South West Trains and a blocked line

As many of you know on the days when I’m in the office I commute the 30 odd miles from home to work. I’ve blogged about the trains on occasions before and I’m generally a fan of the railways but two things caught my eye yesterday. First was an article in the Metro paper saying that new statistics show that 1 in 3 trains run late, despite what official figures have shown in the past. Apparently they are changing the way the figures are compiled. Trains are only recorded as being late if they arrive at their destination a certain number of minutes after their due arrival time at their destination. This time difference is being reduced. Now the question I want to raise is who decided that train punctuality was the main way we measure train companies performance? As far as this commuter is concerned if my train arrives a few minutes late on the odd occasion then I’m not going to loose any sleep over it. To me there are far more important issues. As punctuality is the way train companies are judged the train companies seem to be adjusting things to try to ensure that according to the figures. The introduction of the 30 second rule is the one that grates with this commuter the most. The doors of the trains are locked up to 30 seconds before the departure time. Why? Just too improved punctuality at the expense of passenger satisfaction? I’ve been caught out a couple of times recently because of this. The thing is that I’ve been feet away from the train when the door are locked and the platform staff then have the gall to try to apologies to me. I really find it very hard to believe that they are sorry for signally to the guard to lock the doors when they can see someone running for the train and will reach it in a matter of seconds. If they were truly sorry they wouldn’t do it. It’s the lies I can’t stand. I’d rather live with a thief than a liar. At least you always know where you stand with the thief. So if the train company said that it would scrap the 30 second rule but punctuality would decrease I’d vote for it. But to me the most important issue is fares. Again if the train company asked if we wanted 10% reduction in fares or 10% improvement in punctually, I’d vote for the former. It’s like the airline industry. People moan about poor service and all the hassles of using the likes of Ryanair and Easyjet but they must be doing something right or they would be taking delivery of brand new aircraft every few weeks. I think that thing they are doing correct is price, despite the ‘hidden’ extras. Now I can’t let a blog about South West Trains pass without mentioning Sway. The line was blocked at Sway yesterday due to flooding. I did see a joke tweet last night from someone saying that the train companies apologies for not controlling the weather. I think they have totally missed the point. The situation was a line blockage. That blockage could have been caused by anything, it just so happens that water was blocking the line yesterday. Its how they cope with the problem is the issue. A blocked line can occur anytime and anywhere so where was the emergency planning? It would appear that the best they could do was a guy standing outside of the station telling people to club together, get taxis and claim the fare back from South West Trains. £80 later and me, two people from London and a woman from Lichfield were in Southampton. The cost of everyone getting taxis must be huge. So again where was the emergency planning? Councils have emergency planning officers and teams for such an occasion. They have to think of every scenario and try to come up with solutions to that problem. The public EXPECTS them to act in times of need. Is it too much to think that a major transport company have emergency plans in place to overcome a simple thing such as a line blockage? I would have felt sorry for the ONE guy left to cope with all the passengers last night. He was obviously dumped in it big time. However he was the one who decided to signal for the doors to be locked on me a few weeks back because it was 30 seconds before departure even though I was 20 feet from the train. I know it was probably wrong of me and makes me a bad person, but I didn’t mind the abuse he was getting. If it was any other person at Bournemouth I would be outraged. I do get on with them all, Stop and chat with them, They are a good bunch of people, but this one guy is the rotten apple in the barrel. Sorry but I’m only human. I also noticed that the South West Trains twitter feed went very quiet last night again not good when people want information. Talking of which you may recall my blog a few weeks ago about the South West Trains having an underscore in their twitter name and the fact that it cannot be displayed correctly on the train information screens. Well I see they have come up with a solution. The screens now just say ‘follow us on Twitter’ with no name given. Hmmmm

YouTube

YouTube. Well in this case it is MeTube... my first video on the web...

birds, snow and nice bosses (creep creep)

OK, quick catch up blog here.

