Transportation is an industry which is all about trust. When you buy a car you trust the manufacturer to build a vehicle so that the wheels will not fall off. If you buy an airline ticket, you are being promised a flight that will reach its destination without falling out of the sky. A train is supposed to stay on the rails and a ship should always have the plug firmly in place. When it comes to tunnels it is obviously a little easier as a tunnel does not move. The only task is to keep it open and to shove people through it as fast as possible and if all goes wrong and you are stuck for 12 hours in the darkness it would be nice to think that there were plans in place to supply the unhappy travellers with a cup of tea and a sandwich. Clearly these meagre aims are beyond the people who run the Eurostar and Eurotunnel services. The disaster that occurred in England over the weekend was caused by these idiots and exacerbated by the incompetence of the Kent Constabulary and the Highways Authority (or whatever such quango is involved) in failing to deal efficiently with the fallout of the train problems.
I made it home in the end yesterday evening, we were about 45 hours behind schedule. It was not thanks to any of the above and was based solely on my decision not to allow myself to be at their mercy. I suppose I could try to claim the ticket back but they are such a bunch of incompetent bureaucrats that I am not even going to bother. It would simply raise my blood pressure. I would rather kiss goodbye to a few pounds and live a life of peace. For those of you stuck in England and wanting to go to France, I did it by going to Newhaven and getting on the LD Line to Dieppe and then I drove home from there. It was a pleasant scenic run, by way of Forges-les-Eaux, Gournay-en-Bray and Beauvais. The snow was really not so bad and the only worries on the entire trip was when a Range Rover driven by a prat (of the English variety) came past me in very silly fashion, en route to a skiing holiday. I expect he is dead by now – and I shall not be mourning him. Four-wheel-drive will not save you when you have a head-on with a truck…
Tomorrow I am going back to Dieppe to pick up my father, who is spending Christmas with us. He is booked on a Eurostar train but as we have no faith in the service and they do not know what they are doing until this evening (at which point they have to deal with a four-day backlog of people) we have decided to get him out of the mess and he is booked with good old LD and I will meet him off the boat at Dieppe.
None of this seems to be related to motor racing – which is supposed to be what I write about – but then again the blog is really just a soapbox on which I can stand and preach about whatever I wish. People don’t have to read it. However, there is a parallel and I am going to explain it. You see, I have very serious doubts about Virgin Racing because of just such an incident some years ago with Virgin Trains. Ever since then, whether it was his fault or not, I have considered Richard Branson to run shonky businesses. I admit that this may be irrational and unkind, but he stole my sister’s graduation ceremony from me, by failing to transport me to Liverpool one day way back when. There is no compensation in the world that can make up for that and as a result of that I have always avoided Virgin if there is another option available. It is simply a matter of principle. We will see whether his F1 team ends up being serious. I have my doubts.
This is the trouble with brands. The things are brilliant if you have a good brand image, but if you screw up and do not provide the right level of service then you are stuck with the bad image. If one tries to maximise profits by skimping on the quality then your brand can turn into a complete disaster. If I were Eurostar or Eurotunnel I would get rid of the current management (by firing squad) and I would appoint some Formula 1 people to run the business for them. They would re-brand the service and make the trains run on time. And the trains would be bright and shiny. It is all about the mentality. In recent days I have seen many hundreds of trucks sitting around waiting for something to happen. They are almost all grimy and dirty. Formula 1 trucks are never like that. The F1 mentality is to show that you are special and so the truckies will be out polishing their trucks while others are eating burgers and complaining that it is cold.
It is worth noting that McLaren’s advanced technologies company sells not only hardware, but also management philosophies to those who wish to buy them, so that people understand the meaning of the word “excellence”. Saying that you are doing your best and apologising is not good enough.
I would very definitely travel on a McLaren-branded train. It is a trusted brand as far as I am concerned. I know they would look after me and while I might be paying a little more, it would definitely be more reliable than the clowns running the existing businesses.
