The Great Escape

At around 5pm on Friday, a problem with overhead power cables brought a First Capital Connect train from Kings Cross to Cambridge came to a grinding halt just 500 yards from Foxton station.   There would have been nothing unusual or news worthy about this except for two things:

1. Fifteen of the passengers got fed up with waiting and forced open the doors, got down to the track and walked to Foxton station where they made their own way home
2. The remaining passengers were 'locked in by a rail official and threatened with being arrested if they so much as tried to leave" (Daily Telegraph).  It was after 9pm before some of these passengers eventually made it into Cambridge

So what would you do?  Would you wait patiently on the train or would you too make a break for freedom?  

I'm unsure what my reaction would have been, but I do have a lot of sympathy for the 'Foxton Fifteen'.  Late on a Friday afternoon, it's getting dark and they wanted to get home.  The news reports don't tell us what information they had got from the train crew but if it was "not a lot" then I'm not surprised that a few people decided to take things into their own hands.



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Two people, two lives

Consider two commuters:

Both live in Bletchley.  Commuter 1 works in London, Commuter 2 works in Milton Keynes.  Both like to get to their workplace before 9am

Commuter 1 gets up before 6am and drives down to Bletchley railway station in time to board the 07:00 to Euston.  He/she leaves the house before anyone else in the house is awake.

Commuter 2 gets up at 7am and shares breakfast with the family.   They leave the house at 8am for the 20 minute drive to their workplace in Milton Keynes. 

Both are at their desk by 8:30am.

Commuter 1 pays around £600 a year to park at the station and £4,200 for an annual season ticket (with London Travelcard).   Adding on the cost of the fuel for the drive to the station, the commute costs around £5,300 a year.

Commuter 2 gets free parking at his/her out of town workplace.   It's a 15 mile round trip so fuel is a bit more expensive, but the commuting cost per year comes out at about £1,500.

Commuter 1 is stuck in London at lunchtime.  There's plenty of shops nearby, but anything purchased has to be lugged home.

Commuter 2 has a lot more flexibility.  The hour at lunchtime is enough time to drive to anywhere in the city, including popping back home.  they can also usually manage to drop the car off/pick it up from a service when they need to, and things like doctor and dentist appointments are rarely a problem.

Commuter 1 usually leaves his/her workplace just after 5pm and gets the 17:51 to Bletchley.  Assuming the train is on time, they are at Bletchley and home by 7pm.

Commuter 2 also leaves his/her workplace just after 5pm but even after being held up by a bit of rush-hour traffic, they are easily home in time to watch the 6pm news on TV.

On a good day Commuter 1 spends 3 hours 30 minutes a day travelling to and from work.  On a bad day, train failures, points/signal problems, or engineering works can easily extend this by another hour or more.  For the privilege of sitting (and occasionally standing) on a train with a bunch of other people (listening to the tinny noise coming out of earphones, putting up the ones who shout at their mobile phones and trying to avoid inhaling whenever there's a cough or a sneeze), he/she pays out an average of just over £23 a day.

The journey time for Commuter 2 is pretty reliable, and they spend about an hour and a half a day travelling in their own car listening to their own radio or CDs.  Any coughing or sneezing is their own, and they NEVER have to stand.  The cost of commuting is less than £7 a day.

Commuter 1 sees London as a place to go to to pay the mortgage.  Commuter 2 sees London as a leisure destination.

Commuter 1 dreams of getting a local job.  Commuter 2 just dreams... 

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Inflation +3%

"The cap on regulated rail fares will rise to RPI +3% for the three years from 2012, but that will help this country afford new rolling stock as well and improve passenger conditions."

George Osborne
Chancellor of the Exchequer
Comprehensive Spending Review - 20 October 2010

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So what do we think? 

After many years of seeing the price of commuting into London rise in real terms are we happy at the prospect of paying even more in the future? 

Are we content to hear that the rail operating companies will be levying an increase that is unlikely to be exceeded by any salary increase that we receive?

Do we think we will get value for money?

Season ticket price 2010 = £3,316
Season ticket price 2015 = £4,780?

Service improved? 5

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

Better Information

On this area London Midland say only that they are renewing the electronic information and public address systems at their stations between Northampton and London Euston, the work commencing in May and expected to be completed before the end of 2010.

I'm surprised that London Midland are declaring improvement work on just two aspects of communication with their customers given the scope that they could cover under this heading.  I'm therefore going to try and fill in the gaps...

