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Why is WCML punctuality so terrible, and are there any times of day it runs well?

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tornado

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These are the performance statistics for the last 100 days of weekday services Southbound (Avanti/LNER only) on the ECML
and WCML
. You can see that quite a large number of ECML services have decent punctuality, whereas the WCML seems to be almost uniformly terrible. From personal experience many WCML services are either over 5 minutes late, or horrendously late.

Is this an accurate reflection of WCML performance, are there any times of day when the WCML is actually reliable?

If services are almost never on time shouldn't they just adjust the timetable to reflect reality. For example those timed at 4hr 30 average closer to 4hr 40.

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Bletchleyite

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As a user most of my Avanti journeys are on time. Timekeeping on LNR services can be a bit sloppy but is usually just +/- 5 minutes and is typically recovered at Northampton.

But when it gets bad it gets very bad, and that is simply because it is overutilised with far too little slack - hence HS2.
 

tornado

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But the statistics cannot be incorrect, and they show that very few Avanti journeys are on time. Perhaps you are not travelling end-to-end.

From my very rough eyeballing of the data, they seem to typically accrue, say 15 minutes of delay between Carlisle and Warrington BQ, and then bring that down to 6 or 7 minutes on the final stretch into Euston.
 

Bletchleyite

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Do you have the same stats for Manchester and Brum? I tend to use those more often. It could be a problem with the Scottish fast services specifically?
 

jfollows

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Do you have the same stats for Manchester and Brum? I tend to use those more often. It could be a problem with the Scottish fast services specifically?
That was my feeling when I saw the original post too.
I tend to keep an eye on the xx.55 Manchester-London and the xx.40 London-Manchester because they serve Wilmslow.
Since 2018 the former is held up by the late running Southport-Alderley Edge a lot, and the preceding Liverpool-Euston at Stafford, but still seems to have enough recovery time to be reasonably well on time into Euston.
The latter gets delayed by lack of platforms at Crewe more than anything else, also by the xx.43 from Euston to Glasgow/Edinburgh/Blackpool at Stafford, and often runs a few minutes late into Wilmslow and then Manchester.
But nothing drastic in general. I'd say that gradual tweaks to the original timetable have made the services slightly less reliable, stopping the up Liverpool at Crewe for example delays the Manchester service following quite a lot, but in the big scheme of things it's a couple of minutes only.
 

driver9000

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The Avanti Anglo-Scottish services via Birmingham seem to be particularly prone to delays in the west midlands. I tend to find if any are running late it's the services via Birmingham. Is there any correlation between delayed services and route? At the northern end of the WCML things tend to run smoother but that will be partly down to being less congested than further south.
 

Bald Rick

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But the statistics cannot be incorrect, and they show that very few Avanti journeys are on time. Perhaps you are not travelling end-to-end.

I need to correct that, it is the Glasgow services which are the issue, not Avanti as a whole. And 76% of the trains arrive ‘on time’ (by the Governemnts measure) which I wouldn’t say I ‘very few’. And the period you have selected covers all of autumn, when punctuality is known to dip.

The up Glasgow has an ‘interesting’ path, which means it needs to be on time (or within a couple of minutes) to get in front of a following, slower train at each of Carnforth, Weaver Jn, Crewe, Stafford, Colwich, and Rugby. So, any problem north of Rugby that causes it to be more than about 8-10 minutes late will push it later. If the problem is further north, the lost path can compound quickly.

There is also, in my opinion, something funny about running and dwell times in the Carlisle area, as trains often seem to lose a couple of minutes there for no obvious reason.
 

Agent_Squash

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It does seem like punctuality has slipped particularly in the last few years on the Northern WCML. My commute is only from Windermere to Lancaster and I don’t think I’ve been able to pick up a train that isn’t a couple of minutes late yet on the up since starting a month ago.
 

