The west coast train is still late – despite £9bn line upgrade

Published on Monday 1 June 2009 22:06

TWO out of every five trains on the west coast main line have been running late, despite a £9 billion upgrade of the route, a trade union claimed yesterday.

The Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) said it had obtained figures showing punctuality dropped as low as 39.4 per cent on the line between London and Glasgow in April.

The figure for the whole month for trains on time – including allowing long-distance trains to be counted as punctual if they are up to ten minutes late – was 80 per cent. However, during the third week of the month it was below 50 per cent for three days, the union said.

The main problem for the line that month was the major disruption caused by engineering works over Easter. On Easter Saturday and Sunday, buses replaced trains over several sections of the route. Some work continued into Easter Monday morning.

The engineering work was so disruptive that Virgin Trains recommended at the time that cross-Border passengers from London should travel with National Express East Coast, via Edinburgh, instead.

Network Rail justified the engineering work by arguing that fewer people travelled by train on bank holiday weekends, so work was less disruptive than at other times.

However, TSSA leader Gerry Doherty branded the recently completed 9 billion west coast main line upgrade project a "fiasco" and called on the government to ban any bonus payments to all six Network Rail directors this year.

He said: "It beggars belief that Network Rail can spend 9 billion on this project and then manage to produce figures which show only two trains out of every five arriving on time.

"Last January they announced the west coast Improvement team was being disbanded because their work was finally completed.

"Then last week they announced they were setting up a specialist maintenance team to sort out the ongoing shambles that is the reality of travelling on the busiest line in the country.

"These people make Dad's Army look competent. Despite spending billions, they have turned the line into a five-day railway, closed most weekends to passengers.

"One thing is certain. If they cannot run the trains on time, they should not take any bonuses at all this year."

Network Rail chief executive Iain Coucher announced last month that he was giving up part of his bonus.

Network Rail admitted punctuality on the line was not as good as it should be, but a spokesman said the "real story" was that since December passengers were enjoying 1,000 more services every week.

"We are far from complacent, and do realise that performance has not been at the levels we or passengers want, and we are addressing this," he said.