Network Rail incompetence

[whole diary]

[tramway]

I^m really not sure what to say about this without offending everyone.

I came across this while doing some background reading into a response to an earlier thread but thought it deserved it^s own mention, and posted here due to it^s Portsmouth/Cardiff relevance, but Mods feel free to move elsewhere if you feel it needs a wider audience.

Recent growth in demand on the Cardiff to Bristol and Portsmouth regional cross country services has necessitated the strengthening of two-car trains to become three-car trains.

This is an extract from Network Rail^s Route Plan K page 15 dated 2010.

Recent growth. 

These jokers have absolutely no idea.

If NR^» (Network Rail - home page) are still so factually inaccurate and these are official documents being presented for decision making purposes then I despair, I really do. 

I hate to think what other similar statements are in the rest of the route plans.

[Timmer]

That should now read:

Recent growth in demand on the Cardiff to Bristol and Portsmouth regional cross country services now means that its necessary to strengthen the three-car trains to become five-car trains.

[tramway]

Timmer

I fully accept that the service needs strengthening and was looking into background to support it, but the spurious comment that the service had recently gone from 2 to 3 car due to demand is the same scenario that NR^» (Network Rail - home page)/Gov used many moons ago to reduce the cross Wilts service and they are STILL using it in 2010, which is the most worrying thing.

Wessex had managed by hook or by crook to get a 3 car service before the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) franchise reduced it to 2 which prompted the fares strike in the first place.

NR are therefore claiming it was due to demand post FGW that has led to the 3 car service which irks me most, which is complete and utter b******s.

Rant not finished yet.

[devon_metro]

That should now read:

Recent growth in demand on the Cardiff to Bristol and Portsmouth regional cross country services now means that its necessary to strengthen the three-car trains to become five-car trains.

5 car would be a complete waste on all but a few services. Travelling between Bristol and Southampton i've never yet had to stand, this includes travel on Friday PM.

[tramway]

Totally agree 5 car is not necessary at this point, but with the 172 build consigned to the dustbin, perhaps a 4 car 158 to the same standard as SWT^▸ (South West Trains) refurb would be a step in the right direction, and a little bit more priority given to the DMU^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) fleet at SPM^▸ (St Philip's Marsh (Bristol depot)) wouldn't go amiss.

[thetrout]

5 car would be a complete waste on all but a few services. Travelling between Bristol and Southampton i've never yet had to stand, this includes travel on Friday PM.

Could be the time I travel, But I frequently end up having to stand on most services in the Wiltshire Area. They are quite often run late as well...

Off route here, but something that happened to me just before Christmas was on the Bath - Weymouth train. The previous Portsmouth Habour Service was 40 minutes late, so everyone who would have got that for stations to Westbury, piled onto the Weymouth train, Which ended up leaving people for Frome, Bruton and Stations to Weymouth behind, myself for Frome included. FGW^▸ (First Great Western) Staff at Bath refused to offer alternative transport and gave a response along the lines of "What do you expect this time of year" even though it was 2 hours until till the next train

I'm sorry to say this, but Unless i'm going to Bruton from Bath, I take the bus now. It's just as quick, there's more of them, it's much more reliable and doesn't cost me anything

[Timmer]

5 car would be a complete waste on all but a few services. Travelling between Bristol and Southampton i've never yet had to stand, this includes travel on Friday PM.

I'm glad to hear that you aren't having to stand when using travelling between Bristol and Southampton D_M. My experiences of late on this line has meant that I have had to stand along with many others in the vestibule of a three car 158. Whilst 5 cars may be excessive on a number of services at this present moment in time; with the growth that is being seen on this line it won't be long before they are needed.

[Brucey]

I've now changed my Friday travelling to lunchtime - leave Bristol at 11:23, arrive Cosham 13:35.  This seems the least busy service on Friday.

Travel even one hour later and there is the usual scrum to get the "best" seats.

Then travel on the 12:39 to Brighton and you're simply asking for trouble.

