Mixed bag

This has been a week of interesting developments for Bletchley rail passengers...

Train length

Starting on a positive note, London Midland have confirmed that the 1751 will be returning to a 12-car service from Monday 14 March.  When the winter timetable was introduced back in December, London Midland reduced the capacity to 8 carriages.  This caused a storm of protest with complaints being submitted by post, by email and via Twitter (see Rob Peter, Pay Paul).

London Midland accepted in January that they needed to restore the train to its previous length, but warned that this might have to wait until the next timetable change in May.  Fortunately, they've found a way of making the change earlier.


Now for the not so positive bits... 

Bletchley station car park

This week we learned that London Midland intend to remove part of the car park upper deck.  We have excess capacity and Northampton has too few spaces, so the section will be dismantled for re-erection up there.  There's no argument about us having more spaces than we need, but it does seem strange that:

1. London Midland got it so wrong when the car park was first built (or was the provision of so many spaces at Bletchley a ploy to help meet a target set as part of the franchise agreement?), and
2. That it is cost effective to move a section from one location to another rather than buying new for Northampton

In addition to dismantling a section, London Midland are planning to move the up and down ramps from the rear of the car park to the front.  Is this madness?  We already have chaos at the roundabout which has five official feeds plus bikes coming out of the shed and pedestrians with no footpath.  Add on people ignoring the one-way system who exit the car park from the entrance, and it's 'an accident waiting to happen'.

If the ramps are moved to the front then the down ramp will presumably have to have priority over all other traffic.  How that will happen in reality is a mystery...


Station manning

On Tuesday London Midland have announced plans to change the manning hours at the majority of stations across the network (see London Midland proposes changes to ticket office opening hours).

For Bletchley, the proposal is to change the manning hours as follows:

• Mon-Fri: 0600-1900 instead of 0545-2130
• Sat: 0700-1800 instead of 0545-2130
• Sun: 0800-1700 instead of 0715-2100

What does this mean in practice?  For the ticket office itself, the reduced hours will mean that anyone needing to buy or replace a ticket on their way home won't be able to do so if they get a midweek train after the 1751.  Not good when London Midland have an expectation that we'll call into the ticket office to get a replacement when our ticket won't work their automatic gates...

The toilets at Bletchley are only open when the station is manned, so this means discomfort and inconvenience for many (their website says that we can use the toilets on the trains, but this is no good when you are waiting for your train to arrive!)

The other issue is safety.  Bletchley is a big station.  It may have CCTV but it seems unlikely that that will help at the time of an incident.

The changes are only proposals so if you'd like to comment on them then please write to:

Passenger Focus

Freepost (RRRE-ETTC-LEET)

PO Box 4257

Manchester

M60 3AR

Or email: advice@passengerfocus.org.uk

ASLEF strike

Before Christmas ASLEF, the train drivers' union was due to strike (see Rail strike 23-Dec).  The industrial action was called off following legal action by London Midland.   On Friday it was announced that the Appeals Court had made a judgement in favour of ASLEF, so it looks very likely that we can expect a strike in the coming weeks.  What joy  :-(


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Service improved? 7

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

Better Stations

London Midland say they are "investing over £11 million in making our stations better, safer and easier to use. We are working with our partners to deliver a further £9.5 million worth of improvements at over 40 smaller stations across our network" (I'm unsure what the difference is between "stations" and "smaller stations"!)

Under this heading London Midland claim to have a programme to improve the signage at 147 stations and have 51 stations accredited under the national secure stations scheme. 

Some of the items that might be considered to fall under "better stations" have been covered under different headings (e.g. information and ticket offices), but there's a lot missing here.  What about toilets, shelters, or steps/lifts?  Where's the commitment to improve car parking or disabled access across their network?  How about putting staff back onto the platforms?

Putting aside what's said on the London Midland website, what has London Midland achieved in practice over the last year or so?  I can only write about Bletchley and Euston, but here goes...

At Bletchley the parking is significantly better than it was 3-4 years ago (it's also cheaper following last year's price reductions!)   VDU information screens (covered under Service improvements? 4) are miles better than they were.  Unfortunately, nothing else has changed.

