Missing platforms?

On the train this morning one of the regulars mentioned her frustration that London Midland and National Rail Enquiries have stopped posting up platform information for the departures of our trains from London Euston. 

This fellow traveller rarely gets the same train home two nights in a row.  She arrives at Euston via the Euston Square tube station which means there's a choice of entrances.  When there's only a minute or two to spare, picking the right one can make the difference between catching or missing a train, so it's really useful to be able to see in advance where the 17:24, 17:34, 17:51 or whatever is leaving from.

I'm a regular user of the online arrivals and departure boards but hadn't noticed this anomaly so I decided to see what platform information I could get for my own journey home.

What I found was as follows:

At 17:27 I check the National Rail Enquiries' 'Train Times' app on my iPhone.  The 17:51 departure is there, but no platform is shown.  Fair enough, the train isn't in yet.  However, as a regular I know that the 17:51 uses the same rail stock as the inbound arrival from Tring that gets in at 17:38.  

The online arrivals shows board shows platforms and it looks like everyone knows that the 17:38 is coming in on Euston platform 8.   There again, it's still 25 minutes before the 17:51 is due to leave so maybe too early to confirm? 

I get to Euston and cross the station concourse at 17:30.  Looking up I can see that the 17:51 shows as departing from platform 8.

Surely the online boards must now show the 17:51 departure platform?

I check and find the platform detail is still blank.  

The 17:34 is currently on platform 8.  Could it be that the people who run the online site don't want to send people on the wrong train? 

Once the 17:34 has pulled out, the VDU for the platform shows the 17:51. 

I check the iPhone app again.  No platform shown.

I check London Midland's own site.  No platform shown.

Could there be a reason for this?  Maybe the online people are more cautious than those who post up the information on the station VDUs and display boards.  Are they waiting for the rolling stock to arrive?

I walk to the end of platform 8.  The inbound Tring train arrives on time at 17:38.  So now we have the 17:51.

Surely the online departure board must now show the departure platform for the 17:51?

 

It's 17:41.  I check the iPhone app again.  No platform shown.

I check the London Midland site.  No platform shown there either.

What's going on?  Surely by now whatever system feeds the online boards must know that the 17:51 is leaving from platform 8? 

Maybe it's 'policy'?  What possible reason could there be for withholding this information though?

(I notice that the National Rail Enquiries site shows the departure platform for the 17:40 to Manchester)


By now I figure that the departure platform is unlikely to ever appear online, but I take one last look...

At 17:48 we are three minutes from departure, there's still no platform showing online for the 17:51.  This is exactly the time when this information would be of most use for a passenger in a hurry.

The evidence looks fairly conclusive.  No platform information for London Euston departures is being made available online.

If we can have arrival platforms then why can't we have the same information for the trains home?

Service improved? 4

London Midland have a page on their website titled Improving our services where they describe the steps they are taking to address a number of problem areas.

This is the fourth in a series of blog postings which covers an aspect of the service that London Midland say they are working on.



More punctual

Under this heading London Midland say that their priorities are to run their trains on time, safely, reliably and consistently.  The claim that they have "already made progress since the start of the year" and "aim to get back on target as soon as possible".

So what do we think?

It is ironic that this heading has come up in the week that has seen serious disruptions to the London Midland commuter services to and from Euston.  The worst incident was on the evening of Thursday 23rd when a series of signal/points failures and then a bomb hoax at Watford Junction station caused some trains to run in excess of an hour late and (at one point in the evening) a complete suspension of the service.  I think for the purposes of this piece it is probably better to look at a normal week.

The stats that London Midland produce do indicate an improvement in reliability (see ...and statistics).  How has that improvement been achieved though?  I'd suggest that it's by omitting one very important item from their list of priorities - journey time.

We live in a time when we are so obsessed with getting from one place to another as quickly as possible that we are prepared to spend billions on high-speed rail lines and yet we completely ignore the possibility of reducing journey times for a short-distance journeys.  

On our line vast amounts were spent on the West Coast Mainline upgrade work a few years ago and millions have been spent on buying newer, faster trains yet I don't believe we have seen any reduction in journey times.  If anything, the time to get from A to B with London Midland is now longer as trains seem to be making more stops and fewer commuter services have access to the fast line.   Then there are the instances where trains can run faster but they end up spending longer at intermediate stops, slowing down or even stopping in order to keep to the timetable (see Timetable flab).


With the previous three subjects dealt with in this series I've summed up my view by the award of a tick, a cross or a question mark.  With this one I have a real problem.  The definition of punctual is "acting or arriving exactly at the time appointed"  so strictly London Midland have achieved that.  I believe that they have done so though only by a complete lack of ambition in their timetable.

