East Coast least punctual

[OMGitsDAVE]

A new BBC report says that East Coast is the least punctual train company, according to Network Rail.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11444412

 

[DaveNewcastle]

I'm going to jump in to EC's defence on this.
As the BBC article notes, most of the dealys were attributable to infrastructure issues.

Operating so many long-distance services so frequently every day (incl the 560 mile London-Inverness journey), EC are exposed to a very high risk of failures in the NR infrastrucure.
By way of contrast, there will be other TOCs (with relatively short track distances to cover), whose delays are entirely of their own creation, and other TOCs whose delays will be attributable to rolling stock issues (arguably a responsibility shared with DfT).

 

[paul1609]

During the summer I've been using rail between Ashford International and Inverkeithing on business. Whilst there have been inevitable delays due to infrastructure most of mine have been down to sloppy operating proceedure and poor regulation.

In about 5 journeys north during this summer no trains have arrived on time or within my official connection at Waverley.

I think 1 of the trains was advertised as ready to board 15 mins before departure time whilst 2 didnt start boarding till well after departure time. In one case without any announcements it appeared as one train had been cancelled as 400 people tried to get to customer information nearly 15 mins after scheduled it was suddenly announced as boarding on a platform where there had been train for at least 30 mins!

The service is still hampered by far too many calls at stations in the North East many of whom seem to attract very little custom. In my opinion no off peak London to Edinburgh services should stop at Peterborough, Doncaster, Darlington or Durham.

With the execption of Durham stops at all these stations seem to incur a huge time penalty. Darlington seems to be the worst offender where the average express trains seems to start getting signal checked about 10 miles out. Eventually you are bought to a stand just outside the station so a 2 car pacer can be let in to your platform in front of you. Eventually you trundle over some extremely speed restricted turnouts off the mainline into the station arriving 12 mins late when you left York on time. To make matters worst Darlington never seems to have more than a dozen passengers joining or leaving the train.

I'm back on Easyjet for the autumn, the new franchisee really does needs to get to grips if it wants to attract business passengers from air.

Nationalised East Coast no thanks!

 

[blue sabre]

During the summer I've been using rail between Ashford International and Inverkeithing on business. Whilst there have been inevitable delays due to infrastructure most of mine have been down to sloppy operating proceedure and poor regulation.

In about 5 journeys north during this summer no trains have arrived on time or within my official connection at Waverley.

I think 1 of the trains was advertised as ready to board 15 mins before departure time whilst 2 didnt start boarding till well after departure time. In one case without any announcements it appeared as one train had been cancelled as 400 people tried to get to customer information nearly 15 mins after scheduled it was suddenly announced as boarding on a platform where there had been train for at least 30 mins!

The service is still hampered by far too many calls at stations in the North East many of whom seem to attract very little custom. In my opinion no off peak London to Edinburgh services should stop at Peterborough, Doncaster, Darlington or Durham.

With the execption of Durham stops at all these stations seem to incur a huge time penalty. Darlington seems to be the worst offender where the average express trains seems to start getting signal checked about 10 miles out. Eventually you are bought to a stand just outside the station so a 2 car pacer can be let in to your platform in front of you. Eventually you trundle over some extremely speed restricted turnouts off the mainline into the station arriving 12 mins late when you left York on time. To make matters worst Darlington never seems to have more than a dozen passengers joining or leaving the train.

I'm back on Easyjet for the autumn, the new franchisee really does needs to get to grips if it wants to attract business passengers from air.

Nationalised East Coast no thanks!

Darlington has connections with Cleveland and the South of County Durham, Doncaster has connections with South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, you are happy for these communities to loose a connection to London? or at least for them to have an extended journey time (which seemingly is your complaint, ironic huh?)
Oh sorry I forgot, you are from the South of England so clearly more important than us Northerners, apologies I should know my place.

 

[tbtc]

Bring back National Express....

 

[sprinterguy]

Darlington is a very important interchange hub for the Teesside and County Durham area. Whilst the time penalty required to call there, caused by there only being one through platform in each direction (It is true that just about every train I travel on northbound gets stopped on the approach to Darlington) as well as the very slow approach turnouts, is regrettable, reducing the number of London trains calling there is not the answer.

