Thanks to Geezertronic to pointed me to this thread. I had started another one. If anyone wishes to remove that thread then please do.
On National Rail Enquiries this morning the 8.24 is shown was shown as running a minute late from Harrow and Wealdstone with no report for Euston and it departed Watford Junction on time.
However at the top it says This train has been delayed by overhead wire problems.
Now the 8.05 from Euston to Tring and the 8.34 from Euston to Tring and other trains which pass through Harrow to and from Euston just said delayed with a * by them. When you go in their is no information at the top to say why the trains are delayed. Bear in mind the 8.05 should have left Euston 50 minutes before I was looking at it on my app!
Wouldn't it actually make more sense to provide reasons for problems with those trains rather than a focusing on train which left Watford Junction on time and clearly wasn't very late leaving Euston!
From time to time I get the 8.24 and it's late with no reason given. Today it's practically on time. Most evenings my train is late leaving Harrow towards Euston by 2 or more minutes with no reason given.
It can't be that difficult to get the important information out instead of stuff which doesn't matter so much or is the NRE system or systems train companies use to link to it, really awkward to use, making less useful information easier to put out?
Later on I saw that the 8.24 was then showing as cancelled when earlier it was clearly showing that it was running and it had passed monitoring points.
Do London Midland actually know what they are doing? Why class a train as cancelled that run. Is the system so awkward to use that, that is easier than leaving it out. I noticed on their Web site that it said the 8.24 from Euston to Milton Keynes was an additional service this morning. It's not an additional service any other morning I might catch it.
Interestingly they also showed some other trains as cancelled, which were previously delayed and now did put up a reason.
I think they should really expand the message though to include the fact they can't use as many lines so that people understand why because Tring is not north of the problem but south of it. It should be about educating the passengers. The more info they have then hopefully the less they will moan. I wouldn't be moaning here if better information was given out.
Of course the message on the service disruptions page made no mention that services to Tring were cancelled. I see that from 10.30 London Midland finally acknowledged it. This isn't the first time they have decided not to refer to the fact trains are cancelled. In fact during many periods of disruption they don't put up the fact trains are all cancelled, especially if the disruption is taking place further up the line and they wish to use the line for other trains.
Of course London Midland services are cheap for off peak users so I assume they have less money to spend on providing good information. There Twitter feed is usually very helpful but they would get more information how to more customers quicker if they put it on their Web Site / NRE than having to reply to each tweet they are sent.
By luck, since I didn't know the problems would occur, I happened to get an earlier train today and travel via Clapham Junction. However I now see the problem is all day so I'm not immune to it.
UPDATE ***** I must praise London Midland.
All the Milton Kynes trains are stopping at Harrow and Wealdstone according to National Rail Enquiries timetable. That is amazing and surely a first.
Certainly a first since I've been commuting on them. Usually we are told to clear off and get the London Overground. Now that takes more than twice as long to reach Harrow. So well done London Midland.
I hope they do that during the future disruptions. But can hope *****
I do find the pic posted on tweeter fascinating to look at. Having watched the railway programme this week, I did wonder how soon they were allowed to start fixing the problem or whether they had to wait for rail investigators to turn up or not turn up.