TBH, you might not want it. From what I've seen its 'free rail tickets valid on Southern'. Not so sure why a commuter would want this....
A few people got out there phones looked at the compensation and just laughed, IMO the only value is to use them in peak time really, and in turn makes them useless to season ticket holders.
BTW also your announcements were really good but I am afraid the audibility of a 442 made it hard to hear you.
Another sad thing was, while being held at South Croydon, passengers on the platform were asking me to open the doors and let them on. Felt so sorry to say that I could not. (I dont open doors on the train, just close them, and we could be on the move any second)
There was an information desk too, not seen one before
You seem like a nice person so I can well imagine you giving updates with whay little info you had.I was working the Eastbourne London Bridge 442 this morning. In order was:
Followed stopping train from Keymer to Gatwick which stopped at everything, including Balcombe. Then came to stop just before the Quarry tunnel near the bridge over the M25. Call to control came back, track defect at Purley Oaks. Slow all the way. Moved over to the slow at Stoats Nest. Now very slow. Report also came in of a passenger taken ill at East Croydon. Went passed defect, all i could see was a conductor rail off a couple of pots, but line must have been ok as trains started to pass us on the fast. Then ultra slow, including an almost 5 min wait before South Croydon. Now 35 late. And just managed to speak to control as we pulled into East Croydon, and they told me we were terminating there as there was no space for us to go to london bridge.
Announcement made, and all off. 42 Late.
The hard thing to take was was not angry comments of the passengers, there were none, everyone just looked so resigned. Southern and Network rail are going to have to work very hard, and at the moment, I just cannot see a way out.
Another sad thing was, while being held at South Croydon, passengers on the platform were asking me to open the doors and let them on. Felt so sorry to say that I could not. (I dont open doors on the train, just close them, and we could be on the move any second)
East Croydon is not good at giving out disruption information. Not sure why it isn't possible to do it there. May be someone else knows the reason. Perhaps given the nature of disruptions, it's an impossible task. If someone publicly admitted that was the case I'd accept it. If it is possible perhaps they will do something about it.
Interesting. My last big delay involving East Croydon included passengers being told buses would take them from East Croydon to Gatwick Airport. This announcement was being given out at Victoria and on trains. East Croydon staff knew nothing about this. I suspect no such plan was in place but I can't be certain. Certainly passengers weren't being directed to any buses or told to wait for them to arrive.It depends who (if anyone) is in the Control Point and what they are being fed from other sources.
Like any other transport incident, any rail delay or problem of a relatively large size will often start with complete chaos, but it's the skill of a whole team to pull sense out of this as quickly as possible. Operating information systems in a half-built station with numerous staff working around some of the country's - hey, pretty much the world's - busiest mainline rail infrastructure can lead to times when things will be unclear. East Croydon really is at the absolute heart of some incredibly complex service patterns and frequencies which would make a lot of staff of metro/subway systems shudder, let alone people running conventional "overground" railways elsewhere.
Sometimes it's better to be a guard stuck on a train somewhere, because then you can revert to what I call "tenterhooks mode" and work through emails, collaborate with the driver and make PA announcements. With frequent stops still taking place, ticket checks or passenger questions, it can be a lot harder to notice and combine updates into something meaningful. If you have a bit of phone signal or some waiting emails, the time when you stop for a while can be the time at which you process all updates quicker and quicker. Sometimes.
Terrible this morning, train cancelled at East Croydon in the platform. Then told to go to multiple platforms.
Doesn't help that it seems that because I setup two automatic tweets a day for my trains that they have now blocked me on twitter.
Not sure what to do now, as I cannot find any information about my trains at all now :roll:
You sure they have blocked you on Twitter? What they seem to have done is merged all the Twitter teams for Southern, Thameslink and GN, got rid off some of the staff, then decided that tweeting information about the trains fills up their timeline, so they don't post the information. It's an absolutely bananas decision and remarkably unpopular.
I really despair at their attitude to customer service, although following my comments on their Passenger Forum I have received an apology that their response to my emails has not been good enough.
