21.11.17
Caledonian hit by delays and poor performance as c2c tops period 8
Caledonian Sleeper services hit the bottom of Network Rail’s Public Performance Measures, with C2C topping the chart.
Caledonian, which took over from First ScotRail in 2015, only had 73.8% of services come in within NR’s five-minute time limit, a huge drop from the 87.4% it had over the same period last year and considerably below the 83.9% national average.
Over the period between 15 October and 11 November, the majority of delays were caused by delays out of the operator’s hands, such as weather, vandalism or Network Rail’s infrastructure work.
The poor performance recorded by Caledonian comes as a surprise, as they topped the scale in period 5.
GTR also recorded extremely low performance, coming in with 75.3% this year, however this is still significantly higher than last year’s score where it was recorded as low as 70%.
On the other end of the scale, c2c topped the table with an impressive 95.9% of services coming on time, improving its high performance from last year and just beating out London Underground’s 94.2%.
c2c’s managing director, Julian Drury, said: “We are really proud that we can once again call ourselves Britain’s best railway. This is only possible thanks to a huge amount of hard work and dedication from all our staff.
“We know that just one service being delayed or cancelled can cause frustration if it’s your train that’s affected, but this is less likely to happen when travelling with c2c than anywhere else in the country.”
David Simpson, Serco’s production and safety director at Caledonian Sleeper, said: “Caledonian Sleeper is unique in that we only operate a small number of services. As such, a few minor incidents can lead to our trains falling behind PPM targets – for example, a tree blocking the line at Lockerbie during a period of high winds.
“Like other train operators, the impact of low rail adhesion was significant during autumn and we faced particular challenges on our Fort William and Aberdeen routes. Addressing this is a key priority and we are working closely with industry partners to ensure improvements are made.
“While there have been some challenges, we are already seeing performance move back above targets. We’re proud of our overall performance, with Caledonian Sleeper the best performing long distance operator as measured by ‘Right Time’ arrivals.”
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