The toilets at Bletchley (or at least the gents!) haven't been refurbished for as long as I can remember.  That said, they are OK but they are open only when the station is manned.  There are platform shelters only for southbound, 4 & 5.  They have heaters but frequently stink of cigarette smoke.  The shelter at the north end has no VDU information boards within line of sight.

Compared with other stations (e.g. Leighton Buzzard), Bletchley seems to be well kitted out with lifts and generally OK for disabled access.  On the latter though, London Midland let themselves down a bit with the doors into and out of the main station building.  For as long as I can remember, the staff have been bolting one half of the double doors (presumably to stop draughts).  This is a pain when there's a queue of people going through, and must be very difficult for anyone using a wheelchair or walking with crutches.

The biggest complaint about Bletchley has to be the absence of station staff on the platforms.  At 7am on a wet/dark morning when there's a problem with the southbound services from platforms 4 & 5, the nearest member of staff is far away, over a bridge and in the main station building. 

Is Bletchley a secure station?  I wouldn't like to find myself waiting for a train around midnight, alone on the platform (with the station unmanned by mid-evening) apart from a bunch of youths who have had a few alcopops too many...

So what about Euston?  Well it has facilities and staff by abundance.  The automatic gates for platforms 8-11 are a pain (see Platform planning) and are still a problem after the recent remodelling, but there can be no complaints about signage, access, or shelter.  Access to the toilets has to be paid for, but the facilities are good.

Until a couple of weeks ago I'd have complained here about the year on year increase in shops on the concourse (crowding people going to, from and waiting for trains into a smaller area), but having recently travelled through Kings Cross I know there's at least one other London terminus which is a lot worse.

So what's the overall rating?  Do I think that there's real evidence of London Midland improving their stations?  I started this by saying that I could only talk about Bletchley and Euston and for those two stations I think I have to say that yes, things have got better.  There's a lot of work still to do, but things have improved.

What do you think?  Has your station been changed for the better since London Midland took over the franchise?

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Service improved? 6

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

Shorter queues

London Midland have set themselves the target of reducing queuing.  They've focused on queuing for tickets where they are claiming to have more staff on duty during peak periods and to have made it easier to buy a ticket online.  They also claim to have made changes at Watford Junction and plans for Milton Keynes.

So what do we think?  I use an annual season ticket so probably only use the ticket office at Bletchley 4-5 times a year (usually on a Saturday when it's quiet).  I do though walk past people in the queue on my way in/out of the station and rarely see more than 2-3 people in the queue at any one time.  I accept though that if you are the third person in the queue and there's only one window open, a wait of 5-10 minutes when you have to get a train isn't great.

The queueing that I do experience on a regular basis is the wait to get off the platform at Euston.  Back in June I expressed my frustration at the arrangements on platforms 8-11 where there's 3 trains totalling 24 carriages scheduled to arrive within a few minutes of each other around 07:40 on a weekday (see Platform planning?).

This week the barriers for platforms 8-11 work has started to remodel the barriers.  As the saying goes, the 'jury is out' while we wait to see the work completed and then the results, but I have to say that I'm not hopeful.

On the plus side, it looks like the disused information kiosk is being removed in order to provide more gates across a wider length.  On the negative side, the manual gate is being replaced by two wider gates, one at each end of the barriers.   In theory these will be OK for bikes, pushchairs and people with large luggage, but what about the large number of passengers with tickets that won't work the automatic gates?

I really do hope that I'm wrong, but I reckon that the changes at Euston may make the situation worse.  I've been told that the two wide gates will be manned during the rush-hour so that staff can let people with non-working tickets through, but what priority are they going to give when they've got trains arriving and leaving around the same time?  Whichever way it is, there's going to be problems for anyone going in the other direction.

I really do hope I'm wrong on this...

Finding myself unable to come up with a definitive opinion on queuing for tickets and unsure what's going to happen at the barriers at Euston, I've got no choice to make the overall opinion on this a large question mark.

What do you reckon?
 


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




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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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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.

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.)
  

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)