Crazy Train!

We've been having some real fun and games on the 1751 from Euston recently.  That train is made up of a 4-car and an 8-car unit.  The 4-car comes onto platform 13 empty around 1730 and the 8-car is the 1738 arrival from Tring.  The two units couple up to make a 12-car semi-fast train to Northampton.

We've been boarding the 1751 on platform 13 for what must be 5-6 weeks without any problems.  Passengers accept that the doors have to be locked for a minute or two while the two sets of carriages are coupled up, but anyone boarding before that operation was just expected to stay safely sat down.

Three weeks ago everything changed.  Passengers boarding the 8-car unit after it had pulled in and before the coupling operation had taken place heard an onboard announcement asking them to get off.  Anyone spotted by the driver or guard remaining on the train was escorted off.  I didn't see it, but I'm told that at the end of the platform nearest the ramp there was actually a police officer (or a PCSO) instructing them not to board.  The reason given is 'health & safety'.

According to @londonmidland (Twitter) there is nothing in the rule book that says that passengers cannot be on a train while it couples.  This is a normal operation that takes place several times a day across the network, and as long as people are sensible and sit down there shouldn't be a problem.  Someone at Euston seems to think differently, and to date the message doesn't appear to have got through...

This week has been particularly interesting.  On Wednesday and Thursday the doors were locked before we had the onboard announcement asking us to get off.  On Friday we had the same followed by an announcement asking us to sit down! 

London Midland have promised to get this sorted, but in the meantime I'm associating the 1751 with Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train"  ;-)



.

Extended journeys

Two things have been winding me up about the operation at Euston - queueing to get off platforms 8-11 in the morning (Platform planning) and trains dropping off the VDU displays a couple of minutes before departure (Euston announcements).

Some 'light digging' has revealed some interesting info about the above two subjects.  Working in reverse order, so starting with the journey home...  Network Rail/Virgin Trains/London Midland have apparently decided that to deter people from running across the concourse and down the ramps, they will deliberately drop the VDU information for a train two minutes before it's scheduled departure time. 

Now to the morning...  Before the remodelling work on the automatic barriers and the surrounding structures on platforms 8-11, there were set time slots when the gates were open.  What this meant was that at busy times, the flow of passengers coming into Euston was significantly eased.

The remodelling work did improve things in terms of more gates across a wider front and a slightly wider approach from platforms 10-11 thanks to the moving back of some railings, BUT London Midland have negated those benefits by deciding to keep the gates working on automatic throughout.  That wouldn't be so bad, but the loss of the manual gate means that we are all slowed down when people have to seek assistance when their tickets fail to work the automatic barriers.

The 'Magic E'.  The mark on
the 3rd pillar which platform
staff are using as the measure
for when to open the
automatic barriers

I've queried the above and been told that the automatic gates will normally now only be opened if the queue will take 5 minutes or more to clear.  'Health & Safety' have been down and given the platform staff marks on the platforms for when that point is reached.  These marks are the signs on the third pillars from the gates (see picture right).

London Midland reckon that they can clear the passengers from two 12 coach trains off the platforms in 3 minutes.  Sorry, but I don't believe it.  The 8-car 0700 ex-Bletchley can arrive at Euston platform 11 within a minute or two of an 8-car train on platform 8 and a 4-car on platform 10.  From the end carriage in those circumstances it will easily take 5 minutes plus to reach the ramp.  Maybe London Midland haven't taken into account people coming the other way to board trains, passengers with bicycles/luggage, and non-working tickets...

Even if 5 minutes is correct, what London Midland is effectively saying is that they are happy to extend our journey times by that amount.  On the way home they expect us to be on the platforms at least 2 minutes before departure too.  I'm sorry, but I think this is ridiculous.

What do you reckon?  Are you happy to be held up on your way into London by the queue for the gates?  Are you willing to miss a train because when you arrive at the station at the last minute you don't know what platform it is leaving from?  I'd love to know your view...


.

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?

 .

Euston announcements

16mins before departure and
no platform shown for the 1730

Problem 1
A 4-car train arrives on Euston platform 8. A horde gets off at the doors are locked while the train is coupled to another 4-car unit already on the platform. The station staff knows the train is the 1730 and the regular passengers know that too, but the VDUs on the ramp and the platform say the train is the 1751.


Problem 2
A train still isn't due to leave for a couple of minutes but it disappears from the departure boards and VDUs. Why? Health & safety apparently - To discourage people from running to get a train that's about to leave.

Problem 3

The Network Rail Enquiries online boards (at least the versions I get on my iPhone as above right) is proving unreliable when it comes to displaying departure platforms at Euston .  I might think that this were accidental, but coming on top of problems 1 & 2 I don't think so.