Peregrine 4903

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The Blackpool/Glasgow/Edinburgh via West Mids services are genuinley the most unreliable in my experience. Not sure I've actually ever seen 9M55 the 1700 to London Euston from Milton Keynes Central ever arrive on time into Milton Keynes Central. Seems like they always pick up a delay between Birmingham New Street and Coventry.

The Liverpool Lime Street and Manchester Piccadilly via Stoke On Trent services at the opposite end of the spectrum are very punctual in my experience.

I actually find the South WCML to be very punctual. Seems to me the biggest issues are on the North WCML between Carlisle and Carstairs for punctual.
 

philosopher

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I find West Midlands services are a lot more punctual southbound. Northbound they almost always pick up some delays between Coventry and Birmingham. Southbound they still usually pick up delays between Birmingham and Coventry, however by the time they have arrived in London they have usually caught back up with the timetable.
 

The exile

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Might it just be that ECML services have more recovery time immediately before Kings Cross ( or that time / punctuality benefits of the” throat clearing “ aren’t yet reflected in the timetabling?
Also, all the ecml 100%ers are duplicates- so may well be based on very low numbers of runs. ( if it’s only run once in those timings, the figure will either be 0% or 100%)
 

Bald Rick

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or that time / punctuality benefits of the” throat clearing “ aren’t yet reflected in the timetabling?

It’s more the punctuality benefit sof 80x running around on Cl91 / HST timings.

Also there’s a lot more freight on the WCML, and especially so north of Warrington compared to north of Donny.
 

Nova1

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I find West Midlands services are a lot more punctual southbound. Northbound they almost always pick up some delays between Coventry and Birmingham. Southbound they still usually pick up delays between Birmingham and Coventry, however by the time they have arrived in London they have usually caught back up with the timetable.
They often end up stuck behind slow local stopping services.
 

tornado

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I need to correct that, it is the Glasgow services which are the issue, not Avanti as a whole. And 76% of the trains arrive ‘on time’ (by the Governemnts measure) which I wouldn’t say I ‘very few’. And the period you have selected covers all of autumn, when punctuality is known to dip.

The up Glasgow has an ‘interesting’ path, which means it needs to be on time (or within a couple of minutes) to get in front of a following, slower train at each of Carnforth, Weaver Jn, Crewe, Stafford, Colwich, and Rugby. So, any problem north of Rugby that causes it to be more than about 8-10 minutes late will push it later. If the problem is further north, the lost path can compound quickly.

There is also, in my opinion, something funny about running and dwell times in the Carlisle area, as trains often seem to lose a couple of minutes there for no obvious reason.

Punctuality is still poor compared to the ECML which is also shown for Autumn.

This would seem to tally if the problem is actually with the Anglo-Scottish routes, rather than Avanti as a whole. They almost never seem to gain additional delays on the Warrington Bank Quay - Euston (mostly non-stop) stretch.
 

AMD

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Network Rail have been challenged to sort out a number of temporary speed restrictions in Scotland which has been causing problems for months now, which don't help the whole line.
 

AndrewE

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They often end up stuck behind slow local stopping services.
Almost every time I go for the ..11 Avanti Crewe to Manchester (ex Euston) service it gets delayed. It usually gets knocked at Stafford by the class 9 Brum to Scotland/Bpool, which is in turn late arriving at Wolverhampton having followed a delayed stopper from Bham New St.
This seems to happen almost every hour.
 

Taunton

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The Avanti Anglo-Scottish services via Birmingham seem to be particularly prone to delays in the west midlands. I tend to find if any are running late it's the services via Birmingham. Is there any correlation between delayed services and route? At the northern end of the WCML things tend to run smoother but that will be partly down to being less congested than further south.
I agree. The issue is that if a main Glasgow service via Trent Valley is delayed, that just impacts those on the service. If one southbound via Birmingham is delayed more than 20 minutes, that's a service on the main Birmingham etc to London 20 minute turn-up-and-go interval service now missing, and that causes chaos on the next service, particularly in the afternoon peak. Having stood from Birmingham Intl to London I speak from experience.

