Virgin on bad taste

Am I being over-sensitive in finding the above retweet from @virgintrains appalling?  The original tweet from ohbex was fine (if he/she was pleased with the service then they are very welcome to say so) but I personally think Virgin are wrong in using it for marketing purposes.

Many people have had their travel to/from work, friends and family disrupted this week, and the problems aren't yet over.  Anyone who has been monitoring Twitter will have seen many posts highlighting Virgin Trains' monopoly of the fast line into Euston.  While the London Midland fast services have been switched to the slow line where they have crawled behind the all-stops trains, the Virgin Pendolinos have continued to roar past, apparently untouched by the weather.

When things go wrong on the West Coast Main Line and the Virgin Trains services appear to be given priority, London Midland passengers are left fuming.  OK, their trains have further to travel but we've paid our fares too (and can be paying more to travel 40-50 miles than some Virgin passengers will have paid to do 200+).

If this were the first time that @virgintrains had decided to forward a passenger compliment during a difficult period for travellers using other operators' services then it wouldn't be so bad, but they have 'previous' on this. 

Unfortunately, even if Virgin Trains read this blog post they probably still wouldn't get the point, so we should probably just be grateful that @londonmidland has a much better idea of what is and is not appropriate  ;-)




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Snow problems 20-Dec

I figure that not everyone may have seen the emails put out by London Midland today which describe the problems experienced and the contingency measures taken by that company to get us to and back from London.  I copy the relevant extracts below without comment.

*************************

20 December 2010 08:21

Major disruption to services on Monday 20 December


Update 0810hrs

We are currently experiencing major disruption on a number of our routes due to the extremely cold weather. The following are particularly affected:

Snow Hill lines


If you travel on our trains that pass through Birmingham Snow Hill, we advise you not to travel unless absolutely necessary. Temperatures overnight were so low that the fuel in many of our diesel trains has frozen, despite our best efforts to prevent this, leading to widespread cancellations.


Euston lines


The weather is also causing severe disruption on our routes to and from London Euston. This is primarily due to ice damage to various parts of our trains and doors freezing up en route. Again, we have worked through the night to minimise the impacts and have a team of engineers repairing faults as quickly as they can.


Please accept our apologies for the disruption to your journey today.


For more information throughout the day, you can follow @londonmidland on Twitter, refer to our website londonmidland.com, or visit nationalrail.co.uk/disruption.


Best wishes,
London Midland

**********************

20 December 2010 16:27

Major disruption to services this evening.

Good afternoon,

Although we continue to work to keep our trains free of ice, we are experiencing problems with frozen fuel and ice damage. Due to a lack of available trains, we are running reduced timetables on some routes, whilst others are subject to delays and short notice cancellations...

(Details about non-Euston London Midland services)...

Euston route

We are also having a number of problems on our trains into Euston, many of which are being damaged by a build up of ice en route, which is leading to delays and cancellations.

To minimise disruption caused by points failures, trains are not permitted to cross between the fast and slow lines today, which means that further delays will be experienced due to increased congestion. As a result, Tring to Euston local services have been suspended, with other trains making additional stops at affected stations, including Kings Langley and Apsley (xx.24 / xx.54 departures from Euston).

If you are travelling today, please note that - where the option exists - tickets can be used to travel on either Virgin or London Midland services to/from London Euston...

(Details about other non-Euston London Midland services)

...We are doing everything we can to keep disruption to a minimum, but please visit our live travel information page before travelling.

Please note that live departure boards can only give updates on services once they have left their origin station. If you live near to a terminus (e.g. Kidderminster, Stourbridge Junction, Dorridge, Stratford, Whitlocks End, Longbridge, Redditch, Four Oaks, Lichfield, Birmingham, Coventry, Northampton, Milton Keynes, Tring, London), it is worth checking trains in the opposite direction to see how services are running.

On all other routes we are planning to run a normal timetable, although experience tells us that the freezing conditions will cause delays to some services.

The main causes of delay are likely to be points failures (often as a result of compacted snow and ice), poor road conditions preventing staff getting to work, frozen train doors and ice damage to couplings between trains. Both Network Rail and ourselves will be working around-the-clock to prepare as best we can.

If you use Twitter, you can also follow @londonmidland for helpful travel advice and updates.
Once again, please accept our apologies for today's disruption.


Best wishes,
London Midland

********************

I count myself as fairly lucky today.  I arrived at Bletchley station to find the 0700 was cancelled and the 0653 had alraedy gone.  I got a late-running, 4-coach 0712 which plodded along behind the all-stops train so didn't get too overcrowed.  We got into Euston at 0857, 1 hour 13 minutes later than the 0700 was scheduled to arrive.

