Worst UK rail firms cancel 200 trains a day but bosses still take …
The UK’s worst-performing rail[1] companies are cancelling almost 200 trains a day while fares soar and their bosses take home annual bonuses of up to £2.5m, i can reveal.
Avanti, CrossCountry and Northern – which serve millions of passengers from Bournemouth to Berwick – are all cancelling more trains in 2023 than they did before the pandemic in 2019, despite running fewer services overall.
Along with TransPennine Express, these four rail companies are also among the least likely to have trains running on time. Meanwhile fed-up passengers complain of issues such as overcrowding, no catering facilities and crumbling stations.
The wider fragility of the rail network was thrown into sharp relief this week when damage to overhead lines caused by Storm Pia left thousands of travellers struggling to get home for Christmas.[2]
It followed the resignation of a Network Rail managing director[3] just days after passengers were left stuck outside of London for hours in cold, dark train carriages due to multiple system faults and damaged rails. She reportedly made the decision before the incident on 7 December.
Annual accounts show that the directors of some rail firms took home hundreds of thousands of pounds in bonuses, including Avanti’s chief financial officer Ryan Mangold, who earned £3m in 2023, including £2.5m in bonuses. Avanti is Britain’s worst performing rail company.
Meanwhile, rail fares[4] went up by 5.9 per cent in 2023 and the Government has confirmed they will go up again by 4.9 per cent in 2024 – hitting most fares including season tickets and off-peak journeys.
Despite the ongoing problems, i analysis of rail data shows the number of passenger journeys on the rail network is returning to its highest level since the end of the pandemic.
Critics say the Government is holding back further growth by refusing to invest in the railways, cancelling projects such as the northern leg of HS2[5] and diverting money to road resurfacing projects instead.
Passengers stranded at Euston station after strong winds from Storm Pia took out power lines and cancelled journeys for millions (Photo: James Manning/PA)
In the run-up to Christmas, rail users have complained of struggling to use the trains for festive shopping, visits to markets or meals out, as well as longer-distance travelling to see family.
Martyn James, a consumer rights specialist, was booked on a 12.33pm train from London Euston to Manchester with Avanti West Coast last Friday but ended up sitting on the floor of a crammed carriage of a later service for the entirety of the journey.
His experience was not unusual, he said.
“Nobody could get to the toilet and that’s a long time to hold it in if you are desperate,” he told i.
“It was carnage, absolute, miserable carnage.”
Andy Burnham[6], the Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester and chair of the Transport for the North committee, has written to Transport Secretary Mark Harper asking for a critical review into the “unacceptable” service being offered by Avanti.
Almost a third of trains were cancelled or delayed in first week of December by the rail company, which was awarded a new long-term contract in October[7].
“Performance has not been good enough,” Mr Burnham told i.
“It’s been up and down this year, but we’re ending the year with services falling off a cliff.
“Over the last 9 or 10 days it’s been appalling really.”
He added that today’s announcement that rail fares will increase above inflation is “an insult to the travelling public.”
Worst performing rail companies for punctuality (July to Sept 2023)
Avanti: 46.3 per cent of trains running on time
TransPennine Express: 48.4 per cent of trains running on time
CrossCountry: 48.8 per cent of trains running on time
East Midlands: 54.1 per cent of trains running on time
Great Western: 59.9 per cent of trains running on time
Source: Office of Rail and Road statistics
Labour’s Mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin[8], told i: “Despite some positive steps in the right direction, there simply hasn’t been enough improvement on our railways this year.
“Passengers in the North are being let down as they try to get around the region this Christmas – but poor rail services are hurting our economy all year round.”
Latest figures from the Office of Rail and Road statistics show Avanti cancelled 2,976 trains between April and November this year, an average of more than 13 per day.
In 2019, the year Avanti took over the franchise from Virgin, just nine trains were cancelled per day by comparison, even though an extra 13,687 were planned.
A spokesperson for Avanti apologised to customers and admitted performance has “not been good enough” recently.
At least 140 trains a day have been cancelled by Northern this year, TransPennine cancelled 19 and at CrossCountry, an average of 22 trains per day have been cancelled.
Passenger Nick Kingsley shared this image of an overcrowded CrossCountry train from Bristol to Manchester (Photo: Supplied)
Passenger Joe Gudgeon described his experience of travelling from Manchester Piccadilly to Preston with TransPennine last Friday night as “disgraceful” and “downright dangerous”.
“Standing room only and packed like sardines,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Like countless others my wife and daughters stood up all the way home to Preston. My youngest who is 10 nearly passed out.”
TransPennine Express apologised to Mr Gudgeon and asked him to lodge a formal complaint.
Nick Kingsley, the editor of Railway Gazette, told i he had a “terrible experience” travelling from Bristol to Manchester with CrossCountry trains to watch a football match last weekend which was severely overcrowded.
“No one could get on after Warrington, there must have been 80 to 100 people still on the platform when we left Macclesfield,” he said. “I do worry that it puts people off [using the railways].”
But as rail operators are recording increasingly poor performances, company directors are seeing salaries and bonuses soar.
According to the most recent accounts, directors at TransPennine Express received a pay package worth £782,000 in salary and benefits in 2023 compared to £566,000 in 2022.
Bumper pay and bonuses at train companies
The current managing directors at these struggling rail companies are:
- Tom Joyner CrossCountry – £293,000
- Chris Jackson (appointed Sept 2023) TPE – £326,000 (previously Matthew Golton)
- Tricia Williams (appointed Aug 2023) Northern – £308,217 (previously Nick Donovan)
- Andy Mellors (appointed March 2023) Avanti – £280,000 (previously Steve Montgomery)
Both Northern and TransPennine Express have already been taken under public control, in March 2020 and May 2023 respectively, because of their continued poor performance, meaning that senior directors do not earn performance-related bonuses.
