GEML, earlier last trains home when engineering work taking place

[TubeMapCentral]

Last train from London to Walton-on-the-Naze on a normal Sunday, 21:32 (ugh!) but with engineering work and buses splitting the route on Sunday 16th, the last train home was 21:08 (which I missed). Obviously, this saves AGA money, why else would they do it, are there any minimum standards for this sort of thing?

I am convinced the GEML is the most bustituted railway in the country, the full weekend service seems to have run 50% of the time approx for the 25 years I have lived here. This is just routine maintenance to keep the operation going, very little of it is for route enhancement.

 

[30907]

Usual practice is for the last train to run last booked time even if everything else has run earlier. Last London to Clacton was at 2338.
Without knowing the details, perhaps providing a taxi or two at Thorpe-le-Soken or wherever was more economical than keeping the branch open an extra hour?
What arrangements did staff offer?

 

[TubeMapCentral]

The online journey planners were saying last train 21:08 for that one, and after the interesting experience failing to get to Liverpool Street, I didn't have the strength to actually go to the station and negotiate options, I had an offer of an emergency bed for the night.

TfL closed down the Rotherhithe Tunnel and the Overground to Peckham Rye simultaneously, it took me 1hr 50 minutes to get from Nunhead to not-quite-Liverpool Street door-to-door, Walton-on-the-Naze to Liverpool St is 1hr 45 minutes door-to-door!

 

[Alfie1014]

As a fellow Sunshine Coast line user I was intregued to see what the contractural position was in this case.

TSR1 the (Train Service Requirement 1) for Sundays in the Franchise Agreement for GA requires that the last train from London to Clacton departs no earlier than 22:15 and that the last train from Thorpe-le-Soken to Walton on the Naze departs no earlier than 22:45. When there is no engineering work that translates into the 22.32 Liv St to Clacton but in order to make the last Walton connection you need to be on the 21:32. However with last weekend's (and it's the same again this weekend) engineering work this changes into a 22:32 connection from London for the last train to Clacton which meets the obligation but the connection at Thorpe is at 23:13; to meet this however you would need to leave 30 minutes earlier than the booked time at 21:02 as you discovered.

So technically this weekend's timetable was compliant in it's literal sense but to recognise the earlier departure from London for Walton line passengers I think that GA should have offered a taxi connection from Thorpe or Clacton out of later trains which were the 22:02 and 22:32 departures from London which both had Clacton connections from Colchester. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but I'd have travelled on the 22:02 or 22:32 and either tweeted GA about taxi provision or more likely got to Clacton and got a taxi and then tried to claim the cost back from GA, I would hope that you would have a good case even though you might need to get Transport Focus involved if GA didn't play ball!

I think this highlights one of the deficincies of the TSRs as they are currently written as they don't capture well connecting services that provide through journeys from London and elsewhere such as the Walton line. My contact at GA is on his honeymoon at the moment but I'll fire off an e-mail to see what he's got to say for future occasions.

Out of interest doing this research I discovered that in TSR-3 (which should come in May 2020) that the Clacton line, (well Wiv, Thorpe and Clacton but not the Walton branch I'm affraid) gets a later train on Sundays from London departing no earlier than 23:00, plus earlier services to London on Sats and Suns.

 

[306024]

Wonder if anyone has mentioned that to NR engineers.

I was taught that one of the golden rules of planning a revised service was you always covered the last departure, however strange the revised plan looked. Today help points provide an alternative where demand is likely to be less than zero, but then try finding a cab on a Sunday night at Thorpe-Le-Soken! Obviously best to stay on to Clacton

 

[TubeMapCentral]

As a fellow Sunshine Coast line user I was intregued to see what the contractural position was in this case.

Out of interest doing this research I discovered that in TSR-3 (which should come in May 2020) that the Clacton line, (well Wiv, Thorpe and Clacton but not the Walton branch I'm affraid) gets a later train on Sundays from London departing no earlier than 23:00, plus earlier services to London on Sats and Suns.

Thanks, very interesting and very helpful. It would be nice to believe that the future will bring something better than the current designed-to-fail timetable for the Walton line, everyone I speak to locally is convinced that the line is going to close.

