Poor Bad Weather Planning by Southern

[whole diary]

[Brucey]

Not an FGW^▸ (First Great Western) subject, but related to the area.

Yesterday my dad attempted to get an SN service from Cosham to Swanwick to get to work.  Bought his ticket for ^4.40, routed Southern Only.

On the platform, he saw that all Southern services were cancelled due to ice.  Fair enough, perhaps his ticket will be accepted on SWT^▸ (South West Trains)?  Popped over to the ticket office and was told he would need to pay a 40p excess fare to change it to Any Permitted.

He was about to pay when they announced that SWT wouldn't be stopping at Swanwick (no reason given).

They said that he could get an SWT or FGW to Fareham then, to use their words, "see what was happening with regards to alternative transport".  Only afterwards did he realise that he should have got the train to Fareham then played the "stranded" card in order to get a taxi/bus/something to Swanwick.

In the end, he got a refund on the ticket.  Fortunately, I was in the area so drove him into work.  He managed to get a lift with a colleague back home.

Fast forward to today and still no Southern services beyond Havant.  There is one SWT service every 1-1.5 hours which stops at Swanwick.  No sign of any bustitution, so again I was called to drive him to work so he wasn't late.

It seemed to be a complete shambles, especially yesterday when there were no replacements buses run and no information given about what was being offered at Fareham.  Bad weather may be unexpected but you would expect the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) to have a contingency plan in place?!

[ChrisB]

"Adverse Weather Conditions" is one of the 'excuses' allowed by the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) that effectively means TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) don't haveresponsibility any longer to get travellers from A to B.

It even allows for exclusion from their Charter performance & reliability statistics. Which iswhy all TOCs immediately take theeasy way out & cancel trains, rather than trying hardto run trains, as in the old BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) days.

Southern are nowt though - the list of Chiltern cancellations for *tomorrow* (no new snow in their area since yesterday (Monday) night, temperatures below freezing, but certainly no record) are nothing short of disgraceful.

I strongly suspect that they've got a load of train failures that they're trying to hide.....

[Btline]

If we had ONE company running the railway, then we wouldn't have the worry of SN only tickets etc. None of the TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) communicate with each other, and passengers have to email about 10 different companies to get answers.

[devon_metro]

If we had ONE company operating the railways, then you wouldn't have the option of a cheaper ticket to York via Grand Central.

Works both ways...

[Oxman]

Complete tosh that TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) don't talk to each other. FGW^▸ (First Great Western) has gone the extra mile to help SWT^▸ (South West Trains) customers between Reading and Guildford when their electric trains could not get through.

[paul7575]

He was about to pay when they announced that SWT^▸ (South West Trains) wouldn't be stopping at Swanwick (no reason given).

They said that he could get an SWT or FGW^▸ (First Great Western) to Fareham then, to use their words, "see what was happening with regards to alternative transport".  Only afterwards did he realise that he should have got the train to Fareham then played the "stranded" card in order to get a taxi/bus/something to Swanwick.

Fast forward to today and still no Southern services beyond Havant.  There is one SWT service every 1-1.5 hours which stops at Swanwick. 

Can't comment on the problems of buying an SN only fare when they aren't running due to weather conditions. I wonder if someone part way through a journey would have been excessed? But anyway, SN are pretty good at dropping the Southampton services when things go tits up in Sussex.  (A couple of years ago the only trains you regularly saw in the bay at Fareham were FGW's - now they are nearly all SN!)

Yesterday, SWT weren't stopping at Swanwick mid morning either because no trains at all were running between Fareham and Southampton. FGW were diverting via Eastleigh. I travelled from Fareham to Southampton with SWT around 1020, then waited 20 mins (it isn't a timetabled connection) for an onward (bus for the tunnel work) service into Southampton. Trains didn't appear to be running normally via Swanwick until mid afternoon.   SWT had buses running from Fareham mid morning as well, but IMX they wouldn't have a parallel bus from Cosham to Fareham for SN customers if SWT were running - it would be a bit of a waste of resources.

Today, SWT were operating their normal hourly timetable AFAICT^▸ (as far as I can tell), all their trains call at Swanwick.  However the 06?? runs about 10 mins early for some reason.

Paul

[Btline]

Works both ways...

True, e.g. we wouldn't have forward thinking TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) like CH or VT^▸ (Virgin Trains - former franchises).

But I get reminded of a time when a group (friends of mine) were stranded at Bristol due to FGW^▸ (First Great Western)'s cancellations. They were advised to catch a XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) train part of the way back, where a coach would complete their journey. But the XC guard refused to let them on as they had Groupsave tickets. The FGW staff then argued with the XC staff, getting nowhere. The first XC train went. My friends, furious at this utter incompetence, got the Station Master who managed to "persuade" the guard of the next XC train 30 minutes later!

A bit of discretion/common sense please? There would have been no problem with just BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)). Just think, that if BRI^» (Bristol Temple Meads - next trains) was operated by Network Rail or if signalmen had been involved, that would have been THREE companies arguing! Just having BR would have also saved FGW a lot of money in compensation!

It's when I hear about these events when I think we should have fewer companies. Yes, it would get rid of competition that has driven some fares down, but it would help the network cope in disruption!

[eightf48544]

Well said BTline.

It's the "Wolmar" question "what are TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) For?".

Apart from as you say CH not so sure about VT^▸ (Virgin Trains - former franchises) (Pendolinos and Voyagers all the way under the wires???) what are TOCs for.