I really can't face giving this one a green tick but a red cross probably isn't appropriate either.  It's therefore got to be another yellow question mark  :-(


What do you reckon?  Do you feel that the service between your home station and London Euston is more reliable?  Is London Midland meeting your expectations in this area?  Are you getting to the office or back home consistently on time?   



Following the same order as used by London Midland, the next one in this series will be Better information.

Information and lack of

"A sea of red"
Nation Rail UK Train Times
16 September 2010

We've had three incidents on the London Midland commuter line over the last ten days which I believe have shown how well London Midland can communicate, and how they can't...


Thursday 16 September - Services delayed by a freight train "axle-box fire"

07:00 from Bletchley delayed by about 15 minutes.  We were kept very well informed by the train crew of what was going on and London Midland's Twitter feed (@LondonMidland) was also spot on.  The National Rail Enquiries online arrivals/departure board was also a useful source of information. 

It did take London Midland's email update service a while to catch up with what was going on, but overall for that day it's a very well done and thank you to all concerned.

Wednesday 22 September - Signal problem at Kings Langley

Same train in the morning but six days later.  The 0700 was kept on the slow line instead of crossing onto the fast at Ledburn Junction.  A bit further down the line we slowed and by 0730 were stopped.  No announcements on the train at this point, and nothing from London Midland either via Twitter or email.  

Around 0735 we were told on the train that there was a signal problem at Kings Langley.  By this time we were moving but it was slow-stop-slow (Virgin Trains roaring past at full speed on the fast line where we should have been).

With nothing on Twitter I sent @LondonMidland a prompt at 0739.  A few minutes later they put out a message advising of a 'slight delay' to services.  I queried this (if the 0700 was running 20 minutes adrift of the timetable then that wasn't 'slight').  Their next general update did acknowledge that the delay was more significant and later in the day I got a message of apology.

For this incident we got too little too late.  It must have been perfectly clear by 0715/0720 that we were not going to make an 0743 arrival at London Euston yet we got no news until 0735.  LondonMidland (or the agency that they use for their Twitter feed) should also have been putting out accurate info much earlier.  

Thursday 23 September - Signal/points problem at Wembley and then Watford Junction station closure (bomb hoax)

This one was the 'biggie' with some trains delayed by an hour or more.

Around 5pm London Midland were using email and Twitter to warn of delays inbound to Euston which in turn would affect the outbound services.  If we allow for the fact that I don't think anyone realised the scope and scale of the problems that evening, the updates from both sources at this point were actually fairly accurate and timely (if anyone failed me this evening it was National Rail Enquiries - As I boarded the fast, first stop Leighton Buzzard, 1849 they had that train running on time.  When it eventually arrived at Bletchley it was 56 minutes late...)

Looking at the many messages posted up on Twitter about this incident, people's experience varied.  Some of those who got stuck at Euston during the period later in the evening when all services were suspended reckoned that they got nothing from the London Midland staff at the station.  Similarly, some who were on trains reckon that they didn't know what was going on. 

The mis-information from the National Rail website aside, my personal experience for this evening was more positive.  The train crew did their job well.  We got plenty of stuff on Twitter from @LondonMidland but some of it was inaccurate (there was a stage around 8pm when they told us that the 'congestion was clearing'.  This was before they realised that there was a second problem at Wembley...)

Getting to the point...

I think the mechanisms are there to keep us informed.  We've got VDUs and speakers at stations, station staff and train crews connected by radio, the online websites and Smartphone apps, Twitter and email feeds so why do we still have reason to complain?

My personal opinion is that the London Midland people on the trains and manning the Twitter/email alert services are probably trying to do their best.  I suspect the problem actually lies with the feed of information to them (the "rubbish in, rubbish out" principle).  In other words, if there's a problem on the line to/from Euston and the Network Rail guys don't tell London Midland about it then how can they tell us?  

As passengers paying a significant amount of money to travel to and from money we have a right to be kept informed when problems occur to our services.  We should be getting consistent, accurate and up to date information when things go wrong. 
   

What do you think?

Service improved? 3

London Midland have a page on their website titled Improving our services where they describe the steps they are taking to address a number of problems areas.


This is the third in a series of postings based on the aspects of the service that London Midland are working on (for the previous post, see Service improvements? 2).

More Trains

London Midland claim that they are addressing this item through an application to the Department of Transport for new carriages.  They say that if authorisation is granted then from 2011 new trains will be built and existing stock refurbished.

