Birmingham New Street Yesterday (29/10)

[DerekC]

Arrived at New Street at about 15:45 yesterday to find the place in a fair amount of chaos. Many local services cancelled, most others delayed, heaving crowds on the concourse. Went to get on the 16:04 Bournemouth (advertised as delayed to 16:15) at Platform 1B to find the platform jammed solid with local passengers to Coventry and Leamington standing looking at a dead Class 350. Last minute platform switch to 2A - trouble departing the service because of crowding … the story could go on, but this isn't meant to be a whinge. I didn't get any hard information about causes - power supply problems were mentioned at New Street, signalling failures blamed on the XC service. Anyone know what was really going on?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Failed train somewhere according to this Birmingham Mail piece.
WMT is taking the flack so presumably one of their trains.
The WMT spokesperson talks about an "overcomplex" timetable.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/news...railways-statement/ar-AAJxowg?ocid=spartanntp

"The timetable we were required to introduce in May 2019 did bring many benefits and has allowed us to carry 150,000 more passengers across our network.
He added: "Unfortunately the timetable also brought in a layer of complexity. This has meant that when something goes wrong on the network, the knock-on effects are more significant and the disruption caused is greater than it would previously have been. This is what has been happening this week.
"We fully acknowledge this timetable is not working as it should be. We are taking steps to fix it as quickly as we can by reducing this level of complexity at the next timetable change in December.

 

[pdeaves]

XC blamed congestion, in turn caused by 'another operator's lack of train management' (which ties in with WMT 'taking the flack').

 

[sprinterguy]

I described the issue in a different thread yesterday afternoon, though it wasn't in an obvious place:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...th-west-of-england.194181/page-4#post-4265929
There was a block to Up trains running between Wolverhampton and Birmingham New Street yesterday morning as a result of 9Y00 06:10 Liverpool Lime Street - London Euston and 2W09 08:22 Wolverhampton - Birmingham New Street automatically dropping the pantographs at Coseley due to overhead wire issues.

Services were disrupted all day as a result, causing congestion to trains approaching from the north, and Up trains from the Stafford direction were diverted via Bescot and bypassing Wolverhampton in an attempt to recover the service for a couple of hours between around 15:30 and 17:30.

For at least a proportion of the day it also seems that Crosscountry were the only operator running trains as booked via the Stour Valley between Birmingham and Wolverhampton (northbound at least) due to them running diesel trains, West Midlands Trains electric services mostly being turned at New Street from the south, and Virgin London - Birmingham - Scotland trains being heavily delayed.

I attempted to catch the 15:57 Birmingham - Manchester train home last night once I realised that there might be severe disruption at New Street during the evening peak, but couldn't due to around four trains worth of Wolverhampton passengers boarding, and elected to get home to Macclesfield via Sheffield (and a comfortably quiet HST!) instead.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

That reads as though it was an infrastructure issue really, rather than a train fault.
Though WMT were no doubt responsible for the service recovery problems.

 

[yorkie]

I arrived at around 1540 for the 1603. It was chaos. Plenty of spare platforms but trains were not being re-platformed until the last moment.

The Cardiff to Nottingham train was held for ages. It was obvious it was going to be re-platformed. I told people this. But it took ages before they actually put it into platform 7 despite 5 platforms being free for several minutes before that. They only announced it as the train was pulling in. This caused a delay for no good reason.

It didn't really affect me in the end as my train left only a few minutes late (but caught up with the Nottingham train and, later on, with late running Northern trains anyway). I did see @sprinterguy on the train.

I told someone to go to Moor Street shortly before an announcement stating that advice to everyone. I hope too many people didn't take it though as those trains would not have been able to cope.

Announcements weren't great, and included the bizarre line "due to delays, services are subject to delay".

People going to suburban Birmingham stations were told to get buses but many were unsure how. For example people stood near me on the platform wanted Blake Street but did not know how to get there by bus. I tried Google maps and ticked "prefer bus" but it kept showing trains that were clearly not going to run.

