(22 Aug 2015, 10:37 am)8222 wrote And in 5 years of using CrossCountry on a regular basis, yes, their trains smell a bit funny (unless you're lucky enough to get an HST) but I've always found them alright and 9 times out of 10, to be on time. Now and again I would use East Coast from Newcastle - Doncaster and change and I always seemed to arrive about 8-10 minutes late. Speaking of which, it will be interesting to see the new franchise's on time performance. As a regular user of Grand Central, we always seem to be held up by a VTEC train running late.

Because VTEC and Cross-country have more of what I think are called Traffic Rights than Grand Central and also Hull Trains because VTEC and Crosscountry are government franchises which the governments pours money into, The Tories will not waste money on late running franchises.

If you buy tickets for VTEC and Crosscountry a certain amount of money made from that ticket goes to the government whilst if you buy a ticket with GC or Hull Trains which are Open Access operators, most of the money made goes to Arriva who own GC and the rest to Network Rail for the train paths.
so you may be getting a ticket for quite a bit less than VTEC on a service to Kings Cross but you will never make it there before the VTEC, even if the VTEC is running late.