Another fantastic day with Avanti

[peter166]

Already 17 cancellations in for tomorrow now and as they are in before 2200 they will be 'P' code and they won't get a penalty for them, which is a joke.

Agree totally. How are Avanti & TPE allowed to get away with this? A cancellation is a cancellation whether it is made the night before or on the day. This is hiding the true rate of cancellations as a recent article in the Guardian pointed out.

Revealed: north of England train line vastly under-reports cancellations

TransPennine Express uses ‘outrageous’ loophole in which services cancelled a day ahead do not appear in statistics

www.theguardian.com

 

[43066]

Next ASLEF strike is Thursday 5 January…

 

[Watershed]

Possession of fasts extended for work at Bourne End.

Extended from when? The number of delay minutes caused must have been staggering.

 

[Jamesrob637]

Agree totally. How are Avanti & TPE allowed to get away with this? A cancellation is a cancellation whether it is made the night before or on the day. This is hiding the true rate of cancellations as a recent article in the Guardian pointed out.

Revealed: north of England train line vastly under-reports cancellations

TransPennine Express uses ‘outrageous’ loophole in which services cancelled a day ahead do not appear in statistics

www.theguardian.com

But they still appear in RTT

Realtime Trains | 1B72 0919 Liverpool Lime Street to Cleethorpes | 20/12/2022

Real-time train running information for 1B72 0919 departure from Liverpool Lime Street to Cleethorpes on 20/12/2022. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[Efini92]

I’d love to see this in a timetable. Any takers? It can’t have been first north-western though…

There was the Rochdale-Euston and Blackpool-Euston services. But neither ran via the airport as I remember.

How are Avanti going to introduce the additional 1tph to Liverpool with the Hitatchis when they can barely manage with what they have now?

That’s assuming they will be able to train staff on them. Given they can’t run what they have now, how will they be able to release staff for the training?

 

[Bletchleyite]

There was the Rochdale-Euston and Blackpool-Euston services. But neither ran via the airport as I remember.

There was also a separate 4tpd EMU service from the Airport using Class 322s, but it made the Barton on Humber branch look like Waterloo at 8:30am and didn't last very long, maybe one timetable period.

That’s assuming they will be able to train staff on them. Given they can’t run what they have now, how will they be able to release staff for the training?

My view is that they'll likely never run, and that Liverpool won't get 2tph until HS2 opens.

 

[Efini92]

There was also a separate 4tpd EMU service from the Airport using Class 322s, but it made the Barton on Humber branch look like Waterloo at 8:30am and didn't last very long, maybe one timetable period.



My view is that they'll likely never run, and that Liverpool won't get 2tph until HS2 opens.

Avanti have been bought some time by them not being ready to enter service. But I suspect you’re right, they’ll probably replace those Merseyrail units sat on LNWR.

 

[The Planner]

Extended from when? The number of delay minutes caused must have been staggering.

Spread over a myriad of incidents, the ongoing TSR on the Down Fast is up to 4800 minutes over the last month.

 

[TomG]

There were 52 Avanti Cancellations, or Partial Cancellations when I checked their website BEFORE 08:30 this morning.

So I left a little feedback about their webpage:

'I would like to suggest changing 'when it'll arrive' to 'if it'll arrive.' Its not even 08:30 and you are already showing 52 cancellations or partial cancellations'

 

[Peter0124]

The first Avanti south from Edinburgh today was the 12.52!!

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Agree totally. How are Avanti & TPE allowed to get away with this? A cancellation is a cancellation whether it is made the night before or on the day. This is hiding the true rate of cancellations as a recent article in the Guardian pointed out.

Avanti have until April (well, probably earlier than that) to show they can run a stable and reliable service, or have the contract revoked.
The DfT knows quite well the problems are intractable until the industrial action is resolved and more drivers deployed - a long-drawn-out process.
In contractual terms, the DfT could turn to the runner-up in the competition, but oh dear!, that's Stagecoach/Virgin/SNCF who have left the UK rail scene.
So they would contract OLR while the long-term contract is competed for again.
But it absolutely doesn't want to do that, and it isn't ready anyway.
OLR would face the exact same problems delivering the service for the same reasons - they have no magic answer to the lack of traincrew.
Yet another reason why DfT don't want to take the heat off FirstGroup over Avanti, onto themselves.

And if you are looking for more transport incompetence, BA has just stranded 30 plane-loads of people, many overseas, because of a glitch with its crew-scheduling software.

 

[ScottGallagher]

From Memory MTR and Renfe were the other bidder, that would have been an interesting combo. It's even possible the blow up with the drivers wouldn't have happened but we will never know.

 

[duncanp]

The 18:16 Avanti service from London to Shrewsbury is terminated short at Birmingham New Street tonight.

18:16 London Euston to Shrewsbury due 20:56 will be terminated at Birmingham New Street.
It will no longer call at Wolverhampton, Telford Central, Wellington Shropshire and Shrewsbury.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.
Additional Information:
You can travel on the Avanti West Coast service immediately before or after this train with your original ticket. Unfortunately, any seat reservations will not be carried over, please speak to a member of our team to find out wheres best to sit.
Were sorry for the delay to your journey, you might be entitled to some compensation. Head to avantiwestcoast.co.uk/delayrepay for more information.

I like the way they say you can travel on the Avanti West Coast service immediately before or after this train.

Er, exactly when is the next Avanti service from Birmingham to Shrewsbury?

