Avanti: Are they suffering from poor punctuality at the moment?

[philosopher]

Three out of the four Avanti services I have been on this summer have been delayed by between 20 and 30 minutes. All these services were on the West Midlands route.

For example, the two Birmingham to Euston services I have used were both xx:47 services, Both incoming services arrived late into New Street. They should arrive at xx:27, but they both arrived after xx:40. This caused them to depart late and after the xx:50 West Midlands Trains service to Birmingham International had departed, meaning the train had to crawl to Birmingham International behind the stopping service and then they picked up further delay south of Rugby. Today the service was further delayed south of Watford as it ended up on the slow lines south of Harrow and Wealdstone, probably due to a points failure in Wembley. The previous time I had used this service to Euston there also seemed to be issues in this area.

I know Avanti were never the most punctual operator, but usually the delays are in the order of 5 to 10 minutes, not 20 to 30 minutes. Therefore have I just been unlucky, or are Avanti suffering from poor punctuality this summer?

 

[Oxfordblues]

Recent performance has been dire, to put it charitably. Today was a complete shambles.

In my opinion Avanti would do themselves a big favour by following the lead of Caledonian Sleeper and advertising arrivals at terminal stations later than the working times. For example this morning's Highland Sleeper arrived at Euston 13 minutes late (due 07:47, arrived 08:00) but the advertised arrival is 08:00. So (hey presto!) it was "on-time". Just think how much Avanti would save in Delay Repay if they did a similar trick.

 

[Watershed]

Avanti's punctuality, especially in terms of "time to 3" and "time to 5" (i.e. whether a train is really "on time") is very poor.

On Avanti's side, a lot of their diagrammed turnrounds at Euston, Birmingham and Manchester are too tight to survive contact with reality - 20-25 mins gives barely any leeway for delays. The defensive driving techniques their drivers are taught mean that if a train encounters cautionary aspects, the driver will tend to hold back for several more signals even if they are all green. The dispatch methods are also terribly inefficient - flags and RA even at the quietest stations - so no scope for making up time there either. They also seem to be suffering from a serious shortage of traincrew at certain depots, especially Liverpool and Wolverhampton, resulting in frequent cancellations and curtailments.

The situation isn't helped by Network Rail in terms of the poor reliability of the infrastructure (so much for the never-ending 2-track periods and closures...) and the often ill-considered regulation (putting stoppers in front of fast trains, locking up stations by setting routes for trains that are running early and so forth).

They have all the theoretical capability to run a good service - but it so rarely seems to happen.

 

[Horizon22]

You can do some brief compairson here:

Punctuality & Performance | Avanti West Coast

At the heart of best quality service is the punctuality and reliability of our trains. Learn about our commitment to punctuality and see our punctuality reports.

www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk

Obviously August is not yet available however it suggests July was worse than the annual average for most delays but slightly better for cancellations.

 

[Tramfan]

On Avanti's side, a lot of their diagrammed turnrounds at Euston, Birmingham and Manchester are too tight to survive contact with reality - 20-25 mins gives barely any leeway for delays.

What are the minimum turnarounds for such intercity services out of interest?

Presumably they're being met, just that like you say running trains on a bare minimum turnaround, especially on a busy mixed traffic line offers almost no resilience.

 

[philosopher]

Avanti's punctuality, especially in terms of "time to 3" and "time to 5" (i.e. whether a train is really "on time") is very poor.

On Avanti's side, a lot of their diagrammed turnrounds at Euston, Birmingham and Manchester are too tight to survive contact with reality - 20-25 mins gives barely any leeway for delays. The defensive driving techniques their drivers are taught mean that if a train encounters cautionary aspects, the driver will tend to hold back for several more signals even if they are all green. The dispatch methods are also terribly inefficient - flags and RA even at the quietest stations - so no scope for making up time there either. They also seem to be suffering from a serious shortage of traincrew at certain depots, especially Liverpool and Wolverhampton, resulting in frequent cancellations and curtailments.

The situation isn't helped by Network Rail in terms of the poor reliability of the infrastructure (so much for the never-ending 2-track periods and closures...) and the often ill-considered regulation (putting stoppers in front of fast trains, locking up stations by setting routes for trains that are running early and so forth).

They have all the theoretical capability to run a good service - but it so rarely seems to happen.

I agree with the short turn around. The xx:47 Birmingham New street to Euston only has a twenty minute around time at New Street which leaves very little leeway if something goes wrong.

It probably also contributes heavily to the frequent late boarding of trains at Euston, which Euston is infamous for.

 

[jfollows]

What are the minimum turnarounds for such intercity services out of interest?

Presumably they're being met, just that like you say running trains on a bare minimum turnaround, especially on a busy mixed traffic line offers almost no resilience.

