Best and Worst Train Companies Ever.

[yorksrob]

Ok, But Networkers were even worse condition than the slammers. They had to replace nearly or even all windows on Networkers, that how bad vandalism had gone, yet they could not do even basic work on them.

I'm probably biased, as my travel was centered on the Ashford lines, which were slammer territory, rather than the suburban ones.

(Kent Coast, rather than Kent Link in old money )

 

[Sprinter107]

Ok, But Networkers were even worse condition than the slammers. They had to replace nearly or even all windows on Networkers, that how bad vandalism had gone, yet they could not do even basic work on them.

This is photo of how bad it was

465044 : Gillingham

Network SouthEast Class 465 unit No. 465044 stands at Gillingham at the rear of a service to Charing Cross

www.flickr.com

That was a similar exterior to the one I caught from Brixton. After seeing those ultra vandalised saloons, I felt more unsafe than I ever had on a train, and I refused to travel on a Networker again for many years. I went on one a couple of years ago, which was the first since that Connex worked one, and was glad they'd been cleaned up and repaired.

 

[yorksrob]

Ill disciplined youths (and other delinquents) ought really to take some of the blame for that.

 

[Merseyrailfan]

To be Fair If they Connex being so lenient with their security, really just made them come back and graffti It heavily. If you were harsher, mabye they Will stop?

Not in UK, But in America, I read the vast majority of New York Subway subway cars in 70s and 80s were covered in Graffti right through the train. Disgraceful.

 

[yorksrob]

Well, there's security of depots and where the sidings are that can be out of the companies control. But lots of train companies have had this issue. The sooner you get rid of the graffiti, the more ephemeral it becomes to the graffitists, and the less likely they are to bother again.

 

[Merseyrailfan]

Well, there's security of depots and where the sidings are that can be out of the companies control. But lots of train companies have had this issue. The sooner you get rid of the graffiti, the more ephemeral it becomes to the graffitists, and the less likely they are to bother again

Why don’t they just contact the police and owner of Depot.

 

[yorksrob]

Why don’t they just contact the police and owner of Depot.

They don't know who owns the "tag" until they catch them !

 

[Merseyrailfan]

BBC News have just released an article saying that Transpennine Express have cancelled 1,048 trains in a mont.

Transpennine: True extent of cancellations revealed

The rail franchise pulled far more trains than any other operator, figures released by the regulator show.

www.bbc.co.uk

The true extent of cancellations made by the Transpennine Express rail franchise has been revealed in figures published by the rail regulator.
In a four-week period the company cancelled 1,048 trains before 22:30 GMT on the day before they were due to run, and part of the route on a further 312.
Because the announcements were not made on the day, these cancellations were not included in official statistics.
Transpennine has said such decisions were "not taken lightly".
Usually these pre-planned cancellations - also called P-coding advance cancellations - are used when an emergency timetable is needed in response to poor weather or damage to rail infrastructure.
However, in each case the Transpennine trains, which operate across the North of England and into Scotland, were cancelled due to a shortage of available train crew.
The number of cancellations it made in this way far outstripped any other rail operator in the four weeks to 4 February. For example, government-owned Northern recorded 182 full cancellations, Transport for Wales 30 and LNER 17 - all attributed to staff shortages.

Releasing the figures the Office of Road and Rail (ORR) regulator said Transpennine's cancellations score for that period jumps from an official 8.9% to 23.7% when P-coding was taken into account.
Transpennine has previously said it only resorted to pre-planned cancellations "when resources are not available to cover advertised services in order to maximise advance notice of service changes for customers".
It blamed the "combined impact of prolonged higher-than-usual sickness levels, the significant driver training programme to facilitate the delivery of the Transpennine route upgrade and an aligned lack of a driver overtime agreement"
"[This has] led to the need to remove services from the timetable on a day-by-day basis through pre-planned cancellations."
However, the practice has come under fire from the ORR which published these figures for the first time on Friday.
In January the regulator said cancellations were at "record levels" and its investigation had "confirmed a further gap between cancellations statistics and the passenger experience".
It said this was "driven by an increased number of unrecorded 'pre-cancellations'".
"For a passenger this could mean that a train they expected to catch when they went to bed can disappear from the timetable by the time they leave for the station unaware that the train has been cancelled."
Labour and some Conservative MPs have called for Transpennine's contract, which expires on 28 May, to be withdrawn.
Last month Labour's shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh said the service had "never been worse".
Anthony Smith, chief executive of the independent watchdog Transport Focus, said passengers were left "confused and frustrated" when a train they expected to catch was cancelled the day before they were due to travel, and may well be surprised to find that this doesn't count as a cancellation.
"Things like this leave a sour taste in the mouth - and damage trust in the railway. The scale of this so-called 'P-coding' on some operators in recent months has highlighted the problem. We are pleased to be contributing the passenger voice in industry discussions about how to address the regulator's concerns."

