Death by 1000 cuts (in quality of service)

I'm going to London this evening to meet my better half at Waterloo off the Eurostar, due in (and almost always is, sometimes even a few minutes early) at 17:27. Now, I should have the option of catching the 16:15 from Cambridge, scheduled to arrive at 17:05. This should be plenty of time to get to Waterloo in time to meet the Eurostar. Except that the train rarely arrives at 17:05. It's always just a few minutes late. Last week, by the time I arrived at Waterloo my beloved was wandering around (and wondering where I was, mobiles being ineffective). If you don't actually get there on time it defeats the object of meeting someone, doesn't it? We may as well have met at Belgo's later on.

Now, I understand (and will research) that a few minutes delay (up to 5 is it?) doesn't count as late as far as wagn's service level monitoring goes. Well, I'm sorry, if I'm trying to get to Waterloo to meet the Eurostar, 22 minutes is reasonably comfortable, but 17 minutes is a rush and requires the tube system to be at the top of it's game.

So this afternoon I have to make sure I catch the 15:45 from Cambridge - adding a full 1/2 hour to my effective journey time.

I assume that wagn is subject to penalty if it fails to meet certain standards of punctuality. I'd really like to know exactly what the terms are, 'cos I bet (this is what I understand from press reports) it's all based on thresholds, e.g. they only get "fined" if more than (say) 10% of trains are more than (say) 5 minutes late. This, of course, means that they can get away with 9.999% of their trains can be more than 5 minutes late and the other 90.001% can be 4 minutes and 59 seconds late.

What needs to happen is that the arrival time of every train needs to be recorded, and sufficient compensation paid - ideally not as a "fine", but direct to the passengers (who are the injured parties after all) on all trains that are late - to ensure that wagn and all the other rail operators have enough incentive to make sure their services run to the timetable.

I'll report on my time of arrival this evening.

On a different note there was an accident somewhere on the King's Cross to King's Lynn line (which serves Cambridge, of course) yesterday (bad week on this line). Apparently a train hit a tractor on a level crossing. Sadly, the tractor driver was killed. Can more be done to avoid this happening again?