So the rail operating companies have to apply to the government for permission to purchase/lease new trains...  A previous posting (15 year franchises) covered the prescriptive nature of the contracts that companies like London Midland have to enter into when they take on the operation of rail services.   This is I'm sure a very complex subject which probably involves discussions on subsidy levels (London Midland receiving £185m of tax-payer funding to run our trains this year - see How much?!!) and consideration of the limited length of the franchise, but I still think it is absolutely daft that a commercial operator has its hands tied in this way.

For the other improvement areas covered so far it has been relatively simple to decide whether I think London Midland deserve a green tick or a red cross, but on the face of it here that's difficult when it appears that London Midland are in the hands of the Government.  But is that the whole story?  Does More Trains have to involve New Trains?  Are London Midland making the most of the trains that they have?

The 07:00 from Bletchley arrives on platform 11 around 07:37 and within minutes is moved out empty to make way for another train.  Is an empty stock movement during the morning rush-hour a good use of assets?  This might be only one train but are their more?

London Midland are rather proud of the fact that they have introduced trains on their new 'Watford Shuttle' which serve only outer London stations.  They have also continued with Silverlink's 'Tring specials' which also only serve a limited length of the Euston-Northampton route.  Is that a good use of assets?  These trains can obviously be turned around quicker but they are still taking up train units, crew and track slots.

How may trains do we see sat on platforms at Euston or their northern starting point for lengthy periods?  Is this a good use of stock?  Couldn't the turnaround time be made shorter so that additional services could be run using the same rolling stock?

There are a lot of question marks above and I have to say that this is probably a subject where I'm going to have to say that I have no idea what the answers are.  On that basis, I think London Midland probably have to get a yellow question mark on the basis that I don't know, but if you reckon that you have the answer then do please say so.

As usual, comments very very welcome.  Do you think that London Midland are doing enough to provide more trains then say so.  Equally, if you reckon that they need to do more to meet the needs of their customers in this area then please have you say below.

On the London Midland site their fourth improvement area is More Punctual.  I promise not to sit on the fence for that one  :-)

    

Service improved? 2

An unusual view for a Bletchley
commuter - an almost empty
350/1 'blue' Desiro  

London Midland have a page on their website titled Improving our services where they describe the steps they are taking to address a number of problems areas.


This is the second in a series of postings based on the aspects of the service that London Midland are working on (for the first, see Service improvements? 1).


More Seats

Under this heading London Midland mention only the introduction of the 'Watford Shuttle'. a peak time service for passengers to/from Watford Junction, Bushey, Harrow & Wealdstone and London Euston.  The additional service started in May and they say that further trains will be added on this route before the end of the year.

So what impact has this new service had? According to London Midland it should "mean that our longer distance services into London can be quicker and have more available seats".  As a passenger who does the daily journey Bletchley-Euston-Bletchley, in my opinion the impact has been neutral and best:

• The 07:00 in the morning doesn't stop after Leighton Buzzard so the addition of the new service hasn't provided any extra seating capacity. 
• In the evening, despite the addition of the new short-distance service, London Midland added on an extra stop at Harrow for the 17:51.

London Midland's argument might be that the capacity of the service to/from Bletchley is already sufficient.  My honest answer to that would be:

• Getting a seat southbound in the morning isn't normally a problem but you do have to be careful which trains you pick and not be fussy where you sit (more seats at the back etc)
• Homeward in the evening is more difficult.  From 5pm onwards, finding somewhere to sit is likely to be a problem unless you board at least 5 minutes before departure 

The 'Watford Shuttle' isn't the first additional short-distance service that has been added on our line in recent years as Silverlink introduced the 'Tring specials' a little while.  Those trains too took up slots on an already crowded line and really only seem to benefit the passengers getting on/off the stations that they serve.

So what would I like to see?  How about:

1. Train lengths increased (4 carriages to 8 and 8 coaches to 12)
2. More scheduled services that call at Bletchley and don't stop between Leighton Buzzard and Euston
3. Further steps by London Midland to look after the full fare-paying passenger (the rail operators have had negative publicity recently for the introduction of the afternoon/evening period where cheap-day tickets can't be used, but London Midland get a vote of thanks from me for introducing their 1645-1845 evening peak restrictions)

Having praised London Midland for point 3 it might seem a bit churlish to give them a red cross for this measure.  I don't believe though that enough is being done for the passengers who are paying £3,300+ a year to travel to/from Bletchley.  It is unacceptable for us to be standing for up to an hour in anything other than exceptional circumstances.

What do you think?  Am I being too harsh?

If you travel from Bletchley or any other station on the line then please add your own comments below.



