Central Trains

A study of failure

In March 1997, the formerly state-owned train companies were finally sold to private contractors. It's my contention that, as the trains are now run by free market operators, operating under quasi-monopolistic practices, individual users are entitled to expect the highest possible standards of service from the train companies.

At present, the main train companies I use are these:

• Central Trains. Owned by National Express, the main coach firm in the UK. Awarded the franchise for local services within the Midlands from Feb 97 for 7 years 1 month. As far as I know, my ticket is bought from this firm, hence my contract is with it.
• Virgin West Coast. Owned by the Virgin group, under charismatic entrepreneur figure-head Richard Branson. Franchise runs Mar 97 for 15 years. Primarily responsible for services from London to Birmingham, Manchester, Preston, Carlisle and Glasgow. They're currently finishing the programme to upgrade carriages, and hope to cut 30 minutes off the 6 hours journey to Scotland in about five years. WC runs the main stations on my route.
• Virgin Cross Country. Also owned by the Virgin group. Franchise is 8 years from Nov 96. Runs services from Birmingham to Bristol, Devon and Cornwall; Manchester and Glasgow; York, Newcastle and Edinburgh; Oxford, Reading, Bournemouth and Brighton. Generally regarded as the Cinderella inter-city service, as trains are often heavily late or cancelled.
• Silverlink Trains, known as North London Railways until Sept 97. Owned by National Express; franchise is 7.5 years from Feb 97. Runs suburban trains from London to Watford, Bedford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and Birmingham. Clean, quiet, efficient operation - I like them!
• Railtrack. Stock-exchange listed company (floated May 96), owns the track and signalling equipment. Cited for about half the delays across the network, due to ageing equipment.

Trains operated by South Wales & West Trains, and north western trains also operate over part of my route. I do not use their services on any regular basis.

In order to use the trains, I buy a series of 4-week passes. These come to the sum of over 1100 pounds per year. A discount of about 3 pounds per month is offered if more than 2% of "local peak period" services between Wolverhampton and Birmingham are cancelled, or 23% of these services are delayed. According to the posters, "local peak period" is defined as trains arriving Birmingham between 6:40 and 9:30, and leaving there 16:00 to 19:00 weekdays. The posters started defining late - 3 minutes late - in Oct 1998. As well as this, the Terms and Conditions of Carriage promise a 10% refund on the daily price of the ticket if a train arrives an hour or more late.

My view is that this compensation rate is utterly derisory, and barely covers the cost of postage. So, in order to provide some structure, I've devised my own scoring method, based only on those trains I catch. I tabulate these scores weekly and monthly.