Best and Worst Train Companies Ever.

[Merseyrailfan]

I heard like Connex was worst post privatisation operator, but could you guys think of any more?

 

[43096]

I heard like Connex was worst post privatisation operator, but could you guys think of any more?

Avanti, SWR, TPE, FGW...

There's a theme.

 

[JonathanH]

I heard like Connex was worst post privatisation operator, but could you guys think of any more?

It is very difficult to assess the worst operator. How do you do it?

The Prism operations were known for cost cutting. Connex had poor customer relations but they were running a network with the trains they inherited. Avanti doesn't get good press now but neither did Virgin Trains in the late 1990s so on what measure do you compare historic operations with those now.

 

[Merseyrailfan]

It seems impossible task as different people have more Or less tolerance.

 

[185]

Connex? Teepee-ex.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

'First Capital Connect' certainly wasn't the best TOC, in my opinion. Scruffy train interiors on the Class 319 trains that it used on its Thameslink services to/from Brighton, as well as short formed trains, were too often the case.

 

[nr758123]

Transpennine Express, in the here and now

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Avanti, SWR, TPE, FGW...

There's a theme.

South Eastern must be pretty high up there with its financial irregularities that required near on immediate removal of the franchisee. Or NXEC which overbid so much it nearly went bust!

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Didn't Northern Spirit lay off a load of drivers right at the start of the privatisation era, and end up having to cancel services due to shortages?

In some ways they were a good operator, their refurbishment of 158s (with added first class sections) was a decent job, as was the replacement of bus benches on 142s with high-backed 2+2 seats. In other ways they weren't so great such as the staffing issues mentioned above, and the parent company MTL going bust and having to be rescued by Arriva.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Didn't Northern Spirit lay off a load of drivers right at the start of the privatisation era, and end up having to cancel services due to shortages?

In some ways they were a good operator, their refurbishment of 158s (with added first class sections) was a decent job, as was the replacement of bus benches on 142s with high-backed 2+2 seats. In other ways they weren't so great such as the staffing issues mentioned above, and the parent company MTL going bust and having to be rescued by Arriva.

Yes they did. As did SSWT who ended up with a whopping great fine.

 

[Bikeman78]

It is very difficult to assess the worst operator. How do you do it?

The Prism operations were known for cost cutting. Connex had poor customer relations but they were running a network with the trains they inherited.

SWT inherited the same trains and kept them in much better condition. On the 319s, they couldn't even be bothered to make the heaters work. 25 years later, the same units run to Rhymney and the heaters work fine. Despite the total lack of care regarding the passenger saloons, the Connex slam door units did still plod on reliably.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

SWT inherited the same trains and kept them in much better condition. On the 319s, they couldn't even be bothered to make the heaters work. 25 years later, the same units run to Rhymney and the heaters work fine. Despite the total lack of care regarding the passenger saloons, the Connex slam door units did still plod on reliably.

Connex ripped out the internal walls in the compartment sections of their VEPs, but left the seats as they were- so they were mostly 3+2 seats (open saloons) but had sections of 0+4 (former compartments). SWT's slammers were much nicer and better cared-for.

 

[Ted633]

Connex ripped out the internal walls in the compartment sections of their VEPs, but left the seats as they were- so they were mostly 3+2 seats (open saloons) but had sections of 0+4 (former compartments). SWT's slammers were much nicer and better cared-for.

Only 19 out of 50 VEP's had their compartments ripped out for use on inner suburban services, becoming 4-VOPs.

Some of these in later life had a driving trailing swapped with a standard VEP, to enable first class to be available on more trains and make diagramming easier. (One end of the 4 car set had open compartments, the other had compartments and first class.) These became 4-VIPs

 

[Efini92]

Didn't Northern Spirit lay off a load of drivers right at the start of the privatisation era, and end up having to cancel services due to shortages?

In some ways they were a good operator, their refurbishment of 158s (with added first class sections) was a decent job, as was the replacement of bus benches on 142s with high-backed 2+2 seats. In other ways they weren't so great such as the staffing issues mentioned above, and the parent company MTL going bust and having to be rescued by Arriva.