 

[DarloRich]

wow - I mean anyone would think the railway fixed itself.

 

[TubeMapCentral]

Come back when you have read my original post and understood it

 

[DarloRich]

Come back when you have read my original post and understood it

perhaps you could come back when you understand what you are talking about in relation to maintenance works. At the same time you could take off your conspiracy hat............

 

[iphone76]

As a fellow Sunshine Coast line user I was intregued to see what the contractural position was in this case.

TSR1 the (Train Service Requirement 1) for Sundays in the Franchise Agreement for GA requires that the last train from London to Clacton departs no earlier than 22:15 and that the last train from Thorpe-le-Soken to Walton on the Naze departs no earlier than 22:45. When there is no engineering work that translates into the 22.32 Liv St to Clacton but in order to make the last Walton connection you need to be on the 21:32. However with last weekend's (and it's the same again this weekend) engineering work this changes into a 22:32 connection from London for the last train to Clacton which meets the obligation but the connection at Thorpe is at 23:13; to meet this however you would need to leave 30 minutes earlier than the booked time at 21:02 as you discovered.

So technically this weekend's timetable was compliant in it's literal sense but to recognise the earlier departure from London for Walton line passengers I think that GA should have offered a taxi connection from Thorpe or Clacton out of later trains which were the 22:02 and 22:32 departures from London which both had Clacton connections from Colchester. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but I'd have travelled on the 22:02 or 22:32 and either tweeted GA about taxi provision or more likely got to Clacton and got a taxi and then tried to claim the cost back from GA, I would hope that you would have a good case even though you might need to get Transport Focus involved if GA didn't play ball!

I think this highlights one of the deficincies of the TSRs as they are currently written as they don't capture well connecting services that provide through journeys from London and elsewhere such as the Walton line. My contact at GA is on his honeymoon at the moment but I'll fire off an e-mail to see what he's got to say for future occasions.

Out of interest doing this research I discovered that in TSR-3 (which should come in May 2020) that the Clacton line, (well Wiv, Thorpe and Clacton but not the Walton branch I'm affraid) gets a later train on Sundays from London departing no earlier than 23:00, plus earlier services to London on Sats and Suns.

Regarding agreements, the most recent Southend Line Saturday closures have led to buses every 30 minutes instead of the 20 minute train service. Would that lead to a breach of the franchise agreement which I'm sure specifies a 3tph service.

And as a Southend Line user I'd agree that the works on the GE line are much more frequent than on other lines.

 

[87015]

perhaps you could come back when you understand what you are talking about in relation to maintenance works. At the same time you could take off your conspiracy hat............

Not sure what yout beef is? Last trains on this sort of journey should - and it seems very off for GA - be maintained. Wheres the conspiracy or am I totally missing something?!

 

[DarloRich]

Not sure what yout beef is? Last trains on this sort of journey should - and it seems very off for GA - be maintained. Wheres the conspiracy or am I totally missing something?!

It isn't that straightforward - especially on a twin track commuter railway. The extra time given by cutting the train service back is extremely useful in delivering maintenance work. It is hard enough in a 6 hour overnight possession ( which almost always isn't 6 hours work time), it is almost impossible at other times of the day.

The "conspiracy" is suggesting this is some fiddle from GA who cant be bothered to run trains or that the GE line is bustitued more often than anywhere else.

And as a Southend Line user I'd agree that the works on the GE line are much more frequent than on other lines.

no they are not.

 

[306024]

Thanks, very interesting and very helpful. It would be nice to believe that the future will bring something better than the current designed-to-fail timetable for the Walton line, everyone I speak to locally is convinced that the line is going to close.

Everyone? Best you speak to sensible people instead, rather than those that live in the Moon and Starfish. The Walton line timetable isn’t designed to fail, but it is designed to be cost efficient requiring just two units to work the Mon-Sat off peak service between Colchester and Walton, with cross platform connections at Thorpe with the Clacton service, and good connections with the InterCity service at Colchester. Not sure what more can be done (sensibly).

