The South Eastern franchise, also known as the Integrated Kent franchise, is a railway franchise for the provision of passenger services between

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

South East England South East England is one of the nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. It consists of the counties of Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Berkshi ...

History

The South Eastern franchise was formed as a shadow franchise in 1994 in the leadup to the

privatisation of British Rail The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, it had been completed by 1997. The deregulation of the indust ...

, taking over the

Network SouthEast Network SouthEast (NSE) was one of the three passenger sectors of British Rail created in 1982. NSE mainly operated commuter rail trains within Greater London and inter-urban services in densely populated South East England, although the net ...

services out of Blackfriars,

Cannon Street Cannon Street is a road in the City of London, the historic nucleus of London and its modern financial centre. It runs roughly parallel with the River Thames, about north of it, in the south of the City. It is the site of the ancient London ...

Charing Cross Charing Cross ( ) is a junction in Westminster, London, England, where six routes meet. Clockwise from north these are: the east side of Trafalgar Square leading to St Martin's Place and then Charing Cross Road; the Strand leading to the City ...

London Bridge Several bridges named London Bridge have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark, in central London. The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 1973, is a box girder bridge built from concrete and steel. It re ...

and

London Victoria Victoria station, also known as London Victoria, is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in Victoria, in the City of Westminster, managed by Network Rail. Named after the nearby Victoria Street (not the Q ...

1996: Connex South Eastern

Initially operating as South Eastern, on 13 October 1996

Connex South Eastern Connex South Eastern was a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by Connex that operated the South Eastern franchise from October 1996 until November 2003. History On 13 October 1996 Connex commenced operating the South Easter ...

commenced operating the franchise having beaten bids from a

management Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activitie ...

FirstBus FirstGroup plc is a British multi-national transport group, based in Aberdeen, Scotland.GB Railways GB Railways was the parent company of a number of train operating companies, running the Anglia Railways franchise from January 1997 and launching Hull Trains and GB Railfreight. GB Railways was also involved in the management of the Estonian rai ...

and

Stagecoach A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are dra ...

. In December 2002, after the franchise ran into financial trouble, the

Strategic Rail Authority The Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom set up under the Transport Act 2000 to provide strategic direction for the railway industry. Its motto was 'Britain's railway, properly delivered'. I ...

(SRA) agreed to bail it out with a £58 million injection, with the end date brought forward from 2011 until 2006. However, continuing poor financial management resulted in the SRA deciding to strip Connex of the franchise in June 2003. Connex South Eastern continued to operate the franchise until 8 November 2003.

2003: South Eastern Trains

On 9 November 2003

South Eastern Trains South Eastern Trains (stylised as Southeastern) was a publicly owned train operating company that operated the South Eastern Passenger Rail Franchise between November 2003, when it took over from Connex South Eastern, and 1 April 2006, when S ...

, a subsidiary company of the SRA, took over the franchise for a planned 18 months. It took on all the leased rolling stock and most of the Connex staff including senior management. In the event, it took over two years to re-let the franchise to a private company.

2006: Southeastern (Govia)

In December 2003 the SRA announced that

Danish State Railways DSB, an abbreviation of ''Danske Statsbaner'' (, ''Danish State Railways''), is the largest Danish train operating company, and the largest in Scandinavia. While DSB is responsible for passenger train operation on most of the Danish railways, go ...

FirstGroup FirstGroup plc is a British multi-national transport group, based in Aberdeen, Scotland.Govia Govia is a transport company based in the United Kingdom. It was formed in November 1996 as a joint venture between Go-Ahead Group (65%) and Keolis (35%) to bid for rail franchises during the privatisation of British Rail. History Establi ...

and

MTR The Mass Transit Railway (MTR) is a major public transport network serving :Hong Kong. Operated by the MTR Corporation Limited (MTRCL), it consists of heavy rail, light rail, and feeder bus service centred on a 10-line rapid transit network ...