Shocking Behaviour from TransPennine express, it just a shame what our railway have become. Very sad, unfortunately.

 

[yorksrob]

BBC News have just released an article saying that Transpennine Express have cancelled 1,048 trains in a mont.

Transpennine: True extent of cancellations revealed

The rail franchise pulled far more trains than any other operator, figures released by the regulator show.

www.bbc.co.uk

Shame really.

They spent years being hideously overcrowded. Then, just before the pandemic, they got decent length trains. Now they've gone down the pan again.

Walk on fares have gone down the toilet as well. I had to get a short notice ticket from Pic to Leeds and the only off peak was 25 quid.

Whatevers going on there, it's not working.

 

[bramling]

Having read this thread with some approval (and some tutting) , the non-innovation award has to go to Connex (SE) - yes some 365's on outer Kent Coast , but the pride of NSE , the inner suburban Networkers were allowed to be comprehensively trashed by vandalism and neglect. I am told by an ex BR man who fought a losing battle at Connex against the French influence (hardly the best ambience operators in the Paris region especially - to this day if you have "enjoyed" the RER) - they had no interest in much cleaning etc above the solebar , but when they were booted off , they had to pay substantial money to restore the 46x class to a non graffiti , cleaner, and importantly non window etched state. Every single window on that large fleet had to be replaced.

I can only surmise also , that a very hard and complex network to operate , required a very special qualified management team. A respected one. The franchise as agreed , had very challenging targets for revenue and patronage growth - (almost incredible really) , which to accept has to be the fault of OPRAF as it was at the time.

This is a fair summary. Generally my experience of using Connex was the trains generally did run and did tend to be generally on time, and to be fair their stations were reasonably well kept, but that’s as far as it went. Staff morale was abysmal and the trains were in poor condition. My experience was it was more the inner suburban trains which were in terrible condition, I don’t remember the south eastern’s slam door trains being that bad, though they were all essentially kept in ex NSE condition.

Evidently very little was done in terms of security on the inner suburban routes, however they were by no means the only operator whose inner suburban fleet got into a state around that time.

One thing Connex *did* get right, the 375 Electrostars were very well specified indeed. It’s interesting Govia dumbed down the specification on the later Electrostar interiors. The luxurious interiors today of Kent’s Electrostar fleet is probably Connex’s best legacy.

 

[yorksrob]

This is a fair summary. Generally my experience of using Connex was the trains generally did run and did tend to be generally on time, and to be fair their stations were reasonably well kept, but that’s as far as it went. Staff morale was abysmal and the trains were in poor condition. My experience was it was more the inner suburban trains which were in terrible condition, I don’t remember the south eastern’s slam door trains being that bad, though they were all essentially kept in ex NSE condition.

Evidently very little was done in terms of security on the inner suburban routes, however they were by no means the only operator whose inner suburban fleet got into a state around that time.

One thing Connex *did* get right, the 375 Electrostars were very well specified indeed. It’s interesting Govia dumbed down the specification on the later Electrostar interiors. The luxurious interiors today of Kent’s Electrostar fleet is probably Connex’s best legacy.

Fair play, that was a good interior spec.

 

[bramling]

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.

I’d agree with all this. I used FCC for the duration of their tenure, and they were generally fine. They took things over in a decent state from National Express (who had largely cleared up the mess left by Prism), and generally maintained and improved upon this legacy. They weren’t revolutionary, but the improvements they made were generally useful. The GN’s trains were kept in a decent state, and most of the time you could set your watch by the service. They were also pretty good at handling disruption.