We get our train information on the day of travel from a whole stack of sources.  This is my personal view on how each of these rate:

TV teletext: I check page 432 on BBC Ceefax every morning before leaving the house but am not sure why I bother.  It seems now to only cover service changes due to engineering work and major incidents.   3/10.

The Web: My view on this has changed significantly over the last month.  I was a big fan of the National Rail Enquiries (NRE) arrival and departure boards (and the London Midland equivalent) but one or two recent incidents have revealed some limitations. 

In a Twitter exchange NRE admitted that they currently don't have the capability to predict delays, so if a train is expected to leave Euston on time then until it leaves London they will show it as running on schedule for each stop on the route.  If there is a general problem somewhere on the line which is expected to impact on that train then that won't show up until the train is actually delayed.  Once that happens, the arrival and departure boards come into their own.   7/10.

Smartphone apps (e.g. NRE's UK Train Times): Similar comments to Web.  7/10.

Twitter: Here we've got @LondonMidland, the National Rail Enquiries feeds, and a stack of unofficial sources.  The official ones can usually be relied on but in my experience they report only what they are given (and which presumably has come from or is validated by their own staff, Network Rail etc).  This means that they tend to be a bit slow to report problems and they seem to focus more on general updates, missing issues relating to individual trains.  7/10.

The unofficial are more immediate but like all casual stuff, you have to be careful what you do/do not believe.  Both provide information only where someone is in place to provide it, which isn't 24x7.  4/10.

Station staff - Bletchley: Generally good but why are they never on the platforms when we need them?  I can't remember the last time I saw a member of the London Midland station staff on duty on a platform at my home station.  6/10.

Station staff - Euston: These guys come in for a lot of stick, some deserved and some not.  The line of verse "when they are good they are very very good, and when they are bad they are horrid" comes to mind.  

I don't know what the problem is here, but the station staff at Euston do seem to become invisible when there's a problem.   Much has been made of the new information kiosk on the main concourse but with that serving Virgin customers as well as London Midland (plus a few others), I don't think I'll be heading their way too soon.  What we need is people on the platforms briefed with reliable information who are ready, willing and able to tell passengers what is happening.   4/10.

Station VDUs - Bletchley: the new VDU screens are an improvement at Bletchley but they aren't visible at the ends of platform 4, the main boarding point for passengers heading for London.  5/10.

Station announcements - Bletchley: The same problem applies to announcements as applies to VDUs - The nearest speaker on platform 4 for passengers at the northern end can easily be 50 metres away so any announcements are inaudible.

The problem with announcements isn't restricted to the location of the speakers.  So often when there's a problem there is no message and passengers waiting for a train are left waiting and wondering what's going on.  When we are told, the news is often late (e.g. advice on a change of platform only being broadcast within a minute of the train arriving).  2/10

Station VDUs - Euston: Here London Midland/Network Rail do better, but there is still at least one area of improvement needed...  Why oh why do we have to wait to be told the departure platforms for some trains?  The delay is understandable for the Virgin trains which have to be cleaned and stored, but with the London Midland this (unfortunately) is rarely the case.  Take the 17:51 for instance.  Everyone knows that it's formed of rolling stock which comes in on platform 8 at 17:38, so why do they wait sometimes until 17:45 to tell us where to go?

I think Network Rail also deserve an award for what has to be the daftest VDU message of all - Some evenings the screen on the approach to platforms 16-18 says that it is out of use in order to relieve congestion.  What?!!! 7/10.

Stations announcements - Euston: Similar comments to VDUs.  7/10.

Train announcements: I've deliberately left this one until last on the basis that it is the one area where I've never heard a passenger say that they are satisfied.  We all have tales to tell of journeys that were delayed where nothing whatsoever was said on board by the train crew.  I know that there are drivers and guards who do their best to tell us what is going on, but unfortunately they aren't in the majority.  5/10. 

I can think of two sources of information that I've left out - The train tracker text and phone.   I use neither so don't feel qualified to comment.

Overall rating?  Sorry, on this one it has to be a red cross.


So what do you reckon, have I been fair?  Is there anything I've missed out?  What's your view?







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



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'Train rage' pensioner

This morning's newspapers carry the story of the 66 year old man arrested and then fined a total of £965 by a court for "Disorderly conduct" and "Failing to show a ticket".  Rather than try and summarise the facts here, I figure that you'd be better reading the press reports yourself:

• 'Don't prod me you silly little girl': Train-rage pensioner screamed at woman ticket collector who woke him up (Daily Mail)
• Rail firms urged to be ‘sensitive’ to sleepers (London Evening Standard)

What do you think?   Would this happen on our line?

