Avanti West Coast cancellations

[peter166]

I’d have thought it’d be sensible for someone (DfT or Commonwealth Games organisers) to enquire about getting WMT to run a couple of late night trains from Birmingham to Euston.

12 car 350s calling International, Coventry, Rugby, Milton Keynes. Be more reliable than Avanti.

Good idea. Possibly also to Crewe /Liverpool. Contingencies will be essential to compensate for Avanti's inevitable failure to deliver its timetabled service

 

[LYuen]

I've written this before and I'll write it again as, yet again, I'm looking for a couple of days in or around London (Sun > Tues) and I will totally avoid Avanti. Options are to fly (yes, even battling with the airport is better than battling with Avanti) which isn't particulary green, Manchester/Crewe/London via Northern and LNW, or find myself in Leeds or Sheffield and go that way.

ABA - Anything But Avanti.

Going via Leeds with LNER and Northern is a good choice, especially down lines from London. Sometimes there are good first-class deals for LNER, and 'advance' tickets for Northern are available until the very last moment.
Have done a trip this way and will definitely do it again.

 

[Clarence Yard]

Totally agree with your commentary. MD First Rail Steve Montgomery & MD Avanti West Coast Phil Whittingham both need to be held accountable and resign & the DfT/OLR takeover ASAP

What good is that going to do? Avanti needs more train crew, whoever is in charge.

What they should be accountable for is coming up with an emergency timetable that they can actually resource and run reliably.

 

[duncanp]

No idea how Manchester is served by Cross Country, on Avanti one would need at least one change (Stafford) and that would be on to a cancelled train from Euston. Weekend travel to the Games anyone??

Cross Country run an hourly direct service from Birmingham to Manchester.

 

[43096]

What good is that going to do? Avanti needs more train crew, whoever is in charge.

What they should be accountable for is coming up with an emergency timetable that they can actually resource and run reliably.

They've had their chance at that and haven't delivered. Part of the problem is that whenever performance is an issue at any First TOC it just becomes a game of excuses (currently in vogue are Covid/DfT/staff; it's all rather "the dog ate my homework"), rather than taking ownership. It all rather gives the impression that management are weak and can't, well, manage.

 

[Howardh]

Cross Country run an hourly direct service from Birmingham to Manchester.

Is the last train reliable?

 

[duncanp]

Is the last train reliable?

The last train (21:57 ex New Street : arr Manchester Piccadilly 23:28) is running tonight, and I would have thought that Cross Country would not want to cancel last trains during the games if at all possible.

 

[Parham Wood]

So is anyone here who has been affected by Avanti cancellations (or even not ) going to write to their MP, Avanti CEO, the DFT, A and Minister for Transport (whatever title covers this nowadays) and complain / ask them what they are going to do about it? You could also ask about a formal statement on rerouting if your journey is delayed by 60 mins and see what they say. Probably get nowhere but any reply could be then given to the press.

 

[Failed Unit]

So is anyone here who has been affected by Avanti cancellations (or even not ) going to write to their MP, Avanti CEO, the DFT, A and Minister for Transport (whatever title covers this nowadays) and complain / ask them what they are going to do about it? You could also ask about a formal statement on rerouting if your journey is delayed by 60 mins and see what they say. Probably get nowhere but any reply could be then given to the press.

I don’t think good old Grant cares. Considering what he lets GTR get away with on his own line.

seriously reading this thread is concerning. Planning a trip to Manchester. LNER seems a safe bet. Crossing the pennies could be a challenge. Maybe best drive. no wonder the railways are struggling when you dare not use many TOC. Particularly at weekends when you either have mass cancellations or unable to physically board (or both)

I wonder how much Virgin had to do with this problem. Why recruit when you have lost the franchise. GTR always blamed the last operator(s)

 

[Merseysider]

Is the last train reliable?

In 4 years of taking the last XC on a weekly/monthly basis I’ve only had it cancelled twice (and neither of those were their fault - fire / trespass).

YMMV but XC are a lot more reliable than Avanti atm.

 

[Surreytraveller]

Good idea. Possibly also to Crewe /Liverpool. Contingencies will be essential to compensate for Avanti's inevitable failure to deliver its timetabled service

Management will crawl out the woodwork for the games I'd have thought. Otherwise they'll be questions asked. Nobody cares about the rest of the time

 

[C J Snarzell]

I'm very surprised there hasn't been a bit more in the media about this current situation with Avanti.

