This strikes a chord with me. I started my driving career with ConnexSouthEastern in 1999. For personal reasons I couldn't get out of there fast enough, but I seem to remember that afterwards
they had the franchise taken away.
And it appears that this may be happening again (except that Go-Ahead is the franchise holder this time)...
Quote:
The government is taking over the running of the railway operator Southeastern, owned by Go-Ahead, from mid-October after discovering a “serious” breach of the franchise agreement.
The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said an investigation by the Department for Transport found that since October 2014 Southeastern had not declared more than £25m of historic taxpayer funding that should have been returned, and described this as a serious breach of the franchise agreement’s “good faith” obligation.
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Link..
Government-to-take-over-southeastern-after-serious-breach-of-franchise
Mind you, I may be an old cynic, but since this government is taking back franchises into public ownership, whilst swearing blind that it is NOT renationalising the railway (yea, right) - this could be seen as verrrrry fortuitous.
Quote:
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The franchise will be run by the government’s in-house operator of last resort – railway managers who already oversee London North Eastern Railway and Northern.
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Yup, that's how it's done....
