SASTA - what an absolute shower

[8ace]

Not about Southern but Heathrow Express. Coming back to the UK at Christmas and needed to use the H Ex on the 27th. Went to their site to book a ticket only to find they are shut between 25th and 28th. Not a real big deal I suppose as I was able to get a seat with National Express instead. I generally avoid Heathrow like the plague if I can but it is still the major gateway for visitors flying in or out of London and will no doubt piss off a lot of tourists who will end up on the wanky Piccadilly line. Not a great advert for UK plc really.

They are building CrossRail though which should make things better (and cheaper).

 

[Beach Hut]

They are building CrossRail though which should make things better (and cheaper).

If you believe anything new is cheaper fare wise on UK rail you are deluded mate

 

[8ace]

If you believe anything new is cheaper fare wise on UK rail you are deluded mate

Heathrow Express is extortionate, what do you know about buying tickets anyway

 

[Beach Hut]

Heathrow Express is extortionate, what do you know about buying tickets anyway

Get a discounted rate on HEX, used it a few times

 

[8ace]

Get a discounted rate on HEX, used it a few times

FIRST CLASS I take it

 

[Beach Hut]

FIRST CLASS I take it

Either mate, depends how flush I am at the time

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Not about Southern but Heathrow Express. Coming back to the UK at Christmas and needed to use the H Ex on the 27th. Went to their site to book a ticket only to find they are shut between 25th and 28th. Not a real big deal I suppose as I was able to get a seat with National Express instead. I generally avoid Heathrow like the plague if I can but it is still the major gateway for visitors flying in or out of London and will no doubt piss off a lot of tourists who will end up on the wanky Piccadilly line. Not a great advert for UK plc really.

I think this is due to Cross Rail. To be fair HEX is a fantastic service and it's always run when I've needed it; but when it doesn't run the alternatives are poor.

 

[dazzer6666]

Quite.
[MENTION=18774]Rugrat[/MENTION], you really need to read the press release I linked to earlier:
http://www.southernrailway.com/southern/news/train-crew-recruitment

It really is quite outrageous.

Just got around to reading the release. Christ Almighty. None of what they are saying is unknown, so it's shit management and bad planning (no doubt driven by 'cost management' and 'shareholders'). Quoting the hours as some sort of justification FFS.

Grrrrr.

 

[theboybilly]

The past three weeks the trains out of Redhill and Reigate have been a joke. I get the 0727 Reigate to London Bridge it ran this morning for the first time in about two weeks.

I take it the lack of train crew is down to Southern doing it on the cheap and not having enough people to cover sickness and people using up leave at the end of the year? Anyone know the reasons behind it?

I claim for every train that is late or cancelled, F@@@ them.

It won't be train crew using up leave as Roster Clerks have to abide by agreed 'Roster Charters'. There will be a set amount of leave available for both rostered (eg summer leave) and ad-hoc (ie odd days) leave to be taken. If a member of staff applies for the day off and all the slots are filled the leave will be refused. Southern are very hard on this, I've had to call in loads of favours just to get to a rearranged game.

 

[pasty]

Would just like to congratulate Southern on tonight's efforts.

18:00 from Victoria to Brighton cancelled due to lack of available train crew - this despite the service being advertised at 17:20 when I left the office as "on time". Then to add insult to injury, the following train, 18:15 was around 12 minutes late into Brighton, and get this, due to congestion.

Congestion. With a new less than 2 week old timetable to try and make things better, and a cancelled preceding train.

 

[thedonkeycentrehalf]

Had two trains cancelled on Saturday due to no crew. Felt sorry for those confused old folk waiting with suitcases for the 11:11 from Worthing to Victoria which was cancelled as one monitor showed the train as going to Victoria and the other 'creatively' describing the service as going to Haywards Heath. I assume this was to show that not all of the journey was cancelled and if you could get to the Heath then it wasn't really cancelled.

As for that press release and, given Ernest's comments, maybe they should put in place an emergency timetable which they can actually get staff for until such time as the staff are recruited. Might not look great but better to turn up for a less frequent train that will turn up than the current roulette that seems to be taking place.

 

[West Hoathly Seagull]

Indeed no mainline service from Brighton to London after shutdown on the 24th December till 04th January - I would avoid commuting that day as it will no doubt be an epic fail

Those who have to use the Brighton Line will be diverted via East Grinstead. I recommend you visit this place, which is only a few minutes' walk away on Railway Approach, and is now open:

http://www.eastgrinsteadcourier.co....cro-pub-town/story-27932169-detail/story.html

 

[dazzer6666]

......and tonight.....

 

[Whitechapel]

When it comes to delays, "Signalling problems" appears to cover basically ANYTHING. A guard admitted as much to me on the way back from the QPR game.

The other day on my way home from work I had a train delayed by 25 minutes. However the arrival time on the screen stayed at 22:45 until 23:00 where the reason for its delay was signal failures. According to the very frustrated guard on the train, the delay was down to the bloke in charge of the signal box at Arundle, who had gone for a shit down the road as his signal box didn't have a working toilet.

 

[dibsy]

Ha, SASTA, classic. I do Shoreham to Chichester every day and agree it's a shambles. Can't drive it as the roads are rammed so I have to take the train. If I need to get home for something important I catch a train one or two earlier than necessary just in case.
Anyway just got to the station and my train is cancelled due to the temporary train crew shortage and the announcement keeps coming up SASTA etc.
Shambles

 

[lost in london]

Front page of the Southern website:

Important alert: Some Southern services may be cancelled later today due to a temporary shortage of available train crew.

For information about how we are working to overcome these shortages please check our train crew recruitment page.

We are extremely sorry for the disruption to train services.

but not sorry enough to employ enough people.

 

[pasty]

Front page of the Southern website:

Important alert: Some Southern services may be cancelled later today due to a temporary shortage of available train crew.

For information about how we are working to overcome these shortages please check our train crew recruitment page.

We are extremely sorry for the disruption to train services.

but not sorry enough to employ enough people.

Utter joke. Fortunately WFH today. And I notice there is no link in their message to the "train crew recruitment page"

On the subject of compo though, they say you can apply if more than 30 minutes late so does that mean I can't claim for the cancelled 1800 from Victoria last night? I was going to get that but as it was cancelled ended up getting the 1815 instead, so technically I wasn't more than 30 minutes later than I would have been had the 1800 run.

 

[pasty]

Just been browsing through their website. Jeez, this is appalling.....



You can bet your bottom dollar that a similar graph showing ticket price increases would probably be an exact mirror image.

 

[lost in london]

Utter joke. Fortunately WFH today. And I notice there is no link in their message to the "train crew recruitment page"

On the subject of compo though, they say you can apply if more than 30 minutes late so does that mean I can't claim for the cancelled 1800 from Victoria last night? I was going to get that but as it was cancelled ended up getting the 1815 instead, so technically I wasn't more than 30 minutes later than I would have been had the 1800 run.

You've made me feel like I'm a bit shady as I've never let that stop me claiming the full cancellation compensation. On that argument you could only really claim if you were going for the last train of the night and there was no other way of getting home.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

And that's another thing:

http://www.southernrailway.com/southern/news/train-crew-recruitment

How many other companies send out shitty press releases like that because they haven't got enough people to provide the service they're paid to do? We're short staffed here at my firm. We just have to work harder and if we can't recruit the right people, the management are accountable to further up the food chain to explain why not. This sort of thing at SASTA is an utter joke.

Ironically I click on that and met with

Important alert
This is an important announcement
Service disruption - please check our home page for information.