I’ll be taking the LD Lines crossing from Portsmouth to Le Havre on 27th, mainly because Ryanair have cut their flight schedules so drastically (what were you saying about branding?).
but what if it was a renault train driven by nelshino – F1 branding isn’t a cure for everything
Glad to see that the festive spirit is alive and well and living in France. Perhaps you should give up on the travelling as all you seem to do is complain about it!!!
JohnO,
I am sure that if your Christmas travel plans go horribly wrong, you will not complain about it…
It always amazes me how, in Britain, even the tiniest amount of snow can stop the country. people seem to lose their heads and act like idiots.
A while back myself and a few business analyst colleagues were trying to think of a Virgin business (Virgin Atlantic aside) was really successful and sustainable. But we had some trouble with it. He seems to get involved for a nominal sum, normally a small portion of the shareholding but taking all of the limelight. Branson spins it up that it’s a great opportunity or he’s saving the company (as applicable) then as it starts failing, quietly backs out, having taken the kudos for the initial period. Most of the companies on Virgins books aren’t run by him or his team, they’re just branded.
So there’s no risk, so long as the brand is managed and never damaged. Quite clever really. Virgin Megastores was sold to managers (Zavvi) as it was going bust and that prevented Virgin having a failed business on it’s hands with the embarrassment of closing stores and redundancies. Virgin Media will be changing name soon, or so the rumours say, Virgin only own something like 5% or 10% of that company and they have to pay Branson £100k for personal appearances at their events. So a Virgin business is not arranged how the public perceives.
Like the manufacturers, Branson will be in F1 for as long as he’s getting good brand exposure, no longer.
If Eurotunnel was run by Formula One people though, travelling through it on a train would be by invitation only. Furthermore, the majority of people on the train would have little interest in the train, or the destination, and would only be there for the copious amounts of free food and champagne – and to be seen by other similar people.
The people who were actually interested in the train or destination would have to pay huge sums to walk through some grotty little service tunnel on the side!
One wonders what a Toyota, Renault or BMW F1 Train would deliver?
I suspect the Toyota one would be slower than advertised and suddenly pull out halfway under the Channel.
The BMW one would meet set targets, reach a destination and and then never run another train, while the Renault one would crash into the tunnel wall, deny all knowledge, sack the train driver and then sell 3/4 of it to a businessman
Whilst we are having loads of problems coping with the snow in Denmark, the trains and roads are running (albeit with delays) and people are safe – but not travelling as much. It’s not like the UK where the water and the power always got cut off…
The Mclaren train would recruit a high profile train driver and as a result be 1-2 mph quicker. Then half way through the first year the drivers would fall out with each other and one of them would stomp off to work for SNCF before turning up on the Italian railways two years later.
Merry Christmas Joe. Glad you finally made it home. Love your blog even when you go off the F1 topic and its nice to know its not just us Americans who cannot drive in snow.
I’m sure I would. But not by slating the British as you seem to get great pleasure from doing. Yes we are disorganised when it comes to weather but the Eurotunnel thing was one that took the company by surprise. The snow and ice was the cause and exacerbated what was a difficult situation. You seem to have become a very grumpy man of late and it doesn’t suit you.
JohnO,
It has got nothing to do with nationality. Why would I talk so glowingly about McLaren if I was anti-British. In any case I am British. The fact that the Eurotunnel company was taken by surprise is not the issue. The point is that there was no planning at all for any kind of emergency. Similarly, the access to Dover was a joke. What were the police doing? The streets out of Dover were completely empty and the streets in were completely blocked. It does not take a rocket scientist to work out that one might use the empty streets to alleviate the problem and ease the whole problem. Grumpy? Not really, but I don’t much like funerals and don’t much like incompetence…
This English disease has obsessed/depressed me for a very long time. My view is that there are two major reasons – 1/ people in England like to joke about being lazy, just like they joke about drinking – and, as with excessive drinking, they’re actually serious. 2/ Too much disposable income, so people simply buy themselves out of poor service situations – less work and less embarrassing than actually doing something about it. And that’s why the Eurostars and British Gases can get away with it. What difference can ten, twenty or even a hundred thousand protestors make when x million just keep turning up, paying up and returning their attention to important things like playstations and tv talent shows?