The Northern & TPE timetable escapade in 2018/19 got quite alot of news coverage. At one stage Granada Reports ran a special evening edition from Preston Railway Station where the late Tony Morris (bless him) challenged a couple of the senior people from both operators about the fact they were leaving some passengers in very precarious and vulnerable situations because their performance was so bad.

CJ

 

[The Prisoner]

Would love to know the proportion of Avanti’s revenue being paid out in delay repay. I’ve had my last three journeys back in full.

Can this be sustainable? When do they throw in the towel?

Let’s ignore that when they do run north of Preston they actually try and keep to the service that runs’ stopping pattern leaving the likes of Penrith and oxenholme without services north or south for over three hours (coupled with TPE’s abdication)

As per another post the railway in some parts of the country risks becoming redundant. Probably suits the government agenda.

 

[childwallblues]

The most logical thing would be for TPE Newcastle Edinburgh services to extend to Glasgow as that’s where the depot is based so it saved pass rides for crew

I thought the depot was at Edinburgh

 

[Furrball]

I see that once again the last EUS-GLC has been terminated at Preston

 

[BJames]

I have to admit - I've not been following this at all (says a lot about the media coverage!) - I missed this thread before and had been quite busy this week so have only just had the time to read it. I travelled down from Crewe today and I was checking the departures in the morning and saw a huge amount of cancellations but no disruption notice - fortunately mine (15:29 to EUS, ex Manchester) was only running 3 minutes late - but I didn't realise quite how lucky I was for it to be ok. The only other Avanti journey I've had this year so far was down from Edinburgh and was delayed (almost missed connection at Crewe - but the EMR Guard actually did hold the train as so many people were running for it).

Had no problems at all with LNER this year and only very minor with EMR. Avanti is, sadly, the outlier, as 15 pages of experiences in this thread show - makes for grim reading. It certainly isn't going to encourage travel on the WCML - but sadly taints impressions of the rail network more widely. Let's see what the second day of their revised timetable brings for them...

 

[Palmyra.]

Not sure why the staff would be ashamed of themselves but hey-Ho, he’s really going into raving rant mode.

Wouldn’t you be feeling this way if you had multiple excess costs due to these train cancellations - theatre tickets, hotels, restaurant deposits will not be reimbursed for someone not showing up and having zero advance warning of this happening isn’t great

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Jul 2022 ==

I'm sure Avanti management are the kind of 'hardworking' right sort who wouldn't attract the ire of the Tories, no matter what damage they do. The monkey/organ grinder relationship is a special one.



Well now he sounds rather silly.

How exactly does this person sound silly because they showed up for a train that was cancelled when they clearly knew the day before that it was going to be cancelled yet didn’t tell customers

 

[krus_aragon]

Of course the Avanti website still reports Good Service!

Should that be "Good [God, there's a] Service!" ?

 

[Some guy]

I thought the depot was at Edinburgh

No the only tpe depot in Scotland is Glasgow

 

[the sniper]

How exactly does this person sound silly because they showed up for a train that was cancelled when they clearly knew the day before that it was going to be cancelled yet didn’t tell customers

"You clearly do cancel trains for the sake of it"

Doesn't really make any sense. And to what end?

"anyone who works for them should be ashamed of themselves"

I'm not sure why the likes of their cleaners should feel "ashamed of themselves" if they've done their job correctly, because those far higher up, paid far more, supposedly for the responsibility they have, haven't done theirs. Or even under circumstances that aren't their fault either.


It's people with this attitude that flail about when angry, throwing abuse at the kids who work at McDonalds because the milkshake machine isn't working or throwing a punch at a nurse because they've had to wait too long to be seen for a drunken injury. In general, it's a mentality that can be dangerous if normalised. I find these types can also sometimes be oblivious to irony that they're actually awful as people themselves and/or useless at their own jobs, if they have one.

The passenger is entirely entitled to be very angry/upset, but I can't condone silliness like this. Where does it end? They're already lasing out at the person doing the social media, who I presume isn't responsible for cancelling their train either...

 

[Watershed]

Would love to know the proportion of Avanti’s revenue being paid out in delay repay. I’ve had my last three journeys back in full.

Can this be sustainable? When do they throw in the towel?