Durham, on the other hand, I think could see a reduced London service: With a half hourly Crosscountry and hourly Transpennine service, and no opportunities for onward connections to other areas, I think that savings could be made with the East Coast services by only stopping those trains that terminate/originate at Newcastle, and having the anglo-scottish services run through: There would still be an hourly Edinburgh train, and all the current Aberdeen and Inverness HSTs already pass through non stop.

 

[Pumbaa]

Darlington has connections with Cleveland and the South of County Durham, Doncaster has connections with South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, you are happy for these communities to loose a connection to London? or at least for them to have an extended journey time (which seemingly is your complaint, ironic huh?)
Oh sorry I forgot, you are from the South of England so clearly more important than us Northerners, apologies I should know my place.

I'm a Northerner, and Paul spends more than enough time up north so has more than enough experience on which to base his opinion, and I agree with him.

Doncaster is London served by Leeds trains, HT and GC, and northwards services by XC. Maybe 1tp2h to Edinburgh is sufficient. The Glasgow trains run through anyway. Darlington should not have every train call there, it wouldn't hurt to take it down to 1tph.

 

[blue sabre]

I'm a Northerner, and Paul spends more than enough time up north so has more than enough experience on which to base his opinion, and I agree with him.

Doncaster is London served by Leeds trains, HT and GC, and northwards services by XC. Maybe 1tp2h to Edinburgh is sufficient. The Glasgow trains run through anyway. Darlington should not have every train call there, it wouldn't hurt to take it down to 1tph.

Which wasn't his suggestion. If you reread the post the idea was to stop ALL off peak services from stopping there.
Reduced service is different and would still mean the communities that are servied by the stations still have a link to the Capital.

 

[Aictos]

One proposal to do would to limit the number of Edinburgh/Glasgow services calling at Durham, Darlington and instead ensure more Newcastle services are available which seeing as East Coast stop calling at Glasgow in the new timetable means the set or two which goes onto Glasgow can instead be used on the Newcastles.

The vast majority of Scottish services would call Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Newcastle, Berwick upon Tyne then Edinburgh and onto the Scottish stations.

Connections would be made at hub stations such as Peterborough, Doncaster, York and Newcastle thus hopefully improving the timekeeping which isn't always their fault.

For example, a Cross Country/FGW HST had trouble in Devon this week where it couldn't get above notch 3 so because of that, it had a knock on effort of making a Leeds to Kings Cross service late, this is why East Coast like the other Long Distance InterCity Operators have hard work keeping to the timetable.

Anyway, dropping Scottish trains from Peterborough - how dare you!

 

[ralphchadkirk]

paul1609 - and you're qualified to decide what is sloppy operating procedure and poor regulation?

 

[OMGitsDAVE]

Thing is, Darlington is a very important transport hub for us Northerners as mentioned above. Even not stopping there your train would have a delay as you would have to be put on to the avoiders anyway, STILL going over the Middlesbrough lines, so its pretty much 6 & 2x3's!

 

[lemonic]

Peterborough also seems sometimes underestimated as a transport hub. It is the best connection point from East Anglia to the North-East avoiding London. That is why the new 'Eureka' timetable which has less stops at Peterborough is a bad thing in this respect.

 

[91101]

paul1609 - and you're qualified to decide what is sloppy operating procedure and poor regulation?

I dunno if he is, but I am, and I can tell you the following: so much of East Coasts current problems are to do with internal issues with their ops teams and with their fleet. Reliability on both HST's and 91's has plummeted. The IC225 sets were always top of the MP5MD (Miles per 5min delay attributable to engineering problems with the train) tables for InterCity trains. NatEx took over and this started to plummet and has got worse and worse as time as gone on, hence the EMT set and XC sets that are popping up from time to time. (There was a serious consideration to hire the Pretendylino for a Leeds diagram at one point during the summer!)

Regarding poor regulation, at the moment you will be unlikely to suffer a regulating decision AGAINST an East Coast service, the DfT have put pressure on at both ends, both with Holt and her clan of management but within Network Rail to get PPM figures up at East Coast, this has translated to a local level where signallers along the route are being told to regulate to a policy of screw Northern, TPE, and FCC - Tory East Coast comes first!

Oh and its worth remembering that from with Eureka all Anglo-Scottish trains at XX:00 off KGX will be fast to York.

