Rail overcrowding 'worsening' in London (BBC News 11/08/2011)

[whole diary]

[JayMac]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Rail overcrowding 'worsening' in London and South East

Rush-hour overcrowding on London and south-east England rail routes is getting worse, figures have shown.

Morning rush-hour overcrowding is at its worst on services into London Paddington station, the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about)) statistics said.

Services into Paddington in the morning peak had an average of 18.5% of passengers standing.

Outside London, Leeds has the highest number of standard-class passengers forced to stand.

First Great Western (FGW^▸ (First Great Western)) was the train company with the highest levels of overcrowding with 16.6% of people on average standing across the morning and evening peak.

Outside London, Birmingham had the highest passenger demand in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom), with 36,100 passengers departing from the city during the afternoon peak on a typical weekday in autumn 2010.

This was followed by Manchester with 29,400 departures and Leeds with 23,800.

'Difficult to keep up'

Separate Department for Transport (DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)) figures showed the 10 most overcrowded trains arriving in or departing from London during commuting peak times were all operated by First Great Western (FGW).

The most crowded was the 06:37 BST service from Reading to Paddington, which had a standard-class capacity of 304, but carried up to 610 standard-class passengers.

A FGW spokesman said: "With more and more customers choosing to use our trains into and out of London Paddington it is difficult for us to keep up with demand. We are continuing our discussions with the DfT about the clear need for strengthened services into and out of London Paddington."

David Sidebottom, director of rail customer watchdog Passenger Focus, said: "The industry needs to address this through increasing capacity by more trains and carriages, upgrading railway infrastructure such as new signal technology, track work, longer station platforms and new lines."

Rail minister Theresa Villiers said: "We are now embarked on one of the biggest programmes of rail capacity improvement for a hundred years, including more than 2,700 new rail carriages."

A spokesman for the Association of Train Operating Companies said (Atoc) said: "It's good news that the coalition government is investing in over 2,500 new carriages and has pledged to introduce more flexible franchises that will allow operators to respond better to overcrowding."

The latest report on overcrowding, from the Office of Rail Regulation, can be found here. A word of warning though. The report .pdf is rather large. The overcrowding statistics are buried in the overall 'National Rail Trends' report. If you like facts and figures, graphs, tables and statistical analysis then you'll be delighted by this 220 page report! 

(Page 58 of the .pdf for the facts and figures on overcrowding)

[Andrew1939 from West Oxon]

. . . . and in the mean time those Adelantes lay unused whilst Theresa Villiers and her DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) colleagues twiddle their thumbs and do not give FGW^▸ (First Great Western) consent to use them and help relieve this problem.

[paul7575]

. . . . and in the mean time those Adelantes lay unused whilst Theresa Villiers and her DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) colleagues twiddle their thumbs and do not give FGW^▸ (First Great Western) consent to use them and help relieve this problem.

Only two of them are unused, three are in use with Northern and therefore unavailable until the 172 cascade happens.  I expect FGW's reasoning would be that it has to be all five or none at all, because having only two units wouldn't justify the crew retraining.

Paul

[paul7575]

There's also the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)'s 'top ten' lists for spring and autumn 2010, and in the second table (page 5 of the 8 page pdf) all ten services are FGW^▸ (First Great Western) - which is a bit of a first - there's nearly always been a couple of other TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) involved previously...

http://assets.dft.gov.uk/publications/london-south-east-overcrowded-train-services/overcrowded-trains-south-east.pdf

Paul

[IndustryInsider]

which is a bit of a first

It's rather a lot of a 'First' 

Get the five 180's back, put the Turbos back on suburban duties and get those extra MKIII trailers converted to extend most of the 2+7's, and you might, just might, have enough to survive until the cascases and new builds from electrification and Crossrail arrive.  I think the resident 180's at Old Oak Common have been moved around a little over the last week or so.  Could indicate something happening...

[ellendune]

The final London and South East RUS^▸ (Route Utilisation Strategy) has quite a bit to say about solutions to this. http://www.networkrail.co.uk/browseDirectory.aspx?dir=\RUS%20Documents\Route%20Utilisation%20Strategies\RUS%20Generation%202\London%20and%20South%20East

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the Oxford Mail:

Train overcrowding is getting worse

Overcrowding on rush-hour trains between Oxfordshire and London Paddington is getting worse.

All 10 of the most overcrowded peak trains in and out of London^s major stations last autumn were First Great Western (FGW^▸ (First Great Western)) services at Paddington, according to new figures issued yesterday by the Department for Transport (DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)).

FGW admitted last night it was ^difficult to keep up with demand^ on its routes.

In a separate report, the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about)) said FGW had by far the highest levels of overcrowding in the South East.