Would London Midland ticket inspectors wake someone and demand to see their ticket?  I can only speak as I find, and I can say that the inspectors that I have seen on the trains over the last year or two tend not to disturb people who appear to be genuinely asleep.  Common sense prevails... 

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Bletchley station crash

Irvin Butler
Earnest Clements
Percy Geary
Robert Montgomery

Today is the 71st anniversary of a serious incident at Bletchley station which claimed four lives. 

On Friday 13 October 1939 two express trains collided at Bletchley station.  The first, the 07:37 Euston-Inverness express (running a few minutes late) was stopped at the station and a shunter was in the process of adding an additional coach to the rear of the train. At 08:44 a second express, the 07:50 Euston to Stranraer service (which was running three minutes early) came into Bletchley on the same line.

The force of the collison was such that rolling stock was forced up and onto the platform demolishing the waiting and refreshment rooms.  The driver of the shunter, a postman a porter and an RAF serviceman were killed and a further 40 people injured.

War between Britain and Germany had been declared six weeks earlier following the Nazi invasion of Poland, and the railways had been heavily involved in the evacuation of children from the cities in early September.  Blackout conditions were presumably in force at this time but this incident occurred in daylight and there appears to be no suggestion that the state of war was a factor in the crash.

Anyone interested in reading more on what occurred on this day and the aftermath are invited to visit Where The Lines Meet.


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Overcrowding? Us?

Last week the Office of the Rail Regulator released their report for 2009 (see National Rail Trends Yearbook 2009).  The press picked up and reported on some of the highlights.  Two operators were given a special mention - First Great Western and our own dear London Midland...


In 2008 the % of London Midland services which ran in excess of capacity during the peak period was 4.8%.  In 2009 that figure had increased to 5.9%.


After reading an article on this in my own newspaper I posted up the London Midland figures on Twitter.  This generated the following response:

 

I think that's a pretty fair reply.  It's good to hear that the numbers are improving but even better to be told that they recognise that they still need to do better.

So no complaints about London Midland, but what about their trade body, the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC)?  The ATOC Media Centre carries the following press release:

Complaints drop to record low levels 08/10/2010


In repsonse to ORR figures on overcrowding and customer complaints, a spokesperson for the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) said:


“These figures show that, overall, overcrowding fell last year and that passenger complaints across the country have recently dropped to their lowest level on record.’’


“Train companies are in the business of keeping their customers happy and dislike having to put passengers onto trains which are overcrowded. The figures highlight the importance of sustained and targeted investment to ease overcrowding on the railways.”

I don't know which claim I find funnier - the one about passenger complaint numbers dropping (do they not read Twitter?) or the statement that train companies are in the business of keeping their customers happy!!

Then there's the "repsonse" spelling mistake.  Amateur communicators like me can be excused errors like this, but paid PR professionals...?


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Another timetable?

I'm hoping that this question will get me an answer to a question which has been bothering me for a while...

There's a public timetable, but is there an operational schedule as well?

The group I travel with in the morning are amused to think that I suspect that there are two timetables in operation at the same time, but I figure there must be because those involved in operating the trains must have something in the system which is based on the public timetable but which also:

1. Brings together the different passenger and freight services operated by London Midland, Virgin Trains, London Overground, ScotRail Caledonian, EW&S, etc
2. Covers empty stock movements
3. Defines whether a train will normally run on the fast or slow line (and where they will switch over if appropriate)
4. Specifies which platforms will be used at which stations

What has prompted this question is that the existence of what might be described as a parallel timetable is the only explanation I can think of for a change that we've had with the 07:00 from Bletchley to London Euston.

Prior to the last timetable change in May, the 07:00 ex-Bletchley crossed over onto the fast line at Ledburn Junction (south of Leighton Buzzard) and ran at a fairly constant speed non-stop to Euston, arriving on platform 17, usually within a minute or two of the scheduled ETA, 07:43.

After the last timetable change the train was switched to Euston platform 11 where it invariably got in 5-6 minutes early (see Timetable flab?)

