 

So NatEx (the Group) want out. The group has enough bother with NatEx (Coach) to keep its management awake at night.

So WMCA gets a bargain!

The reported price of £26 million, plus accepting some debt (unspecified), gets NatEx (Group) out of a hugely challengng situation and allows them to revive NatEx (Coach) with the help of their Spanish bedfellows.

Spanish Bedfellows?

NatEx (Group) renamed itself as ...

Domestically it currently operates bus and coach services under brands including National Express. The company also operates transport services including trains abroad: in Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Malta, Germany, Bahrain, Morocco, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and South Korea, and long-distance coach services across Europe. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

One company in the Group is ...

ALSA (Automóviles Luarca, S.A.) is a Spanish subsidiary of the UK company Mobico Group, which operates bus and coach services in Spain and other countries across Europe, including Andorra, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Ukraine. It also has operations in Morocco.

Those who know about these things tell fbb that Alsa is, effectively managing NatEx (Coach).

So perhaps, now, we can see why Nat Ex (Group) wanted to get rid of Nat Ex (Bus) almost at any price. And why WMCA has snapped up the company from the Group's Bargain Basement.

Whether it will make any difference to anything is debatable. Whether any good will come to WMCA or NatEx (Bus) as a result of the sale is equally debatable.

Watch this space!

And, yes, all this corporate .stuff hurts fbb's brain!

≈====================

But two sheets of BP logos from Fox Transfers will cost fbb £30 to provide just NINE logos. Why TWO sheets. The tanks have a logo and lettering on ine end ...

... and they are smaller than those on the sides.

So a sheet of small and a sheet if medium is required

£30 for nine transfers is £3.33 (recurring) per logo or £10 per tank which is too much for a cheap toy.

So fbb decided to make his own logos.

Yikes!

≈====================

 Next Variety blog : Sat 29 August