I left the office early intending to get the 1613.  I arrived at Euston at 1645 to find that the 1524 hadn't yet left. All intermediate stops (Watford, Hemel Hempstead, Berkhamsted, Tring, Cheddington & Leighton Buzzard) were cancelled so it was first stop Bletchley.  The journey still took just over an hour, and I felt sorry for the Milton Keynes passengers who were turfed out at Bletchley when London Midland decided to terminate the train one station early.

A friend arrived at Euston in time to get the 1613 but found that trains were either cancelled or were running short (4-cars) and were too crowded to board.  The last thing I heard, she was still waiting for a train home after two hours of waiting.

So how did you get on?


.

7.2% not justified

London Midland made the 2011 ticket prices available last week. The average national increase imposed under an agreed formula was 5.8% (RPI + 1%). The price of my season ticket (annual, standard class, Bletchley-London terminals with no Travelcard) increases from £3,316 to £3,556. That's 7.2%.

The London Midland Twitter service (@londonmidland) has proved to be a far more effective way of communicating views and queries to the train operator, so on Tuesday I used the service to ask how an increase 1.4% above the standard had been justified.

After a few exchanges I got back the following explanation the same day (direct exchange, so not publicly available and undated):

After receiving this I still didn't get it, so London Midland offered an explanation by email. This has still to be received (the London Midland customer service people have a good excuse with Thursday's train driver strike looming), so I figured I'd try and work it out for myself. 

After an hour of looking at daily, weekly, monthly and annual fares, new and old, from various stations I'm still none the wiser.   London Midland appear to be saying that the reason for Bletchley (non-Travelcard) season tickets going up by 7.2% is to address an anomaly in the relative day/annual and Leighton Buzzard/Bletchley/Milton Keynes, yet what I found was that there have been even bigger increases in the equivalent cost of travelling from the other two stations which has made that anomaly even worse!

• Leighton Buzzard season ticket without Travelcard: £3,292 in 2010.  £3,536 in 2011.  Increase 7.41%
• Bletchley season ticket without Travelcard: £3,316 in 2010.  £3,556 in 2011.  Increase 7.22%
• Milton Keynes season ticket without Travelcard: £3,832 in 2010. £4,140 in 2011.  Increase 8.04%

If I've got my figures wrong and/or London Midland provide an explanation as to why all three stations have had such a significant increase above the standard rate then I will post up a follow up message.

In the meantime I'll say:

London Midland appear to have imposed an arbitrary, above standard increase, taking advantage of passengers who have no choice but to use their service. 

It is very difficult to see how these increases can be justified given that there has, if anything, been a degradation in the service over the last 12 months.  

As a passenger I find I am paying more to travel on trains which are less frequent and which take longer to get to my destination.


(Interestingly, while doing some research for yesterday's posting about this week's ASLEF strike I found that the General Secretary of that union appears to also have strong views about this round of fare increases.  See Rail fare increases are madness says GS).

I'd love to know what you think so whether you agree or disagree, please express your own view via the comment box below.



.

Rail strike 23-Dec

As things stand at the time of writing, London Midland will be running very few trains on their various routes on Thursday 23 December.  The strike has been called by ASLEF and appears to be over an attempt by London Midland to consolidate the contractual terms of two sets of drivers who currently have different salary and benefit packages which pre-date the merger of two franchises.

Both parties have provided information on their websites stating their position.  I wouldn't normally copy over extracts but on the basis that the text on these is likely to change over time this posting is going to be an exception:

• London Midland: "London Midland employs train drivers from two former rail franchises with differing terms and conditions that were protected at the point of transfer. Some have higher salaries but a lower holiday entitlement than others, so we are seeking to equalise conditions across the company. ASLEF is seeking a substantial increase in pay and holiday entitlement for our train drivers that is unrealistic and unaffordable".
• ASLEF: "We have been negotiating for three years to harmonise the conditions of drivers from the two companies – over 600 in all - but our efforts have been resisted by management all the way. ... Some drivers are being paid £1,200 less than other drivers for doing exactly the same job".

There's always two sides to a story and only those directly involved can know enough to express a view on which party has the best claim to being 'right'. What us passengers can do though is talk about how this affects us.

As a result of ASLEF and London Midland being in dispute, few if any trains will be running.  London Midland are advising us to avoid travelling so we can take it that a large number of people are going to be unable to work and others will have their plans to visit family and friends disrupted.   With this strike falling two days before Christmas, the latter is particularly unfortunate.