It looked to me like WMT and Network Rail didn't know what they were doing and this adversely impacted XC, whose trains were delayed for absolutely no valid reason whatsoever. I could understand it if platforms were all occupied, but to keep a train outside the station for so long when platforms are free and only announce it as the train is pulling in, is just ridiculous.

But am I surprised? No, not at all!

 

[option]

It looked to me like WMT and Network Rail didn't know what they were doing and this adversely impacted XC, whose trains were delayed for absolutely no valid reason whatsoever. I could understand it if platforms were all occupied, but to keep a train outside the station for so long when platforms are free and only announce it as the train is pulling in, is just ridiculous.

But am I surprised? No, not at all!

They don't know what they're doing, & they haven't for a long time. Neither do DfT, or the politicians responsible.

Combine that with the utter stupidity of "everywhere has a direct train to London" & this is what you get.

Considering how important multiple parts of the West Midlands network are to national routes, they get nowhere near the level of infrastructure investment they should be getting.

Moderator note: If anyone wishes to discuss the last point further, please use the following thread: https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...mplemented-near-birmingham-new-street.194449/

 

[boxy321]

I arrived at around 1540 for the 1603. It was chaos. Plenty of spare platforms but trains were not being re-platformed until the last moment.

The Cardiff to Nottingham train was held for ages. It was obvious it was going to be re-platformed. I told people this. But it took ages before they actually put it into platform 7 despite 5 platforms being free for several minutes before that. They only announced it as the train was pulling in. This caused a delay for no good reason.

It didn't really affect me in the end as my train left only a few minutes late (but caught up with the Nottingham train and, later on, with late running Northern trains anyway). I did see @sprinterguy on the train.

I told someone to go to Moor Street shortly before an announcement stating that advice to everyone. I hope too many people didn't take it though as those trains would not have been able to cope.

Announcements weren't great, and included the bizarre line "due to delays, services are subject to delay".

People going to suburban Birmingham stations were told to get buses but many were unsure how. For example people stood near me on the platform wanted Blake Street but did not know how to get there by bus. I tried Google maps and ticked "prefer bus" but it kept showing trains that were clearly not going to run.

It looked to me like WMT and Network Rail didn't know what they were doing and this adversely impacted XC, whose trains were delayed for absolutely no valid reason whatsoever. I could understand it if platforms were all occupied, but to keep a train outside the station for so long when platforms are free and only announce it as the train is pulling in, is just ridiculous.

But am I surprised? No, not at all!

I came in from Solihull around 16:30 and Moor St was absolutely mobbed southbound with the usual commuters plus London passengers being sent through the tunnel from New St. As expected, all XC trains were even more heavily loaded than usual. I had to wait for one to leave 2A towards Coventry while waiting for the only rush hour Virgin service (17:10) operating that day. All others were cancelled.

The following day I witnessed a crushed Walsall bound train eject passengers having panic attacks in the scrum on the same platform. Again, all VT trains cancelled except the 17:10, running only 9 coaches towards London.

Barriers were left open as the blind lead the blind - International bound flight catchers believing they could take Chiltern to the airport, announcements stating to use local buses or the (one and only) tram line. There is one bus every half hour towards Coventry so that would have been pleasant.

We'll see what chaos ensues tonight after Wednesday, Tuesday and last Friday's nightmare where we had to have 3 pints in the Craven Arms before fighting to get on an XC service using 10 minute reservations! Again, VT threw the towel in.

 

[SoccerHQ]

People going to suburban Birmingham stations were told to get buses but many were unsure how. For example people stood near me on the platform wanted Blake Street but did not know how to get there by bus. I tried Google maps and ticked "prefer bus" but it kept showing trains that were clearly not going to run.

On the concourse there's actually a board now that says the bus services for each area of Birmingham so quick study of that would've said X3 to Lichfield which stops by Blake Street.

Might be worth popping another one up the other side of the barriers near the waiting areas to make that sort of info much more visible for times like yesterday (and most of this week really as there's been disruption since Monday).