I guess in reality most people will take the next West Midlands or TfW service from Birmingham and hope any ticket checker is in a good mood.

God help anyone trying to get home on Christmas Eve, or even on 23rd December.

 

[Huntergreed]

20:06 from Glasgow (last train) cancelled so I’ve had to cut my plans short to make the 17:30 (for Lockerbie), asked for an 18:40 stop order and the Twitter team told me to “get the next train” (which would be tomorrow morning!)

This sudden drop in reliability really isn’t doing them any favors.

 

[Bletchleyite]

20:06 from Glasgow (last train) cancelled so I’ve had to cut my plans short to make the 17:30 (for Lockerbie), asked for an 18:40 stop order and the Twitter team told me to “get the next train” (which would be tomorrow morning!)

This sudden drop in reliability really isn’t doing them any favors.

What possessed them to try to up to 3tph Manchester when they couldn't reliably run one?

Someone needs the sack. This was OBVIOUSLY not going to work.

 

[Bikeman78]

No scrum for me. I just check realtimetrains to see if my train's running, then opentraintimes to see which platform it's going from. Simples!

Snap! Plenty of other people do this too. I was at Euston the other day waiting for a train and there were about 30 other people on the platform before it was put on the departure screens.

 

[Skiddaw]

Snap! Plenty of other people do this too. I was at Euston the other day waiting for a train and there were about 30 other people on the platform before it was put on the departure screens.

If they let you. I've done that myself a few times but sometimes they boot you off the platform and back to the scrum.

 

[Peter0124]

Maybe a 5tph timetable would be suitable (2tph Manchester, 1tph Birmingham, 1tph Liverpool, 1tph Glasgow)
Because I think Manchester justifies having atleast 2tph. Birmingham has the option of other TOCs that Manc doesn't.

Terminating the Birmingham service at either Wolverhampton, Preston/Blackpool or Edinburgh depending on availability of crew.

 

[Falcon1200]

The first Avanti south from Edinburgh today was the 12.52!!

Plus one of the just-reintroduced Glasgow-Euston via Birmingham services was also cancelled today (1156 from Glasgow Central). Which means that of the first six Scotland/West Midlands trains today, only two ran.

 

[Huntergreed]

I just can’t fathom it. Surely alarm bells are amplifying by the day in the Avanti planning office, why isn’t anything being done?

 

[800001]

I just can’t fathom it. Surely alarm bells are amplifying by the day in the Avanti planning office, why isn’t anything being done?

Planning team are most likely being told to plan that level of service from higher up.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If they let you. I've done that myself a few times but sometimes they boot you off the platform and back to the scrum.

I apparently raised concern with BTP for doing it on Platform 8 last week. Supposedly "down the ramp and back on yourself" is suspicious! They didn't send me back though, just asked where I was going.

For Avanti I would just start a queue on the ramp.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Dec 2022 ==

Maybe a 5tph timetable would be suitable (2tph Manchester, 1tph Birmingham, 1tph Liverpool, 1tph Glasgow)
Because I think Manchester justifies having atleast 2tph. Birmingham has the option of other TOCs that Manc doesn't.

Terminating the Birmingham service at either Wolverhampton, Preston/Blackpool or Edinburgh depending on availability of crew.

They couldn't manage 4 consistently, so it has to be 4 (I think below would be untenable). No increase until say 99.5% punctuality and reliability is achieved for a solid week.

 

[zwk500]

For Avanti I would just start a queue on the ramp.

This would be a good start.

 

[Bletchleyite]

This would be a good start.

TBH I think some Tensabarriers to do that officially would be a good plan.

 

[Bertie the bus]

They couldn't manage 4 consistently, so it has to be 4 (I think below would be untenable). No increase until say 99.5% punctuality and reliability is achieved for a solid week.

So never, then. Has any TOC ever come close to 99.5% punctuality - excluding the darkest Covid days when no passengers were travelling?

 

[Huntergreed]

I think Avanti are critically misunderstanding what it is that passengers want.

They obviously think that we want a better timetable, however reliable, as opposed to a reduced one we can actually rely on to run.

If they’ve not got the message now, I have very little hope for the future.

 

[Bertie the bus]

What is happening has nothing to do with Avanti's understanding of what passengers want and everything to do with FirstGroup wanting to retain the contract to make money. They said they would increase the number of services in December and they have. If, with all the strikes and overtime bans going on, the media don't pick up on what is happening with Avanti then their management have achieved what they set out to do and FirstGroup and the government are happy. If the media does pick up on it then the gamble will probably backfire.

 

[Bikeman78]

The only good thing about those boards is the 'catch alternative train' for the cancelled stops. As long as the ticket acceptance is confirmed...

It doesn't matter if the alternative train is LNR. They don't check tickets anyway.

 

[gabrielhj07]

It doesn't matter if the alternative train is LNR. They don't check tickets anyway.

All well and good until the odd journey on which they do check.

 

[Leisurefirst]

20:06 from Glasgow (last train) cancelled so I’ve had to cut my plans short to make the 17:30 (for Lockerbie), asked for an 18:40 stop order and the Twitter team told me to “get the next train” (which would be tomorrow morning!)

This sudden drop in reliability really isn’t doing them any favors.

On the 15:38 from Glasgow Central to Euston.
Cannot believe how empty it's been (albeit in Coach A).
No more than 10 or 12 of us if that throughout.
Perhaps they have lost so much passenger confidence (both because of their performance and the strikes) people just aren't bothering.