The above aren't one-off incidents and they affect other trains and other platforms. The practice of misleading passengers might have been happening for a while, but if it has then I've been lucky and haven't been affected until the last couple of weeks.



If you are reading this and wondering why this really matters then I'll tell the story of what happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I had to get home early and got to Euston at around 1750 intending to get the 1754. As I arrived on the station concourse I saw that the 1754 was leaving from platform 8. At the top of the ramp I noticed that the VDU for no.8 was blank. At the bottom the same.


On the platform itself I had time only to read "front 4 cars only". I squeezed onto a packed train. All fine? No, this wasn't the 1554 for Milton Keynes stopping at Bletchley. It was the delayed 1534 which terminates at Tring. Fortunately I realised this after departure and was able to change onto the correct train at Watford Junction.  If I hadn't then I'd have potentially ended up with a long wait somewhere.

This Friday the rolling stock for the 1730 came in a few minutes late and at 1725 the VDUs were still showing the train on platform 8 as the 1751.  I was already queued at the locked doors at 1727 when the loudspeakers burst into life and announced that the train was in fact the 1730.


So what's going on?  Whoever is in charge of announcements at Euston (London Midland/Virgin Trains or Network Rail?) has clearly decided that they need to keep us off the platforms until the train is in and ready to board.  That might be fine for a long-distance Virgin Trains service where people can still be given 20+ mins notice of where to board, but it isn't on for commuter trains where the period between the rolling stock arriving and the service leaving can easily be 10 mins or less.  Virgin Trains passengers don't have a crowded ramp and ticket barriers to negotiate through! 


Have you experienced this?  If so, does it annoy you too?  I'd like to hear your views.

.

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.



.

Missing platforms?

On the train this morning one of the regulars mentioned her frustration that London Midland and National Rail Enquiries have stopped posting up platform information for the departures of our trains from London Euston. 

This fellow traveller rarely gets the same train home two nights in a row.  She arrives at Euston via the Euston Square tube station which means there's a choice of entrances.  When there's only a minute or two to spare, picking the right one can make the difference between catching or missing a train, so it's really useful to be able to see in advance where the 17:24, 17:34, 17:51 or whatever is leaving from.

I'm a regular user of the online arrivals and departure boards but hadn't noticed this anomaly so I decided to see what platform information I could get for my own journey home.

What I found was as follows:

At 17:27 I check the National Rail Enquiries' 'Train Times' app on my iPhone.  The 17:51 departure is there, but no platform is shown.  Fair enough, the train isn't in yet.  However, as a regular I know that the 17:51 uses the same rail stock as the inbound arrival from Tring that gets in at 17:38.  

The online arrivals shows board shows platforms and it looks like everyone knows that the 17:38 is coming in on Euston platform 8.   There again, it's still 25 minutes before the 17:51 is due to leave so maybe too early to confirm? 

I get to Euston and cross the station concourse at 17:30.  Looking up I can see that the 17:51 shows as departing from platform 8.

Surely the online boards must now show the 17:51 departure platform?

I check and find the platform detail is still blank.  

The 17:34 is currently on platform 8.  Could it be that the people who run the online site don't want to send people on the wrong train? 

Once the 17:34 has pulled out, the VDU for the platform shows the 17:51. 

I check the iPhone app again.  No platform shown.

I check London Midland's own site.  No platform shown.

Could there be a reason for this?  Maybe the online people are more cautious than those who post up the information on the station VDUs and display boards.  Are they waiting for the rolling stock to arrive?

I walk to the end of platform 8.  The inbound Tring train arrives on time at 17:38.  So now we have the 17:51.

Surely the online departure board must now show the departure platform for the 17:51?

 

It's 17:41.  I check the iPhone app again.  No platform shown.

I check the London Midland site.  No platform shown there either.

What's going on?  Surely by now whatever system feeds the online boards must know that the 17:51 is leaving from platform 8? 

Maybe it's 'policy'?  What possible reason could there be for withholding this information though?

(I notice that the National Rail Enquiries site shows the departure platform for the 17:40 to Manchester)


By now I figure that the departure platform is unlikely to ever appear online, but I take one last look...

At 17:48 we are three minutes from departure, there's still no platform showing online for the 17:51.  This is exactly the time when this information would be of most use for a passenger in a hurry.

The evidence looks fairly conclusive.  No platform information for London Euston departures is being made available online.

If we can have arrival platforms then why can't we have the same information for the trains home?

Not a great day...

I normally try and keep to a single subject per post, so I hope you'll forgive me if a I do a bit of a 'moan dump'.

None of today's incidents were major or unusual (and some of them have become routine), but I don't normally have this number of things to whinge about in such a short period of time...

