Billions spent on upgrading the West Coast Main Line,all new trains,and they are still late.Why?

Question

Isn't it time to just sack the lot of them and bring people in who actually want to make the railways work.

Answer 1

not a clue

bet there less late than before though

Answer 2

Well it is due to Privatisation and the separation of rail and trains (could lead to derailment if they speed up as it must be cooprdinated with several companies).

In Switzerland an annual ticket to go anywhere is £8 a day the trains are on time and kids are free to 16 years, and it makes money, but is state run.

So forget uk RAIL AND WELCOME TO SWISS !

www.sbb.ch

Answer 3

I travel on the West Coast Main Line regularly and virtually all the trains I have travelled on this year have been on time.

If your question is based on travelling on Tuesday 4th December - Someone committed suicide near Tring Station on that date by jumping in front of a train; the Police shut the entire line for a time and then two out of four tracks through Tring for the remainder of the day. This is a sad and unfortunate incident that delayed thousands of people but is no reflection on the operation of the railway.

Answer 4

I have access to Networkrail T.R.U.S.T computer system.

On it you can see all the different types of delays that happen during the day.

The amount of different types of delays that happen on the railways in the Uk are staggering.

Most delay minutes are caused by the train operating companies themselves...1 or 2 minutes at a time at station stops all add up.

There'll aways be this type of delay...so you'll never get an 100% on time railway.

As for sacking railway workers.....

Just who would you replace them with?...

And belive it or not....we really do want to have the railways work properly!

A good day at work for me is a boring one...

No delays...all punters happy.

Give me more boring days!

Answer 5

Reasons for lateness:

Vandalism: B loody stupid people do things like throwing chains over the power lines, put stone blocks on the tracks, make fake bomb calls, etc, etc...

Sickness: If you collapsed on the train, would you want to be dragged off onto the platform to be treated, or have a doctor deal with you where you're sitting?

People pull the communication cord if this happens, and that stops the train where it is, which could be the middle of nowhere.

God forbid you died, then the police have to attend where you are, and they won't do that at 100 miles an hour.

Selfishness: People who want to die and see jumping in front of a train as an easy way.

The weather: the wind blows a tree onto the tracks, rain causes a landslide, lightning hits a powerbox, ice freezes the points, shall I continue?

Yes, a perfectly timed journey would be great, but so would a road, air, or sea journey thats not affected by the above factors.

Answer 6

they got to update the leaves on the track yet.

Answer 7

Freight trains and commuter trains don't mix well when both are using the same rail.

Answer 8

The vast majority of people who work on the railways are committed to running a punctual and above all safe railway, sacking people and replacing them with people that have no railway experience would cause problems like you could not imagine and the safety implications of such an idea are horrendous.

In my experience I have had greater and more frequent delays with Virgin Atlantic than I have with Virgin trains, but complaining about the airline isn't vogue so nobody does it.

Answer 9

The problem dates back to the first days of privatisation when Railtrack was created. It was run by accountants and businessmen, none of whom were railwaymen and had no idea whatever of how to run a railway. All maintenance was contracted out and there was little or no accountability. The publicly owned network rail had to pick up the pieces. Privatisation has had many good spin-offs - the new trains you mention being one. No Government let the publicly owned British Rail invest properly. However, the Tories were so anxious to privatise before a Labour Government was elected that they totally ****** it up - they forgot that railways are best run as a vertically integrated organisation - in other words, the company that runs the rains, owns the tracks, does the maintenance of the trains, organises the signalling etc.  Rumour has it the John Major, the then Prime Minister, wanted things done that way and something akin to the old 'Big Four' railway companies introduced, but he was overruled. Things might have been a lot different had he had his way. I wonder what a West Coast Railway run entirely by Richard Branson (as he wanted), responsible for the upgrade, would have been like? But, you must bear in mind that on Virgin West Coast something like 83% of trains run to 'time' as defined in franchise agreements - i.e. arrive at their destination within 10 minutes of the timetable.

Answer 10

We would all like the Rail Network to run at 100% on time, unfortunatley it never will, reason, too many outside influences beyond the Rail operators controls.

As for the upgrade to the track, it is still ongoing and will be for years to come.

Answer 11

Name me one form of transport that runs 100% on time, and I'll show you a liar.

Unfortunately, any activity that involves humans is occasionally prone to co.ck ups.

Do you do your job perfectly, all the time?

Answer 12

The new clocks havent arrived yet, they are on the way. Then you will see some changes by Geroge!!!

Actually, there are a lot of reasons for trains to be late. I dont know about the U.K. but here in the States one big reason is that in most parts of the country our passenger trains have to share the track with all manner of freight and local trains.

Large heavy freight trains are sometimes difficult to get out of the way in time for fast movers. Also the large trains are much more subject to mechanical failures, not necessarily in the locomotives but problems in the train itself, stuck brakes, failed couplers, etc etc and as hard as they try to avoid it, passenger trains are unavoidably delayed.

On most lines there is simply not enough ridership or population density to justify dedicated passenger train lines, perhpas someday in the future.

You may have something about new people, there has to be accountabililty within the system.