High-speed rail?

In Friday's Daily Telegraph (28/5/2010) there was an article by Andrew Gilligan titled For most of us, high-speed rail is anything but.   The piece covers a lot of ground and challenges a number of things that seem to be accepted as gospel, but what caught my eye was the paragraph which suggests that instead of spending money on grand flagship projects, the government should be investing in improvements to existing, ordinary services.

The West Coast mainline received a lot of funding aimed at increasing capacity and reducing journey times for the long-distance services, but what did it do for us commuters?   I reckon the answer is "not a lot".  We had to put up with a long period of inconvenience while track and signal 'improvements' were made, but some of the changes that have resulted include: 

1.  A significant reduction in the number of non-West Coast maninline (Virgin Trains) services using the fast-line.  There are fewer fast trains between Bletchley and Euston and the semi-fasts that we get are sandwiched between the 'all stop' trains.
2. Less flexibility when things go wrong - To increase line speeds Railtrack (as was) had to reduce the number of points on the line where trains could switch from fast to slow and vice versa.  What this means now is that if there is a problem on the line, perhaps a failed train or lineside equipment failure, then trains are more likely to get stuck.
3. A drop down the list in terms of priority when things go wrong.   This does seem to have improved in recent years but there certainly seemed to be a time when the local services were cancelled left, right and centre when there was a significant problem while Virgin Trains West Coast Main Line services appeared to come off significantly better.

The cost of the West Coast main Line upgrade apparently increased six-fold by the time it was finished, coming out an eye-watering £14.5 billion (National Audit Office).   Was it worth it? 

One way?

Which bit of "One way" is so difficult to understand? The signage and road markings are very clear - when we park at Bletchley station we should drive in on the left and come out on the right. Unfortunately some people don't seem to get this.
Imagine the scene... It's early evening and all any of us who've been in London want to do is to get home. We get off the train and jump in our cars. We follow the arrows to the car park exit, but coming onto the roundabout in front of the station we spot someone emerging from the right who has ignored the signs. He or she has maybe saved themselves 200-300 yards and a minute or two, but it's queue jumping and they risk causing an accident. I've seen the rows, the hand signs and heard the horns blow. These people though are oblivious to it all.

Today I saw perhaps an even more serious issue arising from this behaviour. I didn't go to the station until midday. The sun was shining as I drove around the corner and the lower level of the carpark was in near darkness. Fortunately, thanks to a flash of light off the windscreen, I spotted the car coming at me the wrong way and was able to stop. I waited for the car to get out of the way and figured that maybe I'd get a wave of apology. What I got was nothing. The driver gave no indication that he was aware that he'd just driven out of the entrance.

We need to ask what makes people think they know better and can ignore the signs (and common sense). Do they think that because the car park is on private property then the usual rules don't apply, or do they think that they so important and their time so precious that they can do what they want, regardless of the potential consequences?

London Midland and Meteor Parking could add more signs and road markings but I reckon these people would still take no notice. The only thing that would stop them would be a physical barrier, one of those tilting ramps which allows cars over in only one direction.The construction of the second level to the car park has been a huge bonus but the abuse of the one way system is going to lead (and for all I know may already have led) to an accident.

Rail delay claim online

My first experience of using London Midland's on-line rail delay claim form hasn't been a great one. They get 8/10 for the speed of response but 3/10 for the response...

The paper form has fields for scheduled arrival time, the exact length of delay and an explanation. The on-line version on the London Midland website does not...

A couple of weeks back there were problems on the line resulting from a train breakdown. I was on a different train than usual, taking one of the fast services with a change at Leighton Buzzard (first stop after Euston). Unfortunately, the delays meant that I arrived at Leighton Buzzard about 20 minutes late and then had to wait another 40 minutes for the first train stopping at Bletchley. The result was a total delay of 55 minutes.

I've always used the paper form for the claims (the £4 in rail vouchers might be paltry but it's the principle that counts!) but this time I decided to claim online. The letter from London Midland came through within 10 days which was great but I wasn't pleased by the content. They had checked and reckoned the delay was less than the 30 minute minimum. Hmmm...

Without any information from the form regarding scheduled time of arrival, the actual delay and the reason for the delay, it looks like they've just looked up the report for the train that I left London Euston on, ignoring the fact that my destination was Bletchley and that train doesn't call there. As Queen Victoria apparently used to say, "we are not amused..."

The letter did invite me to ring or email Customer Service if I disagreed with their decision on the compensation. I have picked up the phone and asked that:

1. They reprocess the delay claim.
2. They review the online form and match the fields to those on the paper form.
3. They put a bit more effort into checking the details of a claim so that they pick up where passengers might change trains between their departure and arrival stations.

The mark for the response on the phone? It's another 8/10. I was listened to and there was no argument against points 1-3. I'm confident that (1) will be handled but have a feeling that (2) and (3) might be a bit more difficult to fix. It would be nice to be proved wrong on those two ;-)

So how was it for you?

London Midland introduced their summer timetable on Monday. Minimal changes on paper, and so far my experience has been nothing significant in practice.

The 07:00 from Bletchley which comes down from Northampton and calls only at Leighton Buzzard perhaps has slightly fewer vacant seats but only on Monday did we have people standing (there was talk of problems with a southbound Virgin train which could explain that).

The 17:51 from Euston home has been OK apart from some messing about with platforms at the London end (18 one day and 8 the next). For some reason London Midland decided to add an additional stop at Harrow-on-Wealdstone but fortunately that hasn't resulted in a later arrival at Bletchley (providing evidence that there is plenty of slack time built into the rail operator timetables).

Given some of the problems that we've had in the past with the introduction of a new timetable, London Midland and Network Rail are probably to be congratulated for their efforts this time around (or is this just early days?)

The start

I've been commuting daily between Bletchley and Euston for something like twenty years. In this time I've seen four organisations running the service (British Rail, North London Lines, Silverlink and now London Midland) and seen some significant changes.

There's no doubt that the trains are cleaner (20 years ago we still had smoking carriages) and safer (there's no opening the door and jumping out before the train has stopped). It now takes longer to travel though (Bletchley now having no fast trains during the morning and evening rush hour) and I've a feeling that it won't be long before I'm paying more for my season ticket than I'm forking out on my mortgage.

I've done more than my fair of moaning and groaning about the delays, cancellations, over-crowding and cost of travelling. Usually this has been in conversation with other suffering passengers and occasionally (I'd like to think politely) with the railway staff. Sometimes, when things have been particularly bad, I've rung or emailed the customer service people. None of this has ever really achieved anything, but letting off a bit of steam probably has made me feel better ;-)

So, taking things a few steps further I thought I'd have a go at creating a blog site to air some thoughts. Whether anyone else ever reads any of this I have no idea and quite frankly don't care 'cos I'm going to give it a go anyway...