Passengers on Avanti West Coast’s busiest services between London and Manchester are being left stranded and exasperated as the rail operator’s chronic delays show no signs of abating. A damning new analysis of National Rail data has revealed that a mere 2% of peak trains on critical routes like the 8:53am weekday service from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly are arriving at their destination on time.
The shockingly poor performance, branded a “national embarrassment” by Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, comes despite Avanti West Coast’s public pledge to make service improvements their “laser focus”. However, the latest statistics paint a grim picture of an operator still mired in disruption and struggling to run even a semi-functional timetable on one of the nation’s most important intercity routes.
Peak Services Hit Hardest By Delays
Among Avanti West Coast’s worst-performing trains are those that passengers rely on most at the busiest times of day. On the 8:53am weekday service from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly, a staggeringly low 2% of trains ran on time over the past 12 weeks. The 10:15am weekday service in the opposite direction from Manchester to London fared little better, with just 5% of those trains hitting the scheduled arrival time.
A litany of issues from points failures and landslips to delayed crews and slow running due to congestion have all contributed to the abysmal timekeeping. But with such crucial commuter and business travel services so badly impacted, political pressure is rapidly mounting for the government to step in and strip Avanti of its franchise if rapid improvements aren’t forthcoming.
Mayor Demands Action Over “National Embarrassment”
Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, has been one of the most vocal critics, directly calling for the government to appoint a “troubleshooter” to “get a grip” on the dire situation. He slammed the current standard of service between some of England’s biggest and economically vital cities as nothing short of a “national embarrassment”.
“Train services between the country’s most important cities are a national embarrassment.”
– Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester
The fact that Avanti’s lacklustre performance comes after it was awarded a generous new long-term contract by the government just last year has only added insult to injury for many. Despite being served notice to take “immediate action” to boost reliability over the summer, improvements still appear painfully limited or non-existent for fed-up passengers.
Chaos Reigns Across Avanti Network
While the London-Manchester route has been the hardest hit, Avanti’s wider network is faring little better. Dig into the data for other key intercity services like London to Birmingham, Liverpool, or Glasgow and similarly dismal punctuality figures are depressingly easy to uncover.
Overall, Avanti West Coast managed to run a pitiful 41.1% of trains on time between July and September this year, firmly cementing its unwanted position as the UK’s worst-performing rail operator. With disruption, cancellations, and delays now so ubiquitous and causing such anguish for passengers, serious questions are being asked about whether Avanti is still fit to hold the West Coast franchise.
Government Pushed to Intervene
For representatives of areas served by the beleaguered operator, enough is now enough. Former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron, whose Cumbrian constituency is heavily impacted by knock-on delays to connecting services, branded Avanti’s service “appalling” and said they were “deluded” if they thought the current standard was in any way acceptable.
“It is appalling. Avanti is deluded if they think this is an acceptable service.”
– Tim Farron, MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale
Even as the government progresses with plans to renationalize more rail franchises, patience is wearing perilously thin when it comes to Avanti West Coast. The Department for Transport insists it won’t tolerate the substandard performance, but affected leaders and passengers are now demanding decisive intervention to either force dramatic service upgrades or remove Avanti from the equation altogether.
With the misery and frustration of massively delayed or cancelled trains now an infuriatingly regular occurrence for thousands of travelers, the pressure is on for Avanti to rapidly deliver on their improvement promises or face potentially losing their franchise to a new operator capable of running a functional and reliable service on such a crucially important route. For now though, passengers continue to pay the price of the company’s failures.