It wasn’t just northern spirit, first northwestern also did it.
They assumed a train driver could be trained up in the same amount of time as a bus driver.

 

[bramling]

It is very difficult to assess the worst operator. How do you do it?

The Prism operations were known for cost cutting. Connex had poor customer relations but they were running a network with the trains they inherited. Avanti doesn't get good press now but neither did Virgin Trains in the late 1990s so on what measure do you compare historic operations with those now.

It’s certainly fair to say Connex weren’t great, although it was by no means all bad.

Their staff relations were poor, especially on south central, and as others have mentioned they allowed the trains to degenerate into a very poor state indeed, and the comparison with South West Trains is a fair one for people to make. I can also remember travelling on Connex units where the windows were so caked in grime it was barely possible to see out.

From a reliability point of view I don’t remember them being that bad though, and generally their stations weren’t too badly kept either.

It’s interesting Prism are mentioned. The very original WAGN franchise wasn’t too clever - their reliability was poor, mainly due to driver availability issues, and whilst the 317/6 and 317/7 refurbs were good the bulk of the 317 fleet was left untouched. The 313s got new seats but apart from that not much was done. Possibly worst of all, there was a real aversion to running more than the bare minimum train lengths, 4-car trains were pretty much standard at all off-peak times (except the odd peak positioning move) and many peak trains too. Not much was done with stations either, though what they did do was done well. National Express really turned WAGN round when they took it over.

I’d say Connex was definitely at the worse end of the scale, but whether they were truly the worst probably depends on one’s own experiences. I can’t really say I had any horrendous travel experiences with them, but equally I was only ever an occasional user.

 

[CE142]

First North Western
First Trans Pennine Express
First South Western Railway
First Avanti West Coast

Bit of a pattern forming...

 

[ScottGallagher]

The memory of Connex for me was the sheer amount of filth and vandalism, was there ever a piece of glass that wasn't badly etched?

 

[Class15]

How on earth can anything except Avanti be the worst?

 

[Merseyrailfan]

How on earth can anything except Avanti be the worst?

I go for Connex, they did not even have any experience with transport, they were a French water company that just got for some silly reason two franchises, that they did not care an inch about. SWR did a much better job, yet run the similar fleet of slam door stock.

 

[mike57]

Transpennine Express, in the here and now

I would agree, and not just because its one of the two operators local to me.

• Service has been unreliable or worse since May 2018
• Current day before cancellations running at around 50 per day
• Further cancellations on the day
• Failure to utilise rolling stock resulting in 3 car overcrowded services in spite of a reduced timetable
• Delay repay one of the worst, routinely rejecting valid claims resulting in more work, personal experience is around 1 in 2
• Despite all the words no signs of any improvements, we have been waiting nearly 5 years...
• Introducing operating practices which make an already bad service worse. (multiple crew changes being the main one)

 

[Merseyrailfan]

Also I think Southern especially the Coastway service, I don’t hate the Class 313, but let be honest, it no regional railway, it fine on commuter trains, but not on like 1 hour fairly rural long journeys. Never knew a train company that downgrade the rolling stock, typical Southern Fail!

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They are keeping the Connex sprit up.

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Electrostar aren’t great either, but they more in line with commuter/regional rail type.

 

[Magdalia]

The Prism operations were known for cost cutting.

'First Capital Connect' certainly wasn't the best TOC, in my opinion.

It’s interesting Prism are mentioned. The very original WAGN franchise wasn’t too clever - their reliability was poor, mainly due to driver availability issues, and whilst the 317/6 and 317/7 refurbs were good the bulk of the 317 fleet was left untouched. The 313s got new seats but apart from that not much was done. Possibly worst of all, there was a real aversion to running more than the bare minimum train lengths, 4-car trains were pretty much standard at all off-peak times (except the odd peak positioning move) and many peak trains too. Not much was done with stations either, though what they did do was done well. National Express really turned WAGN round when they took it over.

I have to stick up for First Capital Connect (FCC) here. I have used trains between the Fens and London for half a century and the FCC era is one of the better periods.

