Exasperated

One post on here in March...  There's been plenty to write about, so why no words?  The answer is simple - Hardly a day has gone past without a problem, and the daily exchanges on Twitter have been draining...

The cancellations caused by the lack of an overtime agreement between London Midland and the train drivers has been the biggest problem, but we've also had one problem after another on the West Coast Main Line. 

Back in January we were told that ASLEF and London Midland couldn't reach agreement on a number of issues, the main one being on driver training for some new rolling stock up in the Midlands.  In the absence of a deal, the Overtime Agreement between the two parties wasn't renewed in January and drivers wouldn't be working on their rest days.  It looks like no one is now calling this train crew problem an 'industrial dispute'.  It hasn't been coordinated by ASLEF apparently, individual drivers have taken the decision not to work on their rest days.  Hmmm...

Through March the impact of the driver shortage on a day to day basis has increased.  There has been more planned cancellations of the morning and evening peak trains, and where there was sickness or unexpected operational problems further trains haven't run.  Sunday travel has to all intents and purposes been a 'no go'.  

The London Midland/ASLEF problems don't end with the overtime issue.  The strike over harmonisation of two sets of driver contracts that was originally planned for 23 December but which was cancelled due to legal action by the employers looks to be back on again.  ASLEF had the injunction overturned and the union is now reballoting its members.  On top of this, Twitter messages were flashing between @londonmidland and train crew last Friday.  Details remain unclear, but it looks to be something to do with Northampton and Bletchley depots, and a writ prepared by London Midland before, and issued immediately after a meeting on 1 April.

Overall, the relationship between London Midland and ASLEF appears to be at an all time low.

Now for the other problem...  It seems that we've had infrastructure problems on the WCML practically every working day in March.  We've had signalling problems, points failures, overhead line issues and more.  Some days we've had one problem in the morning and another in the afternoon.  Network Rail have a vast amount to answer for.

So what is being done about all this?  Well, if you use Twitter then the comms have been pretty good.  @londonmidland has kept us well informed and apologies every time there's a problem have been forthcoming.  The rail operator has also avoided the temptation to stick to the Ts&Cs of the Delay Repay arrangement and pay compensation only for unplanned cancellations.  That's the good bit.  The bad bit has been that there are few, if any signs, of any action to resolve the problems.  The drivers are still in short supply and we are still getting problems on the line  :-(


Oops, I nearly forgot - One good thing did happen in March.  On Monday 14th the 1751 finally got the extra 4 carriages back so it is now a 12-car train again.  The carriages should never have been taken away in the first place, but London Midland did show that they listen and have the flexibility to make up for an error by correcting the mistake.       

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.

.

What a shambles

This piece is going to start with the text of the seven emails received via the London Midland email alert service as I think these quite nicely tell (part of) the story of the mess at London Euston this afternoon:

London Midland at 1630: "Disruption has been reported to services between your selected stations London Euston to Bletchley.  General disruption along the line caused by a trespass incident may lead to cancellations and delays to the following services: The 17:24, 17:51, 18:05 and 18:29."

London Midland at 1704: "Services from Euston were suspended this afternoon due to reports of a person walking along the tracks, and further disrupted by a London Overground train breaking down just outside the station a couple of hours later."

London Midland at 1750: Disruption has been reported to services between your selected stations London Euston to Bletchley.  The 17:34 will be delayed by about 20 minutes due to an earlier broken down train."


London Midland at 1810: Disruption has been reported to services between your selected stations London Euston to Bletchley.  The following services will be delayed after leaving: - The 17:51 by about 17 minutes caused by an earlier broken down train. - UPDATE: The 17:34 by about 35 minutes caused by an earlier broken down train."

London Midland at 1828: "Disruption has been reported to services between your selected stations London Euston to Bletchley.  The 18:05 will be delayed after leaving by about 20 minutes due to an earlier broken down train."

London Midland at 1847: "Disruption has been reported to services between your selected stations London Euston to Bletchley.  The 18:29 will be delayed after leaving by about 10 minutes due to an earlier trespass incident."

London Midland at 1851: "Disruption has been reported to services between your selected stations London Euston to Bletchley.  UPDATE: The 17:34 will be delayed after leaving by about 38 minutes due to an earlier broken down train."

At London Euston all of the VDUs mentioned the trespasser but not the broken down train.  I arrived at 17:40 and waited on platform 8 for the doors to the delayed 17:34 to open (rumour had it that they couldn't open the doors because they had no train crew).  At one point they announced that passengers for Watford Junction, Berkhampstead and Tring could get on the 17:46 on platform 7.  This left half-full around 17:50. 

Afetr another ten minutes or so (with the doors for the 17:34 still not open) they told us that the 17:51 would go from platform 13 so I ran round there.  That left shortly afterwards (significantly less crowded than usual) and got into Bletchley at 19:07 (two minutes short of the half an hour needed for London Midland to pay out the less than generous £4.00 in rail vouchers for a delay of 30-59 minutes...)


Questions:

1. Why did the Virgin Trains appear to be unaffected by the problems this afternoon?
2. Why do London Midland not initiate the same sort of contingency arrangements used by Silverlink when this kind of problem occurs - Half hourly all stop services from Euston to Northampton (fully utilising the trains and crews available, and ensuring that passengers going to some stations are not unfairly disadvantaged)?
3. Why was the train crew from the 17:46 not put onto the 17:34 which called at the same stations plus a few more?
4. Why at the station were we only given the trespass incident as the cause of the delays?  Why no mention of the broken down train?
5. Why weren't passengers allowed to board the 17:34?
6. Why was there no apology issued either by tannoy announcement at Euston or on the delayed train?
7. Why when passengers are paying £3,000+ for their season ticket and London Midland are receiving £185 million as this year's government subsidy can't we have a better service?  OK, so the trespasser incident was a problem not of their making and trains do break down, but why did this cause so much disruption? 

Rail delay claim online

My first experience of using London Midland's on-line rail delay claim form hasn't been a great one. They get 8/10 for the speed of response but 3/10 for the response...

The paper form has fields for scheduled arrival time, the exact length of delay and an explanation. The on-line version on the London Midland website does not...

A couple of weeks back there were problems on the line resulting from a train breakdown. I was on a different train than usual, taking one of the fast services with a change at Leighton Buzzard (first stop after Euston). Unfortunately, the delays meant that I arrived at Leighton Buzzard about 20 minutes late and then had to wait another 40 minutes for the first train stopping at Bletchley. The result was a total delay of 55 minutes.

I've always used the paper form for the claims (the £4 in rail vouchers might be paltry but it's the principle that counts!) but this time I decided to claim online. The letter from London Midland came through within 10 days which was great but I wasn't pleased by the content. They had checked and reckoned the delay was less than the 30 minute minimum. Hmmm...

Without any information from the form regarding scheduled time of arrival, the actual delay and the reason for the delay, it looks like they've just looked up the report for the train that I left London Euston on, ignoring the fact that my destination was Bletchley and that train doesn't call there. As Queen Victoria apparently used to say, "we are not amused..."

The letter did invite me to ring or email Customer Service if I disagreed with their decision on the compensation. I have picked up the phone and asked that:

1. They reprocess the delay claim.
2. They review the online form and match the fields to those on the paper form.
3. They put a bit more effort into checking the details of a claim so that they pick up where passengers might change trains between their departure and arrival stations.

The mark for the response on the phone? It's another 8/10. I was listened to and there was no argument against points 1-3. I'm confident that (1) will be handled but have a feeling that (2) and (3) might be a bit more difficult to fix. It would be nice to be proved wrong on those two ;-)