Britain’s most-delayed rail firm told ‘Speedy’ tag a poor joke

Britain’s biggest inter-city train operator, Avanti West Coast, was told that its speedy-sounding name has become a bad joke after it clocked up the worst delays of any UK rail firm.

Avanti — which translates as ahead or onwards in Italian — needs to rethink its branding following a months-long meltdown of services amid a driver shortage, a meeting of the House of Commons transport committee heard Wednesday.

“Have you ever thought about changing your company’s name?” committee member Ben Bradshaw asked Richard Scott, corporate affairs director at Avanti parent West Coast Partnership. “It’s a misnomer isn’t it? Avanti means forwards and you’ve been going relentlessly backward.”

Some 60% of Avanti trains were delayed in the third quarter, according to the UK government’s Office of Rail and Road, shattering reliability on Britain’s premier rail route linking London with Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, and Scotland. The company cut its timetable by 8% in an effort to cope, only to cancel a further 12% of trains at short notice.

Scott told a parliamentary evidence session that Avanti’s performance “has not been good enough,” but that the firm, owned by FirstGroup Plc and Trenitalia of Italy, has recruited 95 new drivers and launched a new schedule to boost frequencies across the network.

The crisis, which has seen people traveling the length of Britain miss job interviews, medical appointments, and court cases while undermining economic links between London and the North, emerged after staff refused to work on rest days in a protest tied to a national dispute over pay and jobs.

The new timetable was drawn up with union backing and has been accepted by all train managers and catering staff, Scott said, with six driver depots also signed up and talks continuing with two others.