Trains fail to stop at stations 160 times a day

TRAINS missed scheduled stops at stations on average 160 times a day over the past year, new figures show.

Over a quarter of missed stops were by Govia Thameslink, which runs Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern railways.

Govia was accountable for 16,000 of the 50,000 services that failed to stop at one or more stations over the past year, data obtained by the BBC showed.

Govia denied that the decision to miss stops was for financial gain, claiming the practice was a last resort measure to “avoid extensive disruption to many more passengers”.

Missed stops are becoming increasingly common with around 10,000 more over the past financial year compared with 2014-15, when there were around 116 missed stops per day.

More than 52,500 services out of a planned six million had one or more “failure to stop” events in the financial year up to Feb 23, the data showed. Heathrow Express, Chiltern and Virgin Trains East Coast were the operators with the lowest instance of missed stops with, on average, less than one in every 1,000 of their trains failing to halt at a scheduled stop in the period.

Govia Thameslink said: “At times of disruption, we aim to minimise the number of passengers delayed across our network. Skipping a stop is something we only ever do as a last resort, when a train running late would otherwise prolong the disruption.

“We operate the country’s most congested rail network and with a train departing every 27 seconds on average, even a minor delay to one train can cause a widespread and long-lasting knock-on effect across many routes.

“There is no financial incentive to miss a stop because it counts as a partial cancellation, for which we incur a financial penalty. We do sympathise with the passengers affected.”

Tennyson’s first ride on a railway train was made considerably more exciting by his misapprehension that the engine driver had to steer the machine. Today most regular rail travellers are not looking for excitement, so it is all the more annoying when a train does not stop at the station advertised. That happened an astonishing 52,500 times last year. Since commuters are often in a world of their own, with earphones firmly plugged in, many on board miss any prior announcement that might have let them change at an earlier stop, and they jump up eagerly as their intended station comes into view only to see it pass in a blur. Train companies say they are only leapfrogging to prevent even more passengers being delayed. The commuters say that services addicted to such bad habits must simply stop.