One year on (see below from 26 October 2015), and another Sunday lunchtime drink or two later, I thought that it might be useful to post an identical analysis of performance experienced by one ultra regular since April of this year. This excludes the near two month period covering the Lamington disruption - just about every journey was free then - and what was probably the darkest days of the maintenance issues in the run up to the CS crew strikes right at the end of 2015.
Total single journeys booked April-October: 29
Cancelled services in period: 0
Serious delays leading to compensation: 4 (electrical fault in sleeper coach removed at Crewe 17 Aug, train cancelled at Perth at 0930; two occasions of replacement buses north of Edinburgh because of Scotrail conductors dispute; item of furniture thrown onto track north of Preston)
Other notable farcical incidents: 3 (no water in taps, only one functioning microwave delaying food service by 90 mins, one cabin move due to broken aircon)
So if you allow a cancellation at Perth as a delay repay rather than a complete failure then that's a 100% record on getting through. Of the four compensation cases, you could argue that three could be blamed on CS since they could have done more to mitigate the Scotrail dispute.
Dry taps is pretty shoddy and the microwave meant that no dinner arrived until 1030pm.
The only other technical issue raised was very poor temperature control in the lounges: cold in winter, roasting in summer until the train gets up some speed out of Euston. Cabin aircon was bang on, other than the one easily remedied incident mentioned above, even in the warmest weather.
And for another year, nothing whatsoever connected with traction.
Some more, albeit more informal than ORR, stats if it helps everyone relax a little.
I had a pint yesterday with my mate who uses the sleeper ultra frequently. He happened to have his laptop with him and we were able to go through his expenses records for the period since Serco took over in April, and the corresponding period under First in 2014. He had to rely on memory only for out of the way incidents, but he was pretty clear when he looked at other claim activity around a problem.
Total single journeys booked April-October:
2014 - 25; 2015 - 27
Cancelled services in period:
2014 - 1 (OHL brought down at Carlisle 9 July); 2015 - 1 (no guard 22 June)
Serious delays leading to compensation in period:
2014 - 0; 2015 - 1 (carriage fault 29 July, five and a half hour delay, indeed the incident sparking this thread)
Other notable farcical incidents in period: 2014 - 1 (no lounge service due to staff shortage 9 August, passengers went to M&S at Euston and self catered); 2015 - 1 (two sleeper coaches missing from fully booked train 15 October, only witnessed this, not directly inconvenienced)
With the exception of the incident on 22 June this year, all cancellations and delays were handled professionally and efficiently by both crew and companies under both managements. Even communication around the 22 June 2015 incident was dealt with well once they'd got control of the situation from around 1130pm onwards.
Planned disruptions or reactions to earlier problems (engineering work both periods and flooding at Kingussie in August 2014) were well planned and communicated by both companies.
So that's a reliability rate of 96% in 2014 and 96.7% in 2015. There was no need for delay repay at all in 2014 and 3.7% incidence of it this year.
He experienced no noticeable impact from Serco's early traction challenges, only lounge chat like 'the 87 is on again tonight'.
Had it not been for rolling stock issues (the enormous delay in July and the recent missing sleepers) then the record would've actually been better overall. From memory, and no record of something as trivial as this had been kept, there have been far more berth moves on the night from the original booking as a result of out of service or faulty coaches this year - perhaps five this year versus one last.
Also he points out that customer service from the Inverness based office team, bedding and food are all substantially improved from Scotrail days, and all of these are considered to be significant benefits.
So there's no panic amongst the regulars.