Last Friday – Went to Doncaster to do a bit of train spotting. Nice day out, used a free weekend ticket that I get with South West Trains to go up to London. Across on the underground to Kings Cross and then to sample National Expresses service to Doncaster. They have just celebrated their first 'birthday' i.e. they have operated the route for a year. They had some single tickets on offer for just a fiver and I took advantage of this to have a day in Doncaster for just £10 return plus underground fares. Now for the underground I acted like a proper Londoner and used an oyster card. Normally when I go to London I get a travel card but it wasn’t worth it for just two trips across town. So I got an Oyster card. It's cheaper than paying by cash.

Doncaster was good but very cold. Added a couple of churches to my list. St Peterswhich was close to the station and Doncaster Minster which is also just a short walk away. There are a coupled of more churches a bit further away that you can see. I might do these on my next visit to here in a couple of weeks.

Saturday and Sunday – Did a bit in the garden. As much as the cold would let me. Clearing of the border is going well. I also moved the rose buses from the front of garden to the back and made a little display of them.

Monday – Tried to get to work in the snow, but failed. Walked down town and waited for an hour at the train station for a train. When the station announcer said that they were operating a very limited service and that we should listen to local radio for updates I thought that was it. If he doesn’t know when the trains are what hope do they rest of us. I walked home. Visiting Tesco on the way. Buying amongst other things doughnuts. They thought of spending a quiet day at home eating doughnuts seemed too good an opportunity to miss. Just settling down when the door went. Sue couldn’t get to work either. Oh well I guess it would be bad if I ate all the doughnuts anyway. Not that I would have done. Would have saved a couple for Sue. It was nice to have her safe at home rather than trying to drive through all the snow. Doughnuts are for sharing anyway, but was hugely disappointed in the amount of jam in them… You hardly noticed in some of them that they were supposed to be jam doughnuts. Shame on you Tesco.

Monday evening received an e-mail from my boss, telling me not to struggle trying to get into work on Tuesday. Sue had mixed emotions. Pleased that I didn’t have to try to get to work and get into trouble. Not quite sure that I should be given carte-blanch to have a another day at home but realising that Charlie is such a lovely boss to think of me like this… He is a good boss… One could not wish for a better boss…. Top leadership, Wish all the bosses there could be more like him. Yeap – he reads my blog and that I have my 6 month review tomorrow!

Whilst spending time working from home I sat in the conservatory looking out at the bird life, whilst still working hard. Put out plenty of food for them and this seemed to encourage the birds in. Them being unable to get any due to the snow. We had two wagtails in the garden, a species I have seen before in the garden but only on a rare occasion. Two new birds seen in the garden were a Chiff-chaff (a life tick for me) and a Green Woodpecker (a year tick for me) But most importantly they added to the garden birds list as well. It’s great to have birds in the garden. Sit and watch them for hours and I don’t have to travel to see them.

Wednesday was off on compassionate leave to attend the funeral of Sue’s Aunt Marion,. A lovely lady Sue is blogging about that right now on our laptop.

Thursday – back to work – boo hiss..’

Interview with Sir Alan

Took the day off today to go to London. Spent the day doing some train spotting, having a good day. But the main reason for my trip to London was that I had a interview booked with Sir Alan. No, I’m not going on the apprentice, its not that Sir Alan, but Sir Alan Greengross who is chairman of the South West Trains Passenger Panel. Been trying to get on the panel for a while. Would be so interesting to see their work and get to know the workings of a train company better. And of course to try to get South West Trains to give me a better service. Sir Alan seemed a really nice chap. Friendly and passionate about his work. I just hope that I did enough to impress him. He seemed keen especially when I talked about websites, seemed like the passenger panel might want one.