The solution to the twitter issue is to follow @southernmalachi who posts the information Southern used to. Southern seem to fail to realise that their regular passengers will monitor twitter to see what is happening as we can tell what issues earlier in the day will affect our own journey.
Southern do have some great staff, its just a shame that management does not seem to support them in the way they should and it is very noticeable that information, service recovery, ticket acceptance does vary from incident to incident and I am sure that it is dependent on who is in charge in control.
Oh and the enhanced compensation scheme really is total rubbish.
So the "improvements" in May, are to be reinstatement of 'most' West Croydon via Sydenham services.
Traded off against a further reduction in South Bermondsey line services to 2tph peak. From 4 current. From 6 pre-September ie what it should be.
Pathetic service provision for East Dulwich etc. Will Thameslink be able to cope with extra people from Streatham etc given they already leave people behind, much like LOROL at Peckham?
Thought I was on course for a first this morning - an on-time arrival for 2B30 at LBG! But, no, just as all looked set for an 0917 arrival we stopped outside LBG and then the usual infuriating excruciatingly slow creep to the buffers - why is this still happening, I wonder? Only 2 late, but I was hoping for gold!
So the "improvements" in May, are to be reinstatement of 'most' West Croydon via Sydenham services.
Traded off against a further reduction in South Bermondsey line services to 2tph peak. From 4 current. From 6 pre-September ie what it should be.
Pathetic service provision for East Dulwich etc. Will Thameslink be able to cope with extra people from Streatham etc given they already leave people behind, much like LOROL at Peckham?
Is there an official source for this? As an East Dulwich/North Dulwich user this sounds alarming - just one cancellation will mean close to an hour's wait.
Orangebox hasn't replied after I asked the same question...
As the West Croydon via New Cross Gate service are only cancelled in the evening peak presumably it would mean more South Bermondsey turnbacks but how do you get everyone to South Bermondsey (or beyond) with only 4trains in 2 hours??? I wonder what TfL would have to say about the extra pressure on the overground?
@BBCTomEdwards's Tweet: https://twitter.com/BBCTomEdwards/status/581477416490668033?s=09Those who've been following this may be interested to know that Val Shawcross, Caroline Pidgeon and the London Assembly are currently grilling various representatives from NR and GTR, including Phil Hufton and Charles Horton.
To all accounts, judging by their twitter feed and several others, it sounds like a car crash.
First time I've heard a complete account of technical failures at #londonbridge (12 weeks after it started) being given to @LondonAssembly
Considering how bad the Jubilee Line upgrade went and how often it went wrong on Mondays during the Northern Line upgrade, I find his words rather hollow and self serving. He is just trying to justify the TfL approsch to taking over London Metro services while whitewashing the facts. London Bridge is Network Rail's JLUP.
Let's not forget the fashion why London Overground is so different from the Silverlink it took over from was because it got money the TOC didn't have access to. You could say that if the money had been pumped into Sliverlink Metro like the Overground, what difference between a franchise and the LO model would they have been?
I apologise for the inconvenience caused to you regarding your twitter feed which isn't being responded too.
I can confirm Southern no longer handle Twitter this has been moved to Thameslink, if you have any enquiries regarding twitter please email the following email address:
[email protected]
If you wish to contact us further regarding your query, please contact our Customer Service team directly at [email protected], by phone on 03451 27 29 20 or in writing to:
Southern Customer Services
PO Box 10240
Ashby-de-la-Zouch
LE65 9EB
quoting ticket number [xxxx] on all communication.
For the latest travel information, why not follow us on Twitter @southernrailUK and @GatwickExpress
So I contacted Southern about not responding to my tweets and got this crazy reply:
Can anyone explain this to me?!
2B30 back to normal this morning - 14 late at LBG, despite being OT at East Croydon. There was a 378 in Selhurst depot too - the first time I have seen that.
Engineering works overrun at Norwood Junction this morning, also affecting access from Selhurst Depot. So affecting other routes too.