DaveNewcastle, your comments regarding short distance local operators delays being their own fault is something of a fallacy. Regardless of status as regional, intercity or London and South East, their is an pretty accurate average with all delay being roughly split betweeb 60% Network Rail on TOC, 30 % TOC on Self and 10% TOC on TOC. This model varies from region to region, Merseyrail for example suffers very very little TOC on TOC delay, whilst FCC's Thameslink service suffers it signifigantly, directly interfacing with about 5 different companies.

 

[Aictos]

91101:

The signallers being told to priorise East Coast services is nothing new, one signalbox we both know very well are experts at it as it's the norm there to give prioity to East Coast rather then FCC.

 

[91101]

Oh thats old school mentality, "InterCity" goes first, but this is a more recent instruction issued accross the London North Eastern NWR route, so much so that individual signallers have been pulled when they have NOT given priority to EC!

 

[cuccir]

Durham does have a lot of trains, but the downside of that is that none of them are designed around its needs - its not uncommon to get 3 trains in ten minutes then see nothing for fifty. I'd happily take reduced long distance service if we could get in a local service, Newcastle-Boro, but obviously the line is very busy. Maybe the Clock face timetable will help all this, but I doubt Durham will be a priority.

In my experience East Coast do suffer from a lot of delays in the 5-15 minute range, because of the length of their routes.

 

[paul1609]

Darlington has connections with Cleveland and the South of County Durham, Doncaster has connections with South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, you are happy for these communities to loose a connection to London? or at least for them to have an extended journey time (which seemingly is your complaint, ironic huh?)
Oh sorry I forgot, you are from the South of England so clearly more important than us Northerners, apologies I should know my place.

To be honest Im a bit lost why every discussion on here becomes an irrelevant North v South debate, even apparently the stops on a London to Scotland service! I kind of admit it amuses me that if you are a southerner, unless you travel away to football or a train enthusiast you don't even know about the North v South debate.

The average Southerner is unlikely to have ever travelled to the North has no need to and frankly doesnt care about the North. Some Northerners have great difficulty understanding this concept.

As far as I'm concerned the current average 4 h30 mins plus 20 to 25 mins late service from Kings Cross to Edinburgh isn't what I expect to receive paying a fairly hefty fare plus a huge taxpayers subsidy (by the back door). The continuing success of London to Scotland air routes suggests I'm not alone!

For whatever reason although in theory Darlington is an important hub in practise it seems to attract very few passengers for the inter city services. I suspect that most of those are making short hops to the next station where there are alternative services.

 

[Darandio]

The average Southerner is unlikely to have ever travelled to the North has no need to and frankly doesnt care about the North. Some Northerners have great difficulty understanding this concept.

Well quite frankly, I dont care for your suggestions regarding what should call where and when in the North-East. They are pretty baseless.

For whatever reason although in theory Darlington is an important hub in practise it seems to attract very few passengers for the inter city services. I suspect that most of those are making short hops to the next station where there are alternative services.

Based on your assumption of travelling through occasionally? What about all the other times during the day that you dont see? I travel to/from/through Darlington very regularly and quite often see 40-50 people boarding EC services, certainly not the handful that would warrant a removal of service.

 

[OMGitsDAVE]

To be honest Im a bit lost why every discussion on here becomes an irrelevant North v South debate, even apparently the stops on a London to Scotland service! I kind of admit it amuses me that if you are a southerner, unless you travel away to football or a train enthusiast you don't even know about the North v South debate.

The average Southerner is unlikely to have ever travelled to the North has no need to and frankly doesnt care about the North. Some Northerners have great difficulty understanding this concept.

As far as I'm concerned the current average 4 h30 mins plus 20 to 25 mins late service from Kings Cross to Edinburgh isn't what I expect to receive paying a fairly hefty fare plus a huge taxpayers subsidy (by the back door). The continuing success of London to Scotland air routes suggests I'm not alone!

For whatever reason although in theory Darlington is an important hub in practise it seems to attract very few passengers for the inter city services. I suspect that most of those are making short hops to the next station where there are alternative services.

So basically, all you care about is YOUR Service? To be honest, East Coast provides exactly what the name says, the Eastern Coast - much of it in the north - with a passenger service. It provides essential links from the north east to Scotland and the south, but you seem very bias because what you want is an empty service running direct from London to Edinburgh direct, with little to no stops to interchange? Well im sorry, but such a service is vital to our economy as a whole, not just the north/the south.

