• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Chiltern v Cross Country why the difference

Status
Not open for further replies.
S

SkinnyDave

Established Member
Joined
11 Mar 2012
Messages
1,242
Hi,

I read on here all the time that people are very happy with Chiltern as a TOC but not Cross Country.

As they are both owned by Arriva why can't XC not use Chiltern as a reference point..

Please don't say it's all down to Rolling Stock
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

Y

YorkshireBear

Established Member
Joined
23 Jul 2010
Messages
8,692
SkinnyDave said:
Hi,

I read on here all the time that people are very happy with Chiltern as a TOC but not Cross Country.

As they are both owned by Arriva why can't XC not use Chiltern as a reference point..

Please don't say it's all down to Rolling Stock
Click to expand...

Owning companies do not always mean the company will be the same. Look at First... they have so much variety in their customer service across all their different brands.

Mainly XC is just inadequate for what it services in terms of rolling stock catering provision and often customer service IMHO.

And also Chiltern has never been owned by Arriva. It was owned by DB i believe who then bought Arriva.
 
LNW-GW Joint

LNW-GW Joint

Veteran Member
Joined
22 Feb 2011
Messages
19,693
Location
Mold, Clwyd
YorkshireBear said:
Owning companies do not always mean the company will be the same. Look at First... they have so much variety in their customer service across all their different brands.

Mainly XC is just inadequate for what it services in terms of rolling stock catering provision and often customer service IMHO.

And also Chiltern has never been owned by Arriva. It was owned by DB i believe who then bought Arriva.
Click to expand...

Chiltern, like XC and ATW is owned by Arriva UK Trains (itself owned by Arriva Group and then DB).
At some level there is a common management, not that you'd notice on the ground.
 
S

Simon11

Established Member
Joined
7 Nov 2010
Messages
1,335
SkinnyDave said:
Hi,

I read on here all the time that people are very happy with Chiltern as a TOC but not Cross Country.

As they are both owned by Arriva why can't XC not use Chiltern as a reference point..

Please don't say it's all down to Rolling Stock
Click to expand...

Hmm nothing new here.... FGW v FCC, C2C v NXEC.....

All different type of tocs with different business plans.

 
MK Tom

MK Tom

Established Member
Joined
31 Aug 2011
Messages
2,422
Location
Milton Keynes
CrossCountry also spend a lot of their routes intermingling with other operators and use busier stations. Chiltern have a lot of route to themselves and can therefore respond faster to delays and are less prone to disruption caused by third parties.
 
tbtc

tbtc

Veteran Member
Joined
16 Dec 2008
Messages
17,882
Location
Reston City Centre
Before we get into another lot of rants about the toilets in Voyagers, it should be pointed out that those happiest with Chiltern are the longer distance passengers who are using the DB-owned franchise as a cheaper alternative for London - Warwickshire/ West Midlands travel than the Virgin services from Euston (those I know around High Wycombe are less enamoured about the Chiltern focus on the Birmingham trade instead of the "bread and butter).

Always easier to have good passenger opinions when the passengers have chosen to travel with you (see also WSMR's high passenger satisfaction rating etc) than those who have little alternative (i.e. XC).
 
D

Daz28

Member
Joined
11 Feb 2010
Messages
310
Location
Elmstead Woods
tbtc said:
Always easier to have good passenger opinions when the passengers have chosen to travel with you (see also WSMR's high passenger satisfaction rating etc) than those who have little alternative (i.e. XC).
Click to expand...

That argument is a little of the tail wagging the dog.

People choose Chiltern because they offer good customer service, competitive fares and mostly comfortable trains which more often than not have sufficient capacity to meet demand.

Where possible, people tend to avoid Crosscountry due to their failure to provide most of the above.
 
gimmea50anyday

gimmea50anyday

Established Member
Joined
8 Jan 2013
Messages
3,456
Location
Back Cab
Brand reputation also tarnishes a franchise aswell, after all Arriva are not particularly well known for providing a good bus service and as it is well known that arriva own CrossCountry franchise. that in itself will have a public perception effect on the company image whereas chiltern has always reminded relatively independant and not known to be tied to a major conglomerate. The general public know the arriva brand, but will not recognise DB.
 
W

W-on-Sea

Established Member
Joined
18 Dec 2009
Messages
1,337
In many ways, XC must be, from an operational point of view, the franchise from hell, or the nearest one to it, anyway: very lengthy mileage, almost all of which is shared with other TOCs, in some cases with frequent services and of various types - local, regional, long-distance - (and in some areas, extensive freight traffic, too); and rolling stock that is in some regards less than ideal for the services operated. This latter point could impact upon the ability to offer imaginative or appealing ticketing options, too... As such, all these circumstances mean that XC have a lot less, effective, control over the operations of their network (particularly when things go wrong) than do Chiltern - which have a partly self-contained network that has had a great deal of recent investment, and which (in part as a result of past neglect/underuse) has had a chance to grow. The longer term of the Chiltern franchise has also been a factor in encouraging innovation - and attempting to tap new markets.
 
