Britain's least reliable train companies have been named and shamed as passengers suffer delays and cancellations.
Official figures from the Office of Rail and Road show that 56.5% of station stops by Avanti West Coast services were more than a minute after the scheduled arrival time in the year to March. There has been a slight improvement on the year before when the struggling operator recorded a lateness score of 59.2%.
Avanti West Coast - which operates services between London and destinations including Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Glasgow - cancelled 6.9% of services.
Other rail firms saw an increase in the number of late arrivals in the past year. Grand Central, which runs trains from London to Bradford and Sunderland, saw its lateness figure rise from 53.0% to 56.0%. It cancelled 7.0% of services, up from 5.2% the year before.
More than half (52.8%) of CrossCountry station stops were late, compared to 49.8% previously. It cancelled 8.4% of services, up from 6.5%. The operator offers services from Cornwall, the South Coast, the Midlands and South Wales to the north of England and Scotland.
Other poor performers included TransPennine Express, where 52.3% of station stops were late, Hull Train that had a lateness score of 49.6% and East Midlands Railway where the figure was 48.0%.
Labour has vowed to renationalise the railways as Great British Railways will take over the running of all lines in the next five years as existing contracts with private operators expire.
Transport Secretary Louise Haigh earlier this month warned failing rail bosses she'll rip up their contracts immediately if they don't buck up their ideas. In an interview with the Mirror, she told how she won't wait to act if firms are creating misery for passengers.
Ms Haigh today said: “Britain’s railways are failing passengers day-in, day-out, and as Passenger-in-Chief I’ve made it my number one priority to hold rail bosses to account. That’s why I’ve called in the worst performing train operating companies – starting with Avanti West Coast – and demanded immediate action to raise standards.
“And in my first week in this job, I told the Department for Transport our new motto was to move fast and fix things, which is why one of the first Bills of this Labour Government is to radically reform our railways and drive up performance for passengers."
Four rail operators - LNER, Northern Trains, Southeastern and TransPennine Express - are run by the Government after franchise agreements collapsed.
The Tories awarded Avanti West Coast – owned by FirstGroup and Trenitalia – a nine-year contract starting in October last year, which can be terminated with three months notice from 2026.
(Late arrivals - April 2023 to March 2024)
- Avanti West Coast - 56.5%
- Grand Central - 56.0%
- CrossCountry - 52.8%
- TransPennine Express - 52.3%
- Hull Trains - 49.6%
- East Midlands Railway - 48.0%
- Lumo - 44.0%
- London North Eastern Railway (LNER) - 43.4%
- Northern Trains - 41.2%
- Great Western Railway - 39.9%
- Transport for Wales Rail - 39.7%
- West Midlands Trains - 37.7%
- South Western Railway - 32.6%
- Southeastern - 32.3%
- Govia Thameslink Railway - 31.2%
- Caledonian Sleeper - 30.8%
- ScotRail - 30.2%
- Merseyrail - 29.3%
- London Overground - 26.6%
- Heathrow Express - 26.3%
- Chiltern Railways - 22.1%
- C2c - 20.3%
- Elizabeth Line - 19.1%
- Greater Anglia - 13.8%