Anyway – I’m glad you got home safely Joe. You must have come within a few miles of me to get to Newhaven – if I’d known, you could have popped in for a tea and some cake so I could say thanks for all the enjoyable reading and Merry Christmas too!
This McLaren branding idea is great, I’d choose that service for sure but I doubt that Dennis would give this name to be used by public transport, especially trains.
Joe, I understand what you are talking about, brilliant piece!
Some thoughts that came up:
About McLaren I have my doubts because I think the trains would become very expensive and everything would be grey. What about Flavio B running Britains trainbusiness? He has time and knows all about the shining bits of F1. Also, he would make sure the women in the trains would look great.
Joe, I see the connection. The problem is you and trains don’t mix well, lol… joking aside the only experience I have with Eurostar was exactly 10 yrs ago christmas and more or less for same weather reasons in France. It took like 6 hrs in the tunnel, no explanation or refund, so the problem is probably not just related to the current management, but the management excellence has been passed down through the generations and flows in the blood of the organization…..
F1 – and its teams – are just as vulnerable to exceptional circumstances. The tyre debacle at Indianapolis some years ago, the hugely extended qualifying session at Indianapolis this year, half points at Malyasia also this year – to name just a few that come to mind immediately.
Unfortunately you seem to be right about Virgin. The guy is even more of a cheapskate that Bernie is and basically just wants to show his face on TV and get free publicity.
Only seeing him how he jumped in the Brawn bandwagon and claiming that he helped them succeed was funny enough.
Now the matter of responsible companies is a whole lot of torture for people. Now F1 teams act in professional way because of there close environment. I don’t know how they will go around running a big business handling all sort of people out there in the real world?
The big manufactures ain’t doing a terrible job in giving you the car they promised and all that. You know as a person i understand that even big companies are being handle by people with limits but what i hate is false promises.
If he says that my car will be delivered in 25 days and that is indeed what happens i have no problem. But if he says 20 and it takes 25 i get mad. Don’t promise things you can’t do. Tell your client the truth.
Off course in situations like the train i have no idea what happened.But am under the impression that it involves the principle of competition. There aren’t any other tunnels around taking there business from them to try and get better. So they sit happy in there secure position with out fighting to improve themselves. In F1 if you fight hard with the other guys.You have to try and be better than them. i imagine that if a team run alone they wouldn’t care how long it takes them to make a pit-stop or that there car is slow and brakes down all the time.
That’s qualifying at Interlagos, of course.
Ian, I think I love you. Your comment’s made my Monday.
well done Ian Lockwood – hear hear
the Eurostar thing is weird – when these trains have been running for 15 years in all weathers. But the Chief Exec did do a good impression of a frightened Rabbit and was not up to snuff on this occasion.
Well done Joe for being resourceful and I am sorry you – and thousands of others – have had such a bad time. the poor truckers stuck in their cabs for god knows how long have had a very hard (and unsung) time of it too.
comments about Virgin bang on – the BBC f1 site has gossip today re virgin in the daily star (!!!!) – the aim of having a female driver is great (but not of course publicity driven – much) – but the virgin quotes stink and it is really tacky as presented (nuff said) – lets hope he calms down soon
Joe, you’ve blown a hole in the old expression “if you get good service you tell one friend, if you get bad you tell ten”…
Having traveled on the tunnel train a number of times, I seem to remember that the trains were built by a Canadian company called Bombadier Inc. If memory serves me right that company was owned, in a large part, by one of the co-owners of McLaren, Mansiour Ojay.
“I would very definitely travel on a McLaren-branded train. It is a trusted brand as far as I am concerned. I know they would look after me and while I might be paying a little more, it would definitely be more reliable than the clowns running the existing businesses”.
Be careful what you wish for, you may get your wish!