Manchester: 30 minutes minimum “reduced to 27 minutes for a maximum of two turnrounds in each hour”, see https://sacuksprodnrdigital0001.blo...nal Rules/TPR/TPR 2024/V4/TPR 2024 V4 NWC.pdf

 

[nwales58]

Poor at the moment? No, completely normal.

Last week:
Monday 0919 Bangor-Euston cancelled, that's the one that's usually reliable.
Thursday I experienced an 805 for the first time. From Chester to Chester (driver delayed so I diverted). 5 instead of 10 coaches.
Friday at Crewe, 805 arrives, terminates here. It's amazing how many people can squeeze onto a 2 coach 197.

Avanti management clearly wants the north coast to travel some other way.

 

[1D54]

The above makes very depressing but unsurprising reading. Without completely turning this thread political, how much longer will this be allowed to continue? Avanti are on notice from Haigh.

 

[Moonshot]

I was on one late morning earlier today.....it lost 52 minutes between Euston and Manchester due to points failure at Watford junction

The above makes very depressing but unsurprising reading. Without completely turning this thread political, how much longer will this be allowed to continue? Avanti are on notice from Haigh.

Putting them under OLR won't make a scrap of difference

 

[jfollows]

Reversing the last timetable change to remove the extra stops would be beneficial: compared to the original VHF timetable every Manchester train has one additional stop in each direction, and the Manchester Piccadilly arrival and departure timings are unchanged, so trains arrive in Euston later because of the additional up direction stop and have to leave Euston earlier because of the additional down direction stop. So a layover of, say, 37 minutes in a self-contained Manchester-London-Manchester diagram which used to be the norm reduces to something like 28 minutes, which is probably too short, and so the routes probably have to inter-work more.

 

[Efini92]

The defensive driving techniques their drivers are taught mean that if a train encounters cautionary aspects, the driver will tend to hold back for several more signals even if they are all green.

I can’t say I’ve seen that in the working instructions.

I was on one late morning earlier today.....it lost 52 minutes between Euston and Manchester due to points failure at Watford junction

It was at Willesden the points failure.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Was there some problem with bay platform 6 at Carlisle station today?

When I passed through earlier, the 1454 Northern service for Newcastle was stood, awaiting departure, on through platform 4

No chance therefore of the Avanti service from Glasgow Central for London Euston (1449 departure from Carlisle) being able to use platform 4, had it been running on time, which, however, it wasn't.

 

[The Planner]

Blaming turnarounds is a very broad brush. The WCML is pretty similar to the ECML and more lax than the Western. At Euston its 20 for a West Mids, 25 for a Man Picc or Liverpool and 35 for a Glasgow. On the ECML at Kings X its 30 for a Leeds or York, 35 for a Newcastle and 40 for a Scotland service. Western at Paddington use 15 for Cardiff and Bristol for 800s, 20 for Exeter if its a 10 car, 15 if not. Plymouth, Penzance, Carmarthen and Swansea gets 20 for a 5 car and 25 for a 10 car.

How far do you extend the turnarounds to have enough leeway? 30, 35 for a Birmingham, 45 for a Glasgow? How many new diagrams does that need and can it be platformed?

Same goes for infrastructure and saying there are too many blocks or two track timetable, where are the faults happening? If its north of Crewe, then you get next to no maintenance time.

Do SRTs (sectional running times) and TPR (timetable planning rules) need refining? if so then the timetable is out of kilter.

The list goes on.

 

[irish_rail]

Blaming turnarounds is a very broad brush. The WCML is pretty similar to the ECML and more lax than the Western. At Euston its 20 for a West Mids, 25 for a Man Picc or Liverpool and 35 for a Glasgow. On the ECML at Kings X its 30 for a Leeds or York, 35 for a Newcastle and 40 for a Scotland service. Western at Paddington use 15 for Cardiff and Bristol for 800s, 20 for Exeter if its a 10 car, 15 if not. Plymouth, Penzance, Carmarthen and Swansea gets 20 for a 5 car and 25 for a 10 car.

How far do you extend the turnarounds to have enough leeway? 30, 35 for a Birmingham, 45 for a Glasgow? How many new diagrams does that need and can it be platformed?

Same goes for infrastructure and saying there are too many blocks or two track timetable, where are the faults happening? If its north of Crewe, then you get next to no maintenance time.

Do SRTs (sectional running times) and TPR (timetable planning rules) need refining? if so then the timetable is out of kilter.

The list goes on.

And too be fair it doesn't exactly work well on the Western, infact its a complete shambles. The tight turnarounds play a major factor in poor performance on the Western. Its an issue that needs looking at across the intercity TOCs, probably , as you say less so Avanti which is reasonably generous , but certainly for GWR. One Plymouth train has 17 minutes from arriving in from Bristol to departing towards Plymouth! How can that be resilient?!