Sea Containers Sea Containers was a Bermudan registered company which operated two main business areas: transport and container leasing. It filed for bankruptcy on 16 October 2006. In 2009 its maritime container interests were transferred to a new company SeaC ...

had been shortlisted to bid for the replacement Integrated Kent franchise that would also incorporate services on

High Speed 1 High Speed 1 (HS1), legally the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), is a high-speed railway linking London with the Channel Tunnel. It is part of a line carrying international passenger traffic between the United Kingdom and mainland Europe ...

out of St Pancras. In November 2005 the

Department for Transport The Department for Transport (DfT) is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for the English transport network and a limited number of transport matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that have not been devolved. The ...

(DfT) announced that Govia had been awarded the franchise, with the services operated by South Eastern Trains transferred to London & South Eastern Railway Limited, branded as

Southeastern The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sep ...

, on 1 April 2006. The franchise was let for an initial eight years, with a two-year option dependent on performance targets being met. In December 2008, as part of the franchise agreement, operation of services on the Redhill to Tonbridge Line passed to

Southern Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, M ...

. High Speed 1 services began on 14 December 2009. Having met the performance criteria, in March 2011 the DfT granted Govia a two-year franchise extension until March 2014. Following the DfT's review after the cancellation of the InterCity West Coast franchise process, extensions were granted to the franchises coming due for renewal, with Southeastern's franchise extended until June 2018. It was further extended a number of times. In June 2017 the DfT announced that an

Abellio Abellio (also Abelio and Abelionni) was a god worshiped in the Garonne Valley in Gallia Aquitania (now southwest France), known primarily by a number of inscriptions which were discovered in Comminges, in the Pyrenees. He may have been a god of ...

East Japan Railway Company The is a major passenger railway company in Japan and is the largest of the seven Japan Railways Group companies. The company name is officially abbreviated as JR-EAST or JR East in English, and as in Japanese. The company's headquarters ar ...

Mitsui & Co is one of the largest ''sogo shosha'' (general trading companies) in Japan; it is part of the Mitsui Group. History The company was established in 1876 with 16 members including the founder, Takashi Masuda. As Japan's international trading w ...

consortium, incumbent Govia,

and

Trenitalia Trenitalia is the primary train operator in Italy. A subsidiary of Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, itself owned by the Italian government, the company was established in 2000 following a European Union directive on the deregulation of rail transp ...

had been shortlisted for the next franchise, which was once again named the South Eastern franchise. In August 2017, Trenitalia withdrew citing a desire to concentrate its resources on its bid for the

West Coast Partnership The West Coast Partnership (WCP) is a railway franchise in the United Kingdom for passenger trains on the West Coast Main Line (WCML)(and branches thereof), between London Euston, the West Midlands, Shropshire, North Wales, Liverpool, Manchest ...

. In February 2018, it was announced that

Alstom Alstom SA is a French multinational corporation, multinational rolling stock manufacturer operating worldwide in rail transport markets, active in the fields of passenger transportation, signalling, and locomotives, with products including the A ...

would take a 20% shareholding in the Stagecoach company. In April 2019, Stagecoach was disqualified from the bidding because they did not meet pensions rules. On 7 August 2019, the franchise competition was cancelled and the DfT instead took up a further extension. The franchise was due to cease on 31 March 2020 until a new contract was agreed on 30 March 2020, running for up to two years.

2021: Southeastern (DfT)

In September 2021, Transport Secretary

Grant Shapps Grant Shapps (born 14 September 1968) is a British politician who is serving as Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy since October 2022. He previously served as Secretary of State for Transport in the Johnson governm ...

announced that Southeastern's contract would end on 16 October 2021, with operations transferred to the

DfT OLR Holdings DfT OLR Holdings (DOHL) is a holding company established by the Department for Transport in the United Kingdom to act as operator of last resort for rail franchises that are nationalised. History DfT OLR Holdings was established in 2018 by the ...

-owned operator of last resort,

SE Trains SE Trains Limited, trading as Southeastern, is a train operator, owned by DfT OLR Holdings for the Department for Transport, that took over operating the South Eastern franchise in South East England from privately owned London & South Easte ...

, which is continuing to operate under the Southeastern name. This followed an investigation conducted by the

which found that, since October 2014, Southeastern had failed to return over £25 million of taxpayer funding.

References

{{Rail franchises in Great Britain, state=collapsed Railway franchises in the United Kingdom Rail transport in Kent