It seems to be timetabling fundamentals that you don't run 300 miles, and then expect to plug effortlessly into a 20 minute interval service.
 

Taunton

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why not? How do suggest it would be done?
How it always used to be done. Separate Glasgow-Birmingham (two-hourly, whatever) and Birmingham-London (every 20 minutes) services.

Reductio ad absurdum, but you wouldn't expect to run Glasgow to Queens Park and then plug effortlessly and punctually into the Bakerloo Line every 3 minutes service there, would you?

It does seem one of the reasons for linking the service was so on the Euston-Birmingham-Edinburgh services they could offer cheap Advances in First Class to score one off LNER. These certainly used to be sold as through trains with little publicity for the extra journey time. You see such passengers rolling northbound through New Street looking pretty fed up with the situation. That was another place I had to stand, about 1800 northbound from New Street, travelling to Carlisle between business meetings, first class ticket from my employer (this is tough, I tell you), stand to Wolverhampton, coach full of those doing London to Edinburgh having paid a fraction of what we had.
 
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Bald Rick

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How it always used to be done. Separate Glasgow-Birmingham (two-hourly, whatever) and Birmingham-London (every 20 minutes) services.

Reductio ad absurdum, but you wouldn't expect to run Glasgow to Queens Park and then plug effortlessly and punctually into the Bakerloo Line every 3 minutes service there, would you?

It does seem one of the reasons for linking the service was so on the Euston-Birmingham-Edinburgh services they could offer cheap Advances in First Class to score one off LNER. These certainly used to be sold as through trains with little publicity for the extra journey time. You see such passengers rolling northbound through New Street looking pretty fed up with the situation. That was another place I had to stand, about 1800 northbound from New Street, travelling to Carlisle, first class ticket from my employer (this is tough, I tell you), stand to Wolverhampton, coach full of those doing London to Edinburgh having paid a fraction of what we had.

ah I see.

the reason for doing it was to offer through journeys from MK, Cov and International to Scotland, but it also freed up a whole unit, which enabled more services.
the up services typically have 4 minutes at Crewe, 9 minutes at wolves and 6 at new st, so they routinely make up middling delays. Not always Though.

to be fair, we do expect LNER to travel 360 miles from Edinburgh and hit a three minute slot at Welwyn.
 

alistairlees

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These are the performance statistics for the last 100 days of weekday services Southbound (Avanti/LNER only) on the ECML
and WCML
. You can see that quite a large number of ECML services have decent punctuality, whereas the WCML seems to be almost uniformly terrible. From personal experience many WCML services are either over 5 minutes late, or horrendously late.

Is this an accurate reflection of WCML performance, are there any times of day when the WCML is actually reliable?

If services are almost never on time shouldn't they just adjust the timetable to reflect reality. For example those timed at 4hr 30 average closer to 4hr 40.

View attachment 107012View attachment 107014
The times in blue are services that only ran a few times (i.e. not every weekday); notice how they are all 100% for punctuality. The presentation gives them equal weight with other times when this is, in fact, not the case. So it's fairly misleading and the statistics do (in this case) in fact 'lie'.

West Coast is obviously still worse, but not by as much as these tables might suggest at first glance.
 

RT4038

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It does seem one of the reasons for linking the service was so on the Euston-Birmingham-Edinburgh services they could offer cheap Advances in First Class to score one off LNER. These certainly used to be sold as through trains with little publicity for the extra journey time. You see such passengers rolling northbound through New Street looking pretty fed up with the situation. That was another place I had to stand, about 1800 northbound from New Street, travelling to Carlisle between business meetings, first class ticket from my employer (this is tough, I tell you), stand to Wolverhampton, coach full of those doing London to Edinburgh having paid a fraction of what we had.
What hyperbole! When a passenger buys an advance ticket they book a specific train - departure and arrival time clearly stated. How can you possibly know what tickets passengers have and what they are thinking as they roll northbound through Birmingham? Mere conjecture to bolster your argument.
 