Let’s ignore that when they do run north of Preston they actually try and keep to the service that runs’ stopping pattern leaving the likes of Penrith and oxenholme without services north or south for over three hours (coupled with TPE’s abdication)

As per another post the railway in some parts of the country risks becoming redundant. Probably suits the government agenda.

They don't carry any revenue risk. So they can happily continue like this forever.

 

[Moonshot]

They don't carry any revenue risk. So they can happily continue like this forever.

Indeed .....if they did carry the risk, you can be sure they would be straining every sinew to get all the issues sorted

 

[mandub]

What good is that going to do? Avanti needs more train crew, whoever is in charge.

What they should be accountable for is coming up with an emergency timetable that they can actually resource and run reliably.

They could immediately try to build bridges with existing staff and get more services running. Rest day agreements, review/remove new unpopular rostering implementations etc.
It's not hard IF there is any will to do so.
In Avanti case I don't know if it's the DfT or themselves who would be able to sanction actions such as these?
Either way, it's not happened and it's therefore a choice to run the service they are doing. They could be running more trains while they recruit and train up.

And are they actually recruiting enough staff.to.fix this medium/long term.......I know drivers who are in their talent pool for 12+ months waiting for Man Picc jobs.

 

[Watershed]

Indeed .....if they did carry the risk, you can be sure they would be straining every sinew to get all the issues sorted

I don't doubt that efforts are being made. But with the DfT in charge of the purse-strings there is a limit to what they can do within their current funding.

 

[Falcon1200]

Barring major incidents such as the Lamington Viaduct closure in 2016, yesterday must have been the worst day ever for Glasgow/London train performance. Of the 14 trains booked to run, precisely one, 1M18 the 1740, departed Glasgow on time; The rest were either late or cancelled, and as 1M18 only ran as far as Preston, not one single train ran as booked and on time from Central to Euston.

 

[Huntergreed]

Barring major incidents such as the Lamington Viaduct closure in 2016, yesterday must have been the worst day ever for Glasgow/London train performance. Of the 14 trains booked to run, precisely one, 1M18 the 1740, departed Glasgow on time; The rest were either late or cancelled, and as 1M18 only ran as far as Preston, not one single train ran as booked and on time from Central to Euston.

The damage this is doing is irreversible and severe. I’ve given up on relying on Avanti to get to Glasgow now and drive instead, which I really don’t want to have to do.

I know I’m not alone in that. Nobody I’ve spoken to who has used them recently has had a pleasant experience whatsoever. They’re either cancelled, severely delayed or, if they are lucky enough to choose the rare “on time” service, it is packed beyond belief with passengers from the previous 2 cancelled services.

Avanti are the worst intercity TOC (arguably the worst TOC!) we’ve ever had in this country and need their franchise stripped immediately.

 

[Failed Unit]

Is the Glasgow- London flow heading via Edinburgh. 1 hour longer and a change I know. But more reliable.

 

[L401CJF]

The damage this is doing is irreversible and severe. I’ve given up on relying on Avanti to get to Glasgow now and drive instead, which I really don’t want to have to do.

I know I’m not alone in that. Nobody I’ve spoken to who has used them recently has had a pleasant experience whatsoever. They’re either cancelled, severely delayed or, if they are lucky enough to choose the rare “on time” service, it is packed beyond belief with passengers from the previous 2 cancelled services.

Avanti are the worst intercity TOC (arguably the worst TOC!) we’ve ever had in this country and need their franchise stripped immediately.

I agree, however this isn't just affecting Avanti customers. A good example being Crewe-Chester-Holyhead.

The mass cancellations from Avanti this week has meant extra passengers having to use Transport for Wales services which are already suffering from lack of carriages - meaning plenty of overcrowding and people left behind - plenty of which wont have been Avanti customers but are still being affected by the knock on of this. Yet more people who experience that once and decide to drive next time.

I assume this applies in other areas too on LNWR etc, but I cant conment on that as I've not been down there recently.

I do not for the life of me understand why there has been no incentive to sort this out!

 

[mandub]

I do not for the life of me understand why there has been no incentive to sort this out!

I guess it's just the money.
DfT don't want to let the TOC's spend any more on traincrew needed to run these services.
They won't say so. The TOC's won't say so.
But it seems apparent.

 

[the sniper]

I do not for the life of me understand why there has been no incentive to sort this out!

I think the Tory DfT would equate that to buying gas from the Russians, in their war with the workers... And they're willing to accept the consequences of not doing so, because it doesn't really affect them.