dk1
Veteran Member
GA had them based daily at Yarmouth, Norwich & Ipswich in the bad old days before total fleet renewal.Standby RRBs aren't unknown, LNR had 2 at Bletchley during the calamitous 230 introduction.
GA had them based daily at Yarmouth, Norwich & Ipswich in the bad old days before total fleet renewal.Standby RRBs aren't unknown, LNR had 2 at Bletchley during the calamitous 230 introduction.
Makes you wonder why government were so keen to introduce franchises......why try to fix a system that wasn't broken? Interestingly, the ex BR employees I work with all mention the fact that the best time for BR was when sectorisation was introduced.....the pre cursor to franchises.Yet I am unable to remember a time when BR were regularly cancelling last trains to and from major WCML destinations, let alone the last three.
Also, in my experience BR were pretty good at getting you where you needed to if an incident meant that said last train was cancelled.
Given the capacity of a pendolino Vs a coach you'd also need a fleet of busses to replace one train let alone multiple cancellations.
Makes you wonder why government were so keen to introduce franchises......why try to fix a system that wasn't broken? Interestingly, the ex BR employees I work with all mention the fact that the best time for BR was when sectorisation was introduced.....the pre cursor to franchises.
Quite often the trains before them have all run though .Not that simple - quite often the last Avanti's from Euston leave less than 3/4 full, often stop at places like Milton Keynes where they drop more people than they gain, so by the time they get into their final destination they're nowhere near full and probably no more than 2 coachloads at best.
They were fine when all they did was operate Aberdeen's city buses. From the moment they expanded beyond their comfort zone it was downhill all the way.First equals worst! Utterly useless company that should have all contracts removed. Couldn't run a bath!
Talk about "Broken Britain" our transport system as a whle is a total shambles, and a mega-high-priced shambles at that. Airline queues for baggage, passport and security, train strikes and last train cancellations, at a time after two years of the pandemic and we all desperately want to travel to get those horrible years put to bed...who would want to travel now? I'm dreading my two breaks coming up, is the stress worth it? There's absolutely no way I'm booking any kind of advance rail ticket this summer - so it's money the TOC's could have going down the drain as I won't be travelling "walk-on" due to those high fares. Basically it's a kind of lockdown again!
Few if any "first world" countries have issues to the same extent. None of those which do charge through the nose like the UK does.Why don't you try living somewhere else to see if it's really better? Because other countries have similar problems, it's just that the RF's "rose tinted worldview" doesn't see this.
Kind of understand people's frustration.Talk about "Broken Britain" our transport system as a whle is a total shambles, and a mega-high-priced shambles
There aren't widespread cancellations and heavy timetable cutbacks on any other European railway.Why don't you try living somewhere else to see if it's really better? Because other countries have similar problems, it's just that the RF's "rose tinted worldview" doesn't see this.
To be fair Schiphol's had it's problems which have been forecast to continue well into the summer, but we're in Britain and shouldn't be saying "oh look at XXXland they're just as bad" whether it's rail or air. We should get our own house in order, and get it in order quickly so we can have our first decent summer of care-free travel since 2019.There aren't widespread cancellations and heavy timetable cutbacks on any other European railway.
Similar experience at Reading (other than the fact that the taxis weren’t already there) - with taxis heading for Portsmouth and Gatwick amongst other places. All organised by First as it was less than 10 years ago.Reading this sort of thing always reminds me of back in about '94, still BR - a Glasgow-Euston on a (scheduled) diversion over the S&C, while on that route got stuck behind a broken down freight train.
All the time the guard kept us informed, including regularly walking through the train. Then at some point started noting everyone's final destination that night.
On arrival at Euston at about 1am, four hours late, we were greeted by more black cabs than the eye could see, and plenty of staff, who had already recieved the list of destinations, and organised the geographical taxi loads, directing everyone into their correct chariots, for distribution all over the south east of England (my taxi was for something like Kingston, New Malden, then Godalming and Reading...poor driver didn't have a clue of directions without his passengers' help, pre sat nav etc...)
Absolutely sterling effort by all, really wish i'd written to congratulate them at the time, but anyway..
Dare i ask if we can look forward to this sort of thing again with GB Rail or whatever it's to be called?
Perhaps he would emigrate if he thought his train to the airport would run and the queues at the airport wouldn't be so long he would miss his flight.Why don't you try living somewhere else to see if it's really better? Because other countries have similar problems, it's just that the RF's "rose tinted worldview" doesn't see this.
Perhaps he would emigrate if he thought his train to the airport would run and the queues at the airport wouldn't be so long he would miss his flight.
There aren't widespread cancellations and heavy timetable cutbacks on any other European railway.
I'm sure it's easy enough to cherry pick a few articles claiming things are bad abroad. No doubt you would have found much the same in the press here before Covid.That's not quite true though, is it?
Euston is currently deserted, as it was at 1000 this morning. Where’s the incredibly busy come from?They've also cancelled the final two departures from London to Manchester tonight, a Saturday on an incredibly busy bank holiday weekend. Unbelievable.
Was about to post the same thing!They're running a "Good service", with a prominent green tick, according to the homepage of their website: https://www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk/
Rather takes the edge off a 3tph service.Was about to post the same thing!
Just a snapshot of tomorrow
05/06/22 11:15 Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston due 13:25 will be cancelled.
This is due to a member of train crew being unavailable.
05/06/22 11:35 Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston due 13:45 will be cancelled.
This is due to a member of train crew being unavailable
05/06/22 11:55 Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston due 14:09 will be cancelled.
This is due to a member of train crew being unavailable.
There's more to London than the Euston concourse, dearEuston is currently deserted, as it was at 1000 this morning. Where’s the incredibly busy come from?
But if there’s no crew & a work to rule, what can they do?They've also cancelled the final two departures from London to Manchester tonight, a Saturday on an incredibly busy bank holiday weekend. Unbelievable.
But if there’s no crew & a work to rule, what can they do?
It is different.Delay one of the earlier services by (no more than) one hour and pay the staff overtime as appropriate. It is not acceptable to run 25 of 30 scheduled services, where two of the cancelled services are the last of the day.
If I were in a team struggling due to staff shortages and I refused to deal with an urgent matter because it's "not my problem", the next day on arriving at work I would be handed my P45. I am obliged to act co-operatively and sometimes this means working overtime, for which (not being shift work) I don't get paid.
I expect you will reply that the railway is somehow different, even to safety critical sectors such as healthcare and construction. Perhaps it is different. Perhaps. As a passenger and taxpayer, I don't care.
I personally think that's a very simplistic view of the current situation, the railways are far more complicated than people outside the industry realise.Delay one of the earlier services by (no more than) one hour and pay the staff overtime as appropriate. It is not acceptable to run 25 of 30 scheduled services, where two of the cancelled services are the last of the day.
If I were in a team struggling due to staff shortages and I refused to deal with an urgent matter because it's "not my problem", the next day on arriving at work I would be handed my P45. I am obliged to act co-operatively and sometimes this means working overtime, for which (not being shift work) I don't get paid.
I expect you will reply that the railway is somehow different, even to safety critical sectors such as healthcare and construction. Perhaps it is different. Perhaps. As a passenger and taxpayer, I don't care.