A couple of caveats, though
* My positive experience was mainly on the GN side. I know things weren’t quite so rosy on the Thameslink side
* More ominously, I have also heard it said that it was FCC who were the root cause of the perennial driver shortages we’ve seen over the last few years. Certainly this was left in a good shape by National Express, and it didn’t *seem* to cause issues most of the time during FCC years apart from the occasional bad day at weekends. Did FCC simply have better local management?

 

[yorksrob]

But FCC had horrid slidey-door things to be avoided at all costs !

(Said horrid slidey-door things are a welcome improvement up North nowadays )

 

[bramling]

But FCC had horrid slidey-door things to be avoided at all costs !

Not on the GN side, the 365s were absolutely the polar opposite of horrid, especially before the “dumbing down” refurbishment. Agree 319s were never anything special though.

 

[yorksrob]

Not on the GN side, the 365s were absolutely the polar opposite of horrid, especially before the “dumbing down” refurbishment. Agree 319s were never anything special though.

Bah, they were no CIG's though !

 

[bramling]

Bah, they were no CIG's though !

I don’t know, I’d say they were on a par to be honest. Both great pieces of design and engineering in their own ways.

Connex actually managed to keep their 365s in a decent state too, internally at least - along with the Connex Express 319/2s they were Connex’s flagship.

 

[whoosh]

Ok, But Networkers were even worse condition than the slammers. They had to replace nearly or even all windows on Networkers, that how bad vandalism had gone, yet they could not do even basic work on them.

This is photo of how bad it was

465044 : Gillingham

Network SouthEast Class 465 unit No. 465044 stands at Gillingham at the rear of a service to Charing Cross

www.flickr.com

Ill disciplined youths (and other delinquents) ought really to take some of the blame for that.

Connex:

On the Hayes line, youths 'joyriding' (riding on the exterior of the train) especially on the rear, and etching the trailing cab's windscreen, was the cause of a large number of cancellations, when the driver changed ends at the terminus.

Networker's toilets were also vandalised and the company that made the toilets had gone bust/disappeared leaving a spare parts shortfall problem.

 

[bramling]

Connex:

On the Hayes line, youths 'joyriding' (riding on the exterior of the train) especially on the rear, and etching the trailing cab's windscreen, was the cause of a large number of cancellations, when the driver changed ends at the terminus.

Networker's toilets were also vandalised and the company that made the toilets had gone bust/disappeared leaving a spare parts shortfall problem.

To be fair it’s quite hard to blame Connex for any of that. It’s ironic that the toilets on the 700s, especially the 700/0s, are nowadays in a dire state too, so some things seem not to change.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Frankly I think some lines like Heart of Wales Line should have gone, at cost of saving things like Waverley line, A line 10x more used than a rural line that was just saved because it run through “marginal” constituencys. Welsh Marches Line did the same job just faster.

The Southern end of Waverley was as much of a basket-case as any other rural line you care to mention. Between it and the Heart of Wales there's barely a cigarette paper between them. Llandrindod Wells, Builth Wells* and Knighton are reasonably sized settlements and certainly more likely to generate traffic than the likes of Melrose and Riccarton Junction.

*=admittedly the station at Builth Road isn't particularly well-sited for the town.

 

[Merseyrailfan]

The Southern end of Waverley was as much of a basket-case as any other rural line you care to mention. Between it and the Heart of Wales there's barely a cigarette paper between them. Llandrindod Wells, Builth Wells* and Knighton are reasonably sized settlements and certainly more likely to generate traffic than the likes of Melrose and Riccarton Junction.

I suppose, the reason for stronger upheaval for reprival of Waverley line was that still has express trains to St Pancras in the 1960s, whilst Waverley Line and Heart of Wales Line, had pretty much similar communities. I suppose one of differences, Was that Waverley Line had express trains in 60s and I don’t think Heart of Wales Line did. I could be wrong and I stand to corrected, If that the case.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

I suppose, the reason for stronger upheaval for reprival of Waverley line was that still has express trains to St Pancras in the 1960s, whilst Waverley Line and Heart of Wales Line, had pretty much similar communities. I suppose one of differences, Was that Waverley Line had express trains in 60s and I don’t think Heart of Wales Line did. I could be wrong and I stand to corrected, If that the case.