FCC started in a bad place with very high levels of overcrowding inherited from Prism. It was the early days of the "Britain's most overcrowded trains" league table and the Kings Cross-Kings Lynn line had 6 of the top 10. That exercise did not include weekend trains, some of which were even worse, especially Saturday evenings.

The big problem with Prism had been failure to adapt to rapidly increasing demand, and FCC tackled the issue head on. It took a long time, but eventually FCC got the rolling stock, the traincrew and the infrastructure improvements to relieve the overcrowding.

In the meantime they squeezed the absolute maximum out of the existing rolling stock fleet, with Hornsey turning out 95% availability of class 365s almost every weekday. A downside of this was not being able to take rolling stock out of traffic for long periods for extensive refurbishment, but everything got some sort of interior refresh at Hornsey. And they were hot on cleaning off graffiti too.

FCC stood head and shoulders above anything else when it came to customer relations. They held frequent "meet the manager" sessions all over their network. After those events, customers went away feeling that the senior managers were listening. When the peak time service fell apart the senior managers would be out on Kings Cross station concourse, acting as lightning conductors, and allowing the front line staff to get on with trying to provide a train service.

An interesting feature of FCC was that it was in the vanguard when it came to putting women in senior management roles on the railway. Elaine Holt and Karen Boswell were both part of the FCC senior management team, and as someone with lots of experience of management, I admired the way they tried to do things.

 

[WesternLancer]

I heard like Connex was worst post privatisation operator, but could you guys think of any more?

I regularly used Connex South Central and the decline in standards post privatisation was very noticeable - the trains just got much grimmer - and as others have said, SWT managed the transitions without that level of rolling stock decline for example, even tho both TOCs were having to make use of the same Mk1 rolling stock on many of their comparable services at that point. It must also have been demoralising for staff - which then reflects on the service they are giving to passengers as it's demotivating.

My view is that it had wider ramifications too - by giving franchises to operators like that - whose presentational product standards were so low - 'poisoned the well' for privatisation amongst many of the general travelling public - they saw decline in standards for the same sorts of fares and none of the promised improvement that the politicians claimed privatisation would bring. The incoming labour govt should have acted much faster in intervening to b rid of such poor performers IMHO.

So my view is that Connex were indeed really bad, but there were others that were poor too - Thameslink is a good example mentioned above. I assume it was just cost cutting at the basic levels that was the cause - in those cases train presentation - but I suspect other less visible things were being subject to the same methods.

 

[Surreytraveller]

With the benefit of hindsight, connex wasn't that bad

 

[WesternLancer]

With the benefit of hindsight, connex wasn't that bad

Gosh - I'd be interested in what you think became worse (well until the DfT started to run it all as now.....which of course may be what you are alluding to!)

 

[Devonian]

I grew up cosseted in the Great Western and South West Main Line world of reasonably modern long-distance rolling stock and smartly presented trains. Visiting the Connex regions was a genuine shock that provoked letters of complaint.

In their replies, Connex claimed:

• The lavatories were locked or empty of water because the trains were old
• The trains were late or cancelled because the trains were old
• The staff who were aggressive, unhelpful, invisible or offered outright misdirection were doing their best, but it was very hard because the trains were old
• The windows were scratched, the blue upholstery was green with dirt and a pool of vomit was left uncleaned for a week because the trains were old

It did not seem to have occurred to them that refilling lavatory tanks might make them flush; that they could carry out repairs to make the trains work; that staff could be motivated or managed no matter what trains were being run; or that cleaning trains might make them less dirty. Although in the latter case they were proud to say that they aimed to clean (ordinary clean, not deep clean) the interior of each train "at least once every 14 days".

They seemed to have given up ... because the trains were old.

I travelled on pretty much every operator in the early 2000s: all had their problems - heavens, travelling Virgin Cross Country was an uphill battle at times - but none were as downright dispiriting as Connex.

 

[yorksrob]

South West Trains showed what could be achieved with a slam door train in its twilight years. Connex were very grubby by comparison (not helped by a grubby yello/grey livery that looked dirty from the start).

 

[Merseyrailfan]

Apparently, their staff were forced to wear uniforms akin to “yellow banana“, that how bad they wore.