Thing is F1 is a completely different endeavour to everyday business.
In F1 1% means everything. In most customer facing businesses delivering an extra 1% of something means disproportionate cost to benefit.
So if it snows 3 days a year, and causes chaos for customers that’s okay, because the cost to the business to prepare for 3 days of snow (that may or may not happen) is so high relative to the likelihood such preparations will be necessary.
Sadly that’s just how it is.
Although it is always welcome when big companies surprise you. On Thursday I had the misfortune to find myself stranded at München Flughafen, my 9pm Gatwick flight cancelled. EasyJet managed to squeeze those of us that were prepared for a hike, on to a late, late flight to Stanstead. The attendants on board handed out free drinks and light snacks, the pilot kept spirits up with some amusing (and very dry) observations of the whole situation and performed (or his co-pilot) one of the best landings I’ve witnessed in frankly obscene conditions at Stanstead.
I’m not sure if this was an exception, but one could easily imagine had it been a certain Irish carrier you being handed your £35 back with a cheerio sorry not our problem shrug. Or if you boarded the plane, it would have been staffed with surly quasi-english speaking automatons that even aeroflot rejected.
Everything aside, I live in kent. Our house is on a slope. A very slight one. We cant go anywhere, driving or walking, because the local authorities have failed to grit anything other than the A roads, and thats only because Bluewater is a short walk away from where I am sitting. Any way, Britain is a shambles, ruined ay greedy politicians and penny pinching town halls. All those involved in the Eurotunnel fiasco deserve more than a free ticket and a few quid in their wallets. As for beardy Branson, I agree with everything that has been said here. He takes the credit then quietly slips out the back door when all goes belly up. I hope Virgin Racing does better than Zavvi, but I expect at the very least that we will know that team by a different name come next season, whilst Sir Dick is off investing in piracy on the high seas…..
Picked this up from The Huffingtonm Post: CANCELED: Train Services Stopped Indefinitely
Would have to agree with thewizardweb. Sir Richard knows marketing…….which, nowadays in the internet age, is all about form over function. Case in point: Trying to get Danica, partially (just partially?) because “she’s a looker.”
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/motorsports/view/113451/Richard-Branson-s-curvy-plan-for-F1//
Not sure I’d want to buy a ticket on the Virgin spaceship.
Joe, I would not count on entry to the Virgin Racing pits/garage area. In the mean time, please keep the great musings going.
I enjoy them very much.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Traveling along the Mid-Atlantic during the nor’easter in the past two days, I was amazed at how well the crews from New York and New Jersey did keeping the roads, bridges and tunnels clear.
Was very nervous, but drove into Manhattan less than 5 hours after the storm ended and ran into no real problems.
The trains ran without fail.
That said, my sister is stuck in Philadelphia for 3 extra days (glad I didn’t choose Delta). It truly seems like the “little guys” deliver better on their promises.
Just touching on your last point Joe, while you might be happy to pay more to travel ‘McLaren rail’, do you think significant numbers of others would as well?
Everyone is willing to ‘pay a little bit more’ for better service, but if it only costs ‘just a little bit more’ for such a service, everyone would go for it, you know what I mean?
But of course would such a service be really just a ‘little bit more’? And what is ‘just a little bit more’ anyway? Good people need to be paid accordingly and flexibility of service is costly when dealing with millions of customers. Which is why Ryanair have largely English as a third language staff and are so stubborn with irregular passenger requests or changes of details.
Any quality of service suffers as a business scales. And while McLaren is a big company in F1 terms, it is a tiny, tiny drop in the ocean compared to Virgin’s sprawling mess of businesses.
If we look at Singapore Airlines for a moment. They used to be one of the cheapest carriers for long-haul routes to Asia or Australia. They are 9 times out of 10 the best airline to fly. Nowadays, they are the most among the most expensive of all airlines to fly with. Such is the case now, that sometimes you have to ‘slum it’ with Malaysian or JAL, simply because that ‘little bit more’, is now a lot more. Singapore Airlines have built a successful business by making the experience much better for cattle class passengers and the costs to them to maintain that are growing.