I'm not sure "having express trains" is a reason to keep a line open when there's a better alternative for those express trains (or two better alternatives in the case of Waverley). The issue with the Waverley route is that there's basically zero population served south of Hawick, and both the East and West Coast mainlines are better suited to fast expresses. There's a good reason the reopened section ends at Tweedbank, as that's the last significant settlement (other than Hawick) until Carlisle itself.

The Heart of Wales is a different animal altogether, it was never really intended as a fast intercity route, and rural as it is it still has more population living along the route than the southern end of Waverley.

 

[Merseyrailfan]

I wonder why the catering on British Rail, was treated like a joke. The catering side of BR was treated as joke basically as their food was apparently bad for some reason. I know this is going slightly off topic, but a good comparison, would be the motorway services stations as they quite the similar reputation as British Rails in 70s. Honestly, 45 or so years later, we should ask the question, was the ’’British Rail Sandwich” really that bad?

Did anyone eat any British Rail food products?

 

[yorksrob]

I wonder why the catering on British Rail, was treated like a joke. The catering side of BR was treated as joke basically as their food was apparently bad for some reason. I know this is going slightly off topic, but a good comparison, would be the motorway services stations as they quite the similar reputation as British Rails in 70s. Honestly, 45 or so years later, we should ask the question, was the ’’British Rail Sandwich” really that bad?

Did anyone eat any British Rail food products?

The Travellers fare microwave burger was very tasty (albeit hotter than the sun).

The cadburys hot chocolate from the Ashford station buffets was very nice as well.

 

[Iskra]

BBC News have just released an article saying that Transpennine Express have cancelled 1,048 trains in a mont.

Transpennine: True extent of cancellations revealed

The rail franchise pulled far more trains than any other operator, figures released by the regulator show.

www.bbc.co.uk

The true extent of cancellations made by the Transpennine Express rail franchise has been revealed in figures published by the rail regulator.
In a four-week period the company cancelled 1,048 trains before 22:30 GMT on the day before they were due to run, and part of the route on a further 312.
Because the announcements were not made on the day, these cancellations were not included in official statistics.
Transpennine has said such decisions were "not taken lightly".
Usually these pre-planned cancellations - also called P-coding advance cancellations - are used when an emergency timetable is needed in response to poor weather or damage to rail infrastructure.
However, in each case the Transpennine trains, which operate across the North of England and into Scotland, were cancelled due to a shortage of available train crew.
The number of cancellations it made in this way far outstripped any other rail operator in the four weeks to 4 February. For example, government-owned Northern recorded 182 full cancellations, Transport for Wales 30 and LNER 17 - all attributed to staff shortages.

Releasing the figures the Office of Road and Rail (ORR) regulator said Transpennine's cancellations score for that period jumps from an official 8.9% to 23.7% when P-coding was taken into account.
Transpennine has previously said it only resorted to pre-planned cancellations "when resources are not available to cover advertised services in order to maximise advance notice of service changes for customers".
It blamed the "combined impact of prolonged higher-than-usual sickness levels, the significant driver training programme to facilitate the delivery of the Transpennine route upgrade and an aligned lack of a driver overtime agreement"
"[This has] led to the need to remove services from the timetable on a day-by-day basis through pre-planned cancellations."
However, the practice has come under fire from the ORR which published these figures for the first time on Friday.
In January the regulator said cancellations were at "record levels" and its investigation had "confirmed a further gap between cancellations statistics and the passenger experience".
It said this was "driven by an increased number of unrecorded 'pre-cancellations'".
"For a passenger this could mean that a train they expected to catch when they went to bed can disappear from the timetable by the time they leave for the station unaware that the train has been cancelled."
Labour and some Conservative MPs have called for Transpennine's contract, which expires on 28 May, to be withdrawn.
Last month Labour's shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh said the service had "never been worse".
Anthony Smith, chief executive of the independent watchdog Transport Focus, said passengers were left "confused and frustrated" when a train they expected to catch was cancelled the day before they were due to travel, and may well be surprised to find that this doesn't count as a cancellation.
"Things like this leave a sour taste in the mouth - and damage trust in the railway. The scale of this so-called 'P-coding' on some operators in recent months has highlighted the problem. We are pleased to be contributing the passenger voice in industry discussions about how to address the regulator's concerns."

