Britain’s ten worst train companies are cancelling almost 800 services a day as travellers face chaos on the rail network over the Christmas holidays.

Passengers have been warned rail misery will ramp up over the festive period, with London NorthWestern Railway urging people to avoid trains from Christmas Eve to 2 January and Great Western Railway telling passengers not to bring “massive suitcases” because of reduced services and seats.

Those who need to take rail replacement bus services due to engineering works are also being quoted prices as high as £90 to make the slow journey home for Christmas.

The performance of firms including Avanti, Northern and CrossCountry has come under fierce criticism over the past 12 months, with all three having been criticised by the Government over “unacceptable” delays and cancellations.

However, despite anger over services, rail fares in England are set to rise above inflation by 4.6 per cent next year and train company bosses have continued to receive bumper pay and bonuses.

Avanti – which operates the West Coast Main Line between London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow – part-cancelled or fully cancelled 8,192 trains between November 2023 and November 2024, an average of 22 per day and more than 9 per cent of its planned services.

In 2019, when the franchise was operated by Virgin, the average number of trains cancelled stood at nine per day.

Northern, which has been under public control since 2020, cancelled 74,561 services over the 12-month period, the equivalent of 204 trains per day.

In 2019, the operator was cancelling 111 trains per day.

CrossCountry is worst performing operator in Britain, having cancelled 8,534 trains in the past year, more than 10 per cent of its services.

The average rate of cancellations across all 24 major train operators in Britain was 5 per cent, the equivalent of more than 1,000 trains per day.

Passengers have said they are being forced onto the roads by high levels of cancellations and called on the rail industry to tackle staff shortages and crumbling infrastructure to provide a more reliable service.

Michael Solomon Williams, of passenger group Campaign for Better Transport, said: “These cancellations – especially combined with the upcoming above-inflation fare rise – are causing travel misery and putting people off (travelling by train).

“The Government and rail industry need to invest in both the workforce and infrastructure and sort this out, so that passengers can choose the train with confidence.”

The figures come as Network Rail has warned passengers of major disruption caused by engineering works over Christmas and New Year.

London stations Liverpool Street and Paddington will both be closed for several days after the last trains leave on Christmas Eve, while the main line from St Pancras to Leicester, Derby, Nottingham and Sheffield will shut for nine days.

Trains into Paddington will be diverted to Euston, meaning that station will be busier than usual. London NorthWestern Railway has urged passengers to travel “either side” of the festive period to avoid disruption.

Work on the West Coast Main Line will mean no services running through Crewe on 27 December and reduced services and longer journeys until 5 January.

Train managers at Avanti West Coast are also set to go on strike in a dispute over rest day working, causing severe disruption on New Year’s Eve and 2 January, as well as every Sunday from 12 January to 25 May.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has called on the firm to “get back round the table” with the RMT union to spare passengers further travel misery in the New Year.

She said: “What I want to see happen is for the leadership of Avanti West Coast, which is currently a privately owned train operating company, to get back round the table with the RMT to see what can be done to avoid action happening.”

Labour is promising to get a grip on the country’s rail crisis through its plans for nationalisation.

But questions are mounting following the resignation of former Transport Secretary Louise Haigh and the performance of operators which are already under public control.

Alexander, Haigh’s replacement, announced earlier this month that the Operator of Last Resort, which currently runs Northern, LNER, TransPennine Express and Southeastern, will be taking on three more franchises next year, South Western, c2c and Greater Anglia.

It will also be rebranded as ‘DfT Operator Limited’.

However, critics say the poor reliability of firms such as Northern and LNER while under public control shows nationalisation will not solve deep-rooted problems.

How has your train operator performed?

Across Britain, operators cancelled 368,843 trains between November 2023 and November 2024 – around 5 per cent of 7.2 million services planned.

Here’s how the largest operators have performed:

1. CrossCountry – 23 trains cancelled per day, 10.1 per cent

2. Avanti West Coast – 22 trains per day, 9.4 cent

3. Northern – 204 trains per day, 9.1 per cent

4. Southwestern – 115 trains per day, 7.6 per cent

5. Govia Thameslink – 193 trains per day, 6.5 per cent

6. TfW – 61 trains per day, 6.4 per cent

7. LNER – 9 trains per day, 6.1 per cent

8. West Mids – 66 trains per day, 6.1 per cent

9. Great Western – 88 trains per day, 5.8 per cent

10. TPE – 15 trains per day, 5.2 per cent

11. Merseyrail – 27 trains per day, 4.9 per cent

12. East Mids – 22 trains per day, 4.8 per cent

13. London Overground – 66 trains per day, 4.5 per cent

14. Elizabeth line – 41 trains per day, 4.2 per cent

15. Southeastern – 50 trains per day, 3.3 per cent

16. Chiltern – 9 trains per day, 3 per cent

17. ScotRail – 47 trains per day, 2.5 per cent

18. c2c – 7 trains per day, 2.1 per cent

19. Greater Anglia – 25 trains per day, 2.1 per cent

Many of the cancellations at Northern have been caused by a lack of a rest day working agreement with conductors in the western side of the business which covers places such as Manchester, Blackpool and Liverpool.

