Abellio has been confirmed as the winner of the new 10-year ScotRail franchise after incumbent operator FirstGroup confirmed it had lost the contract.
Chief executive Tim O’Toole said the company was “very proud” of its time running rail services across Scotland.
The £6 billion ScotRail franchise, which will start from April 2015, includes a break clause after five years.
Arriva, Abellio, MTR, National Express and FirstGroup had all been shortlisted for the new franchise in November 2013.
O’Toole added: “We shall continue to operate First ScotRail until the new franchise commences on 1 April 2015. Until that time we will deliver further enhancements to trains and stations including further free Wi-Fi and continue important work to enable the extension of smart ticketing across the whole country and the opening of the Borders Railway next year.”
FirstGroup will continue to operate First TransPennine Express and First Great Western.
“There will be benefits all over the country, with faster services between all our cities, new trains in the Central Belt, a Great Scenic Railway scheme bringing more tourists to the north, the south west and the Borders and major shopping developments at the stations at Aberdeen and Inverness. Glasgow will be the new base for Abellio in the UK with around 200 jobs.
Interesting news but, it seems as though the “powers-that-be” prefer to change the franchise holder every so often – even though the incumbent may be doing a good job! However, one thing that has puzzled me was an item in Global Rail News back in August 2013, regarding “Abellio issuing tender notices for new trains for ScotRail”. Does this actually mean that, well over 12 months ago, Transport for Scotland had already decided upon the preferred bidder? This is particularly strange, as today’s news (9th October) is that Abellio have chosen Hitachi to supply new EMUs for ScotRail
All those who pre-qualified for bidding were required to draw up tenders with rolling stock manufacturers for electric stock for Edinburgh-Glasgow as part of the bidding process. Interestingly as I understand it, four out of five bidders went with Hitachi as their preferred rolling stock manufacturer.
After posting my earlier comment, I did begin to wonder whether each bidder might have drawn up a tender notice for new rolling stock and now your post has confirmed that. Thanks