Posted 23rd September 2022 | 6 Comments
Avanti restores some services, but pressure continues
Avanti West Coast is restoring some of the trains which were withdrawn last month, but one group of business leaders and politicians is calling for its government contract to be withdrawn.
Avanti said there would be further improvements in December. For now, AWC is adding back 70 services a week on the routes between London, the West Midlands and Manchester, with a further uplift in mid-December, when there will be more trains between London and Manchester, Birmingham and north Wales as well as regular services to Liverpool and Scotland.
AWC executive director of operations and safety Barry Milsom said: ‘We know we’re not delivering the service our customers rightly expect and we apologise for the enormous frustration and inconvenience this is causing.
‘The decision to reduce our timetable in August was not taken lightly but our customers and communities deserve a dependable train service, so we’ve been working hard to rebuild our timetable in a resilient and sustainable way.
‘Resolving this situation required a robust plan that allows us to gradually increase services without being reliant on traincrew overtime. We are now in a position to start delivering this incremental increase in services, followed by a further increase in December. We’ll continue to review our timetable beyond December with our industry partners.
’We’re working with our people, their union representatives, and industry partners to match the resources we have to demand, so we can deliver reliable services across our network to all our customers and communities.’
However AWC is still under fire in north Wales, the Wirral and Chester, where the Growth Track 360 group of businesses and councils says the Avanti contract should end, pointing out that there is currently only one direct service a day between London, Chester and Wrexham, while a shuttle service is linking Crewe, Chester and Holyhead.
Growth Track 360 chair Cllr Louise Gittins,who is leader of Cheshire West & Chester Council, said: ‘We were dismayed and disappointed at the cessation of all direct intercity train services between North Wales, Chester and London with just one train per day linking Chester and Wrexham with London. These cuts have caused incalculable damage to our cross-border regional economy during the peak holiday season.’
Her colleague at Growth Track, vice chair and Flintshire Council leader Cllr Ian Roberts, added: ‘Civic leaders in North Wales and neighbouring communities in North West England have worked hard to build a collaborative relationship with Avanti but their management’s actions show they regard our Chester and North Wales main line as an unimportant branch.
‘It is shocking to realise that the same company has been tasked with introducing services on HS2. The UK Department for Transport must get a grip of the crisis at Avanti West Coast by placing its routes under the control of the public sector Operator of Last Resort which has handled well similar failures by operators in other parts of Britain.’
Reader Comments:
Views expressed in submitted comments are that of the author, and not necessarily shared by Railnews.
Garry Jones, Tywyn
Is there any information that the late release of timetables and the short time that trains are available to book are impacting business and events?
It's practically impossible to confidently book hotels or tickets in areas which are reliant on services Avanti run.
If you live where there isn't a Ticket machine or booking office that can print out card style tickets and require cross London tickets, you cannot rely on tickets being posted and received within four days.
I cannot travel beyond London for a night or for an event needing a train back later than 6pm due to not being able to book the train until Tuesday, by which time the events sold out.
david c smith, Bletchley
Yes, but BR didn't seem to come up with an effective answer to the 1953 act.
david c smith, Bletchley
The idea that nationalisation would give profits to reinvest / pay back to the people would be fine but was not the reality , which mostly consisted in the people (taxpayers) having to bail out the nationalised industries' losses. Public ownership of some parts of the railway is probably needed where there would otherwise be monopolies ; generally we need some rethinking re. these things.
[Just a thought, David. The railways ceased to be profitable after goods traffic shrank in the early 1950s. This was a direct result of the 1953 Transport Act, which removed most restrictions on road haulage, and surely would have happened whether the railways were publicly or privately owned? -- Ed.]
steve, Manchester
No business is responsible or serious, not to mention safe if it relies on regular over time or rest day working. There is also additional costs. Recruitment & training should have been addressed a long time ago. The segmentation of the railway into separate passenger and freight companies is inefficient and costly. Gradual re-nationalisation as franchises fail and end should happen. Profits to reinvest not for bosses bonuses and share holders.
Neil Palmer, Waterloo
The origins of the crisis appear to be lack of willingness on the part of drivers to work overtime. I'm not faulting them for that, that's an historical issue/problem. So the point here is that regardless of complaining from various mayors, civic leaders and groups, taking away the contract from Avanti and awarding it to the operator of last resort is not going to magically make a load of trained drivers appear the next day to fill these schedules. If anything the change of operator could cause even further delay in recruiting and training the necessary additional drivers. So haven't they thought this through, or is it basically that they like to hear themselves whine and make it appear to the voters that they're doing something about it?
Stephen Dearden, New Mills
The reported origins of this crisis is attempted cost cutting by reducing the number of drivers and relying on overtime, the only way for the company to make money on franchise contracts