IT PROMISED to be a "step change in the frequency and speed of train services". At the unveiling of the decade-long £9bn upgrade of the West Coast main line in December, a new timetable was introduced promising more than 1,100 extra services every week, shredding the journey time from London to Glasgow by nearly an hour.
With the line rebuilt to accommodate tilting trains travelling at up to 125mph, as well as new junctions, signalling and other work, it was, in the words of Network Rail's chief executive Iain Coucher a "massive achievement". He said he was relaxed
about the project and was sleeping easy. "We are ready," he said.
Less than a month on and the plan is in tatters. More than 200,000 passengers have had journeys cancelled or disrupted after a series of problems created more chaos than the botched opening of Heathrow's Terminal 5.
The rail companies, the largest of which is Virgin Rail, in which Stagecoach has a 49% stake, are said to be "livid". At one point more than 100 passengers on Virgin's flagship Italian designed Pendolino train shivered in temperatures dropping to –9°C before, luggage in hand, they were walked along the tracks by torchlight to safety. The incident left Sir Richard Branson "incandescent with rage". A source close to Branson said: "Network Rail was warned this would happen. We asked for further time to allow the line to bed down but no one listened."
Virgin and Network Rail will this week sit down and discuss whether to postpone another increase in capacity due on January 25, when 20 extra high-speed services are scheduled to join the daily timetable. Sources say the companies are also considering whether they can sustain the extra trains that were added on December 14.
"Our major concern is that the taxpayers have contributed £9bn to the upgrade and they are not receiving the benefit from that," said a spokesman for Virgin. "The question now is whether Network Rail can provide the kind of day-to-day reliability which means we can run the service that we want and the public expect after the investment that has been made."
Transport analysts are asking whether, after 10 years of delays and chaos, Network Rail will ever get it right. "It is something that is impossible to predict," says transport analyst Gert Zonneveld at Panmure Gordon. "Virgin are very unhappy about the situation because they rolled out a new timetable with 30% new capacity. You can't fill that capacity if you have an appalling service beset with delays and cancellations."
Once again the line is in the eye of the storm. Upgrading the London to Scotland route has bedeviled the industry. It was the upgrade of this route which led to the collapse of Railtrack, Network Rail's stock market-listed predecessor, in 1998, when costs ballooned from £2bn to £14.5bn at one point. Plans for the signalling system, which would have allowed trains to run at up to 140mph, also had to be ditched.
A year ago, over-running engineering works at Rugby and Liverpool Street during the Christmas holidays disrupted hundreds of thousands of passengers, causing chaos. Network Rail was fined £14m for the West Coast main line debacle, while Coucher was hauled before MPs on the Commons transport committee. Then there was the case of the blown £2 fuse. Just hours after the line reopened, following its £9bn rebuild in December, it had to be closed when a fuse blew in the signalling system at Willesden.
On Friday there were yet more delays when there was a signalling problem in the morning rush-hour.
For some, including Brian Souter, chief executive of Stagecoach, there were always doubts over Network Rail's ability to complete crucial engineering work in time for December's timetable change. "We have always been concerned that the programme is very ambitious," he said last June. "That is not to say that Network Rail won't deliver, as the company has more track access this summer." But in early December he was still not convinced, telling reporters that "we will be more comfortable when we see it working".
It is a view echoed by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), which has argued that the disruption over the last week has cost business nearly £13m a day.
Director-general David Frost said: "There is no excuse for the huge amount of chaos this rushed upgrade to the West Coast main line has caused travellers. Businesses have lost a staggering £38m in just three days because Network Rail have again failed to adequately deliver. Network Rail must ensure that there is a rapid and effective improvement in the reliability of the network. The BCC questioned Network Rail's decision to bring forward the deadline of its West Coast main line upgrade last year. We believe the recent disruptions have occurred because this vital project was rushed."
In many ways the West Coast peaked too early. In the 1960s it was considered the pinnacle of railway technology. When British Rail completed its modernisation in 1966, the West Coast had the fastest trains in Britain, at 100mph. It was electrified in 1974, reducing travel times between London and Scotland to five hours. But that was when the rot set in and services were left to deteriorate.
By the beginning of the 1990s journeys to Glasgow from London were taking up to six hours because of the poor conditions of the track and signalling. Plans were drawn up, including building a new high-speed line and buying French TGVs capable of speeds in excess of 170mph, reducing the time from London to Manchester to just over 1hr and 35mins at a cost of £700m. That was at the time of the last recession, and not wanting to appear profligate the Government axed the proposals in 1992. The latest upgrade was announced in February 1997.
Last night a Network Rail spokesman said: "Network Rail facilitates more than 20,000 passenger train services each day around Britain, and over 90% of those services run to time. Performance on the West Coast main line this week has been affected by a series of unrelated equipment failures and incidents, some of which were outwith our control. Our engineers have responded quickly to all of the challenges they have faced to help provide as many services to the public as possible and limit inconvenience."
It's all a long way from the gleaming steam locomotives of the London and North Western and Caledonian train companies that broke the world speed record at Kinnaber junction, near Montrose, on August 22, 1895. Back then the Victorians crowned the West Coast line via Crewe as the best in the world. Given the performance over the last month it could arguably be described as the worst.