 

[TubeMapCentral]

It isn't that straightforward - especially on a twin track commuter railway. The extra time given by cutting the train service back is extremely useful in delivering maintenance work. It is hard enough in a 6 hour overnight possession ( which almost always isn't 6 hours work time), it is almost impossible at other times of the day.

The "conspiracy" is suggesting this is some fiddle from GA who cant be bothered to run trains or that the GE line is bustitued more often than anywhere else.



no they are not.

Do you have data to back up your barbed retorts, or are you just treating your personal opinions as facts? I made an FoI request to NR concerning this, and they told me that they did not hold information on bustitution frequency comparing different main lines, and it would be too expensive to compule it. What is your source?

 

[TubeMapCentral]

Everyone? Best you speak to sensible people instead, rather than those that live in the Moon and Starfish. The Walton line timetable isn’t designed to fail, but it is designed to be cost efficient requiring just two units to work the Mon-Sat off peak service between Colchester and Walton, with cross platform connections at Thorpe with the Clacton service, and good connections with the InterCity service at Colchester. Not sure what more can be done (sensibly).

Local shop keepers, taxi drivers, ordinary people who live in the town. Now that AGA won't hold connections from late running Clacton services, of course it is designed to fail. Insufficient turnaround time at Walton, try sitting on TLS station for 40 minutes on a winter night, you will conclude this is not acceptable, even if it is cheap!

 

[DarloRich]

Do you have data to back up your barbed retorts, or are you just treating your personal opinions as facts? I made an FoI request to NR concerning this, and they told me that they did not hold information on bustitution frequency comparing different main lines, and it would be too expensive to compule it. What is your source?

No - I don't have any information beyond knowing how engineering works are planned and implemented. That is slightly ( if only slightly) more information than your assertion that there is some kind of conspiracy to cancel GA services willy nilly.

Local shop keepers, taxi drivers, ordinary people who live in the town. Now that AGA won't hold connections from late running Clacton services, of course it is designed to fail. Insufficient turnaround time at Walton, try sitting on TLS station for 40 minutes on a winter night, you will conclude this is not acceptable, even if it is cheap!

such is the lifeof a branch line passenger! My line is the same. If you miss the connection because of a mainline delay you spend an hour sat at Bletchley.

 

[jimm]

Do you have data to back up your barbed retorts, or are you just treating your personal opinions as facts? I made an FoI request to NR concerning this, and they told me that they did not hold information on bustitution frequency comparing different main lines, and it would be too expensive to compule it. What is your source?

Why does he need a source? He's pointing out a fairly basic fact.

There is something like 20 miles of quadruple track out of London on the GEML, to Shenfield. There are no practical alternative routes to Chelmsford, Colchester or Ipswich and the Norwich alternative means an almost total diversion and a diesel drag, with the only common bits of track being at the two ends of the route.

The ECML, MML, WCML, GWMLand SWML all have quite a few more miles of quadruple track in place beyond London, which means it is a lot easier to keep trains running on one pair of tracks, while the engineers take over on the other pair.

South of the Thames, the warfare between the old South Eastern Railway, London, Brighton & South Coast and the South Eastern & Chatham resulted in multiple ways to get to various places, so diverting trains or directing passengers to trains using an alternative route are all easy options.

The Chiltern Line is about the only other route out of London where double track dominates close into London and even there, they have the option of routing trains via Aylesbury if the line south of Princes Risborough is shut (done last Saturday when the main line signals failed in the morning and often done during programmed engineering work), or from the northern end of the route running to Oxford or Didcot to connect with GWR services/directing passengers to use Virgin West Coast. If Marylebone is shut, they can, for the time being pending HS2 work, divert into Paddington at the London end. I think they have yet to divert via Oxford to/from Banbury in the case of the Bicester-Aynho line being blocked, but so long as reversals at Oxford didn't mess up other services, see no reason why that could not happen either.

And LTS route services can divert to Liverpool Street or Southend passengers get directed to Victoria if Central is out of action, etc.

The alternative options for the GEML are almost non-existent, so more bus substitutions are the inevitable result when essential engineering work is taking place.