Budgets matter to most people, particularly when it comes to travel. After all, how on earth else can you explain the meteoric growth (almost of a cancerous variety) of Ryanair.
Speaking as an ISO9001 qualified person, quality doesn’t cost money, all it costs is the thought to make effective processes to look after your business or community. It’s not the preserve of high-end companies like McLaren, but the principles are available to every company, organisation or individual and Eurostar is no exception.
They have a third tunnel for service and evacuation, so even accepting that you can’t plan for every eventuality, why did they miss the obvious one of trains breaking down in the tunnel?
Being British though, I have to admit, we are too comfortable as a society, leading us to be a bit complacent.
@Aaron James.
I used to work in a department store and it used to really amuse me that people used to complain to us about competitors giving them awful service for the last thing they bought, because they just went where it was cheapest and the service or after sales service was poor.
It really is true that “when you pay peanuts, you get monkeys” and I always make sure that if somebody does serve me well, then they get my business or are rewarded with a generous tip (tipping is unusual in Denmark).
Brilliant read the whole lot.
If it’s cold in England turn round and follow the sun or a country that can cope with – 1 it’s pathetic, otherwise drive to the nearest mental home.
Try going up the M6 ..75 miles of traffic cones with average speed cameras not a sole in sight doing any work..arghhhhhh
Regards Mc mad
I would not like to see F1 organisations running national services like the railways. The scale service proposition is just so in-comparable.
F1 companies do not serve anyone except their sponsors and shareholders. They have no interest in the fans, except for where it hits the bottom line (i.e. TV figures and merchandising), they have no interest in racing except where it hits the bottom line (i.e. TV figures and their cut from the FIA/FOM prize funds), and they have no interests in the cars except where they impact the bottom line (i.e. as moving advertising billboards).
Do you really want to see that kind of company running the railways?
Regarding non-F1 related blog posts. For me, they are no problem and actually nice to read. You should not apologise for anything you put on the blog that is off-topic as it were.
Joe on the subject of Virgin we have Virgin Blue Airlines in Australia and while their service is usually reliable they had a huge amount of trouble here last week when their computer reservations system shut down and about 10,000 people were grounded over two days. I guess that’s 10,000 fewer customers that Branson will have here. On the subject of Branson why didn’t he make a bigger share of Brawn’s advertising budget? That rear wing was a lovely virginal (pun intended) white for most of the year. On trains I travelled through Europe a few years ago and ued the Eurostar from Paris to London and was impressed but not half as impressed with the Italian Eurostar I caught to Rome and which proudly boasted that it was “Styled by Pininfarina”. Only in Italy.
Joe, you should claim your refund – they are offering a full refund plus a free return ticket and £150 compensation – why let them keep it !
On second thoughts , that might be for the people trapped in the tunnel !
Joe,
This is nothing to do with Eurostar or Eurotunnel.
The problem is caused by condensation forming on the engines when the train passes from cold external air into the warm tunnel air (at apparently 25 ‘C!).
That makes it a train manufacturer problem. Frankly Eurostar should be sueing them for defective equipment.
Sorry, but your analysis is completely wrong and biased to boot.
As a previous poster has pointed out, a major shareholder in McLaren may actually be part owner of the company that made these trains. No idea if that is true, but if it is, I expect to see photos of you, your hat, a plate and some gravy. Hope its a tasty one!
Stephen Kellett
My analysis is neither wrong nor biased. If you read the posts properly you will see that I am not complaining about the weather but rather the lack of ability and planning of those involved to deal with a crisis. The nature of the crisis is irrelevant. Eurostar has been operating these trains for years without drama. The failure is on the part of the company to have ANY plans in place to deal with such a problem; its failure to communicate with its clients and thereafter the failure of the authorities to deal with the ensuing problems created by the Eurostar/Eurotunnel problems. If you were one of the 55,000 people who have been affected by this, you would probably think differently…
A McLaren train would have 150 staff onboard, but only 2 passenger. Each ticket would cost a fortune and go only to beautiful people, but the tab for the ticket would be picked up by a sponsor.
