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“Scotlands best ever railway”

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Highlandspring

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one of the most ... skip-stopping services out there
Not any more, thanks to the political pressure that has been brought to bear by vociferous commuters. Whether or not that’s a good thing on the other hand...
 
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Deltic1961

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Rail industry defends itself on rail forum shocker .....

As I have stated several times before, the service I personally use is abysmal, and not just this month. Many people in my village won't touch the train with a bargepole because they have been delayed or cancelled altogether so many times and it's a major inconvenience once too many. When something goes wrong it takes hours to get things back to normal. the incident recovery times are far too long. I have written to my MSP several times and all he gets back from Scotrail / Network rail (delete as approriate) are the same pre-prepared "we're sorry , lessons learned, investing in the best ever railway" replies which have worn thin by now.

I applaud the £170 million investment on our line but it's probably too little too late. Between Scotrail and Network Rail Scotland they couldn't run a bath, and the alliance is nothing more than a sham as they plainly blame each other all the time.

Don't take it for granted the railways will be there forever. People will get tired of all the hassle, price increases and the "it is what it is" attitude and walk away. It's just a matter of time.

I can't see how a new timetable will mitigate crew shortages, constant points failures and a complete lack of fleet maintenance. Trains shouldn't be developing nearly as much faults as they have lately so there's obviously something badly wrong there too. Every day people are complaining about freezing trains with no working toilets. And not just the odd one either.

Oh, and trains are still terminating early, seen one on today's Twitter feed. surely that counts as skipping stops ..... no?
 
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Further wide-spread cancellations tonight on the E&G and E to Dunblane lines, broken down trains again mixed with a heady dose of shortforming across the piece.

How's this for banter; the 1734 from Waverley to Alloa has been reduced from 4 coaches to 2 coaches "due to damage to the overhead electric wire". But the train is diesel, folks. It's a diesel train. Absolute nonsense.

The farce continues.
 

Chrism20

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Further wide-spread cancellations tonight on the E&G and E to Dunblane lines, broken down trains again mixed with a heady dose of shortforming across the piece.

How's this for banter; the 1734 from Waverley to Alloa has been reduced from 4 coaches to 2 coaches "due to damage to the overhead electric wire". But the train is diesel, folks. It's a diesel train. Absolute nonsense.

The farce continues.

There is of course the possibility that the incoming set is delayed due to damage and all that’s available is a two car set.

That said at least it appears to be running which is better than it’s been all week.
 

Stopper

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The Alloa service comes from a double 158 which I believe runs between Edinburgh & Tweedbank all day. There must be a reason, but it seems unlikely overhead wire problems at Croy are the reason.

Good to see it running again though even if it is only 2 car. That service is extremely busy/well-used and is usually full until it passes Linlithgow/Polmont.
 
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ER158715

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Clearly missing the point. It’s all too easy to criticise from outside. I’m not familiar with the day to day struggles with the Dunblane Services but I do know that the service is still considerably better than many others parts of the UK. Doesn’t mean it can’t be better but my “last few weeks” comment was in relation to the traincrew shortages which seem to have been much worse. Anyway, let’s judge it in the New Year when the stock has settled down and the training is done.
 

ER158715

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It’ll be a 2 instead of a 4 because units will be out of place. Control will always go for “least bad option”. They have 3 options a) wait for original booked 4 car -possibly for a long period of time. B) step up another unit from a later service-possibly even booked for a different route-in this case only a two car. Or c) complete cancellation. As you can see, B is the preferred but certainly not ideal option.
 

Highlandspring

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I just found out you can ignore individual members on here and their posts don’t show up, so I don’t need to read any of this whinging any more. It has cut out half this thread!
 

kylemore

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Don't take it for granted the railways will be there forever. People will get tired of all the hassle, price increases and the "it is what it is" attitude and walk away. It's just a matter of time.

Exactly.

Could there be a decline of passengers commuting by rail on the worst affected routes?

However, ironically such a decline may improve things overall as the main problems seem to affect the peaks and off peak punters are less time sensitive anyway!

Mind you if the railways aren't up to getting people to their work on time why should government on behalf of taxpayers invest in them?
 

Chrism20

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Exactly.

Could there be a decline of passengers commuting by rail on the worst affected routes?

However, ironically such a decline may improve things overall as the main problems seem to affect the peaks and off peak punters are less time sensitive anyway!

Mind you if the railways aren't up to getting people to their work on time why should government on behalf of taxpayers invest in them?

Short term I'd imagine there will be a small decline in passenger numbers but once things stabilise I'll be surprised if they don't bounce back.

If the railway returns to stability and is more reliable the time penalty in the car or the bus into a city such as Edinburgh will not be attractive.
 

Killingworth

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The investment now was a pipe dream back then. I certainly would never have envisaged the E & G as it is now as we battled to keep the 158s going. A 2 train per hour service which was more often than not short formed as a 2 car 158 was actually just about sufficient most of the day. Nowadays that would be utter carnage!

History repeats itself. Back in the late 1700's (no, I can't remember that far back) the Forth and Clyde Canal was built and the promoters were told nobody would want to use it because few travelled between Edinburgh and Glasgow. The first Act of Parliament was granted in 1768 but the canal was not fully completed until 1790.

Given the means a new traffic flow soon developed. From Wikipaedia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_and_Clyde_Canal

" Between 1789 and 1803 the canal was used for trials of William Symington's steamboats, culminating in the Charlotte Dundas, the "first practical steamboat" built at the shipyard in Grangemouth by Alexander Hart.

