Cross Country is an absolute basket case of a TOC and I’m sure the government is only too happy that it’s one of the last to come back to public ownership so Arriva can continue to carry the can for the absolute state that it’s in.

 
The mayor of WECA has laid into the poor experience of XC Cross country trains.

Per Bristol Post article (quote)
The mayor of the West of England region has complained about having a miserable experience catching CrossCountry trains. The operator runs services from Bristol Temple Meads up to Birmingham and Manchester and down to Devon and Cornwall.

Helen Godwin said the customer experience is 'incredibly poor' on CrossCountry services. Passengers will be all too familiar with delays, overcrowding and cancellations, while people travelling for work can struggle to get any work done without connecting to the internet.

She told councillors on the overview and scrutiny committee that she drafted an angry email to the managing director of CrossCountry, but has not yet sent it. The company was owned by Deutsche Bahn, but was recently bought out by a private equity firm.

She said: “I had to travel on the CrossCounty line five times last month and every single time I was either delayed or it was cancelled. You can’t make a phone call, you can’t send a text, let alone do any business on those trains. They are hot and it’s miserable. The customer experience is incredibly poor.

“Prior to this role I was travelling to Manchester and Leeds for work, I was losing six hours a day of work time because I wasn’t able to connect on those trains. I have an email drafted in my phone which was probably written in anger and it’s a good job I didn’t have the managing director’s email on me at the time.”

The Labour mayor sat next to the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, on a CrossCountry train recently, and has already discussed the issues with her. CrossCountry is owned by Arriva, which itself is owned by I Squared Capital, an American private equity company. The operator’s franchise runs out in 2027, when the government plans to take it back into public ownership.

Ms Godwin added: “I’ll reach out to the other mayors to discuss this as well. I had the pleasure of sitting with the Secretary of State for Transport on a CrossCountry train a few weeks ago. So we have discussed this informally. But I’m really happy to reach out to the government.”

A huge focus for the new mayor is improving suburban trains within the wider Bristol region. Several new stations are planned, including at Portishead, Pill, Henbury and Charfield. Services should also start running more frequently too. But for many people travelling further afield, catching the train can still be an arduous and exorbitantly expensive experience.

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/miserable-crosscountry-trains-incredibly-poor-10571399

 
The letter can be found here

 
And Bristol–Birmingham still nominally has most of its services, albeit running short. Reading–Birmingham is running hourly, half its frequency before Covid.

 
About time.

Since COVID, the number of non-reported cancellations has been tending on the ridiculous.

The total lack of capacity on the Bristol-Birmingham corridor, with frequent standing, probably caused in part by the number of non-show trains (cancelled a day earlier).

 
From the BBC