I don't need to make an FoI request to understand all that. I expect DarloRich would say the same

 

[TubeMapCentral]

You do get some crazy tosh from the railway management apologists on this board, this is my original assertion:

I am convinced the GEML is the most bustituted railway in the country, the full weekend service seems to have run 50% of the time approx for the 25 years I have lived here. This is just routine maintenance to keep the operation going, very little of it is for route enhancement.

This is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis, and it can only be resolved by data, not by people guessing. I make no accusations about motives or necessity, only noted the outcome, and it is not a very satisfactory outcome when this is the only rail connection that most people have in the area.

So, give me correct % bustitution data main line by line and then we can find out whether my hypothesis is correct or not. If it is not, then fine, if it is, then we should delve deeper.

 

[TubeMapCentral]

Lets put this slightly differently

Is the GEML the most bustituted railway line in the country?

1. Yes, and I have data to prove it
2. No, and I have data to prove it
3. Yes, but I don't have any data. My opinions are just as good as facts, better even, because I can be as scathing as I like without having to put any work into backing up what I personally know to be true.
4. I don't care what the facts are, I can see that there might be a potential for veiled criticism of the railways here, and I hate that, so I will try and obfuscate the issue.

 

[DarloRich]

Lets put this slightly differently

Is the GEML the most bustituted railway line in the country?

1. Yes, and I have data to prove it
2. No, and I have data to prove it
3. Yes, but I don't have any data. My opinions are just as good as facts, better even, because I can be as scathing as I like without having to put any work into backing up what I personally know to be true.
4. I don't care what the facts are, I can see that there might be a potential for veiled criticism of the railways here, and I hate that, so I will try and obfuscate the issue.

what on earth are you talking about? May I suggest you read the post by @jimm and try to digest the points made?

 

[jimm]

You do get some crazy tosh from the railway management apologists on this board, this is my original assertion:

I am convinced the GEML is the most bustituted railway in the country, the full weekend service seems to have run 50% of the time approx for the 25 years I have lived here. This is just routine maintenance to keep the operation going, very little of it is for route enhancement.

This is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis, and it can only be resolved by data, not by people guessing. I make no accusations about motives or necessity, only noted the outcome, and it is not a very satisfactory outcome when this is the only rail connection that most people have in the area.

So, give me correct % bustitution data main line by line and then we can find out whether my hypothesis is correct or not. If it is not, then fine, if it is, then we should delve deeper.

I tried to explain why it is much easier to keep trains running where there are long quadruple track sections, divert trains via another route or point passengers to alternative train services on pretty much every other major route radiating from London than it is on the GEML.

That these things cannot be done on the GEML are a fairly obvious reason why bustitution probably does disproportionately affect its passengers during maintenance shutdowns.

You may not like it, but that's just the way it is.

It is not tosh, or making apologies for railway management.

 

[eastdyke]

I think that it is easy to think that your route is the most bustituted in the country when you are frequently on a bus. It will be true for different routes at different times and for differing reasons.

It is a fact that OLE renewals have been taking place in GEland for a number of years now and this will continue into 2019. It is of course done with mostly overnight possessions and at weekends. If use of the route, rather than as a Mon-Fri commuter, is mostly late in the evening at a weekend then you are disproportionally affected.

Replacement of life expired OLE will lead to a more resilient route which should be reflected in fewer late arrivals including where connections are of necessity tight. And the arrival of the new GA rolling stock might just assuage some of the 'concerned on the Naze' that their line is under some sort of threat.

I am sure that when the new stock has been reliably commissioned GA will be very keen to promote the extra seats that they need to fill! Including in the more remote parts of Essex.

 

[Alfie1014]

The reality is that the GEML in recent years has probably suffered more than it's fair share of total line closures the reasons for which have been mentioned by others; the limited nature of 4 tracks from London, the lack of any practical diversionary routes for most of the way, OLE renewal, (after 70 years in service), the fact that it is a busy mixed traffic railway - so little or no opportunity to underatake substantive overnight closures on weeknights due to the intensity of freight traffic and Crossrail works. All this adds up to little alternative to many weekend blocks, (during the winter and Bank Holidays). I too since moving to the route six or so years ago have found this incredibly frustrating when wishing to use the route at these times! Hopefully with the completion of the OLE and Crossrail works this may become less onerous in future years! The scale of the issue has even been recognised by the National Infrastructure Commission which has proposed one of few new (high speed) routes to connect London, Stansted and eastern Anglia though the hope such a scheme would come to pass in my lifetime is probably pretty low!