(As London Midland have named More Trains as their third improvement area that will be the next subject in this series of postings.)
  

Irony

A few days ago I posted up my views in support of comments made by Labour MEP Brian Simpson who has written an open letter to Network Rail about the state of our rail infrastructure (MEP talks rubbish).  I hadn't expected to be returning the same subject so soon...

Scattered across the tarmac at the exit to the Bletchley station car park this morning was a pile of papers:

Waste papers scattered across the tarmac at the
front of Bletchley railway station
Thursday 09 September 2010

Someone last night or early this morning had obviously been having a clear out and some of the material didn't make it to the skip which is out of picture on the right (above photo).

The papers

As you can see, we aren't talking one or two sheets.  This was a fair amount of papepr and whoever dropped it must have been aware.  It also looked damp, so it seems unlikely that the incident had just happened.

The papers looked official, so I couldn't stop myself having a closer look.

How ironic...  They include onboard train cleaner logs!!

On board cleaners attendance record...  Non-technicians
attendance record...  Etc, etc etc

Accidents happen (I should know!), but whover littered the station front with official railway papers really should have cleaned up after themselves...

Service improved? 1

London Midland have a page on their website titled Improving our services where they describe the steps they are taking to address a number of problem areas. 

I figured that it might be interesting to pick one of the aspects that London Midland are working on each week or so, providing my own views on how they are doing.

London Midland have New Trains as their first subject, so I thought that I'd give that one a go too...

New Trains

London Midland say that they have already delivered on this one, having invested £190 million in 37 four-carriage sets for the longer distance services.  I assume that these are the 350/2 Desiros that we have seen arriving on the route into London Euston since 2008 (the earlier and arguably more comfortable 350/1s having been introduced by Silverlink from 2004).

An earlier posting (350 v 321) compared the Desiro 350s with the old 321 trains and there's little point in repeating the same detail here.  There's no doubt that we are better off than we were, but I don't think that the 350s are perfect.  In my view the problems are:

1. London Midland themselves have admitted to reliability problems.  On the Public Performance Measure stats poster for the period 27/6-24/7 they say "We also suffered a number of train faults both on our Euston route and around Birmingham, some of which were caused by the particularly warm weather".  I don't recall the weather being unseasonally warm, but the key point here is that they are admitting that they have issues with rolling-stock.
2. While we are better off overall having air-conditioning on the trains, there is a serious problem when the ventilation system doesn't work.  The guys that fix these things do appear to have reduced the frequency, but there are still occasions when there is no 'air-con' working in individual carriages.  When that happens in the summer, with no windows to open there are only two options - sit and swelter or move to another part of the train (where you will probably end up standing).
3. The seating layout of the 350/2 trains (the ones with the green upholstery) is generally five across.  The alleyways are narrow making it awkward to walk from one part of the train to another on a busy train, and three normal-sized adults will not fit onto a bench of three.
4. There is insufficient provision for bikes and luggage. 

Having said all of the above, I personally think that London Midland are justified in claiming that they have delivered on their commitment to provide New Trains so I'm going to give them a green tick for this one.

What do you think?








(The next posting in this series will be regarding More Seats)  

MEP talks rubbish

Rubbish at Bletchley
railway station

In an open letter to Network Rail, a European Union transport politician has accused that organisation of treating Britain's railways 'like a rubbish tip' (see briansimpsonmep.co.uk).

Labour North West MEP Brian Simpson has specifically highlighted:

1. The amount of rubbish left on tracks
2. The lack of weed control
3. The problem of graffiti
4. The contractors' culture of leaving things 'hanging around'

So how do things look at Bletchley railway station?  A five minute wander before boarding the train to London last Thursday morning was all that was needed to find the following which would seem to support Mr Simpson's accusations...

Lamp post left in the car park from the building of the multi-storey in 2008:

'Redundant' lamp post in Bletchley
station car park.  In this position
for 2 years plus

Rubbish at front of station building next to skips between the car park and the bike shed (what was the post office loading bay):

Some of the rubbish lying next to
these skips at the front of Bletchley
station has been there for months.

Rubbish lying around skips at
the front of Bletchley station

Weeds regrowing on platforms (see also Best station garden):

Weeds growing at the northern end
of Bletchley's platform 3

Weeds regrowing in gutter
between platforms 4 & 5
at Bletchley

Waste and redundant equipment left adjacent to track:

Builders bags filled with rubble
and other rubbish lying close to the
sidings to the Bletchley stone depot

Don't know what it is but it's
large and black, has a green cross
on it and looks like it doesn't
belong where it's lying which is
at the northern end of Bletchley's
platform 6

Not a pretty sight or site...