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)