Yew

Yew

Established Member
Joined
12 Mar 2011
Messages
6,551
Location
UK
Get some more trains on XC (HST, Voyagers, Olympic Mk2 rakes, whatever) And the overcrowding will reduce, in turn allowing competitive advance fares. Solving 90% of the problems with the XC franchise.
 
asylumxl

asylumxl

Established Member
Joined
12 Feb 2009
Messages
4,260
Location
Hiding in your shadow
I'm of the belief people on this forum approve of Chiltern because they run loco hauled services. This is then coupled with an anti-Virgin bias, which leads to people claiming it's the best thing since sliced bread.

In reality the majority of fast services will be 168s and their journey times longer than the headline figures Chiltern advertise.

Personally I'd rather pay the "premium" and have better frequency and journey times on the WC. I don't know if anyone will agree, but I'd say the loadings on VT services to Birmingham tell their own story.
 
HSTEd

HSTEd

Veteran Member
Joined
14 Jul 2011
Messages
16,739
Chiltern also run most of their services on lines where they are the primary operator, and in many cases the only operator.

Its not like XC which is all over the place fitting its services between hundreds of other services from dozens of other operators of all types.
 
matt

matt

Forum Staff
Staff Member
Global Moderator
Joined
30 Jun 2005
Messages
7,829
Location
Rugby
gimmea50anyday said:
Brand reputation also tarnishes a franchise aswell, after all Arriva are not particularly well known for providing a good bus service and as it is well known that arriva own CrossCountry franchise. that in itself will have a public perception effect on the company image whereas chiltern has always reminded relatively independant and not known to be tied to a major conglomerate. The general public know the arriva brand, but will not recognise DB.
Click to expand...

But do they though? I expect quite a lot of people probably won't know that Arriva run CrossCountry.
 
MK Tom

MK Tom

Established Member
Joined
31 Aug 2011
Messages
2,422
Location
Milton Keynes
HSTEd said:
Chiltern also run most of their services on lines where they are the primary operator, and in many cases the only operator.

Its not like XC which is all over the place fitting its services between hundreds of other services from dozens of other operators of all types.
Click to expand...

I said that already... :p

asylumxl said:
I'm of the belief people on this forum approve of Chiltern because they run loco hauled services. This is then coupled with an anti-Virgin bias, which leads to people claiming it's the best thing since sliced bread.

In reality the majority of fast services will be 168s and their journey times longer than the headline figures Chiltern advertise.

Personally I'd rather pay the "premium" and have better frequency and journey times on the WC. I don't know if anyone will agree, but I'd say the loadings on VT services to Birmingham tell their own story.
Click to expand...

Kind of. People are overly harsh on Virgin when you consider the constant infrastructure issues with which they contend and the amount they've invested in the WCML (and the passenger numbers that's generated). Chiltern are awesome and do do a great job, but they do largely run on their own lines which helps a lot, they use much smaller and less busy stations and they get a lot of street cred among enthusiasts for stuff like the bubbles and loco haulage. I don't have a Virgin/Chiltern preference but all your points are valid.
 
gimmea50anyday

gimmea50anyday

Established Member
Joined
8 Jan 2013
Messages
3,456
Location
Back Cab
I always thought virgin was the better company than the current XC franchise owner. Many former colleagues of mine who still work for XC have said the same thing....
 
317666

317666

Established Member
Joined
4 Sep 2009
Messages
1,771
Location
East Anglia
asylumxl said:
I'm of the belief people on this forum approve of Chiltern because they run loco hauled services. This is then coupled with an anti-Virgin bias, which leads to people claiming it's the best thing since sliced bread.

In reality the majority of fast services will be 168s and their journey times longer than the headline figures Chiltern advertise.

Personally I'd rather pay the "premium" and have better frequency and journey times on the WC. I don't know if anyone will agree, but I'd say the loadings on VT services to Birmingham tell their own story.
Click to expand...

100% agreed with this post. If I book in advance, going with Virgin is actually cheaper than Chiltern. Why? Virgin offer through advances from Cambridge to Birmingham via the WCML. Chiltern don't offer through advances from Cambridge to Birmingham via their route. 9 out of 10 times the Virgin through advance is cheaper than Chiltern advances to/from London along with a day return to London + tube travel to get to Marylebone.

As far as CrossCountry vs Chiltern goes, as others have said the franchises aren't all that comparable because of the different services they each operate. Chiltern largely focus on London to Birmingham express services with some commuter services too, largely operating on their own line. On the other hand, XC run long-distance services which connect lots of different lines and TOCs, but at the same time provide a more regional service due to the frequent (compared to other long-distance TOCs such as VT) stops. Generally people don't use them for the full length of the train's journey. If you want my honest opinion, I think Chiltern's whole upgrade and marketing their wonderful new faster services is a bit pointless. There's already an alternative cheap way of getting from London to Birmingham, and that's London Midland. Plus HS2 is coming in the future, providing yet another alternative.
 