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I grew up cosseted in the Great Western and South West Main Line world of reasonably modern long-distance rolling stock and smartly presented trains. Visiting the Connex regions was a genuine shock that provoked letters of complaint.

In their replies, Connex claimed:

• The lavatories were locked or empty of water because the trains were old
• The trains were late or cancelled because the trains were old
• The staff who were aggressive, unhelpful, invisible or offered outright misdirection were doing their best, but it was very hard because the trains were old
• The windows were scratched, the blue upholstery was green with dirt and a pool of vomit was left uncleaned for a week because the trains were old

It did not seem to have occurred to them that refilling lavatory tanks might make them flush; that they could carry out repairs to make the trains work; that staff could be motivated or managed no matter what trains were being run; or that cleaning trains might make them less dirty. Although in the latter case they were proud to say that they aimed to clean (ordinary clean, not deep clean) the interior of each train "at least once every 14 days".

They seemed to have given up ... because the trains were old.

I travelled on pretty much every operator in the early 2000s: all had their problems - heavens, travelling Virgin Cross Country was an uphill battle at times - but none were as downright dispiriting as Connex.

It does show how terrible they were blaming the issues on old trains, SWR had same old “slam door trains yet they could make the trains look decent. If they were so concerned about trains why not replace them. They also Had metro network in Melbourne, Australia, to do destroy, that lasted about nearly 10 years.

 

[WesternLancer]

Apparently, their staff were forced to wear uniforms akin to “yellow banana“, that how bad they wore.

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Image I found on line that might show what they were like:

https://twitter.com/seatsixtyone/status/1270354201760223233

Could not recall the specifics of the uniform fullily enough myself but found this relevant section of ASLEF Brighton Branch minutes on line from 1997

THE BRIGHTON BRANCH OF A.S.L.E.F.

Complaints about new uniforms, a number of complaints had been

made regarding the styling, colours and quality and none issue of foot

wear.


A.O.B.

On the issue of new uniforms, this was raised by members with

serious complaints about the style, colour etc and the lack of

consultation the following motions were forward.


“This Brighton Branch wishes to express it’s amazement in the shades

of colours and style used in the first Connex South Central uniform

issue for Traincrew staff.

We feel that while these shades and styles may be acceptable for on

train stewards, they are totally inappropriate for Traincrew staff.

Further, we feel they do not respect the profession of the job we Are

expected to exercise when carrying out our duties.

We are not ‘Holiday Tour Operator Guides’, but a body of both men

and women who are responsible for the lives of thousands travellers

and commuters who in event of a mistake will instantly be on a

charge of manslaughter.

Being mindful of this, a colour and style more fitting to reflect this

responsibility is called for more in line with the police and fire

brigade, than glorified school boy’s uniform.

This Brighton Branch therefore instructs its Functional Council

Representatives for Connex South Central and the Executive

Committee of A.S.L.E.F. to make serious representations to the

management of Connex South Central with the view to making

acceptable changes through full and meaningful consultations on the

issue for drivers grades on Connex South Central.” Moved S. Weller

& seconded M. Thompson. Vote carried.

If they were so concerned about trains why not replace them.

Because I assume this had not been specified in the franchise tender by the govt - and thus the operator would not have included the cost of this in their bid, since to do so would have meant their bid would almost certainly have been unsuccessful.

You have to realise that most of the 1st franchises were all about 'getting it privatised' before the looming general election to stop an incoming labour govt halting the process (which of course in reality new labour would not have been so keen to do if faced with the chance...., but that's another story) - and the election was put off by John Major for as long as possible because there was no hope of the Tories winning. So specifying and including new rolling stock as part of the franchise process might have risked causing a delay to the franchise issue and was thus not going to have been a priority for the process. Only a few high profile franchises where the issue was even more pressing than the replacement of the ex BR(SR) slam door stock required this.

 

[Merseyrailfan]

Would MTL era Merseyrail be another contender. It was so bad it was called “Miseryrail”.

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Why did they privatise The network into 25 TOCs instead of like 5 to 10 TOCs?

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Why did they go for more of pre grouping system instead of like Big Four style system. Surely it would mean more caring for passengers. Or I am talking nonsense?