 

[paul1609]

No you misunderstand, what I want is 1 or 2 TPH from London to Edinburgh calling at York, Newcastle and one of the intermediate stations to Edinburgh normally Berwick.
These trains given time and sucessfull marketing would be full of the passengers currently using air.
I'd do away with all trains to Inverness, Aberdeen etc. as this is beyond the scope of rail ever to be competitive. If Scotland needs internal intercity trains that is a matter for the Scottish Government and taxpayer to support.
Intermediate stations Doncaster to Newcastle would have their own semi fast service also calling at Potters Bar,Peterborough, Doncaster and then the usual stations to Newcastle both above would be formed of the current trains.
Some mk 4 sets would remain on Leeds services and these would be supported by a second build of class 395s the majority of these would go forward to Bradford.
Hull services would be offered to Hull trains.
1X 395 service would start/ finish at Skipton. Harrogate would no longer be served.

MY service by the way is the marshlink line Ashford to Brighton.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

I'd do away with all trains to Inverness, Aberdeen etc. as this is beyond the scope of rail ever to be competitive. ......
Intermediate stations Doncaster to Newcastle would have their own semi fast service also calling at Potters Bar,Peterborough, Doncaster and then the usual stations to Newcastle both above would be formed of the current trains.

the services to Inverness/Aberdeen are the current fasts to Edinburgh!
Don't subject those on the Donny-Newcastle route to semi-fasts... and what about those in Grantham, Newark and Stevengae wanting to travel north? I suppose the most suprising thing in that is whay the hell they would call at Potters Bar?

 

[paul1609]

You've obviously never been to Potters Bar if you ask that question.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

You've obviously never been to Potters Bar if you ask that question.

Oh Ive been through Potters Bar many a time, and aside from collecting passengers from Herts (which Stevengae is much more convient for) it would serve no purpose at all exceot for a few PBO passengers (literally 4), it would make far more sense to focus IC trains on somewhere like Stevenage, where connections would be available for Hatfield, Welwyn, Knebworth and Hertford, although Potters Bar woulkd handily serve however many people on the M25 want to go to Doncatser (ie. 2). Sorry, but Stevenage is much more logical. And it can handle IC trains (by platform lenghts I mean)

 

[Pumbaa]

Sorry, but Stevenage is much more logical. And it can handle IC trains (by platform lenghts I mean)

Of the three current NoL stations for IC services, Stevenage, Watford and Luton, all three are worse off. Watford is wholly underserved and Luton could have a call or two to Nottingham (I'm not aware that they currently do, welcome to correction).

Ideal sitings for NoL stations rely on them being on the M25. Watford, Luton are fine. Stevenage is a good 20 mins further up the A1. Potters Bar is a far better situation to have a NoL call. If the IC call was moved there, I'd wager an increase in patronage above what we currently see from Stevenage. The only reason why Stevenage remains is that most people pay more money to either a) if they're south of Potters Bar, pay to travel into London then back out or b) pay to travel to Stevenage first. Either way, rail gets more money.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

the services to Inverness/Aberdeen are the current fasts to Edinburgh!

I wouldn't call Peterborough, Doncaster or Durham, York, Darlington, Newcastle, Berwick fast. The Up Inverness I'd agree is the closest you can get. But a core fast service on the hour would do nicely.

Do that, add in an all-shacks to Newcastle to mop up local services and connect in, job done (akin to WCML Trent Valley LM service).

 

[MidnightFlyer]

I wouldn't call Peterborough, Doncaster or Durham, York, Darlington, Newcastle, Berwick fast. The Up Inverness I'd agree is the closest you can get. But a core fast service on the hour would do nicely.

Do that, add in an all-shacks to Newcastle to mop up local services and connect in, job done (akin to WCML Trent Valley LM service).

Nuneato got shafted by that LM TV service... one Pendo and hour to London non-stop, one to Liverpool calling at Stafford, Runcorn. Now what has it got? Hardly an IC service...

FYI, Luton Midland's only IC train is the hourly Corbry/Corby-StP's. Thats it

 

[Aictos]

Of the three current NoL stations for IC services, Stevenage, Watford and Luton, all three are worse off. Watford is wholly underserved and Luton could have a call or two to Nottingham (I'm not aware that they currently do, welcome to correction).