Peregrine 4903

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How it always used to be done. Separate Glasgow-Birmingham (two-hourly, whatever) and Birmingham-London (every 20 minutes) services.

Reductio ad absurdum, but you wouldn't expect to run Glasgow to Queens Park and then plug effortlessly and punctually into the Bakerloo Line every 3 minutes service there, would you?

It does seem one of the reasons for linking the service was so on the Euston-Birmingham-Edinburgh services they could offer cheap Advances in First Class to score one off LNER. These certainly used to be sold as through trains with little publicity for the extra journey time. You see such passengers rolling northbound through New Street looking pretty fed up with the situation. That was another place I had to stand, about 1800 northbound from New Street, travelling to Carlisle between business meetings, first class ticket from my employer (this is tough, I tell you), stand to Wolverhampton, coach full of those doing London to Edinburgh having paid a fraction of what we had.
Also, most of the issues that the Glasgow/Edinburgh via West Midlans services have seem to be after they depart Birmingham New Street in the Up Direction at least anyway, so re-splitting the service isn't going to make much of a difference anyway in terms of punctuality.

The Coventry corridor is the most unerliable section in my experience, so re-splitting Scotland - West Midland services is unlikely to make a hige difference.
 

Oxfordblues

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Part of the punctuality problem is the often over-tight timings between stations. For example the standard running time for the 21 miles from Preston to Lancaster start-to-stop is just 13* minutes, requiring an average speed of 97mph. To achieve this involves rapid acceleration, sustained high-speed running and last-minute braking. But of course Avanti drivers relieve their colleagues at Preston and therefore must undertake a statutory running brake-test after Fylde Junction, losing at least a minute, often two. Add to this seasonal adhesion issues and defensive driving techniques (ie early braking) and the result is that almost every arrival at Lancaster is at least a minute late. Public perception isn't helped by trains being advertised as departing Lancaster at the very moment they arrive (eg 19:55-19:55) so even an on-time arrival will be followed by a "delayed" departure. A report a couple of years ago showed that a staggering 79% of departures from Lancaster were deemed to be late (the on-time ones were presumably to Morecambe). Avanti West Coast management seem quite happy with this lamentable performance.

(* the 21:43 from Preston is advertised to take an impossible 12 minutes!)
 

Mcr Warrior

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When a passenger buys an advance ticket they book a specific train - departure and arrival time clearly stated.
Probably bought solely on price, with the intending passenger likely to have gone for the cheapest ticket available for a particular departure time, the actual journey time will (to an extent) be a secondary or tertiary consideration.
 

The Planner

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Dec 08 didnt really go through the snagging phase. It needed tweaking but the majority of the writers didnt fancy Milton Keynes and its slowly been tinkered/eroded over time. Dec 22 will be a different animal.
 

Sheridan

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The up Glasgow has an ‘interesting’ path, which means it needs to be on time (or within a couple of minutes) to get in front of a following, slower train at each of Carnforth, Weaver Jn, Crewe, Stafford, Colwich, and Rugby. So, any problem north of Rugby that causes it to be more than about 8-10 minutes late will push it later. If the problem is further north, the lost path can compound quickly.

This earlier late running routinely causes problems at Winwick Junction, where the TfW Manchester Airport-Chester service (also a class 1 head code) has to wait for the Glasgow-Euston, often arriving into Warrington BQ 3-8 minutes late. Of course, to preserve connections for passengers off the Avanti at WBQ, this makes sense, but if you’re making a journey through to Chester it can be incredibly frustrating!
 

william

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Aye, the ECML has very few slow services which is in complete contrast to the WCML. So maybe that is the issue? Conflicting movements will also no doubt eat alot of headway.....
 
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