The design for the train would be fundamentally a copy of very successful Italian designed train.
The train could only run on an enclosed track, in other words you could not travel to a destination. Only return to where you started from.
It would have the most uncomfortable ride of any known vehicle.
It would be able to travel about 300 miles before being stripped apart with half its component needing to be changed.
F1 guys are good at what they do.
But you wouldn’t get a plumber to re-wire your house would you?
IMHumbleO Joe’s right Stephen – from the outside looking in it was how the company dealt (or didnt ) with the issue that is the issue – not that the problem arose – possibly apparently due to the ‘wrong’ sort of snow
Eurostar run by f1 Lots Of Trouble Usualy Serious. Btw they cancelled a race in f1 because of sunshine!
Hi Joe,
I totally aggree with you regarding traveling. The travel system around the world is bankrupted. The smallest problem turns into a caos.
My daughter took 56 hous from Boston to Geneva. She got stuck in New York and the American Airlines told her the will not pay for hotel accomodation because the cancelation was due to weather. Ridiculous.
The airlines, the trains, the airports , they are all bankrupt, they can not handle any crisis and have no respect to their clients but they still charge you taxes to use them.
The burocrats of the European Union istead of having free lunches in Brussels, should protect the travellers and impose heavy fines to airlines ,airports trains etc for nor performing their obligations and law makers around the world must do the same.
J
ust imagine if we did not pay our taxes on time. We will all end up in jail. The passanger must have rights we are the clients.
There is an intresting article on The Register looking at the problems with eurostar/eurotunnel over the weekend. So intresting points made, about how come 5 trains got stuck in the tunnel, rather than 2, how come there seems to be only one rescue train for pulling out stuck trains, particularly if you then let it go all the way to london and if you are going to let 5 trains be stuck. How come the evacuation procedures are so poor, etc.
Well worth a read.
Joe,
Tell us how you really feel! Don’t sugar-coat it.
I completely agree regarding the lack of managerial initiative when it comes to having plans in place, or being able to improvise in place, to deal with any such issues, whether they are weather related or not. To strand any passengers for such an exended length of time without basic needs beeing met is pushing the criminal envelope. (Same to be said for leaving airline passengers on the tarmac for hours without a working loo.) It harkens to the attitude that if the “system” does not provide for it then nothing can be done. Very little common sense or initiative is evident in too many areas.
Joe,
I’ll just have to put that down to me misunderstanding what you were getting at.
But that said, I find it very odd that you would say you’d travel on a McLaren branded train when we know that the trains are the fundamental cause of this problem (if the trains had not failed, this problem would not have occurred). And we know courtesy of another poster that the trains are part owned by a part owner of McLaren. And that if McLaren did start running trains, they’d probably purchase from the same vendor, etc. Oops, back to square one…
Also, McLaren is a medium size company. Its not too hard to be excellent when your staff numbers are small/medium and in a limited number of geographic locations. Its another thing altogether to be excellent when you are a large company and your employees are spread out all over the place and rarely meet the founders that have the passion and work ethic that is instilled so well in a smaller company. You are comparing apples and oranges. I would not trust any Formula 1 company to excel at large scale organisation. I think they would be vey bad at it.
[...] The importance of delivering the goods Transportation is an industry which is all about trust. When you buy a car you trust the manufacturer to build a [...] [...]
It would of helped if I had included the link…
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/22/eurostar_eurotunnel_fiasco/
Point well taken about Virgin’s business. It is a common problem in today’s business environment to promise the world, deliver quite a bit less, and then issue a triumphant press release. What did the Americans say about “declaring victory and then getting the hell out of there?” La plus ca change….
The sad thing is, everything seems to operate so close to as 100% as possible in the UK, that whenever anything goes wrong there’s no spare capacity to help out.