European Railroad Discussion > It's not just Amtrak

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1726000/1726818.stm

>>
Rail firm inquiry into Christmas delay

Virgin has apologised for the delay

Virgin Trains has promised a full inquiry into a four-hour delay which left 70 passengers stuck on a broken down train late on Christmas Eve.
More than 70 people boarded the train at Manchester Piccadilly at 1730GMT on Monday.

They expected to reach London Euston at 2000GMT, but instead arrived shortly before midnight, nearly seven hours after leaving.
<<

Blair --

Thanks for posting this. Hope you cross-posted it to T.O.'s Amtrak board, too -- even though I generally dislike cross-posts, this is one instance where that would be quite legit. The "private firms always get it right -- Amtrak delenda est" crowd seem to need reminding that both big muck-ups (like Bhopal) and little ones (like this snafu) are more typically the purview of private enterprise.

The few, the proud, the readers of the International board.

That's where we live: I use Virgin most wrok days - got the re-read paperbacks to prove it. Amtrak seems a well oiled sewing machine: Virgin just makes me get well oiled.

.

From what I recall of BR down the years they could louse up fairly badly, but it didn't happen very often and you got home eventually. More regular probelms were old and dirty trains, but at least they got you there. Since privatization the whole process has been less predictable. My usual Manchester - Sheffield - Grimsby run was very reliable (if infrequent) when it was a Class 31 + 4x Mk2 job. When the Cl 156 Sprinters turned up things weren't too bad and there were more trains, but the 158s took a long time to settle into the job. In the meantime the timekeeping was erratic, and the cancellations a real pain in the a***. Virgin, by all accounts, is one of the worst of the privatized companies, mainly due to the clapped out state of the WCML, though they are building new trains, I don't know what will happen with the West Coast upgrade now Railtrack has gone belly-up.Regards, Peter.

Isn't GMT the same as local London time. Greenwich (SP?) is on the outskirts of London. That means the train was only TWO HOURS late That is an on-time performance compared with some other operators, who will remain nameless.

<Isn't GMT the same as local London time. Greenwich (SP?) is on the outskirts of London.>

Yes, it is the same as local London time this time of year.


<That means the train was only TWO HOURS late>

Not sure how you figure that. It was due in at 2000. It didn't arrive until nearly 2400. That is four hours late.


<That is an on-time performance compared with some other operators, who will remain nameless.>

I've seen at least one of those operators as well!

Yes, there are 24 hours in a day arn't there. This makes the situation look a little worse, however, still not as bad as one nameless carrier on some of its trains in this country. Still, we have a bigger country, more mileage to lose time by.

I use Virgin XC (cross country)sevices that operate from the southwest tip of the UK to the north-east and Scotland. Some of these services - Penznace to Aberdeen - are very long haul by UK standards; all suffer pathway problems from having to cross the radial routes from London (and a hell of a lot of history). Consequently on my thirty mile dail;y romp from Bristol to Cheltenham and back is fraught with delays with trains often three hours late on a four hour trip. Ironically, the frequency of the service is such that usually I catch a late running train or other service around the time my train should be running - though waiting in winter in the near 'Brief Encounter' station buffet at Cheltenham is 'interesting'.

What concerns me is the clear effect that increasing business on a system starved of real investment combined with the Railtrack fiasco has had on the morale of the people who run the service on a daily basis. They all seem shattered and totally p***** off.

Maybe - like Amtrak? - leadership by people who are committed to and understand the role of railways in a modern economy is needed. At the moment we have bean counters.

I was chatting to a driver/ conductor trainer for Wessex Trains - which operates suburbn and local services in the Bristol are. She told me tht they had a new 'boss'.

"Nice lad - he has just got his degree in Agriculture" she said.

Well, at least Virgin has someone who make sure the vegatation doesn't grow too near the tracks. BTW, do yu have to share your tracks with freight (goods) trains? I am not that familiar with how the British system works.

fruitgums wrote:
>
> I was chatting to a driver/ conductor trainer for Wessex Trains
> - which operates suburbn and local services in the Bristol are.
> She told me tht they had a new 'boss'.
>
> "Nice lad - he has just got his degree in Agriculture" she said.

Then he knows how to pitch the manure.

Yep freight and passenger trains all share same tracks. Freight is primarily handled by English Welsh and Scottish (EWS) which is (was) part of the Winconsin Central 'family' of railways.

British railways have never had any difficulty handling freight and passenger traffic over the same tracks except when the routes are simply overloaded. In steam days most British freights were limited to 35 mph by their lack of continuous brakes, but with plenty of passing tracks and a high proportion of double track mains everything stayed fluid. It has to be noted that most UK freights are short (2700 tonnes is a common max. weight) and operate with enough power on the point (about 1.6hp/ton) to keep out of the way of the passenger trains. To simplify timetabling on some trunk routes freight moves at night when there are few passenger trains. However, on one stretch of 2 main track route close to where I grew up operated up to 50 passenger trains and 30 freights every 24 hrs with few delays without CTC on the old Absolute block system. So as you can see with have little problem mixing passenger and freight in the UK. Regards, Peter.