Fair enough, it was a 2-coach 150 but I don't think sitting on the floor for two hours is appropriate outside the rush hour.  I dread to think what this line is like during the peak times.

Returning, the Sunday afternoon services are almost fully seated after Southampton with standing room only after Salisbury.  The approach into Bath is usually one of shock at the number of people waiting to board - often with passengers left behind.  I think a video of the approach into Bath could be a good promo at how overcrowded this service really is.

[dviner]

Recent growth in demand on the Cardiff to Bristol and Portsmouth regional cross country services has necessitated the strengthening of two-car trains to become three-car trains.

This is an extract from Network Rail^s Route Plan K page 15 dated 2010.

Recent growth. 

These jokers have absolutely no idea.

If NR^» (Network Rail - home page) are still so factually inaccurate and these are official documents being presented for decision making purposes then I despair, I really do. 

I hate to think what other similar statements are in the rest of the route plans.

Actually, I think it would be a better idea to quote the whole of the paragraph in question:

Recent growth in demand on the Cardiff to Bristol
and Portsmouth regional cross country services has
necessitated the strengthening of two-car trains to
become three-car trains. The GW^▸ (Great Western) RUS^▸ (Route Utilisation Strategy) predicts
continuing growth and recommends the provision of
further additional vehicles on these and certain
Bristol ^ Weymouth services in order to make more
seating capacity available between Bristol, Bath,
Bradford-on-Avon and Trowbridge. Some
alterations to stopping patterns are also envisaged,
so as to speed up longer journeys, by the addition
of extra stopping trains in peak hours for the
intermediate stations.

The way I read that quote is - "It's gone up enough before to require bigger units. We think it's going to keep on going up, so even longer units would be the way to go."

[tramway]

I did consider quoting the whole paragraph, but thought to limit my criticism to the  worst part of it else I would have taken up more time than I have ridiculing something that should have been written into the franchise over 5 years ago, and this in a RUS^▸ (Route Utilisation Strategy) published in 2010 and with no chance of anything happening before 2012 at the very earliest. At one time the route was in the running for a dedicated build of 4 car 172s, the best we can hope for now is a bit of bolstering of the 158/9's with a couple of 153s.

So no that second part of the paragraph didn't deserve quoting.

It was growth in demand in 2003/04 (stand to be corrected) which prompted Wessex to make the services 3 car. 2003/04 isn't recent in my book.

I appreciate the document was never going to acknowledge the political issues when FGW^▸ (First Great Western) tried to turn the service back into 2 car, and you are welcome to look back to the posts around this time and the threat that FGW had that if they didn't return them to 3 car they would lose the whole franchise. It certainly wasn't recent growth, there is certainly continued growth that requires action and sooner rather than later, and pricing people off the railway isn't one of them. Thankfully petrol is going up in leaps and bounds.

[dviner]

I did consider quoting the whole paragraph, but ...

I was going to do a witty and incisive reply, but couldn't be bothered to in the end.

The section of the RUS^▸ (Route Utilisation Strategy) in question says that it needs trains that are longer - the rest is up to the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about), ROSCOs^» (Rolling Stock Owning Company - about) and FGW^▸ (First Great Western).

[paul7575]

Another minor point is that that is not the RUS^▸ (Route Utilisation Strategy).  It is the annually published route business plan, which is not the 'strategic' document - it is just a summary of 'what we are doing'.  That paragraph about the Cardiff - Portsmouth 3 car trains has been repeated for a couple of years, as has much of that document.

The current policy document is the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) RUS here:

http://www.networkrail.co.uk/browse%20documents/rus%20documents/route%20utilisation%20strategies/great%20western/great%20western%20rus.pdf

It has the actual policy for the route as option G and H in chapter 6.

Paul

[tramway]

Firstly many apologies dviner for the previous rant, it wasn^t meant to be direct personal criticism, although I can appreciate with a re-reading having slept on it it does come across that way. 

