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London Bridge - new timetable during reconstruction works commencing 5th January 2015
- Thread starter TimG
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! And I keep checking enhanced compensation but never qualify for it but you are first staff member to mention it.
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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.
I hate making them, if you talk too loud, folks say, you were shouting, if your too soft....The only way I knew anyone could hear was when i said all off, and people got off. The PA's on the 442 are rubbish TBH. There is no feedback on the handset, so you just dont know whats coming out. I also tried to call the driver and got nothing.
And yes, i agree EC is naff, like I said. Someone thought it was a good idea, after feedback, they might come up with a better one.
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Yabbadabba
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The passenger who was taken ill was on the same train that was also used to examine the up fast line at Purley Oaks, so a double whammy for the rest of passengers on that train. At the same time we lost a down Uckfield service with door interlock problems at Sanderstaed (as already mentioned) the third problem that happened virtually at the same time was a signalled that refused to time out at East Croydon thus limiting the signalling options to the signaller. All three issues were on the same panel although the Purley signaller was the one doing all the cautioning on the up fast line as they had the protecting signal.
Orange Box
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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?
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?
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You seem like a nice person so I can well imagine you giving updates with whay little info you had.
If you did that on my train I would be less angry if I was that late. If I got no updates then I wouldn't be happy.
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.
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tsr
Established Member
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.
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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.
I think this would have occurred sometime last year but I forget when.
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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.
I got my first reply in 4 days today!
@southernmalachi is the best but I asked and he does not get the information for short formations, only southerns twitter team knows this now as there is no Journey Check with southern.
Also Ticket Acceptance was not broadcast until 9:47 (only added to NRE then), over an HOUR after the problems at Purley started.
Bishopstone
Established Member
I was in early enough to avoid the disruption this morning, thankfully.
Returned on the 18.23 tonight, which was at the platform when I arrived at LBG at 18.17. No time for a cheeky hot choccie at Nero! Left a couple of minutes late, but absolutely hammered down the BML under clear signals all the way to Three Bridges, as though we had a Royal Train headcode.
Connection made at Lewes, as it was yesterday, I believe.
Just a word of warning for those arriving at LBG by bus, with a tight schedule. The work on the north-south cycle superhighway seems to be displacing some traffic away from Southwark Bridge to London Bridge, and yesterday my 521 took three changes of the lights to progress into the bus station from London Bridge south side. Normally it's through in one change.
Returned on the 18.23 tonight, which was at the platform when I arrived at LBG at 18.17. No time for a cheeky hot choccie at Nero! Left a couple of minutes late, but absolutely hammered down the BML under clear signals all the way to Three Bridges, as though we had a Royal Train headcode.
Connection made at Lewes, as it was yesterday, I believe.
Just a word of warning for those arriving at LBG by bus, with a tight schedule. The work on the north-south cycle superhighway seems to be displacing some traffic away from Southwark Bridge to London Bridge, and yesterday my 521 took three changes of the lights to progress into the bus station from London Bridge south side. Normally it's through in one change.
Charles Horton is in charge now isn't he having moved from Southeastern? He didn't leave a good rep with many SE passengers due to poor communications. Since he left the twitter feed is much better though that could just be due to franchise requirements, and to be fair SE never ditched journeycheck when he was there.
Deepgreen
Established Member
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!
I know that feeling. It is very rare that every train I catch in one day will be on time. I understand why it's the case and how hard it is for it to be the also so always enjoy it more when it happens.
Well when the usually late 7.36 Guildford to Surbiton service arrived at Surbiton on time, on Tuesday, I thought great today will be a rare day when every train I catch will be on time. However the more likely to be on time 17.39 Surbiton to Woking service was late instead! Note every other day this week the 17.39 has been on time and the 7.36 has been late arriving! I'm not complaining. It just shows how hard it is to run train services.
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?
Deepgreen
Established Member
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.
Those 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.
To all accounts, judging by their twitter feed and several others, it sounds like a car crash.
It's debatable that those passengers between South Bermondsey and East Dulwich have bus services which are a viable alternative to the train from London Bridge where as the Sydenham line pax don't have any and is causing disruption to the ELL alternative with longer waits at stations.
Bus alternatives from LBG:
South Bermondsey - Route 381 (But goes the long way via Rotherhithe and Surrey Quays)
Queens Road Peckham - 343 then change at Peckham or any bus towards the Elephant than 136 or 171.
Peckham Rye - 343.
East Dulwich - 40.
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@BBCTomEdwards's Tweet: https://twitter.com/BBCTomEdwards/status/581477416490668033?s=09
I take it, it would take time to work out what all the technical failures are in order to tell people what they are? I wouldn't be surprised if they made more effort to tell politicians the details than passengers.
Busaholic
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The Jubilee Line upgrade shambles was much more due to government intervention (I prefer to the word interference), the fact that anything with which John Prescott got involved in the decision-making always went tits-up and the disillusion with everyone at London Underground with the whole Brown-driven PFI nonsense, always doomed to failure. Northern Line upgrade you say led to disruption on Mondays; bet the London Bridge commuters would give their eye teeth to know they'd only have problems one day a week! Of course Overground were able to spend more money than Silverlink, but how do you explain the huge rise in passenger numbers since then? A different culture pervades, a mentality if you like. If Boris had to journey the short distance every week to London Bridge to placate angry customers of Overground there'd be a few more changes of trousers needed by the people running the project.
I'd just like to point out too that the passengers who've suffered the most (proportionately) so far according to the information on this thread are those resident in London, on the so-called Metro route from West Croydon, where the already staggeringly-overcrowded Overground has been expected to step in.
I also don't think Peter Hendy was being self-serving. He'll be retired by 2020, if not sooner, and he's got his knighthood! He was in charge of buses while the whole Jubilee shenanigans but will have witnessed how the whole London experience drove his Underground equivalent to drink and an early retirement.
The @SouthernRailUK Twitter account is now administered by GTR, who replace Southern as part of the combined TSGN franchise this summer.
All but one of the Southern social media team were axed when the merger of the social media teams took place.
for the wheel lathe probably
I am wondering if this was related to the removal of a temporary pedestrian bridge over the tracks between the depot and Norwood Junction station? Or is the removal of that bridge just a coincidence?
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