As for competiton that's a just stupid waste of resources. Rail has enough problems competing with the car, coach, bus  and air without competing amongst itself.

As for the mess the buses are in due to competiton  enough said.

Public transport is what it says "Public Transport" and as such should be by the miost viable means for the journey involved.  Trains first,  trams second, buses third, long distance coaches fourth and in extremis within EWS^▸ (English Welsh & Scottish Railway Ltd, now known as DB Schenker Rail (UK^▸ (United Kingdom))) Air.

"Public Transport" will probaly also need a subsidy so what's the point of giving private companies money towards their profits?

[Tim]

It even allows for exclusion from their Charter performance & reliability statistics. Which iswhy all TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) immediately take theeasy way out & cancel trains, rather than trying hardto run trains, as in the old BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) days.

I agree that the exclusions from preformance stats are wrong.  The TOCs seem to have managed to get anything that isn't their FAULT excluded.  But the stats ought to include verything that at least partly is under their control.   

I would argue that delays caused by anything including weather problems, suicides, route crime and antisocial passengers should all be included in the stats.  The TOCS (or their supplies and partners like BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) and NR^» (Network Rail - home page)) can have an impact on all of these things or at least how long recovery from them takes.  You might get some TOC manager somewhere thinking along the lines of "perhaps if I put a security guard or BTP officer on that late night train to support the TM^‡(resolve) we might have fewer delays caused by scroates pulling the commincation cord" or "this seems to be a route crime hotspot.  It is impacting on our figures.  I am going to increase pressure on NR to improve the fencing".

Perhaps something like a massive terrorist attack like the one we saw on 7/7 on thetube should allow exclusions.  But I don't think that anything else should. 

[ChrisB]

I'm going to check, but I think the Chiltern cancellations actually relate to their drivers being unable (or unwilling?) to get to work.....

[Super Guard]

Sounds like forward thinking to me by Chiltern... "Cancel everything"!

It even allows for exclusion from their Charter performance & reliability statistics. Which iswhy all TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) immediately take theeasy way out & cancel trains, rather than trying hardto run trains, as in the old BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) days.

I agree that the exclusions from preformance stats are wrong.  The TOCs seem to have managed to get anything that isn't their FAULT excluded.  But the stats ought to include verything that at least partly is under their control.  

I would argue that delays caused by anything including weather problems, suicides, route crime and antisocial passengers should all be included in the stats.

While I understand the point and agree about BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) re: route crime/antisocial passengers, I don't see why a TOC should suffer for suicides which are totally out of their control.  The Stoke Canon suicide last week for example.  XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) and FGW^▸ (First Great Western) had to pay for the 42 coaches to run from Exeter to Taunton to keep people moving, and once in place it worked well.  They could have just said "tough titty, wait 2 hours and we'll clear the backlog then and who cares the delays and cancellations are free!... but no they didn't".  No-one will be reimbursing XC or FGW for these coaches, so why should they have to suffer with performance stats, cancellations or delays?!

Nevertheless, I think that regardless of events TOCs should still have a duty to get you from A to B, but for it hitting performance targets too, I think is a bit unfair.

[Btline]

Southern are nowt though - the list of Chiltern cancellations for *tomorrow* (no new snow in their area since yesterday (Monday) night, temperatures below freezing, but certainly no record) are nothing short of disgraceful.

I strongly suspect that they've got a load of train failures that they're trying to hide.....

What utter tosh! High Wycombe has been really badly affected, with many people having to spend the night in John Lewis's (in the bed department! ) as they couldn't get back. The M40 in Bucks (i.e. where Chiltern run) has also been heavily affected.

The southern part of the Chiltern route HAS been affected by snow. To complain at Chiltern cancelling these trains when they rarely ever cancel (one of the only TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) that know how to run a railway it seems) is unfair. If they're that bad I wonder why they have seen above average passenger increases and record satisfaction levels?

[Brucey]

Same problem again today - very few (if any) Southern services running beyond Havant despite "We will be running a full timetable".  Fortunately, he had already made alternative arrangements so didn't need the train today

Totally appalled at the lack of information that is available.  The Southern website occasionally lists the disrupted service, but usually tells you just to call Customer Services.  No information given to the people waiting at the station.

What I don't quite understand is this: Southern services are running between Victoria and Havant & Brighton and Havant.  SWT^▸ (South West Trains) are also running services between Havant and Cosham and Southampton/Woolston (albeit only every 1-1.5 hours), so what is stopping Southern's services?

[paul7575]

Same problem again today - very few (if any) Southern services running beyond Havant despite "We will be running a full timetable".  Fortunately, he had already made alternative arrangements so didn't need the train today

Totally appalled at the lack of information that is available.  The Southern website occasionally lists the disrupted service, but usually tells you just to call Customer Services.  No information given to the people waiting at the station.

SWT^▸ (South West Trains) are also running services between Havant and Cosham and Southampton/Woolston (albeit only every 1-1.5 hours), so what is stopping Southern's services?

SWT effectively don't run between Havant and Cosham anymore - there are a couple of westbound SWT services between Havant and Fareham happen late at night once the SN services have finished, but they are basically for diversionary route knowledge.  There were no services through Fareham again this morning, due to lack of de-icing overnight AFAICT^▸ (as far as I can tell).

SN services will have been cancelled due to a major shortage of working units. No mystery about it. Those that are undamaged are used in their own area.

Paul

[Electric train]

Complete tosh that TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) don't talk to each other.

Oh thay talk to each other but they don't listen to each other