And thank you Paul for your timely response, which has given me a chance to review what I was a about to post probably stopping me from making even more of a fool of myself. A well-timed comment about where the route plan sits in the bigger scheme of things.

I have to admit I have yet to read all the responses to the original draft and the RUS^▸ (Route Utilisation Strategy) in full, but intend to do so when I get the opportunity, I^m sure it will make interesting reading. There will undoubtedly be many other positive comments in there and as you rightly say dviner it is for others to make the priorities, formulate a plan and implement it. Following Paul^s comment I have revisited the RUS and the following sounds promising. Para 6.9.6 page 157

Network Rail has also established a joint Cardiff to Portsmouth Route Improvement Project Group with FGW^▸ (First Great Western) to focus on this service group and derive initiatives to help improve performance. The group will review possible changes to the service proposition towards Portsmouth with a view to possible journey time savings across the route as a whole.

Unfortunately I, and probably quite a few other posters, will recognise many of the gaps and options having been aspirations promoted by various stakeholders in the FGW area many times in the past, in reports too numerous to mention, (not least the Trans Wilts), and which have been largely ignored for many years, so I^m not holding my breath that DafT et al will actually do much about it.

Notwithstanding that the comment appears in the route plan my reason for ^losing the plot^ over that particular element was it singularly failed to take into account any of the history of the overcrowding problem on the route, and suggesting it is a recent problem diminishes in one fell swoop what could be a powerful statement to get off their backsides and actually do something about it. Also the plan makes specific mention of the RUS from which I assumed it had been derived. I can only hope that the Route Improvement Project Group don^t take the comment at face value if they ever need to refer to the plan.

There were clear problems on the route prior to 2003 when the RPC^s in the region decided to examine the route in some detail and their conclusions were published in April 2004, below is a small extract:

1.1 The Rail Passengers^ Committees for Southern England, Western England and Wales have a common interest in the South Coast to Bristol and South Wales rail route which runs across their three areas. They share concerns that, under new franchise arrangements, the route might not enjoy the current prominence it has under the Wessex Trains Franchise, which finishes in 2006.

Their concerns were well founded to the extent that the problems that then ensued were discussed at length in Parliament on the 24 Jan 2007

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=2007-01-24a.451.0

Two small comments from the debate stand out:

Theresa May
My hon. Friend is extremely generous with his time. I have received more than 600 e-mails from my constituents about this issue. At Paddington last night, I saw the FGW strapline, "Transforming Travel". It has indeed, for my constituents, transformed a good, reliable service with a good choice of fast and semi-fast trains for commuting to London into a very, very bad service, with a significant reduction in the number of trains available, and overcrowding. Does my hon. Friend agree that for commuters from the Thames valley, what is crucial is increasing the number of fast and semi-fast services into Paddington so that the overcrowding can be reduced and our constituents can have a decent service to get into London?

Sandra Gidley LibDem Romsey
Also raised with the Minister at that time were concerns that the trains in the reduced service were to be reduced from three carriages to two. That seemed particularly perverse because, only a few years before, Wessex Trains had received permission to put on extra carriages because of the demand on the line. Again, we are not learning from the lessons of the past when designing new franchises. I support entirely the call for the draft timetable to be available for public scrutiny.

And then FGW had the temerity of trying to claim at the time that they had made improvements when they re-instated 3 cars. Melksham residents are still trying to get their service reinstated to the level it was pre FGW, so you may appreciate why that particular statement hit quite a raw nerve. Also the problems at that time gave birth to numerous blogs, including this one http://ihatefirstgreatwestern.blogspot.com/ , and the setting up of this forum.

And apologies again dviner if you felt I was aiming anything at you personally.

[dviner]

And apologies again dviner if you felt I was aiming anything at you personally.

Your apologies are quite unnecessary - I had no impression of any personal animosity in your post. 

NR^» (Network Rail - home page) aren't angels by any means (trust me - I'm REALLY p****d off with them at the moment), but I did feel that they didn't really deserve your full wrath in this instance.