 

[Krokodil]

0919 Bangor-Euston cancelled, that's the one that's usually reliable.

I'm not sure how you work that out. That train has had a 45% cancellation rate over the last four weeks, second only (across the whole company) to its inbound working (05:30 Birmingham to Holyhead, 50% cancellation rate).

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I'm not sure how you work that out. That train has had a 45% cancellation rate over the last four weeks, second only (across the whole company) to its inbound working (05:30 Birmingham to Holyhead, 50% cancellation rate).

1A26 appears to be running from Holyhead today, although the incoming 1D80 started from Crewe (ie the reverse of what typically happens when it works Birmingham-Crewe and is then cancelled!).
Avanti do seem to change the formations of the 805s so you don't know whether a 5-car or 10-car will turn up - if it does.
There seems to be less joining/dividing en route than in the old Voyager timetable, I don't know if that is a reliability issue - it worked pretty well on 221s.

 

[Krokodil]

1A26 has been all right for the last week, but earlier this month it was getting cancelled (in part or in full) more than it ran.

 

[MarkWi72]

Just checked Traksy. Only 1 out of 5 Avanti's ontime. The rest are in red type. 3 weeks back I was on 9G45. It was on time that evening. The following evening it was 40 minutes late. I've seen it late most times since. It is 9 and a half minutes late this evening.

 

[12LDA28C]

I was on one late morning earlier today.....it lost 52 minutes between Euston and Manchester due to points failure at Watford junction


Putting them under OLR won't make a scrap of difference

You're absolutely right if the delays are as a result of infrastructure issues such as points failures.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I was on one late morning earlier today.....it lost 52 minutes between Euston and Manchester due to points failure at Watford junction


Putting them under OLR won't make a scrap of difference

Given the fiasco OLR are making of LNER best leave them alone until GBR has a viable management structure in place

 

[Bald Rick]

Just to balance - every Avanti train I have been on in the last few weeks has been within a minute or two of on time, and severla have arrived at destination early. I even missed one today as I was expecting it to be a few minutes late and it wasn’t.

 

[Watershed]

i even missed one today as I was expecting it to be a few minutes late and it wasn’t.

That's always the way, isn't it! The one time you cut it fine because the train is late 9 times out of 10 is the occasion on which you miss it as it's punctual...

 

[OscarH]

Recent performance has been dire, to put it charitably. Today was a complete shambles.

In my opinion Avanti would do themselves a big favour by following the lead of Caledonian Sleeper and advertising arrivals at terminal stations later than the working times. For example this morning's Highland Sleeper arrived at Euston 13 minutes late (due 07:47, arrived 08:00) but the advertised arrival is 08:00. So (hey presto!) it was "on-time". Just think how much Avanti would save in Delay Repay if they did a similar trick.

Artificially changing public times to not match the working times to dodge delay repay is not acceptable. (the Caledonian sleeper is a bit of a special case and I'm more accepting of the need there)

 

[DarloRich]

Just to balance - every Avanti train I have been on in the last few weeks has been within a minute or two of on time, and severla have arrived at destination early. I even missed one today as I was expecting it to be a few minutes late and it wasn’t.

A sensible counterpoint to the hysteria.

The honest answer is that punctuality is variable. In recent weeks I have been on very late trains and trains that were bang on time and waiting at stations for the clock to catch them up.

 

[12LDA28C]

A sensible counterpoint to the hysteria.

The honest answer is that punctuality is variable. In recent weeks I have been on very late trains and trains that were bang on time and waiting at stations for the clock to catch them up.

And worth mentioning that it's not really fair to blame Avanti for delays caused by infrastructure and weather-related issues such as points failures, flooding and so on.

 

[DarloRich]

And worth mentioning that it's not really fair to blame Avanti for delays caused by infrastructure and weather-related issues such as points failures, flooding and so on.

agreed - although with GBR coming we should stop looking at these distinctions. The railway has failed to run the train on time.

 

[Sealink]

Recent performance has been dire, to put it charitably. Today was a complete shambles.

In my opinion Avanti would do themselves a big favour by following the lead of Caledonian Sleeper and advertising arrivals at terminal stations later than the working times. For example this morning's Highland Sleeper arrived at Euston 13 minutes late (due 07:47, arrived 08:00) but the advertised arrival is 08:00. So (hey presto!) it was "on-time". Just think how much Avanti would save in Delay Repay if they did a similar trick.

I was thinking today, there's a lot to be said for timetable padding.

 

[Efini92]

Just to balance - every Avanti train I have been on in the last few weeks has been within a minute or two of on time, and severla have arrived at destination early. I even missed one today as I was expecting it to be a few minutes late and it wasn’t.

Will you travel on my trains had a bad few weeks with delays.