Trains screwed again

[Weatherman]

Don't know if it will do any good but here is a petition to sign should you wish.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/113871

Signal failure down to Network Rail, Not Southern

 

[Weatherman]

Signal failure down to Network Rail, Not Southern

Sorry just seen earlier posts but it seems that even after 19 years many still can't get a grasp of the setup

 

[Peter Grummit]

Not just Southern. Thought readers of this thread might appreciate an update on the Ricoh station debacle...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
London Midland

Two new rail stations will open on Monday 18 January

Press Release • Jan 15, 2016 09:50 GMT




Two new rail stations will open on Monday 18 January



The new Bermuda Park and Coventry Arena stations will open on Monday 18 January.
The two stations are part of a £13.6 million investment to improve rail services between Coventry and Nuneaton.

This is the first part of a plan to develop the route from Nuneaton to Coventry and Coventry to Leamington Spa. Later work will include a new platform at Coventry to increase the frequency of services and a new station at Kenilworth.

The investment will give better rail access to jobs, retail, leisure and education across Coventry and Warwickshire while reducing road congestion.

Cllr John McNicholas, Coventry City Council Lead Member for Transport said:
"It's taken a while, certainly longer than we had hoped for, but finally the stations will be open and I'm delighted about that.

"Although the station at the Ricoh won't be open directly after match or on major event days until Wasps, Coventry City Football Club or events sponsors charter trains, the new service will still provide lots of advantages for local people."
The Coventry – Nuneaton upgrade is being delivered by Coventry City Council, Centro and Warwickshire County Council. It is funded by the three partners, the Department for Transport (DfT) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

Bermuda Park will be the 150th station to join the London Midland network. The station will have 30 free car parking spaces and Coventry Arena will have 80 car parking spaces.

You can download the timetable for the two new stations at www.londonmidland.com/download/112257.6/coventry-nu

 

[Ernest]

Southern won't lose the franchise as they have done nothing to breach the terms of the agreement, the only franchisees to lose them handed them back for financial reasons. The MP's will have their little bit of publicity today and no doubt a few meaningless soundbites afterwards and tomorrow it will be ........SASTA

 

[knocky1]

I say to all you commuters either get a house where you work or get a job near your house. My two minute walk to work is not affected by any train or traffic problems.

Retiring at 35 worked for me.

 

[Easy 10]

Why, in the year of our Lord 2016, is it apparently impossible to have a railway signalling system that doesn't CONSTANTLY break down or fail ? UK railway signals must be the flakiest, most unreliable pieces of equipment in operation anywhere in the modern world. Is it a maintenance issue ? Are the signals made in Taiwan ? Why do they keep failing ??

Or is it, as I suspect, a case of "we're actually incapable of running a reliable service, best blame this latest catastrophic clusterfunk on another signalling problem". It seems to be the catchall go-to excuse when its not been raining or something.

 

[Taybha]

Southern do not even have their own franchise anymore , its part of another company now GTR , you know what happens when things get bigger .

 

[essbee]

Why, in the year of our Lord 2016, is it apparently impossible to have a railway signalling system that doesn't CONSTANTLY break down or fail ? UK railway signals must be the flakiest, most unreliable pieces of equipment in operation anywhere in the modern world. Is it a maintenance issue ? Are the signals made in Taiwan ? Why do they keep failing ??

Or is it, as I suspect, a case of "we're actually incapable of running a reliable service, best blame this latest catastrophic clusterfunk on another signalling problem". It seems to be the catchall go-to excuse when its not been raining or something.

This. A set of questions which nobody seems to be able to answer, most of all the people who actually maintain the bloo*y things.

 

[Hotchilidog]

Why, in the year of our Lord 2016, is it apparently impossible to have a railway signalling system that doesn't CONSTANTLY break down or fail ? UK railway signals must be the flakiest, most unreliable pieces of equipment in operation anywhere in the modern world. Is it a maintenance issue ? Are the signals made in Taiwan ? Why do they keep failing ??

Or is it, as I suspect, a case of "we're actually incapable of running a reliable service, best blame this latest catastrophic clusterfunk on another signalling problem". It seems to be the catchall go-to excuse when its not been raining or something.

Absolutely. Nearly the best part of fours hours to get in today. Again it's the usual culprits PP/Hassocks and BLOODY BALCOMBE! yet again. Also a train fault meant the first train i was on was only four carriages instead of 8. I know the signal and points are the responsibility of Network rail and not the TOC's, the fault lies with the whole broken up and uncoordinated nature of the service. It is a shambles. Thousands of commuters were massively inconvenienced today and hundreds of business had to start the week short staffed because the workers were stuck in transit.

All this on the back of a december when staff shortages meant cancelled trains, a two week network shutdown, and a weekend of engineering works and replacement bus services. It's a joke. Seriously what century are we living in?

 

[Deadly Danson]

Why, in the year of our Lord 2016, is it apparently impossible to have a railway signalling system that doesn't CONSTANTLY break down or fail ? UK railway signals must be the flakiest, most unreliable pieces of equipment in operation anywhere in the modern world. Is it a maintenance issue ? Are the signals made in Taiwan ? Why do they keep failing ??

Or is it, as I suspect, a case of "we're actually incapable of running a reliable service, best blame this latest catastrophic clusterfunk on another signalling problem". It seems to be the catchall go-to excuse when its not been raining or something.

