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?