I am in the fortunate position of being able to work from home but others aren't so lucky.  They will either have to try to get into London by other means, or take the day off as holiday.  

As compensation for the failure to provide a service, London Midland will pay compensation.  For an annual season ticket holder the amount paid will be a pittance.  The calculation will be 100% of the fare but based on an average of 10.5 journeys per week.  As a Bletchley commuter I reckon that means I'll get the princely sum of £13 in rail vouchers (I seem to remember that 10 years or so ago back in the Silverlink days that a different formula was used.  We must have been paying around a £1,000 a year less to travel but we got around £16-17 in the form of cash or a cheque for a day of lost or disrupted travel...)

How will this strike affect you?   I may be sitting on the fence in terms of not supporting either ASLEF or London Midland but do you have a view on who is most responsible for the dispute?  Do you feel that London Midland is doing enough to support its customers?

I would really like to know your views.

.

Rob Peter, pay Paul

8 carriages, probably 30-35 people standing per carriage.  Maybe 250 people were on their feet as the 1751 left London Euston tonight...

London Midland reckoned that when it ran with 12 carriages the 1751 had 400 empty seats.  The capacity of their 350/2 ("green") Desiros is 267 seats per 4-car unit so that's equivalent to 50% of the train being empty.

The 1812 train to Tring has apparently been leaving Euston with 200 people standing.  Decision taken with effect from today's new timetable - The 1751 reduces from 12 to 8 carriages and the 1812 increases from 8 to 12.

So how/why did they get it so wrong?  London Midland say that their stats are based on automatic counters which monitor the number of passengers joining and leaving trains at each stop.   Anyone who travels on the 1751 regularly though could have told them that on leaving Euston the first 7-8 carriages are full (with some people standing) and the other 4-5 are at least 60-70% occupied. 

London Midland say that they will monitor the situation over the next couple of weeks and make changes if necessary, but is the fortnight before Christmas really going to give an indication of what usage of the train is going to be like when commuting returns to normal in the New Year?

Congestion on individual trains is not unusual, and it wouldn't be such a disaster here if there were alternative services available.  The problem is that for Bletchley passengers there are not.

The old timetable was hardly favourable for people trying to get home to Bletchley but there was always the all-stops 1734 or 1805 to get you home.  If you fancied risking a change at Leighton Buzzard then there was also the 1746 fast train as an option.

On the timetable that came into force on the 12th, none of the above trains are available.  There's a semi-fast train that leaves Euston earlier at 1730 and then nothing direct (apart from the overcrowded 1751) until 1829.  The 1746 is no longer an option as there's no longer a Leighton Buzzard-Bletchley connection.

For all this we have the privilege of paying £3316 a year  :-(


(Ps: I nearly forgot to mention that the guard on tonight's 1751 had the good grace to apologise for the overcrowding.  She also explained that our 2 minute late departure from Harrow and Wealdstone was down to the extra time taken for passengers to board and leave.  I walked through the train after we left Hemel Hempstead and there was still people standing.  Admittedly there were free seats in the middle of benches of three, but as mentioned elsewhere there is rarely room for a third normal-sized adult to sit with any comfort in these.  Most people would rather stand.) 









  

Silence

The silence referred to in the title here refers to two things:

1. Silence from me (few blog postings in recent weeks)
2. Silence from train crew when things go wrong

Both are indirectly linked...

On the first 'silence', we've had umpteen problems on the line into Euston over the last few weeks but for various reasons I've avoided coming on here to express frustration.  Why?  Because there seems so little point. 

Through November and into December we've had delay after delay and one or two cancellations.  The late running has normally been within the 3-15 minute range.  Not much, but enough (it's my time, and I'd prefer not to spend it unnecessarily on a London Midland train!)

The causes of these delays and cancellations have been various...  The most frequent has been 'failure of lineside equipment' but we've also had more than our fair share of broken down trains.  The recent cold weather has played it's part as well, the latest issue apparently being door problems caused by ice and grit.

Now for the second 'silence'.  Anyone who follows me on Twitter (@eustoncommuter) will know that whenever a delay occurs to a train that I'm on I post updates.  When the guard keeps us informed I say so.  When we hear nothing from the train crew I also say so (and unfortunately this is all too frequent an occurrence).  London Midland are big users of Twitter (@londonmidland) and they are very keen to know when their staff provide good customer service, and when they do not.

It looks like the London Midland train staff have become aware of what's going on which is good.  I wasn't on my regular train home on Friday but a friend who was tells me that after one announcement (subject to be covered in a separate posting) the guard finished with the words "tweet tweet".  Someone has a sense of humour  :-)