Cross Country : the worst TOC?

[Techniquest]

Fair enough. I have mainly kept records of every bit of delay just as part of my records in my moves book. I have yet to go out and intentionally count every delay and find out the cause of every single delay. Unless I got paid to do that, I wouldn't want to.

Other people make the point that to blame AXC for the chronic overcrowding due to the small trains they inherited is unfair, which I will actually agree with. You can hardly blame Virgin either, as the idea at the time to double the service frequency was a good move. At the time it was hardly seen that passenger numbers would increase so drastically. I agree that the 220s need to be 6-car trains and 221s 7-car trains at the least, but there's nothing that can be done about that one now. Personally I like having the extra service level more. All in the past now, nothing we can do about it. Hindsight is a wonderful sense to possess, if only it was possible to have it when we need it!

 

[91101]

I have yet to go out and intentionally count every delay and find out the cause of every single delay. Unless I got paid to do that, I wouldn't want to.

I do get paid to do just that, so that's why I was particularly defensive of any given TOC, who are being blamed for every minute of delay. To digress slightly, and your records would seem to confirm what I'm about to say, it is interesting to see what trains loose time, why, and sometimes it can be hugely frustrating especailly when there is no clear root cause.

From a passenger perspective these odd minutes are very very rarely noted, and infact even on a long distance journey if you're timetabled to arrive at 15:15 and you arrive at 15:24 most people wouldn't be too aware, and it shouldnt be too disruptive, but the interesting thing to note is that airlines are measured as 0-14.59 for them to be classed as punctual, and as I understand it the industry average is about 75-80% of planes arriving within said measure for domestic journies! Which is shocking in my opinion. The crucial factor here however is that those figures don't make headlines, infact, if you were to consider car travel, say for a journey from Newcastle to London you might allow "about 5 hours" you're not going to plan an arrival to within half an hour, let along 9mins 59.

 

[Techniquest]

Would you mind if I asked how you landed that role? It sounds quite interesting.

I do like to keep a note of what trains I travel on get delayed the most frequently too. With FGW it's most of them for no known reason throughout the day

No, seriously, it does tend to be the same trains that get delayed, but there is never a known reason. As you said earlier, there are lots of human factors to take in.

Your point on airlines is one that puts me off travelling with them. I've never been (as far as memory serves) on a flight that ran to time and of course you never know if you're going to make your booked train home.

 

[91101]

When you say that certain trains always get delayed, with long distance trains, the same points, and the same conflicts are always evident, and dependent on everything from what coffee the driver had that morning to the direction of the wind influences the running, and its day in day out the same problems.

I'll use a train that'll be familiar to many on here, and one which I often travel on, 1A60 Sunderland - London Kings Cross.

South of Hartlepool to Eaglescliffe it's known for discovering Cable Theft as its the first train over this section of track, can then get regulated behind the TPE off MBO if the GC is running late. At Thirsk, a late running 1E01 can often lead to the GC being regulated and loosing its path south. On the approaches to York, its booked to use P5, from which a Northbound XC departs only minutes before, its booked behind 1A15 at Doncaster, but 1A15 is a notoriously bad runner in of itself, and so 1A60, due to the ammount of recovery in the sched south of Doncaster gets regulated here for A15 as a result.

There's then various pathing issues with FCC south of Peterborough, not to mention Cambridge Junction, and Steveange, where 1C85 and 1A15 can again cause problems.

Now remember that GC's paths are slotted in to fit around everything else, and recovery south of PBO is quite ample for late running as far as Grantham to turn into a right time, or even early arrival at KGX. CrossCountry are very, very similar in this respect, they have to slot around what ever is on the local patch, one minor bit of mis regulation between Plymouth and Penzance puts the whole show out of kilt everywhere else!

 

[BlueGrey]

When you say that certain trains always get delayed, with long distance trains, the same points, and the same conflicts are always evident, and dependent on everything from what coffee the driver had that morning to the direction of the wind influences the running, and its day in day out the same problems.

I'll use a train that'll be familiar to many on here, and one which I often travel on, 1A60 Sunderland - London Kings Cross.

South of Hartlepool to Eaglescliffe it's known for discovering Cable Theft as its the first train over this section of track, can then get regulated behind the TPE off MBO if the GC is running late. At Thirsk, a late running 1E01 can often lead to the GC being regulated and loosing its path south. On the approaches to York, its booked to use P5, from which a Northbound XC departs only minutes before, its booked behind 1A15 at Doncaster, but 1A15 is a notoriously bad runner in of itself, and so 1A60, due to the ammount of recovery in the sched south of Doncaster gets regulated here for A15 as a result.

There's then various pathing issues with FCC south of Peterborough, not to mention Cambridge Junction, and Steveange, where 1C85 and 1A15 can again cause problems.

Now remember that GC's paths are slotted in to fit around everything else, and recovery south of PBO is quite ample for late running as far as Grantham to turn into a right time, or even early arrival at KGX. CrossCountry are very, very similar in this respect, they have to slot around what ever is on the local patch, one minor bit of mis regulation between Plymouth and Penzance puts the whole show out of kilt everywhere else!

