Rail: are they wheelie on track to deliver better service?

So called militant unions- such a cop out. In Germany , which has the strongest unions in Europe, the unions share in the decision making. The Sunderland car plant is how it could be here. It’s always been US and THEM in industrial relations in this country. Typical Thatcherite response.

The overcrowding and poor timekeeping on our services have nothing to do with trade unions. It’s mainly due to private companies being awarded franchises which they are incapable of fulfilling. They have neither the rolling stock or train staff to meet the demands of modern public transport.

Our local service (London – Midland) consistently runs vastly overcrowded trains. It was warned by the government for failing to provide a reliable service after many complaints but it was still given the franchise.
Even though the platform at our local station has been extended many trains still have insufficient coaches even though London – Midland can’t now use it as an excuse.
Their reply when I complained of carriages packed tighter than would be allowed for the transport of cattle was laughable. They blamed the guard for allowing the overcrowding even though families with small children and pushchairs were left on the platform, bearing in mind that at the time it was an hourly service and there were no toilet facilities on the station. They also said that there was no danger to standing passengers, many of whom had no handhold, because their trains had special (undefined) safety features to prevent injury. Remarkable considering the age of some of the rolling stock and very much the opposite of what happened on a German train which was involved in an accident where many of the worst injuries were inflicted on standing passengers who were thrown the length of the carriages.

Very much a case of shareholders before service.

I am also disabled, with appropriate railcard. When I ask for “airline style seat on aisle” I’m not expressing a preference, I’m indicating physically essential requirements, but there seems no way to have this reflected in the seats issued. It has just taken 10 attempts, with two rail companies, to book a journey where I would be able to use the booked seats! I find the only way to be sure I have time to change platforms is to book separate tickets for each leg. 7 minutes to get from north end of platform 5 to platform 10 at York is tight for someone who can run, especially if they have to check the departure boards near the entrance first. For someone who can’t run, it’s impossible!

At last, a rational comment, albeit – and rightly – inconclusive. It is a pity that no one involved in the railway system has stepped forward to explain, or perhaps to justify, the present state of affairs.

Brian – you mentioned “each of the two main parties forever undoing what the previous one has tried to do”. The Blair-Brown series of Labour governments persistently promised to do that but never achieved even the slightest reversal of the privatised structure and even abolished the Strategic Rail Authority that was at least trying to make some coherent sense out of the muddle.

The train operating companies retain all the profits of operating their franchises [after allowing for any premium payments to the DfT], not just a cut of them. However, profits are not great in practice [three or four per cent generally] and far less profitable than some of the train companies’ other activities [like bus services].There has been no change in the fundamental economics of running the railways through a succession of Conservative, Labour, Coalition, and Conservative governments since privatisation except for the liquidation of Railtrack and its substitution by Network Rail as the infrastructure provider. Railtrack extracted excessive profits and neglected the track. Network Rail was created as a not-for-profit entity but ended up borrowing heavily and has generated a large burden of debt as a first call on its finances; it is now under government control and is constrained by Treasury restrictions on its capital expenditure which, because of NR’s mismanagement of projects and over-engineering of new works has caused a deferral of many important enhancements, the postponement of the introduction of better rolling stock, and other adverse consequences.

The refurbishment of Ipswich station was a joint project between the TOC, Abellio Greater Anglia, and the local council.

Agreed, Phil. I don’t think Network Rail were involved in the Ipswich station refurbishment at all, but they have been causing delays all over the Great Eastern Main Line through power failures, signalling failures, overhead line faults, and major reconstruction work between Ipswich and London. The TOC [Greater Anglia] also runs some unreliable locomotives and diesel and electric units which they have now pledged to replace. Nobody else’s fault, but this line also seems to attract a disproportionate number of suicides which add to its woes.

Well Network Rail are really in a no-win situation, if they try and upgrade the infrastructure it causes delays which people complain about but if they don’t it leads to equipment failures which again causes delays. Nobody on the railways likes delays, they’re expensive, cause a lot of extra work and above all are dangerous. Many of the power and signalling failures are caused by cable thefts and rats chewing through the insulation which are beyond the control of NWR and the TOCs.

The action by RMT in the Southern dispute is not ludicrous. They want to preserve their members’ jobs sure, that’s part of the reason they exist, but the guard on a train has an important safety role to fulfil in the even of an emergency. Thankfully these incidents are rare on British railways although you’d be surprised at how often they have to deal with drunk or disruptive passengers or someone who has been taken ill whilst on a train.

Many passengers, particularly women travelling alone, don’t feel safe or comfortable on DOO trains so it’s not surprising people should be making a stand against what is a cynical move by Southern’s owners to increase their profits.

