West Anglia Great Northern- Crashes, cancellations & unreliability?! | Failed Franchises #11: WAGN

A franchise that appears to have failed because of external factors, that went unactioned by regulators until it was to late.

WAGN stood for "We Are Going Nowhere" As a user on the line into London Liverpool Street

So THAT'S what WAGN stood for! Not really ever going over to that side of the Country, I always thought it was a freight operator, and just a shortened term for WAGON.

People used to think that WAGN was actually a swear word but it was a short term for West Anglia Great Northern. I really do miss the Class 365 as they were the most reliable trains used on the Great Northern route that went as far as Peterborough, King’s Lynn and Cambridge.

Both the Hatfield and Potters Bar problems should have been avoided. Hatfield curve had been reported to Railtrack/NR literally hundreds of times (me included on three occasions). These reports were ignored. I described the problem to them - "hunting" on the approach, bumping and grinding and what sounded to me like the wheel flanges actually hitting the sleepers. When the first reports came through of a crash, I said to a Railtrack member, "not Hatfield?" - he nodded. As for Potters Bar (I am not sure that this case has ever been closed), the person who reported the problem the night before decribed exactly where it was to the signalman (I have heard the tape recording). Instead of checking the down fast to down slow points south of the station as described, the message passed on to Jarvis was the up fast to up slow north of the station. The reason I know so much about this case is that I worked on it with the WAGN Company Solicitor for 4 months until the Department for Transport report was produced which WAGN did not agree with. One of the problems was the haste in removing the carriage stuck under the awning that Hornsey Staff and Management wanted to inspect - this carriage and its bogies were scrapped with unnecessary haste. There were other missing details, including a full report by a Peterborough based WAGN driver whose warnings were ignored. None of it was helped either by the local MP claiming "sabotage" and various other ridiculous statements made by Jarvis themselves. Basically, in both Hatfield and Potters Bar cases, prior warnings should have been more than enough to avoid the accidents.

The Kings Cross to Doncaster one was probably just a tip of the hat to Sir John Major 's brave new world.Had it come off i expect it would have been something like that First North Western Manchester to London one except that Manchester is a lot bigger than Doncaster.Well them blaming Railtrack is a bit of a change from Network Rail or the Department of Transport.They liked to blame British Rail too for the stock they'd inherited.

Correction: the Selby derailment wasn't caused by track problems, it was caused by a sleep-deprived driver coming off the M62 and ending up on the tracks in front of a GNER express.

A fantastic video, I remember a lot of the old train companies, if I remember correctly there was a company called One or something like that and they operated the Liverpool street to Norwich service and their livery was purple with red and yellow stripes . 😊😊😊

I used to use the hourly service between Enfield Chase and Stevenage on a daily basis and WAGN and their successor FCC were the inspiration for me, a once devoted cyclist and train user to learn to drive instead. The only thing either company seemed effective at was applying adhesive stickers with their corporate identities on to NSE signage, and they did that badly.

I used to remember WAGN before they disappeared and First Capital Connect and National Express East Anglia took over and saw the 2 lines separated after the departure of WAGN. And I do miss the Class 313, Class 315, Class 317 and Class 365. And Class 322 that were used on Stansted Express.

Excellent operator which transformed the GN timetable with the creation of the "Cambridge Cruiser" service. Also oversaw the superb refurbishment of the Class 317/2 fleet.

The way it comes across, you suggest that the hired in 365 from connex only replaced the rear coach, but that isn't true. The entire derailed unit was out of service and never returned

I've been in the area where WAGN used to operator all my life, and they along with Central Trains and Anglia were quite common operators who used to operate out of Ely during my childhood. I remember the times when I used to take the trains to King's Lynn from Littleport which were back then operated by WAGN, and at that time the Class 365's were painted in their original Network Southeast with the WAGN logo just plastered onto the side. Back then I had no idea what NSE was, so whenever I saw the Class 365's I thought that livery was WAGNs standard fleet livery, I even did the same with some of the Class 150's and Class 153's in Angilas fleet that still carried the Regional Railways livery, that to me is something so unique about the early privatisation era seeing TOC's liveried locomotives with some of the fleets still painted in pre-privatisation liveries before all were repainted into the TOC's standard livery. As for the vandalism at Ely Railway Station, I don't remember seeing any signs of vandalism when it was being operated under WAGN, though I could be wrong and saw just something I overlooked when I was younger. Having watched many of your previous videos of some of the other franchisees that operated during the late 90s and early 2000s, it's interesting to see that while children like me at that time saw many of these TOC's in a wonderous and fun environment and saw them as representative of railways in general (which I can now say was part of a new era for our railways at the time) during that time with some probably being big fans of these franchises. Because of their flaws they were looked down upon by the public (who some were still upset over the privatisation of BR), the industry and the government for their poor performance and in the case of some their bad reputation. And considering everything that happened with Railtrack during that time as well, it really shows that not everything during that era was all sunshine and rainbows. But at the end of day most of those franchises were there to operate train services for the public and that's all that matters at the end of the day.

I used to work for them. They fine under Prism Rail.

Used to travel Wagn from Arlesey to Stevenage They were a better operator than FCC that replaced them

The simplest reason for “failing” is given early in this story - Several corporate takeovers generating vast income for owners of shares. That income didn’t circulate back into anything railway-related, as such extracted surplus value never does. Franchising is a market for competitive corporations, not for the actual passengers (no free choice, no market at the station platform). Ironically, most passengers travel for work - creating even more value for their employing companies. A snake biting its own tail, then…? 😅

2 thoughts - one, ever thought of a job in DfT, two, how do you find so much information its amazing on your own. I had no idea about the fen line forum.

Let’s go!

Vanmanyo, British Railways v1.3 has just released. WILL YOU REVIEW IT?

Jonathan Djangoly not Diagon alley 😭