Trains running out of London's Liverpool Street station to Essex and beyond will have a new operator from next February, but it isn’t train and buy operator Go-Ahead. The operator of Southern, Southeastern and London Midland had been widely tipped to win the Greater Anglia franchise. Instead, it went to Abellio, a Dutch state-owned firm that runs Merseyrail with Serco.
That’s a huge blow to Go-Ahead, given that it was the prospect of winning new franchises to drive growth in rail that has helped underpin its share price. Based on “conservative” assumptions, transport analyst Karl Burns at broker Shore Capital calculated a 45p-a-share benefit to Go-Ahead if it had won the initial 29-month franchise and at least 230p for the subsequent 15-year extension. And the operator misses out on the kudos of delivering spectators to next year’s London Olympics via the Stratford transport hub.
Still, Go-Ahead has promised to “explore future rail franchise opportunities”. Other opportunities will arise over the next few years, but many will be larger than Greater Anglia and Go-Ahead may not have the oomph to compete with far bigger financial resources.