Two weeks ago things changed.  The train still comes into Euston on platform 11 but it is back to arriving around 07:43.  The extra journey time seems to be down to a delay around Ledburn Junction where we seem to arrive at about the same time as a southbound Virgin service.  The impact of this is either:

• We slow then sit and wait for that train to pass before crossing over from the slow line to the fast.
• The speed drops off at Ledburn and we continue down the slow line.  We presumably have the all-stops service (Bletchley depart 07:53) and/or the Tring shuttle (Euston arrive 07:38) in front of us, and aren't able to get clear until we cross over to the fast between Berkhampsted and Hemel Hempstead

If my theory about an operational schedule running in parallel to the public timetable is correct then I reckon that the former was changed a couple of weeks ago.  The Virgin service that passes us at Ledburn is either running later or earlier than before, resulting in a delay to our own train.

If there's anyone reading this who knows how this all works then I would really appreciate it if you could let me know whether the second (operating) timetable exists (and if it does then a) how often it gets updated and b) whether it is available for public access). 

Please email eustoncommuter@gmail.com or submit a comment below.

Many thanks.


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Our rails in their hands

This post is prompted by a pair of newspaper articles about Network Rail in today's Sunday Telegraph.  Neither are complimentary.

As rail passengers and taxpayers, we have a major stake in how the organisation which is responsible for our national railway infrastructure is run, and these articles highlight a number of serious issues and concerns.


Who is at the wheel of Network Rail?

The first piece is by Andrew Gilligan and is in the main body of the paper. I read it and came away with the conclusion that the senior leadership of this body isn't "fit for purpose".  Too much money, distorted performance & safety statistics, and a cavalier disregard for the interests of the travelling public.


Network Rail emerges from the ashes of Railtrack

The second piece is in the Telegraph's Business section, and is written by Andrew Cave.  It is a more sober, detailed analysis written around the theme of the appointment of David Higgins as CEO, but it is nonetheless still highly critical of this public-funded body's operation to date (it mentions for example that Mr Higgins' predecessor had a company Aston Martin on top of his £1.2 million a year salary/bonus/pension package).

(Nb: The paper and online versions of the Andrew Cave article have different titles, introductions and dates but the main body of content is identical)
The financial services industry has come in for a lot of grief over the last 2-3 years, much of it undoubtedly justified.  My personal view though is that greed, incompetence and the mismanagement of a public service is a far worse offence.

What do you think?


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Top ten irritants

I don't know what sparked it off, but on the way home on Friday (with nothing to read) I ran through a list of things which most irritate me about some of my fellow passengers.

None of us are perfect (and I'm the last to claim that accolade), but in no particular order this is what winds me up:

1. People who insist on having a conversation with the London Midland ticket inspector at the 'manual' gate at London Euston (blocking the way for those of us who are trying to get on or off the platform)
2. People who do everything they possibly can to deter anyone from sitting next to or opposite them.  We all take up a bit more room when there is plenty of space, but when the train is busy the knees and legs should be tucked in, papers should be folded, and bags should come off the seat next door to go on the lap or up in the luggage rack
3. Users of iPods and other MP3 players who insist on maximum volume and either don't realise how much noise can leak out from their earphones or don't care.  The thought that their hearing is probably being damaged provides no satisfaction when we have to put up with the tinny, hissing noise that can be heard metres away (this wasn't such a problem on the old 321 trains but the background noise level on the Desiros is much lower) 
4. People who put their feet on the train seats.   Shoes on or off, on newspaper or not, I think this is disrespectful to others
5. Passengers leaving the train who stand in the middle of the doorway just to save a fraction of a second when they get off (if they tuck into one side then two people can get into the same space, freeing up room further back for people to get out of their seats)
6. Passengers who bring full-sized bikes onto the trains (or who have foldaway bikes which they keep assembled) when there are restrictions during the morning and afternoon peak
7. Passengers walking through Euston dragging small trolley bags behind them.  They seem to forget that they have an extra metre in tow when they cut across in front of the rest of us who also have workplaces to get to or trains to board
8. People who leave food and drink waste on seats and tables when they leave the train.  Why should the rest of us have to tidy up behind them?
9. Motorists and cyclists who disembark at Bletchley and think that normal rights of way don't apply.  We've got the people in their cars who ignore the one-way signs and come out of the car park entrance and the Cyclists who treat the ramp from the bike shed like the launch pad for a downhill race.  If there hasn't been an accident yet then it can't be long before there will be one
10. ?

I've deliberately stopped at number 9, leaving you an opportunity to nominate something else which you find irritating about your fellow commuters and occasional passengers on the London Midland line into Euston (maybe me!) 

Alternatively, if you think I'm wrong about any of the items listed above then feel free to throw a contrary viewpoint into the ring  :-)


Comments below