CrossCountry tops railway charts

It’s Gold and Silver for award-winning train operator.

CrossCountry has won two prestigious rail industry awards in recognition of its trains being one of the most improved and reliable fleets across Britain’s rail network.

CrossCountry was awarded Gold and Silver at last week’s annual ‘Golden Spanner’ ceremony organised by industry magazine Modern Railways. The Golden Spanner went to the Class 221 Super Voyagers for taking first place in the ‘Modern DMU’ category as the most reliable fleet in its class. The Super Voyagers also took the Silver Spanner for being the most improved fleet thanks to reliability being up 118 per cent on last year.

The ‘Golden Spanner’ is an awards scheme aimed at promoting excellence in train maintenance within Britain.

Sarah Kendall, production director at CrossCountry, said: “We are extremely proud to win these nationally recognised awards. Since the start of our franchise in November 2007 the team at CrossCountry has worked very closely with Bombardier Transportation, our maintainer to take specific targeted steps to improve the reliability of our Voyager trains. Our focus now is to build on this significant progress and further improve our performance. Train reliability is vital for our customers and therefore of the highest priority for us.”

All trains are ranked on the distance they cover between technical faults by the Association of Train Operating Companies’ National Fleet Reliability Improvement Programme and CrossCountry’s Voyager trains outperformed all other intercity fleets across the country.

James Abbott, editor of Modern Railways magazine which organises the Golden Spanners Awards, commented: “Our congratulations go to the maintenance teams responsible for winning these awards. The real winners will be CrossCountry’s customers, as more reliable trains means more reliable journeys for passengers.”

CrossCountry operates a fleet of 57 Voyager and Super Voyager trains from Cornwall and the South Coast to Manchester, Newcastle and Scotland via Birmingham. The entire Voyager fleet was put through a refurbishment programme to provide extra seats and luggage space on all trains.