LNW-GW Joint

LNW-GW Joint

Veteran Member
Joined
22 Feb 2011
Messages
19,693
Location
Mold, Clwyd
The order of profitability (to Arriva) of their 3 franchises (from the latest accounts, March Modern Railways p29) is:
ATW £20.5m
XC -£30.0m
Chiltern -£57.1m

So at Arriva HQ, Chiltern's is not a model to replicate.
In DB's opaque annual report, XC and Chiltern have improved on this performance in 2012, but ATW is still the star - consistent profits.
It's also one reason why no-one wants to throw more money at XC rolling stock.
 
M

MichaelAMW

Member
Joined
18 Jun 2010
Messages
1,012
asylumxl said:
I'm of the belief people on this forum approve of Chiltern because they run loco hauled services. This is then coupled with an anti-Virgin bias, which leads to people claiming it's the best thing since sliced bread.

In reality the majority of fast services will be 168s and their journey times longer than the headline figures Chiltern advertise.

Personally I'd rather pay the "premium" and have better frequency and journey times on the WC. I don't know if anyone will agree, but I'd say the loadings on VT services to Birmingham tell their own story.
Click to expand...

I am a massive fan of Chiltern, but then I know that is largely because I grew up in High Wycombe, with a two-hourly DMU to Banbury and hourly to London, and I harbour all sorts of nostalgic stuff like semaphore signals, Class 115 DMUs, no passengers cluttering up the trains blah blah.

Chiltern seem to be doing a good job, on the back of BR's Total Route Modernisation, but for me the most pertinent point is the vastly greater number of seats that daily go from Euston to Birmingham with Virgin compared with those from Marylebone with Chiltern. I would imagine it's 3 or 4 times as many.
 
C

ChiefPlanner

Established Member
Joined
6 Sep 2011
Messages
7,787
Location
Herts
LNW-GW Joint said:
The order of profitability (to Arriva) of their 3 franchises (from the latest accounts, March Modern Railways p29) is:
ATW £20.5m
XC -£30.0m
Chiltern -£57.1m

So at Arriva HQ, Chiltern's is not a model to replicate.
In DB's opaque annual report, XC and Chiltern have improved on this performance in 2012, but ATW is still the star - consistent profits.
It's also one reason why no-one wants to throw more money at XC rolling stock.
Click to expand...

Well said (as usual) . plus XC put in a fair amount of extra capacity with the reconditioned HST sets off the scrapline (more or less) .....
 
B

Blindtraveler

Established Member
Joined
28 Feb 2011
Messages
9,677
Location
Nowhere near enough to a Pacer :(
mnk heres my take on it. If we ignore the voyager problem - XC came in and within a few years the AP availabilitty has gone down, prices up and customer service at all levels has been cut back. They also give the impression in almost everything that they are doing it because they
have
to rather than actually wanting to and the customer experience reflects this. the problem becomes particularly obvious if you go from an XC Service to say an EC or VT one in a day, the last 2 at least give the impression of knowing what they are about and are happy with it.
As to Chilton I am not a huge fan of 170s but the older 168s are of a design that makes using them plesent and staff always seam plesent and good at there job.
I also find on train services of a good standard and if this qualitty as well as new appropriate stock could be brought to XC then problem solved!
 
Starmill

Starmill

Veteran Member
Joined
18 May 2012
Messages
23,395
Location
Bolton
LNW-GW Joint said:
The order of profitability (to Arriva) of their 3 franchises (from the latest accounts, March Modern Railways p29) is:
ATW £20.5m
XC -£30.0m
Chiltern -£57.1m

So at Arriva HQ, Chiltern's is not a model to replicate.
In DB's opaque annual report, XC and Chiltern have improved on this performance in 2012, but ATW is still the star - consistent profits.
It's also one reason why no-one wants to throw more money at XC rolling stock.
Click to expand...

I don't get it... how is ATW the star?
 
SS4

SS4

Established Member
Joined
30 Jan 2011
Messages
8,589
Location
Birmingham
asylumxl said:
I'm of the belief people on this forum approve of Chiltern because they run loco hauled services. This is then coupled with an anti-Virgin bias, which leads to people claiming it's the best thing since sliced bread.

In reality the majority of fast services will be 168s and their journey times longer than the headline figures Chiltern advertise.

Personally I'd rather pay the "premium" and have better frequency and journey times on the WC. I don't know if anyone will agree, but I'd say the loadings on VT services to Birmingham tell their own story.
Click to expand...

By the same token XC suffer because they run voyagers.

Chiltern are decent at what they do but I didn't like their simplification which seemed like a justification to increase fares and change restriction codes - the latter contributing to the former. There is almost no difference in price on Advance tickets if one books early enough and whilst Chiltern have WiFi I'd rather travel with LM as the time difference isn't that much and I prefer 350s :lol:

Edit: As for XC I don't have much reason to travel with them since my journeys are either to London or in the West Midlands, the last time I was on a packed train out of New Street but then it was peak time so that's to be expected (I was going to Wolves on a Daytripper so I didn't pay the extortionate fare ;))
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top