I still can't buy a paper at the station (see Bletchley station shop).
The air-conditioning in the end carriage of the 07:00 to Euston wasn't working.  The conditions were well described by a travelling companion as "warm and humid".

As usual, the 07:00 arrived at Euston early (timetable flab).  As we got out onto platform 11 at 07:39 the four coach train pulled into platform 10 (on time at 07:40). The result was two train-loads of passengers trying to squeeze past the narrow end of the platform and through the barriers at the same time (see Platform planning).

I did get a paper at the W.H.Smiths on the concourse at Euston.  The trouble was that as I walked out of the station I realised that I had two sets of the Sports and Business supplements.  I may be an idiot but I'm an honest idiot.  I walked back and returned the extras.  the look I got from a member of the shop staff was priceless...

Coming home, in the scrum that is the queue to go through the manual gate onto platforms 8-11 (see Ticket failure), I was elbowed in the side by a woman who was standing back like she was in the queue for the ticket office one minute and then determined to fight her way through to the front the next (the comment she made when I objected was classic - "get a life").

Boarding the 18:29 I found a half decent seat (with a table so I could do some laptop work) in the last but one carriage of the train but in the last few minutes before leaving the guard announced those fateful words "would passengers intending to travel beyond Northampton please make their way to the front four carriages".  Now we know that the train splits at Northampton with the front four carriages going on 'up north' (for this train that being all stations to Crewe), but there really is no rush to move. 

On the Desiros passengers can make their way through the train to the front at any point in the first hour of their journey and there's at least 5-6 minutes in Northampton itself to do the switch.  All London Midland are doing by making these announcements at the last minute before departing Euston is causing people to panic, shifting people from seats at the rear of the train to the front where they sometimes end up unnecessarily standing.  (This time the guard did actually make an announcement after Watford that he'd seen people stepping off the train and rejoining further up, taking the risk of missing the train altogether!)

Like many people who get off at Bletchley, I sometimes work my way down the train after passing Leighton Buzzard to get closer to the doors which stop nearest the bridge steps.  I don't object to people sitting across two seats with their feet out over the narrow alleyway, but why oh why do some of them refuse to move to allow others to walk past?

I got off at Bletchley thinking the troubles were over.  Silly me, I'd forgotten the people who insist on driving the wrong way out of the car park (see One Way?)


Thank you for listening, I don't know if you enjoyed reading the above but I feel much better for having got the gripes off my chest  ;-)

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? 

Platform planning?

Three trains into platforms 8-11 within minutes of each other...  Automatic gates in operation...  Only one member of the platform staff in attendance... 

The above occurred this morning.  The 07:00 from Bletchley normally pulls into Euston around 07:38.  Since the new timetable came into force the arrival platform has been  platform 11 (it used to be no.17).   This morning there was an 8-car train disgorging its passengers on platform 8 (all stops from Bletchley due in at 07:34?) as we pulled onto platform 11 and disembarked.  Within a minute or two a 4-car (07:40 arrival from Tring?) was pulling into platform 10.  

Twenty carriages' worth of passengers at the same set of platforms at the same time would be bad enough, but on when its platforms 8-11 at London Euston then queues and frayed tempers are guaranteed...

The picture above was taken on a quiet Saturday morning but it does illustrate one of the issues with this part of Euston station.   The platforms themselves are more than wide enough but where 9 & 10 (which are effectively bay platforms) cut into the walkway too many people are forced through too narrow space.

To make matters even worse, the flow of passengers through the barriers is distorted with some crossing from left to right and others from right to left.   The problem is made worse by the fact that the underground station entrance, the ticket office, the information booth and the gate for people who can't use the automatic barriers are all on the same side.

Last year London Midland acknowledged the problems on platforms 8-11 and agreed to reduce the impact by keeping the barriers open for particularly busy time slots during the morning rush-hour.   When two trains have arrived at about the same time there is still queuing, but it is nothing like as bad as it would be if the automatic barriers were operating. 

So the questions that need to be asked are:

1. Why has London Midland and/or Network Rail decided that it's a good idea to have three (full) trains arriving on platforms 8-11 within minutes of each other?
2. Why weren't the automatic barriers open this morning?
3. Why was there only one member of staff on duty?

From experience I know that there is absolutely no point whatsoever raising these questions with London Midland customer service.  Send them an email and you get a reply saying that they are experiencing a particularly busy period and it may take longer than usual to reply (I'm told that there 'standard' was 2.5 months earlier this year).  All you'll eventually get is a letter apologising for the inconvenience and saying that it has been raised with the appropriate department.

We don't want a belated apology and a promise of an investigation.  We want actrion to make sure these problems don't occur again!