Isn’t it the recognition of the wider requirements for passenger assistance that has led to the provision of On Board Supervisors in place of guards on the Southern network? A third of trains in the UK run with only a driver [some on the same tracks as Southern]. As I understand it that is not Southern’s intention. They intend to have a second member of staff on every train so far as practically possible. I do not condone the GTR management’s rough-handed way of going about the transition but with the DfT’s hand up their back they are in a difficult position. The intransigent RMT could have handled themselves better as well so there is contempt for the passengers on both sides.

I’ve been a union convenor and I’ve been a manager as well and I’ve always believed that to get into the sort of mess we see on Southern indicates failure on both sides. I see a group of passengers are proposing to charter their own trains.

You might find this article interesting:-

http://www.railmagazine.com/trains/current-trains/the-pros-and-cons-of-driver-only-operation

Well I hope the procurement folks can do a better job than they did on the £1billion contract for the new Siemens Class 700 rolling stock on Thameslink. Month after month of door problems and other technicals resulting in trains being taken out of service, announcement/display systems that are still virtually random on every journey. No tables, no armrests, no wifi. Metro-trains configured trains deployed on a medium long haul Brighton to Bedford route designed for maximised standing. Somewhat non-conventional that it was another Siemens company who signed off on acceptance? hmm? but it won’t be passengers seeing much of any non-performance penalties (if any). Well, lets see if they can do a better job than the old rolling stock if it snows (due tomorrow).

I am not entirely sure, but I think the Department for Transport specified the new trains for Thameslink because at the time there was no certainty over which company would be running the service.

Good idea. But let’s not forget that on Southern there will nearly always be an On Board Supervisor and platform dispatch staff to assist the driver. Peak railway services are characterised by passengers boarding in a fairly disciplined manner at each station and then all alighting at the terminus, unlike the situation on the Underground where in the central district there is a mix of boarding and alighting plus a throng of passengers also on the platforms; during peak hours all busy Underground platforms have dispatch staff in radio communication with control and able to broadcast to waiting passengers.

On the London commuter services most trains will eventually have twelve coaches so trains will be over 240 metres in length with two or three sets of sliding doors on each coach. I feel this capacity will justify extra train crew and platform staff in order to comply with a reasonable risk assessment forming part of the safe working practices. I think that a station-by-station and train-length-by-train-length approach would be a more appropriate way forward, properly rooted in real operating conditions, than the wild and indiscriminate contributions made by all sides in the Southern dispute so far. Longer trains with more passengers produce higher revenues so additional personnel are affordable [on the inbound services at least] and should be provided under a risk-based policy rather than through a dogmatic declaration that by its nature will not be universally appropriate .

Those are good points but you are overlooking the extra capacity being provided in London by the north-south Thameslink corridor that avoids the need for trains from outside the capital to terminate in London, the new terminating platforms coming on stream at Waterloo following the diversion of Eurostar to St Pancras International, the additional Platform 0 at King’s Cross, the London Overground East London Line that takes passengers from south east London to north east London avoiding major termini but with short links to them and the Underground, and of course the upcoming Crossrail [Elizabeth Line] which will divert millions of passengers away from Liverpool Street and Paddington and take them through the central area underground. And Crossrail 2 is now on the drawing board so Greater London is getting a huge share of national infrastructure expenditure and much extra capacity along with many smaller schemes and digital signalling enhancements to improve journey times and allow more trains to run. Thameslink is designed to operate a peak hours service of 24 trains per hour in each direction through the City to diverse destinations when it is fully in operation [virtually nose to tail] – this will release a lot more capacity at the existing terminals.

Your overall premise is right though, and one has to wonder whether the railways must continue to carry everybody that turns up and wants to travel on the next train. This is hugely uneconomical as well as uncomfortable and eventually the bullet will have to be bitten that people cannot just move to Hampshire or Northamptonshire and expect to get to London everyday by 08:30, so relocation of employment must become a political priority.

The Thameslink trains are almost never on time during the peak. For two years I went from South London to St Pancras and I think in all that time about twice I came in on time. Towards the end of the period I was usually 10-15 minutes late and too late for my connection at Euston.

Does the timetabling need to depart from planning based on “X trains per hour”. I assume the timetable was not achievable for this stretch of track given the number of services running on it.

Even less realistic was the timetabling for the Tring to Euston line which never reached Euston on time in the afternoon on my way home.

Am I correct in thinking that freight always takes priority too? That always introduces a delay.

Transport Focus is a a government-sponsored independent watchdog that exists to deal with complaints about the railways and the motorway and trunk road networks and to campaign for improvements, but it is not the Regulator – that is the Office of Rail and Road [ORR] so you might be better off referring your concerns to them.

Has Northern Rail given a reason for deciding not to respond to any more of your complaints? Understanding that could help ORR if you choose to approach them.