Shocking Behaviour from TransPennine express, it just a shame what our railway have become. Very sad, unfortunately.

Furthermore, it has emerged that Transpennine Driver sickness is at 14%- 30 Days Per Year Per Driver, or 637% the National Average. Transpennine seems totally unfit for purpose.

Source: Branchline News edition 1418. P15.

 

[Merseyrailfan]

If I were Dft, I would revoke TransPennines franchise, and put an operator of last resort for franchise. That service is unacceptable to passenger who use the network. It’s a disgrace!

 

[Magdalia]

A couple of caveats, though
* My positive experience was mainly on the GN side. I know things weren’t quite so rosy on the Thameslink side

I'd agree with that, but the overcrowding was much more difficult to address on Thameslink because of the restricted availability of rolling stock suitable for use in the Thameslink core.

A couple of caveats, though
* More ominously, I have also heard it said that it was FCC who were the root cause of the perennial driver shortages we’ve seen over the last few years.

I'd agree with that too. But one of the perverse incentives of the franchise model is that any operator expecting to lose their franchise can get a quick boost to the bottom line by stopping recruitment, especially drivers where the costs of training are high, knowing that someone else will have to clear up the mess. Were FCC any worse than others on that?

 

[yorksrob]

Best railway company ever: British Rail. It had lovely comfortable trains such as CIG's, IC125, 158's etc. Great innovative products such as railcards etc. Reasonable fare offers.

Worst railway company ever: British Rail.
They destroyed too much of the railway network with the disastrous closure programme. They also committed some heinous acts of state sponsored vandalism, such as demolishing Bradford Exchange station.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

The Travellers fare microwave burger was very tasty (albeit hotter than the sun).

The cadburys hot chocolate from the Ashford station buffets was very nice as well.

The denigration of the "BR sandwich" is a pathetic standing joke , much used by stand-up comics in the past , and perpetuated as a cheap jibe by Grant Schapps relatively recently (surprised he did not get in the "wrong kind of snow" jibe as well.

HOWEVER - some truth across the whole UK about low standards of catering in all areas. Not just the railways

Post war expectations were for example , modelled on expectations of the silver screen of Ice Cream Parlours , burger joints and diners etc. It look a long time to recover after Austerity measures and the everage cafe used by most was the ultimate greasy spoon (resturaunts were better of course - but way below the standards of today in terms of choice etc). The UK had "British Resturaunts etc.

Anyway - BR catering was probably not very exciting in the 1970's ( white bread sandwiches with cheese , ham , ham and tomato - and not much else - packaged fruitless pies , crisps in grease proof bags) - "standard" dining cars doing soup , meat and 2 veg , solid puddings with custard or cheddar and crackers.

However - national catering was on the up - and come the Inter City 125 , a very noticeable transformation took place - significantly BR "invented" - the pre packed sandwich of various innovative fillings - (idea of Pru Leith) on train "fast food" like the 20p Express Burger with chips etc etc. BR smartened up station catering , memorable with the Bistro concept (Liverpool St being quite superb) - and so on.

The utter transformation of catering post war from a "desert" to today , took a long time - first in the High St , and later on to the railway. ......there are many books on this matter. It was not all great - and catering almost always lost money.


As certain journalists said - the delight of a prepared in front of you toasted Bacon sandwich on a cold day , served in a MK1 was pretty decent comfort food. (even if the staff were ever so slightly on the fiddle , prepping up on train food from their own resources)



i

 

[Western Lord]

Well Marples had at least part In the cuts. Beeching said in an interview “I had total support of Ernest Marple”.

The Early 50s the Railways were doing alright. It was only in the Mid to Late 50s things started going downhill.

Most of the "Beeching" closures were enacted by a Labour Government which had campaigned to reverse the programme and, of course, in which Marples played no part.

 

[Merseyrailfan]

Most of the "Beeching" closures were enacted by a Labour Government which had campaigned to reverse the programme and, of course, in which Marples played no part.

They did reprive socially neccassary lines through subsidy. We should thank Barbara Castle for that.

She also created PTEs, to improve public transport network of UK cities. Great Example of commuter rail would be Merseyrail, which is also similar to S Bahn in Germany. They have also create Light Rail networkers like Metro in Newport and Metrolink in Manchester,they have really have reduced car dependency to get around urban cities.