Rail Minister Theresa Villiers told the Oxford Mail last night that a decision was expected soon about extra capacity for FGW services in the Thames Valley.

Four of the 10 trains in the DfT list began or ended their journeys at Oxford, where commuters pay ^4,104 a year for a season ticket.

The busiest of these was the 6.15pm from London, which serves Goring and Streatley, Cholsey, Didcot Parkway and Radley on its way to Oxford. The train has a capacity of 533 standard class passengers, but the snapshot survey found it was leaving Paddington with 944 on board, 77 per cent more than there was space for. A change in the type of train used from last December has provided another 45 seats.

It was only the third most overcrowded train recorded. Topping the list was the 6.37am from Reading, which arrived at Paddington with 610 people on a train with a capacity of 304.

Other services between Oxford and London in the list were the 6.09am and 7.09am from Oxford and the 5.18pm departure from London.

In January, the Oxford Mail reported on overcrowding figures for autumn 2009, which painted a similar picture. Seven of the 10 busiest trains were operated by FGW, with one starting its journey at Didcot and one at Oxford.

FGW managing director Mark Hopwood said in May he hoped to secure the return of five 280-seat Adelante trains, along with extra coaches to add more than 80 seats to many of the company^s High Speed Trains.

Mrs Villiers said: ^First Great Western is continuing talks with the department about providing additional capacity in the Thames Valley area and while the proposals are yet to be confirmed, a decision is expected soon.^

An FGW spokesman said: ^With more and more customers choosing to use our trains into and out of Paddington, it^s difficult for us to keep up with demand.

^Six out of the 10 train operators in London and the South East area have had injections of rolling stock recently, so it^s not surprising that they have seen improvements.

^Clearly these latest figures demonstrate that our customers travelling into and out of Paddington also need strengthened services. We are continuing our discussions with the DfT about the clear need for strengthened services for London Paddington.^

[onthecushions]

Spending many hours on Reading's platform 5 in morning peaks, I've often imagined a rake (or two) of spare Mark 3a (hauled) standard opens, topped and tailed by class 67's, shuttling between Paddington and Reading.

The cramming East of Reading inconveniences everyone - no trolley service in first class again, apologies for crowding, etc.

The "added value" of extra FGW^▸ (First Great Western) capacity must be very great indeed considering the high earners it daily ships to and from the Capital.

OTC

[IndustryInsider]

Yet again, no mention that the suburban services load even more heavily between Southall and Ealing Broadway than they do when they arrive/depart Paddington.

[paul7575]

Yet again, no mention that the suburban services load even more heavily between Southall and Ealing Broadway than they do when they arrive/depart Paddington.

Er, not quite.  If you read all of the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)'s paper...   

The passenger load figure is the count at the busiest point on the particular service. This can be an interchange point outside London on the route concerned (e.g. Stratford or Ealing Broadway) and does not always correspond to the terminal point.

[IndustryInsider]

Noted, Paul - but I only just spotted your post - thanks and good news.  Though I defy anybody to make an accurate count on some of those trains!

Also good news is that one of the trains to make that highly dubious Top 10 list, at number 2, the 18:45 stopper from Paddington to Reading, has now been strengthened from 3 to 5 carriages.  I saw it leave Paddington last night and there were only a handful of standees, though of course there would have been 100 or so others waiting to cram on board at Ealing Broadway!  At least it won't mean punters getting left behind any more, and perhaps the stop at West Drayton can now be reinstated so that the very poor 32 minute gap of departures from Paddington between 18:25 and 18:57 can now be plugged?

As a consequence the 17:42 Reading to Paddington is also now a 5-car set.  You wouldn't think that would be too busy in the contra-peak, but believe you me it was also full to the rafters with returning commuters as a 3-car service, though recently helped a little by the additional fast service from Slough to Paddington at 18:11.

In the morning there is also some relief now being provided, with the following trains strengthened over what was the case late last year:

06:36 Reading to Paddington (due 07:44): from 3 to 5-cars.  This train was also on the Top 10 list, at number 1 in fact!
07:57 Paddington to Oxford: from 3 to 5-cars.

* 05:43 Oxford to Paddington (due 06:54): from 4 to 5-cars.
* 07:12 Paddington to Reading: from 4 to 5-cars.

08:21 Oxford to Paddington (due 10:03): from 3 to 5-cars.
10:12 Paddington to Reading: from 3 to 5-cars.

* I'm not quite sure whether these were usually 5-cars but short-formed to 4-cars on the day I surveyed them.  Can anyone confirm?  Jo, it's the 06:31 fast from Maidenhead.

Anyway, good news now filtering through to passengers on the ground with the two alleged most overcrowded services now with two more carriages.