Has any TOC been worse than Govia ThamesLink Railway?

[backontrack]

Yeah, GTR (Govia ThamesLink Railway) have been pretty dire - but has anyone yet been worse than them? Or is the current fiasco worse than anything my another TOC?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Geoff Harrison-Mee's Connex was pretty terrible. As was Virgin XC during Voyagerisation.

 

[AlterEgo]

Virgin XC was a monstrosity during Op Princess.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Virgin XC was a monstrosity during Op Princess.

It's never truly recovered, to be honest. Whichever idiot thought 4 and 5-car units would be adequate needs to be marched out of the railway and never let back in. Mind you, TPE was the same...anyone with any sense would have known that 3-car was inadequate for the 185s.

 

[J-2739]

VTWC in their early years- Virgin was pretty eww before they received Pendos and thus performance skyrocketed.
SWT before desirofication- Same with Virgin, also issues with short staff.
Silverlink- Don't ask me why.
Old ATN- Shortage of stock.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

It's never truly recovered, to be honest. Whichever idiot thought 4 and 5-car units would be adequate needs to be marched out of the railway and never let back in. Mind you, TPE was the same...anyone with any sense would have known that 3-car was inadequate for the 185s.

The SRA...

 

[theageofthetra]

Connex.

 

[physics34]

Geoff Harrison-Mee's Connex was pretty terrible. As was Virgin XC during Voyagerisation.

Its much worse now than the Connex era... believe it or not.

Shame really because when GoVia initally took over as "SouthCentral" and the early years of Southern were pretty well run.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Depends what you are measuring against.
North Western Trains/First North Western pretty much gave up after a couple of years and waited for the franchise remapping to get them out of jail.
NWT in particular got the finances wrong and were only bailed out by the First takeover.

MTL (Northern Spirit/Merseyrail before Arriva took over) were abject.
Virgin was rescued by Chris Green, who actually knew how to run a railway.

But then BR had its moments.
Remember the new 317s and 323s stuck in sidings for months?
And it took a long time for Networkers to work.
155s kept coming apart...

 

[backontrack]

Oh yeah, Connex were terrible. I mean, they were actually stripped of their South East operations, which then had to go into public ownership.
That's how bad they were.

 

[broadgage]

IMHO, Thameslink/govia are the worst at present, but I agree with those who state that Connex and Virgin cross country have been at least as bad and perhaps worse.
Cross country are still pretty bad IME due to the half length trains.

The appalling Thameslink service was a factor in my decision to leave London.

 

[MrB]

Connex run them pretty close!

 

[prod_pep]

Not sure if they were any worse, but MTL Merseyrail Electrics comes close. Those were dark, dark days to be a rail user in Liverpool. Arriva came in and made some giant strides forward with the trains, while at the same time making the local buses even worse.

The current GTR situation beggars belief though. I genuinely never thought a TOC could come in and make First Capital Connect look half-decent, but it has happened.

 

[Kendalian]

Not sure if they were any worse, but MTL Merseyrail Electrics comes close. Those were dark, dark days to be a rail user in Liverpool. Arriva came in and made some giant strides forward with the trains, while at the same time making the local buses even worse.

Yes, Miseryrail as it became known locally was truly awful. I has the misfortune of using it daily in 1998/9. Breakdowns, track faults,signal faults, staff shortages, filthy trains (external and internal)...you get the picture :roll:

 

[thenorthern]

Would agree with Connex and they had their franchise stripped because of poor management.

Most TOCs had issues when the railways were sold off as they were mostly run by bus/coach companies who had little to no experience of running trains.

Would agree about Virgin Trains pre-Pendolino as they were much slower and the interior of the trains was showing its age. Central Trains had a bad reputation but I think that was more the network rather than the company.

 

[cjmillsnun]

VTWC in their early years- Virgin was pretty eww before they received Pendos and thus performance skyrocketed.
SWT before desirofication- Same with Virgin, also issues with short staff.
Silverlink- Don't ask me why.
Old ATN- Shortage of stock.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


The SRA...

Going to disagree with the comment on SWT. Up to the point where they finally had enough drivers again, they were bad, but they were never Connex, and GTR almost make Connex look like a professional outfit.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Would agree about Virgin Trains pre-Pendolino as they were much slower and the interior of the trains was showing its age. Central Trains had a bad reputation but I think that was more the network rather than the company.

Again I have to disagree, yes they were slower, but they were under BR. The interiors were the best bit about the trains in terms of passenger experience. Most had been thoroughly refreshed either just before or just after VT took over. What sucked about VT (both WC and XC) was reliability. Once the new trains were on order and within sight of being delivered, they backed off the maintenance to the bare minimum and reliability plummeted as the locos were beyond tired.

 

[HH]

Connex SE is the worst one I've seen. It was a complete shambles.

 

[3141]

Going to disagree with the comment on SWT. Up to the point where they finally had enough drivers again, they were bad, but they were never Connex.

I agree with you. The driver shortages in SWT's early days did huge harm to Stagecoach's reputation, but they realised they must do something about it and had greatly improved their performance well before the Desiros arrived.

