Some Train Punctuality Figures from 1890

Today it was reported that Passenger Focus found in a survey of 30,000 passengers that 81% were satisfied with their trains' punctuality. Indeed, in September last year statistics from Network Rail showed that for the 12 months ending 23 July, 87.5% of trains were on time, down from 89% the year before. 'On time' is defined as trains arriving up to five minutes after the scheduled time on commuter routes, and ten minutes for long-distance services. An interesting comparison are figures from January 1890 when the government collected data on the punctuality of nine companies' trains running into London terminal stations. The proportion of trains arriving under five minutes for the companies was as follows:

Great Eastern: 94.09%
Great Northern (Suburban): 94.26%
Great Western: 78.03%
London and North Western: 66.46%
London and South Western: 76.4%
London, Brighton and South Coast (London Bridge Station): 87.91%
London, Chatham and Dover (Victoria Station): 70.07%
Midland: 66%
South Eastern (Cannon Street Station): 75.76%

Indeed, these results would suggest that there was quite a variation in train punctuality in the period, with some companies performing well and others not so.