Absolutely shocking failure of management by Avanti this week. Unbelievable lack of contingency planning when playing such a vital role in one of the most important international conferences this country has ever held. The serious apathy that has creeped in to service provision around major events needs to stop. When you have a big event to cater for, you have lots of contingency planning. If you can’t do your job, step aside please. What were the contingency plans this week exactly and why were they not implemented?
Avanti cancelled loads of trains at the end of last week, cutting Glasgow off. I cycled through that area and across the West Coast Main Line with a group of 150 riders some of whom did the whole thing from London. I joined from Preston. Lots and lots of trains cancelled but some ran… so I assume the line was clear. Result - absolute chaos for passengers. So, question number 1. Was the WCML down Wednesday to Friday or did Avanti cancel loads of trains without just cause, cutting Western Scotland off just before COP26.
We get Autumn rain every year. We managed to get 150 riders from Preston to Glasgow through the weather perfectly easily. Yes it was heavy for a few periods but it was in no way one of the severe weather events you might link to climate change. It was Autumn. The area that did get it a bit harder was over in Dumfries but that was very localised. Even then, the locals in Dumfries told us it really wasn’t exceptional and they get that twice a year every year. I cycled over Shap at the same time the line was closed to passengers on Thursday and there were freight trains happily using the line. Why were so so many passenger trains cancelled?
Then we have yesterday. Some trees came down in Autumn. That happens every single year and so the chances of it happening on the 31st October are high. Further confirmed by a weather forecast. Avanti knew it’s job yesterday was to get lots of guests that we invited to this country to Glasgow. How on earth did it get to a point where it’s response was to shrug its shoulders, provide a shocking lack of information and treat passengers with uttter contempt. Other routes and lines were open. Whilst I would not expect every train company to fire up diversionary routes and alternative transport and massive customer serve teams on the ground quickly on every single day of the year, I absolutely would expect Avanti to be ready to do that yesterday.
Avanti left thousands of people stranded yesterday along its whole route. A hotel room is Glasgow was already averaging £500 minimum last night before the disruption hit. They literally left thousands of guests to our country and thousands of regular passengers with no information and no plan. From our small group we have about 20 stories of shocking unprofessional and unplanned nonsense involving Avanti over the last week. A group travelling to Southampton from Glasgow last night were turfed off at Preston late into the night and told, sorry - make your own way from here. Who does that? When I had a parallel situation in Germany DB offered every single passenger accommodation and booked them on to a new train the next morning. You don’t throw passengers off a train late at night without looking after them on a very basic level.
If the current management of Avanti is not able to plan for anything other than perfect conditions, it needs to step aside so that some proper railway professionals who also give a toss about passengers and at another level just their fellow humans, can take their place. I use trains every day, to get everywhere and have seen it all. The railway is full of good and bad. Yesterday and the latter part of last week was an absolute disgrace.
I also assume moral is low at Avanti for staff to have become so rude. There are always rude staff on the railways, but more often really nice and helpful people. The attitude and manner of staff at Euston station this week has become legendary. A visitor from Austria told me they have simply never been spoken to in such a rude way when asking a few simple questions and asked if this is ‘normal communication style’ in the UK. I had to interrupt a 10 minute conversation between two staff members who did not seem remotely interested in the pile of people trying to work out what they should do. When somebody finally managed to ask if there was a problem with trains going north of Preston, they were told ‘apparently but you will need to ask somebody’ and then back to their conversation. They were the gate line staff for a Glasgow train than has just been curtailed to Preston!!!!
I really hoped we might be able to be proud of our railways this weekend. The weather meant that some disruption was inevitable, but the version of disruption dished out by Avanti this week has been absolutely embarrassing and I hope the management of Avanti and those on the ground who didn’t know what they were doing or how to do it are embarrassed.