In respect of running down for closure, this has almost zero chance of happening in my view. Closures are extremely arduous to achieve and are pretty much politically toxic. The issue of how branch lines and connections operate is the more relevant issue. The current performance regimes can result in perverse incentives and to be honest need a thorough review and in my view the pendulum has swung too far away from passenger service to operational expediency. Whilst it can make sense to curtail services, miss stops out on routes with frequent services or acceptible alternatives to aid service recovery on busy routes, such behaviour on branch lines where frequencies may only be hourly and there are little or no useable alternatives can be very passenger unfriendly. One of my bette-noirs is the practice when there is late running or disruption is for the Colchester - Walton services to miss out Colchester Town to make up time, but with this station being the largest traffic generator on the route, especially at school and college times is very passenger un-friendly to say the least. However with lines like this run in a resource efficient way with minimum or close to minimum turn rounds, substantive change can only add to the cost base. That said with new trains shortly arriving which may have improved performance that may be an opportunity for review of see what stakeholders really want from their train services, though with the industry in such general turmoil at the moment such issues may continue to get lost in the noise!

 

[Wivenswold]

I do genuinely feel for Walton Branch users, like the Braintree and Southminster services, they seem to get the bad deal even when there's issues 40 miles away. My old train home in the evening peak seemed to have an announcement at least once a week at Hythe to warn passengers that the connection at Thorpe will be missed. I can make sense of why it happens but it's a hard sell to customers who pay nearly £6k per annum for a service.

Off on a tangent as Alfie1014 pointed out that in future the last train to Clacton would be later. Some of you may be interested to know that when I moved to North Essex in the early nineties, the last Clacton/Walton train home was 22.00 Mondays to Saturdays and 21.00 on Sundays. So engineering works aside, the service is better for dirty stop-outs in 2018.

I should also agree with some of the other, similar comments, one of the prices Essex Commuters pay for having the first 100mph electrified commuter service in the country is that the original infrastructure was life expired by the 90's and starting to fall apart. Short of a total shut down for a year, there was no other way of updating the line. With the end of that work and also Crossrail in sight the blockages should calm down now. I think in 10 years time we'll be counting our blessings it was done before the next economic downturn.

 

[TubeMapCentral]

what on earth are you talking about? May I suggest you read the post by @jimm and try to digest the points made?

I am talking about my original simple question that prompted your original barbed unhelpful comment, which contributed nothing helpful, and evaded the actual semantics of my point. You are obviously upset that I won't worship your beloved NHS, but there is really no point in attempting a vindictive pursuit of me across threads because of that, that stops now.

 

[TubeMapCentral]

I should also agree with some of the other, similar comments, one of the prices Essex Commuters pay for having the first 100mph electrified commuter service in the country is that the original infrastructure was life expired by the 90's and starting to fall apart. Short of a total shut down for a year, there was no other way of updating the line. With the end of that work and also Crossrail in sight the blockages should calm down now. I think in 10 years time we'll be counting our blessings it was done before the next economic downturn.

Yes but ... I've been bustituted at 50% of weekends for 25 years, long before people realised that the catenary might need replacing en masse. There was the resignalling project before that too. The thing is, There has always been lots of bustitution, even without major projects to pin it on, and therefore I am not confident that the end is in sight.

 

[Clip]

I am convinced the GEML is the most bustituted railway in the country, the full weekend service seems to have run 50% of the time approx for the 25 years I have lived here. This is just routine maintenance to keep the operation going, very little of it is for route enhancement.

Surely that prize would go to the Preston to Manchester via Chorley branch wouldn't it? Every weekend its been buses for god knows how long including the odd week here and there and buses replacing the trains.