Passenger boats ran on the canal from 1783, and in 1809 fast boats were introduced, running from Edinburgh to Falkirk in 3 hours 30 minutes, providing such creature comforts as food, drink and newspapers. By 1812 they carried 44,000 passengers, taking receipts of more than £3450. From 1828 there was a steamboat service, operated by Thomas Grahame's boat Cupid."

Then the railways came!
 

kylemore

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Short term I'd imagine there will be a small decline in passenger numbers but once things stabilise I'll be surprised if they don't bounce back.

If the railway returns to stability and is more reliable the time penalty in the car or the bus into a city such as Edinburgh will not be attractive.
Correct - if the railway returns to stability.

However can the present system produce stability?

Under the present system the best way for a franchisee to make profits is to cut costs to a minimum. I often hear on this site "well if you want spare provision and other cost elements which add to reliability will you be willing to pay higher fares?". If the cost-cutting which has screwed the reliability of our railways was actually passed onto the punters and led to lower fares they might have a point. However it isn't - cost cutting is done create profit - not lower fares.
 

43074

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Correct - if the railway returns to stability.

However can the present system produce stability?

I think the question is can the present setup effectively manage change? I'd argue it can't: where things are changing it's going badly and so in trying to mitigate the impact of these adversaries focus is being lost on getting the basics right, so operational performance is suffering. Demonstrated quite aptly by the May 2018 timetable change on Northern, for instance.
 

Bodiddly

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The Op's question was "Scotlands best ever railway" and to get back to that point, Personally, in terms of services, I think there has never been such connectivity on the Network. 13 trains to and from Edinburgh/Glasgow in an hour is a phenomenal amount of choice between both cities. Who would have thought only a few years ago you could not travel directly between Helensburgh and Edinburgh, get on a train and go deep into the Borders or even get on a train between Anniesland and Maryhill! Timetable improvements this December will see almost hourly services from Elgin to Inverness. These are just a few improvements made in recent history. Now the downside. Scotrail have taken a hammering over the last 3 years since Abellio took over and most of the problems have been external. Network Rail's improvement programme has created chaotic service patterns with stop skipping becoming the norm. Fine if your on a point to point journey, not so good standing in the wet watching your train whizz past you at speed! Rolling stock problems have also added to the chaos which to be fair, are not Scotrails fault either. If Scotrail can weather the storm of the December timetable change, then I do believe we will see the best railway we've ever had, eventually!
 

Deltic1961

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A couple of breakdowns today and another signal failure at my local station (Dyce) surprise surprise. Quite a few cancellations as well.

I think it will be business as usual tomorrow. Playing about with timetables won't sort the serious underlying issues Scotland's railways have unfortunately.
 

Hackneyite

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Got the (7car) 16:00.from Edinburgh tonight, fully seated and standing (at least in cars 3 and 4) . Into Linlithgow at 16:15!!! Pulled out like a tube train at Polmont!
Hopeless: let's bring back Black Fives now!
 

Journeyman

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Got the 07.48 from Linlithgow to Glasgow this morning, it was about 7 or 8 late by the time we got to Queen St (GLQ) but otherwise not too bad. First day it's been a 385, as it was a solid 365 diagram from the summer. First thing I noticed was how cold it was inside - the 365s are wonderfully cosy in this cold weather (unless there's a window open).

I was bracing myself for a mess, so I was pleasantly surprised my journey went smoothly, but there were still a few cancellations on the screens this morning.
 
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mcmad

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Notice the majority of the Glasgow/Edinburgh via Camelon are cancelled today, not a great start and means no connections for Linlithgow/Polmont to Stirling without running into Haymarket or Croy.....
 

DuncanS

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Notice the majority of the Glasgow/Edinburgh via Camelon are cancelled today, not a great start and means no connections for Linlithgow/Polmont to Stirling without running into Haymarket or Croy.....

I think "majority" is pushing it, there was one cancellation showing when I left this morning and Journey Check has 3 more for the rest of the day.

Its not been the best start to the new timetable, Check was showing my train as cancelled this morning but it was actually running - I wonder how many people got caught out by that. Still we got an electric "smile" train for the first time which was nice and quiet.
 

Deltic1961

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27 cancellations at the moment (13:24pm)

Usual train faults, signal issues and a few of them are shortages of train crew.

Capture.JPG
 

mcmad

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They really do need to add some qualifiers to the Edinburgh - Queen St descriptions now. Trying to work out which train is going which route isn't straightforward.
 

Journeyman

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They really do need to add some qualifiers to the Edinburgh - Queen St descriptions now. Trying to work out which train is going which route isn't straightforward.

Yes, it is. 00, 15, 30 and 45 departures go via Falkirk High. The others go via Grahamston/Cumbernauld. That applies from both ends.
 

Sirius

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It may have been like that for years, and yes regular commuters will be fine. However those taking irregular journeys, and during periods of extended delays and cancellations it’s inevitably going to go badly.

I say this as someone who regularly sees the confusion at Platform 9 at Queen Street when a late running Edinburgh (origin at Helensburgh) rocks up halfway between the two scheduled departures (other origin at Milngavie.
 

Deltic1961

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Live PPM has fallen under 80% so the new timetables haven't made the slightest bloody bit of difference to the overall reliability. Not surprised one little bit.
 
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