It's just a crumbly old network that has colossal overuse. Nothing will ever change until someone can come up with the billions and billions required to build (and get through planning) new purpose built lines that don't go through century old tunnels and have built in slack. It's such a busy network that problems are almost guaranteed day in day out. If there were just a couple of trains an hour though Balcombe tunnel (which I suspect will one day soon fail completely and that will screw up the main line for years) for example the network would cope but the sheer volume of people wanting to travel means the track, points, signals etc are overused and one problem cannot fail to cause knock on effects for hours. There are plenty of problems with GTR (and I mean plenty) but realistically changing franchises or re-nationalising will only ever paper over the cracks. That said, the network does seem to be failing with ever increasing regularity and I can only assume the reasons for this are chronic underinvestment and poor management. Ultimately I suspect it's cos we are just a bit sh*t at running things properly in this country.

 

[Ernest]

It's just a crumbly old network that has colossal overuse. Nothing will ever change until someone can come up with the billions and billions required to build (and get through planning) new purpose built lines that don't go through century old tunnels and have built in slack. It's such a busy network that problems are almost guaranteed day in day out. If there were just a couple of trains an hour though Balcombe tunnel (which I suspect will one day soon fail completely and that will screw up the main line for years) for example the network would cope but the sheer volume of people wanting to travel means the track, points, signals etc are overused and one problem cannot fail to cause knock on effects for hours. There are plenty of problems with GTR (and I mean plenty) but realistically changing franchises or re-nationalising will only ever paper over the cracks. That said, the network does seem to be failing with ever increasing regularity and I can only assume the reasons for this are chronic underinvestment and poor management. Ultimately I suspect it's cos we are just a bit sh*t at running things properly in this country.

Is one of the major failures, employing someone from B & Q or Vodafone to try and run a railway industry with no previous experience was always going to end up badly

 

[Guinness Boy]

Why, in the year of our Lord 2016, is it apparently impossible to have a railway signalling system that doesn't CONSTANTLY break down or fail ? UK railway signals must be the flakiest, most unreliable pieces of equipment in operation anywhere in the modern world. Is it a maintenance issue ? Are the signals made in Taiwan ? Why do they keep failing ??

Or is it, as I suspect, a case of "we're actually incapable of running a reliable service, best blame this latest catastrophic clusterfunk on another signalling problem". It seems to be the catchall go-to excuse when its not been raining or something.

I wish they had been.

Taiwan has one of the world's best High Speed Railways based upon the Japanese bullet trains but with some German engineering in there as well. I know because when I lived out there a lot of my mates were on the project. It wasn't without issues (you try getting Brits, Germans, Japanese, Taiwanese and Ukranians to have a beer together never mind work as a team) but it is now state of the art. Unlike ours.............

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_High_Speed_Rail

 

[ofco8]

Problem is that the governments have encouraged commuters etc. to use the railways which has led to over use and therefore more problems.

Then petrol prices went up encouraging general train use. Then train fares have gone up greater than inflation. So a bad deal all around for train users.

However, with petrol prices now tumbling train users may turn back to their car usage. Only problem then is horrendous car park prices.

In other words the travelling public are stuffed whichever way they turn.

Apologies to you train commuters, I am self employed and work from home.

 

[dazzer6666]

All of the housebuilding in Sussex is having an impact as well - trains are getting busier and busier.

 

[Gwylan]

However, with petrol prices now tumbling train users may turn back to their car usage. Only problem then is horrendous car park prices.

It's not the only problem though.

Firstly, things go wrong on the road too (the A23 was closed only a week ago when a driver was killed). Then there's the congestion charge cost in London: I can see that being raised again if more and more drivers start coming in to town.

There's the loss of efficiency: commuters can do work on trains (or sleep to come in fully refreshed), that's not an option for drivers. There's also the time taken: I occasionally get a coach into town and that takes just short of three hours, cars would go faster outside London, but won't have the option of bus lanes in town so it would take a similar amount of time, a lot longer than a train in other words.

Finally, there's the strain on the driver: commuting is bad for your health, I'd imagine that the effort of driving and the long delays in traffic would be even worse

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Think SR are summoned to the Transport Committee tomorrow to explain this mess in front of all the relevant MPs that are in their area.

Hope SR representatives aren't aiming to attend by train, else they'll be 29 minutes late for the start of the meeting.

 

[Monsieur Le Plonk]

The wonderful KEY card packed up last week and won't work on the inspectors' hand held devices or at any barrier.
Ticket offices have no functionality to fix or reboot the card which, in itself, beggars belief. So after being late for work due to all the feck ups I am now doing very little work whilst I await this 'member of the team who will be with me shortly'.1 hour in so far.........

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

The wonderful KEY card packed up last week and won't work on the inspectors' hand held devices or at any barrier.
Ticket offices have no functionality to fix or reboot the card which, in itself, beggars belief. So after being late for work due to all the feck ups I am now doing very little work whilst I await this 'member of the team who will be with me shortly'.1 hour in so far.........

Why don't you just show your card at the manually operated barrier and demand they let you through? Make a scene if necessary. It's like when the Oystercard thing packed up over Xmas, they just had to open the gates and let people through. Why not throw their KEY card failures back in their face?

 

[kevo]

I still think restoring the Lewes to Uckfield link to provide an alternate Brighton mainline when these things happen is a feasible solution.

http://www.bml2.co.uk/

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

I still think restoring the Lewes to Uckfield link to provide an alternate Brighton mainline when these things happen is a feasible solution.

http://www.bml2.co.uk/

Certainly needs SOME feasible solution put in place, or at least the wheels put in motion. Everybody always talks about the Balcombe tunnel, but it just needs that viaduct just past Haywards Heath to suffer some kind of malfunction and the Brighton-London line will be snookered for months if not years.