 

[Carlisle]

Depends what you are measuring against.
North Western Trains/First North Western pretty much gave up after a couple of years and waited for the franchise remapping to get them out of jail.
NWT in particular got the finances wrong and were only bailed out by the First takeover.
..

Yes that's true , ther finances were in a complete mess , if the government hadn't bailed them out there'd have had to make major service cuts

 

[Andy-mc]

Surprised GNER and National Express east coast haven't been mentioned as they are companies which both failed to outlive their franchise agreements

 

[thenorthern]

Surprised GNER and National Express east coast haven't been mentioned as they are companies which both failed to outlive their franchise agreements

GNER was a strange one as it was a very popular service with passengers as Virgin Trains went for a more modern service GNER went for the traditional service based on the LNER with things such as tea served from a tea pot.

But as you say it did fail to meet its franchise commitment which realistically if a company can't do what its set out to do its not really a competent train operating company. Also pre-1997 the East Coast Main Line was probably the main North to South route in the country but Virgin Trains took over that title for the West Coast Main Line which was a sign that GNER should have been doing better.

 

[ainsworth74]

Also pre-1997 the East Coast Main Line was probably the main North to South route in the country but Virgin Trains took over that title for the West Coast Main Line which was a sign that GNER should have been doing better.

True but a lot of that is probably down to the West Coast Route Modernisation which was ongoing at this time! Plus the premier North - South route tends to ping pong between two. At Nationalistion it was probably the ECML, then upon electrification it switched to the WCML, then back again in the late 80s/early 90s to the ECML upon that routes electrification and back again with WCRM in the 00s.

 

[A0]

It's never truly recovered, to be honest. Whichever idiot thought 4 and 5-car units would be adequate needs to be marched out of the railway and never let back in. Mind you, TPE was the same...anyone with any sense would have known that 3-car was inadequate for the 185s.

To be fair - it wasn't a like for like replacement - because Princess also doubled frequencies on many routes. So rather than having an hourly seven car train you had half-hourly 4 or 5 car trains, not such a dumb suggestion really.

 

[FOH]

I would say over the last few years Southern have been worse than Connex. Any company that treats both its customers as staff with the level of contempt shown deserves the same fate as Connex.

 

[A0]

I would say over the last few years Southern have been worse than Connex. Any company that treats both its customers as staff with the level of contempt shown deserves the same fate as Connex.

By that measure, and with particular reference to how it treats its customers, you've given a perfect reason why British Rail should never come back.

However awful some of the current franchisees are, we should never forget the complete and utter contempt BR had for its customers. People are quick to demand compensation for late running or cancelled trains nowadays - BR didn't even have the word 'compensation' in its lexicon.

 

[J-2739]

I would say over the last few years Southern have been worse than Connex. Any company that treats both its customers as staff with the level of contempt shown deserves the same fate as Connex.

Surely, that's down to the London Bridge reconstruction works compounded with the dodgy merging on TGN with Southern? A little stress...

 

[HSTEd]

But as you say it did fail to meet its franchise commitment which realistically if a company can't do what its set out to do its not really a competent train operating company. Also pre-1997 the East Coast Main Line was probably the main North to South route in the country but Virgin Trains took over that title for the West Coast Main Line which was a sign that GNER should have been doing better.

Give me ten billion pounds to spend on the ECML and I will make it the main north south route again.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

What sucked about VT (both WC and XC) was reliability. Once the new trains were on order and within sight of being delivered, they backed off the maintenance to the bare minimum and reliability plummeted as the locos were beyond tired.

Indeed. The route was shot to bits, especially the electrification side.
It took £8 billion and 10 years to sort it out (15 if you include Bletchley, Watford and Stafford).
Now we have the obsolescence at places like New St, Liverpool and then Warrington/Preston/Carlisle not far behind.
Even now I'm not sure NR has caught up with the rate of ageing of the infrastructure, especially signalling kit.

 

[HH]

To be fair - it wasn't a like for like replacement - because Princess also doubled frequencies on many routes. So rather than having an hourly seven car train you had half-hourly 4 or 5 car trains, not such a dumb suggestion really.

It's well known that such a large increase in frequency leads to large increases in custom. So did they not know their PDFH from their PDFs or were they hoping that DfT would pay for extra units?

 

[FOH]

Surely, that's down to the London Bridge reconstruction works compounded with the dodgy merging on TGN with Southern? A little stress...

Tell that to Great Northern passengers where there's been no rebuilding.

Their complacency prior to rebuilding commencing was staggering.

 

[thenorthern]

True but a lot of that is probably down to the West Coast Route Modernisation which was ongoing at this time! Plus the premier North - South route tends to ping pong between two. At Nationalistion it was probably the ECML, then upon electrification it switched to the WCML, then back again in the late 80s/early 90s to the ECML upon that routes electrification and back again with WCRM in the 00s.

Give me ten billion pounds to spend on the ECML and I will make it the main north south route again.

To be fair even before electrification the East Coast Main Line was most of the time quicker than the West Coast Main Line as the ECML had the InterCity 125 while the WCML only had the Class 86 and Class 87.

I think GNER's problem as well was they allowed too much competition as four years into the franchise Hull Trains started meaning an end to the Hull Executive's monopoly. Virgin Trains on the other hand very quickly fought of competition from First North Western and Wrexham and Shropshire.