Congratulations to the Sunday Telegraph for today's article - A Blueprint for a new British Railway.
What Christian Wolmar, the writer, proposes is the return to a railway with an overall vision - a national, strategic plan.
I won't attempt to summarise the main points made by Mr Wolmar here as I think the article needs to be read in full. Please do take a few minutes to click on the link above and read his text article. Then, if you fancy sharing your views use the comment box below.
I would really like to know what you think :-)
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June was a bit of a disaster for all concerned - Network Rail, London Midland (and Virgin) and of course the passengers. You name it we had it - Lightning strikes on lineside equipment, overheating rails, multiple track/signal failures, train breakdowns and lots, lots more.
With no idea about whether or not July would be as bad (or even worse...), I figured that I'd keep a log of travel delays through the month.
There were 20 working days (Mon-Fri) in July, and I travleld into London for 17 of them. Of the 34 individual journeys, 11 of them were delayed.
5 of the journeys were delayed by 5 minutes or more.
The worst delay was 48 minutes, but the fault can't be laid at anyone's door for that one. On Wednesday 13th the late afternoon/evening service was disrupted by someone being hit by a train. A sad event, and one that we shouldn't dwell on.
The next big delay occurred a week later on Wednesday 20th. I was on an early afternoon train home that was held up by overhead line damage and a failed train at Leighton Buzzard. Network Rail and the TOC (think it was Virgin Trains)?
The third longest delay occurred the following Monday, the 25th. I was in a rush to get home so jumped on the 1713 planning to get off at Leighton Buzzard, changing onto the Southern service for Bletchley. Unfortunately the London Midland train was late leaving Euston and lost more time getting to Leighton so I missed the connection. This was another awful "person being hit by a train" incident, so let's not go there in terms of finger pointing...
The fourth (and final) incident worth mentioning occurred on Wednesday 6th. There was a fault at Harrow and the 0700 from Bletchley was kept on the slow line. As we headed south it became apparent that there was a signal/points problem at Hemel so we couldn't switch to the fast line there either. I reckon Network Rail were responsible for the 14 minute delay that morning :-(
Throughout the month I also kept a note of the significant incidents recorded by London Midland on email and on Twitter. Overall, by my reckoning we had:
- 6 x signalling equipment problems (general)
- 2 x points failure
- 2 x problems linked to vandalism
- 2 x person hit by a train
- 1 x train failure
- 1 x overhead line damage
- 1 x train crew issue
- 1 x 'Speed restrictions' (no other info given)
I also recorded that for 16 of the journeys made, we arrived early at either Euston or Bletchley by up to 3 minutes. More proof that 'timetable flab' exists me thinks...
How was your travel in July? Did you think it was better than June?
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