One in three Virgin Voyager trains late

The high-risk £1bn plan by Sir Richard Branson to transform his chaotic CrossCountry rail network from "Cinderella to Princess" is failing miserably, industry sources say.

More than a third of his new Virgin Voyager trains are arriving latebecause of "a series of horrendous problems", internal figures show. Trains have been taken out of service because of defective windscreen wipers, an inability to cope with seaspray and computer breakdowns, industry insiders have told The Independent.

The trains and a huge expansion of services were part of a package introduced on 30 September in a blaze of publicity. Sir Richard promised that the CrossCountry franchise, which had one of the industry's worst records for reliability, would be transformed. The Virgin chairman hoped the revamped network, stretching from Penzance to Aberdeen, would encourage people to "leave their cars at home".

As part of "Operation Princess", the timetable was virtually doubled, with services between Scotland and south-west England increasing from 34 to 65 trains a day.

But in the first four weeks of the new winter timetable, some 35 per cent of trains arrived more than 10 minutes late – the official definition of lateness. The record is worse than the latest figures covering the old timetable, operated by antiquated locomotives, which showed 27 per cent of services failing to arrive on time.

The network is highly sensitive to breakdowns because many of the trains pass through the congested area around Birmingham. Once a train "path" has been missed, a train sometimes has to wait a long time for the next available slot.

A source said: "Virgin has taken a massive gamble in an attempt to improve services, but so far it is failing miserably. There have been a series of horrendous problems."

On 9, 10 and 11 October a number of Voyagers were taken out of service after their engines shut down as they passed the seashore at Dawlish Warren in Devon. Salt water shortcircuited a mechanism on the train roofs that controls the brakes.

Bombardier, the trains' manufacturer, claimed the waves that day were much larger than usual, although critics point out that winter storms always cause spray to be washed over the track.

A spokesman for Virgin said services had been disrupted by a "wide range" of problems. He said the company was very pleased with the Voyagers, but confirmed that work was needed to enable them to withstand seaspray at Dawlish.