I think this reply perhaps sheds a bit of light on CrossCountry timekeeping woes. I get frustrated when CC gets regularly slated for its poortimekeeping (even though it has improved greatly over the last few years). Even if CC does everything possible to keep their trains on time, this good work is regularly undone by other TOCs trains being late and causing the CC service to lose its path. For example most southbound services out of Edinburgh are booked right behind NXEC services. If the NXEC service runs late which frequently happens the CC service can lose its path South of Newcastle and this continues all the way down through Leeds and the Midlands to the trains final destination. Passengers joining the train in the South West aren't going to realize the orginal delay was caused by NXEC (or whatever delayed NXEC) and just think how rubbish CC are for running late again!

 

[djw1981]

THe NXEC / XC is for flighting reasons to allow the Newcraighall and North Berwick service to run, and to allow pathing past the Chathill / Morpeth services further south - in areas with only 2 tracks, a few freight loops, getting a 'fast train' past a local stopper is tricky. If the NX is running very late, often the XC will be allowed to run first, and it will be the first of the EDB-NCL flight of services. Again this can depend upon teh stopping pattern of the two services.

 

[Techniquest]

When you say that certain trains always get delayed, with long distance trains, the same points, and the same conflicts are always evident, and dependent on everything from what coffee the driver had that morning to the direction of the wind influences the running, and its day in day out the same problems.

I'll use a train that'll be familiar to many on here, and one which I often travel on, 1A60 Sunderland - London Kings Cross.

South of Hartlepool to Eaglescliffe it's known for discovering Cable Theft as its the first train over this section of track, can then get regulated behind the TPE off MBO if the GC is running late. At Thirsk, a late running 1E01 can often lead to the GC being regulated and loosing its path south. On the approaches to York, its booked to use P5, from which a Northbound XC departs only minutes before, its booked behind 1A15 at Doncaster, but 1A15 is a notoriously bad runner in of itself, and so 1A60, due to the ammount of recovery in the sched south of Doncaster gets regulated here for A15 as a result.

There's then various pathing issues with FCC south of Peterborough, not to mention Cambridge Junction, and Steveange, where 1C85 and 1A15 can again cause problems.

Now remember that GC's paths are slotted in to fit around everything else, and recovery south of PBO is quite ample for late running as far as Grantham to turn into a right time, or even early arrival at KGX. CrossCountry are very, very similar in this respect, they have to slot around what ever is on the local patch, one minor bit of mis regulation between Plymouth and Penzance puts the whole show out of kilt everywhere else!

Your post goes to show just how busy the ECML is and how it can be stuffed up with just a few delays.

I'll have a look through my moves book tomorrow to see what the most commonly delayed train is that I've been on, I'm rather interested in finding out now. If I find any patterns, I'll post them.

Thanks for yet another fascinating post.

 

[LilLoaf]

The point that everyone seems to be missing is not the delay and how long it is. If its not AXC fault then why should AXC take the blame. If it is AXC fault the train is late then eg late arrival of a member of staff, or train fault then fare enough blame AXC. However if in some cases its because a London Midland 323 stopper service pulled out in front of a AXC service or derailed freight train the other day around Cheltenham the its not AXC's fault. when it isn't AXC's fault the its the way the delay is handled by the on train staff in terms of customer service thats important and how the delay is going to get resolved.

Dont get me wrong AXC does have a lot of problems with the state of trains but its the delays are not all AXC's fault.

 

[91101]

LilLoaf, I totally agree, while the TOC's can (and will) argue over delay minutes, the end customer is the one who (should) be the most important.

With XC I imagine that they are for the sole reason that XC's staff are for the most part working to Virgin customer care standards since these guys are Virgin trained and whatever you might think of Mr Branson, customer service is something which his empire has always excelled at

 

[Techniquest]

I agree totally that Virgin staff are trained very well in customer service. I can't recall a single time when I've had bad customer service from them. The only niggles I've had with any of them would be when Virgin were still running HSTs and they couldn't tell me when they were running. Still, that's a mere niggle rather than a complaint! It is one thing I'm glad Branson got into the TOC operating game for.

 

[LilLoaf]

Thats got me thinking actually i carn't remember any virgin staff who have shown bad customer service actually. When asked about connections they all seemed to be able to answer my question went to find out for me. If the train was late then a full explaination was given. When i travelled on a XC service from Leeds to Birimingham i asked for a connection onto Banburry it was like i asked for something amazing.

I just waiting to see how XC copes with the timetable change in december. For some reason i just got a bad feeling about it. I can see trains waiting 15 mins at New Street as they come off the XX.15 from Reading to go out as a XX.30 service towards Newcastle. Manchester - Bristols will come off Manchester at XX.30 as they do now and have to wait till XX.42 to go out for Bristol.

Its just a thought but New Street will be even more congested with idleing voyagers blocking platforms as they wait nearly 15 mins to go out on next leg of their journey. I really carn't see the paths being changed so that they don't wait as long at New Street.

 

[Mojo]

I almost always [1] had excellent customer service from Virgin staff and haven't seemed to notice anything to the contrary from the XC traincrew (who are mostly the same staff). On the other hand, the way Virgin treated many of their managerial staff when they lost the franchise was abysmal and I seem to remember TSSA (Trade Union) took some action after the TUPE regulations were disputed.

[1] There was one occasion when I had a vile train manager who insisted that I was wrong to want to have my bag next to me, but after arguing over it for about 3 mins I just moved it until he had left the carriage to shut him up.