But according to accounts published recently, directors at TransPennine Express received a pay package worth £782,000 in salary and benefits in 2023 compared to £566,000 in 2022. At Northern, it rose slightly to £953,000 in 2023, compared with £924,00 in 2022.
Annual accounts also show Graham Sutherland, the CEO of FirstGroup which owns Avanti, will be paid £1.1m including £682,000 in bonuses for 2023, while chief financial officer Ryan Mangold earned £3m, including £2.5m in bonuses. In 2022, Mr Mangold received nearly £1.9m.
The company paid shareholder dividends of £11m.
The board of Deutsche Bahn, which owns CrossCountry, earned around £4.1m last year.
Mr Kingsley believes the root cause of poor performance is a lack of investment in infrastructure, rolling stock and staff.
“Yes it was frustrating but we need to recognise that it’s the Government doing this,” he added. “The train companies are in what I would call contractual headlock, they can’t sneeze without getting it approved by the Department for Transport.
“There’s just no plan for growth. I hear Mark Harper and the way he’s talking about rail saying there isn’t the recovery in passenger numbers, but we must be back above 85 per cent [of pre-pandemic levels].
“The change is that it’s leisure travel and that’s the thing – Christmas is a critical time, these leisure passengers are not just for fun, they’re putting real money into the economy.
“The train I was on – Manchester City were playing at home, Manchester had the Christmas markets on which are a boom for the city, people are going Christmas shopping, and the rail network is not able to meet that demand.
“I don’t think in terms of policy, there’s been such an anti-rail government since the 80s.
“If you think about HS2[9] and the rhetoric… we’ve gone backwards so far in just five years or so, that’s really grim.”
Officials assist passengers to get down from a train stuck on the Elizabeth Line after damaged overhead cables blocked railway lines in London (Photo: Danny Cowan Voiceover/Reuters)
An annual survey carried out by passenger group Transport Focus found only 16 per cent of people plan to use rail to travel over the festive period this year, down slightly from 17 per cent in 2022.
By comparison, the number of people planning to travel by road on local roads is up from 55 per cent to 66 per cent and on major roads from 38 to 39 per cent.
Despite their poor performance, Avanti and CrossCountry were rewarded with new long-term contracts by the Government in September.
Andy Burnham slammed the lack of leadership from both the government and top of the rail industry for failing to “get a grip” over the crisis.
“I think the rail industry really needs to have a moment of reckoning with itself,” he added.
“It needs to look itself in the mirror as we come to end of this year. Where is the leadership?
“I see an excuses culture, there’s a complacency and no one wants to say ‘this is not right we’re going to change this’.”
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “Government funding in the rail sector is higher now than before the pandemic, and we are investing huge sums into major projects such as the Transpennine route upgrade and billions of redirected HS2 funding into other rail projects as part of our Network North[10] plan – benefitting more people, in more places, more quickly.
“Strike action[11] has significantly impacted services over the past 18 months and while the industry are working to resolve the ongoing dispute with Aslef, we continue to work closely with operators to ensure they provide the best possible experience across our railways, making clear that we will hold them to account if they let passengers down.”
Chris Jackson, managing director for TransPennine Express (TPE), said: “Delivering a stable and reliable service for customers is our number one priority, and we are doing everything we can to make this happen.
“Since TPE’s transfer to DOHL [DfT OLR Holdings Limited] ownership at the end of May, we have seen a significant reduction in cancellations and improved reliability across the board. The resumption of driver rest day working (RDW) has helped move performance back towards where it needs to be and, during the 18 weeks RDW has been available, cancellations have dropped to an overall figure of 7.49 per cent, a 36 per cent improvement to the six months before DOHL ownership.
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“We know there is more to do, and our newly introduced December 2023 timetable will help to deliver more stability for our customers.”
An Avanti West Coast spokesperson said: “We are sorry to our customers who have been impacted by the delays and cancellations to our services.
“We have seen some short-notice cancellations on our network in the last few weeks, and we know this is not good enough. These service changes are a result of resourcing challenges where we have seen a shortage of train crew due to historic leave agreements.
“In reference to the ORR [Office of Rail and Road] statistics covering July to September 2023, less than half of the cancellations were within our direct control, with the greater proportion being due to infrastructure issues and other disruptive events affecting the network.
“Also, the stats also show that we operated 12.5 per cent more services year-on-year and was the most improved operator for reliability (8.1 per cent fewer cancellations) as well as improving on-time performance (7.5 per cent more trains on-time). We are working hard to make sure we can minimise these cancellations and improve our reliability once again.”
A spokesperson for CrossCountry said: “Punctuality continues to be a key priority for everyone at CrossCounty, working closely with Network Rail.
“2023 was a challenging year for train operators with widespread industrial action. We have also seen cancellations caused by significant Network Rail infrastructure incidents in several locations and punctuality has been impacted by recent storms and extreme weather which led to speed restrictions being imposed.
“We assure all our customers that we are working hard with industry partners to improve performance in 2024.”
Northern Railways was also contacted for comment.
References
- ^ rail (inews.co.uk)
- ^ caused by Storm Pia left thousands of travellers struggling to get home for Christmas. (inews.co.uk)
- ^ Network Rail managing director (inews.co.uk)
- ^ rail fares (inews.co.uk)
- ^ northern leg of HS2 (inews.co.uk)
- ^ Andy Burnham (inews.co.uk)
- ^ awarded a new long-term contract in October (inews.co.uk)
- ^ Tracy Brabin (inews.co.uk)
- ^ HS2 (inews.co.uk)
- ^ Network North (inews.co.uk)
- ^ Strike action (inews.co.uk)