Ideal sitings for NoL stations rely on them being on the M25. Watford, Luton are fine. Stevenage is a good 20 mins further up the A1. Potters Bar is a far better situation to have a NoL call. If the IC call was moved there, I'd wager an increase in patronage above what we currently see from Stevenage. The only reason why Stevenage remains is that most people pay more money to either a) if they're south of Potters Bar, pay to travel into London then back out or b) pay to travel to Stevenage first. Either way, rail gets more money.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


I wouldn't call Peterborough, Doncaster or Durham, York, Darlington, Newcastle, Berwick fast. The Up Inverness I'd agree is the closest you can get. But a core fast service on the hour would do nicely.

Do that, add in an all-shacks to Newcastle to mop up local services and connect in, job done (akin to WCML Trent Valley LM service).

This talk of Potters Bar being preferred to Stevenage for IC services reminds me of the fact that Hitchin and Huntingdon got dropped for Stevenage and Peterborough respectively so while Potters Bar is attractive and there must be a damn good reason all charters choose the place to pick up and drop off, the fact remains that it is a 8 car platform and if any plans do go though for Potters Bar to take more IC traffic then the platforms really do need to be lengthened to 12 cars which in turn looks to me as it can only be done northbound.

Now while Potters Bar well have far better access to the M25 etc... then Stevenage, Stevenage has the advantage that it is the junction where services can either use the Welwyn route or the Hertford route and thus if is more then capable of delivering more journey opportunities then Potters Bar ever could.

Anyway if there are any stations which ought to be lengthened then Welwyn Garden City, Potters Bar, Hertford and Gordon Hill should be prime candidates.

 

[90019]

Oh sorry I forgot, you are from the South of England so clearly more important than us Northerners, apologies I should know my place.

I'm sorry, but you really need to get over yourself.

I'd do away with all trains to Inverness, Aberdeen etc. as this is beyond the scope of rail ever to be competitive.

If this is the case, why is it that they're usually pretty full?

 

[ainsworth74]

If this is the case, why is it that they're usually pretty full?

Just a quick question, how many of those people are through passengers from say London and the North East and how many are people that have travelled from London + North East to Edinburgh and then a whole bunch of new people travelling Edinburgh to Aberdeen/Inverness?

 

[MidnightFlyer]

^^^^^^^^^^ Same could be said for calling at Potters Bar

 

[tbtc]

No you misunderstand, what I want is 1 or 2 TPH from London to Edinburgh calling at York, Newcastle and one of the intermediate stations to Edinburgh normally Berwick.
These trains given time and sucessfull marketing would be full of the passengers currently using air.
I'd do away with all trains to Inverness, Aberdeen etc. as this is beyond the scope of rail ever to be competitive

Why is competing with air so crucial? For a large number of air passengers the train will never compete. It may be because they compare time in the air with time on the train (which is obviously not the full story, but it *is* the way some people see it). It may be because they are changing planes in London (in the way that Heathrow is a "hub" for international flights or aren't wanting to go to central London.

It's not worth sacrificing a robust timetable for the sake of one "sub four hour" service between London and Edinburgh each hour, IMHO. Even if there was such a fast service, it would never mop up all air passengers, partly for the reasons I've given above. I'd rather we had a frequent service that took longer, especially as one "fast" train eats into a lot of paths (which are obviously scarce on the ECML) as it will catch up on everything ahead of it.

I'd like to see some ECML/ MML services use Peterborough/ Luton/ Bedford as "pick up" / "set down" only. For example, I was on the 17.49 KX - Donny on Thursday night, which was a standing load from the Cross, but under half full after Peterborough. The same can happen on some MML services through Bedfordshire.

I don't blame the passengers for preferring an InterCity train to their "commuter" EMUs, but I think something needs to be done to ensure seats are available for longer distance passengers (I'd rather the stops were retained, for the sake of passengers travelling between northern England and Luton Airport/ East Anglia etc, rather than running non-stop).

Maybe the solution would be to slow services south of Peterborough down to 100mph max (until Welwyn is resolved) which would give more paths at a stable speed and allow FCC to use 91s to provide peak capacity on their Cambridge/ Peterborough services

If my ECML train was going to stop anywhere south of Peterborough, I'd rather it served Finsbury Park rather than Potters Bar, which would at least give a few connections...

There are other improvements that should be made to the ECML timetable, many of which are part of Eureka. Regularly spaced clockface services at stations like Grantham, better connections with "local" services,