The Kindness of strangers

A funny thing happened on the way to work yesterday. I missed my normal trail (0648 Eastleigh – Bournemouth) and I was cursing my luck when it was announced that there was a broken rail at Brockenhurst and that replacement buses were being arranged. Oh great so I’m going to be well late for work. Caught the next train to Southampton, well OK not the next one as it was full, so I caught the one after. It was only 2 mins behind and joined the waiting throng of passengers stood outside Southampton Central waiting for the bus to take us to Brockenhurst where train were running again down Bournemouth and beyond. There must have been 200+ people waiting. Some getting rather annoyed. I just hoped that there was going to be a fleet of buses as we all wouldn’t fit in one vehicle. Train staff came out and said they were looking for the passengers that was on the 0601 service from Southampton. That’s the one an hour before the one I was supposed to be on but missed. People started to mutter about how those people must have been waiting for two hours for a bus. So maybe us later passengers were not so badly off after all and it made no difference at all that I missed the train Or maybe it was a ploy by the train staff… They are good at that sort of thing these days. One way to calm down a group of disgruntled passengers is to point out that there are other passengers who are worse off? Perhaps? I wouldn’t put this past South West Trains to do this. Did you know that research has shown that if the announcement that the train is late is done using a woman’s voice then there are less complaints. Something South West Trains knows all too well and will try to use a woman to announce train delays. Crafty buggers aren’t they.

Anyway there I was at Southampton when I should have, just wondering when a bus was coming. When a elderly gent in Range Rover pulled up. Wound down his window and said to a group of us that he was heading off to Brockenhurst, we any of us like a lift. The guys either side of me jumped in. I jumped in. Then two people, obviously work colleagues, argued about who was going to fill the last place in the car. I’ll wait said one, no said the other , you go on I ‘ll wait.. I insist that you go, I don’t mind and so it went on. All very British. Still one eventually jumped in and off we went to Brockenhurst. Turns out the guy had just brought his wife up to Southampton to save her waiting for the bus and he decided he might as well give a couple of people a lift back to help them out. Very good of him. Really kind. Top man. Makes you have faith in human nature again.

Anyway got to Brockenhurst where the trains were doing a sort of regular shuttle services down to Weymouth, no hint of a timetable.. I arrived at work only 15mins after I would have done if my later train had run. And nobody at work suspected that anything was wrong and that I had such an adventure getting there that morning..

un-happy commuter

My travel home from work options are like this at the moment. I can leave work at 16:15 and scoot up to the train station and try to catch the 16:46 Virgin (now Cross Country) service (to Manchester) and change at either Southampton Central or the airport and get on the Totton-Romsey shuttle train to Eastleigh. These shuttle trains are normally quite full, so I have to stand. Therefore I always change at the airport as its only 5 mins from airport to Eastleigh, so isn’t that terrible. What is bad though is that these trains are normally full of rowdy teenagers who have “gone down to the city to hang around”. Using these trains get me to Eastleigh at around 17:34.

My other option is to wait and catch the 16:59 South West Trains Waterloo service from Bournemouth. Then change onto the stopping service to Winchester arriving at Eastleigh at 17:56. This has its advantages in that I can change trains either at Brockenhurst, Southampton Central, or at the airport, there is always seats available, not may rowdy teenagers, and I gain 15 mins of flexi time at work being able to work until 16:30.

Up to now having both options is working OK. However, the new train timetables were issued yesterday, starting on 9 December and things have changed. Going to work and to/from football on a Saturday is OK. However the Totton-Romsey shuttle is being replaced by a Salisbury-Eastleigh-Southampton-Salisbury circular service and is being retimed as a result. It now longer gets overtaken at Southampton by the 16:46 Manchester service. In fact this service will become the 16:45 service, it getting an extra minute to get to Brockenhurst. This new Salisbury circular service now leaves after the 16:59 train and will get into Eastleigh at 17:47. So I’ve lost 13 mins each day but not having an ‘earlier train’. So there is no point in me leaving work for the 16:45, I won’t get home any quicker. So my flexi would improve working to 16:30. However there is no Winchester stopping service anymore, so all the passengers from that train, heading to all station up to Eastleigh will be on my Salisbury circular service. I said already how busy it was. If they keep it as the normal two-car units as it is at the moment then its going to be chaos. No room for everyone. If I want to avoid this train then the next one to Eastleigh won’t get in till 18:06, thus loosing me even more time. This being the 17:05 from Bournemouth. Advantage is that I don’t have to change train, disadvantage is the it takes longer, but at least its an option if I miss the 16:59.

I’ll have to see what is it going to be like after the timetable change, just I’m not looking Sforward to it one bit.