The Government believed it had secured a breakthrough when it offered a new four-month deal to the RMT union last month, but it was rejected by members.

The embarrassing defeat will mean Northern has to issue more ‘Do Not Travel’ warnings to travellers throughout December, particularly on Sundays.

Passenger groups warn last-minute cancellations, especially on Sunday, will continue for “the foreseeable future” because of staffing issues.

Sunday or rest day working is a complex issue across the rail industry.

Analysis by The i Paper found at least 16 of the 24 operators have had to cancel services due to a ‘shortage of train crew’ in 2024.

Before she stepped down, Haigh told MPs she wanted to tackled ‘outdated’ working practices and pledged to recruit more staff to give the Government more leverage.

Bus replacement journeys that still cost £90

A standard return ticket from Liverpool to London on Friday 27 December will cost £90.30.

Most of the available journeys on that day will involve a bus replacement service from Liverpool Lime Street to Stoke-on-Trent and then a train into Euston.

It will take at least 3 hours 16 minutes, around an hour longer than the usual travel time.

Spare a thought for anyone trying to travel between London and Norwich.

Most of the journeys on 27 December involve three changes and a bus replacement service through Essex with an estimated travel time of three hours and 12 minutes.

It costs £83.40 for a return ticket.

It’s a similar story for those trying to get from Bedford into London – the journey involve a bus replacement service to Milton Keynes and will take 1 hour 24 minutes.

A return ticket costs £40.60.

Gareth Bacon, shadow transport minister for the Conservatives, said: “After giving inflation-busting pay rises to public sector employees with no strings attached, Labour have failed to secure an agreement with RMT to ensure sufficient staff to operate services, inflicting further misery on Northern Trains’ passengers.

“The Government’s railway reorganisation plans will not solve this problem; they will merely funnel billions of pounds of taxpayer money into an ideological project to appease the unions.

“It would be far better if Labour put passengers first and stood up to their union paymasters.”

Alexander defended the Government’s deal, saying: “Let me be clear about the difference between what was happening under the previous Conservative government, who had a scorched earth approach to industrial relations, and we saw strike after strike after strike across the whole of the network.

“Nobody wants these strikes to happen, but it is not on the same scale as what we saw under the previous Conservative government.”

Rail fare rises for 2025 in Scotland and Wales are yet to be announced but are expected to be similar to the 4.6 per cent increase in England.

An Avanti West Coast spokesperson said: “While we are not in the position we want to be in terms of overall performance, there has been a significant improvement in the latter part of 2024.

“We have developed a joint performance plan which has had a positive impact in the latest quarter, our overall cancellations reduced to 4.3 per cent in the four-week period ending 9 November which was the lowest for over a year.”

A spokesperson for CrossCountry said: “The last 12 months have brought a range of challenges to running trains on time; not least, the frequency and severity of named storms, which have taken place with the highest frequency and severity for almost 10 years.

“We continue to work with Network Rail and other industry partners to mitigate the impact of delay-causing events on customers, not only those caused by severe weather but also when trains have to slow down during repairs to infrastructure.”

A spokesperson for Northern, said: “We are working hard to address issues with traincrew availability so we can improve reliability for our customers.

“Since the summer, we have secured a rest day working agreement with our drivers, however an offer that was recently put to our conductors in the North West to secure a commitment to work on Sundays was rejected by RMT union members.”

A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “As part of our plans to reform the railways, we’re determined to move towards a seven-day working week and end the overreliance on rest day working, giving passengers the certainty and reliability they deserve.”

Bumper pay deals for rail bosses

CrossCountry is owned by Arriva UK Trains Limited, which also runs Chiltern and Grand Central railways.

The highest paid director David Brown received £567,000 in 2022, according to the most recent accounts available.

Mike Cooper is the chief executive of the wider Arriva Group and took home a pay package worth £1.1m.

Avanti is owned by FirstGroup and chief executive Graham Sutherland saw his pay increase to £1.4m for 2024 of which more than £796,000 was in bonuses.

Chief financial officer Ryan Mangold earned £2.8m.

A report to shareholders said “revenue and profits from open access
rail businesses exceeded expectations”.

Northern is effectively under public control through the Operator of Last Resort, an arms-length business owned by the Department for Transport.

Directors at Northern are therefore not entitled to performance bonuses, but received pay and pension contributions worth £952,000 for the year ending March 2024.

The highest paid is managing director Tricia Williams who earned £318,886.

Robin Gisby, chief executive of the OLR, was paid £236,000 for the year ending March 2024, chief finance officer Richard Harrison earned £220,000 and non-executive chair Richard George earned £150,000.

A spokesperson for Arriva Group, said: “We do not comment on specific director’s pay.

“Director renumeration includes pay, pension contributions and success-based performance related schemes linked to key performance indicators set across all the Arriva Group subsidiaries in our operations across 11 countries. 

“Renumeration recorded in the report and accounts will reflect the overall performance of the Arriva Group of companies and is entirely funded by Arriva Group and therefore separate to any operating contract held with the Department for Transport.”