Northern leaders have today passed a motion to write to the Secretary of State asking for Avanti West Coast to be stripped of its contact “at the earliest possible opportunity”.
This motion comes after the report to the TfN board stated that the current situation is unacceptable.
Two options were considered by the board, either an improvement target of June or to have the contract terminated.
The board has decided to take immediate action by writing to the Secretary of State asking for the Operator of Last Resort to take on responsibility.
RailAdvent have asked Avanti for a comment.
“Today's board was very clear. The performance on the West Coast Main Line by Avanti has been so poor, for so long that action now must be taken.
“We will be writing statuary advice today to the Secretary of State calling for Avanti to be relieved of its contract. The travelling public deserve a service they can rely on. But Avanti has fallen far too short of expectations for far too long now.”
Lord McLoughlin Transport for the North Chair
I think that Avanti is being targeted. It could improve the service to Northampton as that is only served by 9M62 and 9M63 at 7 past midnight and not on Saturdays. I have never had a delay or problem with them. Stuff London Northwestern!
At the same time as asking for Avanti West Coast to lose its franchise, then surely Cross Country should similarly lose its franchise because it often runs trains which are too short for the many passengers which are picked up from large towns and cities en-route. Far too often people are standing or sitting on the floor near to the toilets.
I was amazed that both these companies had their franchises extended.
If OLR are the answer, then why have TransPennine Express abdicated from the Mark 5 project?
If indeed Avanti management are too confrontational (and I’ve no knowledge one way or the other) then will a change to OLR at the very top, remove that incompetence? Or is it baked in at a lower level?
With you there David re Cross Country, they just dont encourage people on the trains at all with their short trains, today we have several Edinburgh to plymouth and subsequent returns with the same 4 carriages, utter madness to travel on one of these, I came home from work on one of these last week and was amongst 10 in the vestibule for my journey. Utter clowns running this company.
So have the unions successfuuly sabotaged Avanti in their quest to nationalise the railways? its been their aim for quite a while now/
The unions (for all of their faults) are only trying to protest their members interests, Avanti management are perfectly capable of sabotaging the job themselves.
Behind closed doors with their very confrontational style of man management have been extremely successful in destroying staff morale & goodwill, not to mention being far too keen to make examples of anyone who makes the slightest mistake.
Any rest-day working agreement aside, there’s no incentive for anyone to work overtime to cover the shortages in that kind of atmosphere.
It’s going to take an long time but the sooner the franchise is removed from them the sooner things will improve for everyone.