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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Statistics

Back in December London Midland removed twelve carriages from the 17:51 from Euston.  The result was immediate and painful for the people who rely on that train to get them home - Overcrowding, probably 30+ people standing per carriage and some not getting a seat until Hemel Hempstead.  I put up a post at the time - Rob Peter, pay Paul.

London Midland have finally admitted that they need to put the four carriages back onto the 17:51, but it looks like we have to wait until the next timetable change which will be in May.  We could go on here about why it will take so long to organise this, but there's probably a whole stack of bureaucracy and complication around finding a spare unit and getting it into the right place at the right time.

What I'd prefer to do here is to ponder on how London Midland could have got it so wrong.  Anyone who was a regular on the 17:51 before the change could have told them that that train wasn't under-utilised.  The middle seat in a bench of three was often empty (rarely do you get three adult commuters sat together who can squeeze in there with comfort) and the front 2-3 carriages usually had spare seats, but the five or six carriages at the rear of the train (the London end) were always packed.  I often boarded at the last minute and the numbers of people standing in the doorways and corridors sometimes made it impossible to work my way forward until after the Watford call.

This week the @londonmidland Twitter feed (first class source of information - strongly recommend to anyone with a smartphone) came up with the following stats for the 17:51 pre-change:

I asked if the counts were for departure Euston and whether they included days during school holiday periods.  The response given was as follows:

The reference to manual count here relates to the automatic system that London Midland are using on the trains.  Each door is equipped with a sensor which counts people on and off (see DILAX Passenger Counting).

Whether the DILAX system was in place for the full duration of the count I don't know, but if it was then I'm sorry, the system is either inaccurate or someone has misinterpreted the data. 

There is absolutely no way that the 17:51 from London Euston to Northampton started it's journey on an average weekday with only 39% of the seats taken.



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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.)