That doesn't seem to be a fair comment. People who live in "rough" areas should have just as much access compared to those who live in more affluent areas. It would be like cutting Fleet's services to London to 0. I bet that would get some protest...
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New South Western franchise: Awarded to First/MTR
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HarleyDavidson
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Sorry but, I can only speak as I find from experience and what I'm told by others who work down there.
It would be like suggesting cutting Hook's service from 4tph in the morning peaks to 2tph...
...oh hang on that's what they are proposing!
That'd be another of their excellent service "enhancements"... Typical First spin on cuts.
Goldfish62
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Join the club (Martins Heron)!
Why are they doing this incidentally?
There seem to still be 4 Basingstoke to Waterloo stoppers in the morning peak, it's just two miss Hook and Winchfield. Why?
In the evening peak all 4 stop, so it seems a bit strange to miss the stations out in the morning.
That is a very good question.
Made even more puzzling by the fact that a number of people who live in parts of Fleet can get to Winchfield as easily as they can Fleet but choose to pay more in train costs as they know they can get a space at Winchfield. if there is a poorer service at Winchfield then people are going to travel from Fleet meaning that they are then take up a parking space that others could have used later in the day. That then means that SWR could be making less money than they could if they retained the stops at Winchfield or have to spend more money to improve parking at Fleet to accommodate the extra cars. Either result isn't ideal for SWR.
The only logic that I could come up with is that given the numbers of people travelling to Farnborough that they want to improve journey times from Basingstoke.
That said, there is yet another Basingstoke-Fleet-Farnborough-Woking semi fast service (the one which originated from Portsmouth) every half hour in the morning peak, so seems strange they need four semi fasts an hour. Maybe (haven't checked) this has bad connections at Basingstoke.
Interesting take from the recent ORR report: SWML is the only route that is in profit - and by a substantial margin - when taking into account both service subsidies and infrastructure funding. Clearly a greater proportion of the profit needs to be retained on the route to improve reliability.
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Good luck to then with that working out well, as there's a reasonable level of interchange between trains to/from Basingstoke and the trains from/to the Portsmouth line services.
The more I look at this proposal the more it looks like they've forgotten that the Southern Approach to Heathrow hasn't been built, as with 2tph from Basingstoke to Woking (especially if it stopped at all the stations between) would fill in a lot of the gaps that the currently proposed timetable has.
The timetable would also be improved if the Basingstoke stoppers could start back at Salisbury, as although it would mean a longer journey time on the train, by removing the change at Basingstoke (circa 18 minutes) it would mean total journey times to Woking would be nearly 10 minutes faster than proposed and on a less busy train. However that's not going to happen until the wires reach Salisbury or bimodal trains are used.
GW43125
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WoE aren't fast to Waterloo, they make it quite clear in the document they haven't decided yet whether to stop them at Clapham or Woking; they're awaiting the public consultation to finish.
3141
Established Member
Isn't it the Train Operating Company that makes the profit, after having paid its premium to the DfT? Whereas infrastructure reliability is the responsibility of Network Rail, which isn't a private, profit-making company.
spark001uk
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It got worse than that. Right from start of service until gone midday, there were three Readings each way, none of which were pre-9am. Absolutely ridiculous.
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samuelmorris
Established Member
Keeping an eye on this, I'm still waiting for my delay repay from 5th September... The 80 minutes spent on the phone far outweigh the benefit of the £13 I might get back but it's a matter of principle at this stage...
159
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Surprise surprise... another South Western Failway exploit this rush hour. Two signalling failures resulting in 30 min delays! Get your act together!
HarleyDavidson
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Another one who seems to forget that signalling & infrastructure are NETWORK RAIL'S responsibility, NOT SWR's. Are you joining the terminally dense readership of Get Slurry in blaming SWR for everything?
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Then why has the number of signalling/points failures and generally late trains been unacceptable since they took charge? Is it just the Waterloo works?
Monty
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You've pretty much answered your own question, though I think the problems started a little before that. NR did some preparatory work in the run up to the Waterloo blockade over a few weekends and it's never quite been the same since.
There's a problem with the way SWR, SWT before and other TOCs report service disruptions, which if they changed their approach, might give the traveling public a better understanding of the way things work (or don't). SWR et al always apologise for service disruptions whether they are traction, crew or infrastructure. IMO they would be far better to say that "Network Rail are working on a solution to their points, track circuit failure, broken rail (insert infrastructure problem) while we (SWR) are working on a service solution" or some form of words that deflects the passengers' ire to the causal source.
Helvellyn
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This is where DfT are using some franchises as cash cows. For all the complaints about supposed profit taking by the owning groups what SWT was paying in premium payments far outweighs what gets spent on the route. The same will be the case with First/MTR. I think the bid proposes paying back £2.7 BILLION to the DfT over seven years. Imagine if DfT had the balls to say all that money would be invested in the route and how a more robust, reliable service could be provided.
I remember one of our Managers pointing out that just on the Up Fast into Waterloo something like 26/27 trains an hour were running in the morning peak - that is what Thameslink will deliver through the core after a multi-million pound upgrade and then you can add in what is on the slows and Windsor side.
But then fifteen years ago we had Stagecoach proposing a complete rebuild and relocation of Clapham Junction and a ten-car railway on the Windsor side a decade sooner than actually happened in the aborted twenty year franchise deal. There could be a happy medium of long franchises to to let bidders seriously invest (and get a return), coupled with profit share with DfT and proper scrutiny/regulation.
Steve Bray
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On this evening's signal problems, why did St Margaret's station have so many Twickenham bound trains cancelled? I waited on the platform for the 1801 to Raynes Park and it approached at 1825 but contrary to the announcements and platform display, it sailed past (ironically, to then stop at a Red signal before arriving at Twickenham). Following trains which should have stopped, also showed as "cancelled".
HarleyDavidson
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Signal failure which meant that trains had to pass multiple signals at danger, so the service was altered significantly.
spark001uk
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Agreed! Every day on twitter is the same too, SWR announce an infrastructure problem, and they're doing what they can to continue service, yet everyone jumps on them. It's network fail's responsibility and I've even pointed it out on there, but nobody listens.
The DfT is also making a "profit" in that it is getting back more (~ 12%) that it spends on subsidy for either service or infrastructure.
Well, quite.
We, as in the UK "we", still have a problem, in that civil servants, who have never run a business in their lives, think they know how to run businesses better than entrepreneurs. We are seeing the consequences all over the railway. Meanwhile, the minister in charge of the railway is so in love with his adored Thatcherite doctrine, reality rarely intrudes.
It's worse than that. The civil servants, who have never run a train in their lives, think they know better how to operate the railways than the operators. Many current problems are due to their pig-headedness on franchise specifications - and there will be more to come from what I hear.
Actually, most of the senior people running the UK railways today were brought up through the BR era. The problem is that businesses moved back into the private sector after a period under direct Government control do not get back into their swing until about two thirds of the middle management have been replaced.
samuelmorris
Established Member
So after another pretty miserable experience, though not exactly the fault of SWR directly, I was eligible for another delay repay claim. The one from 5th September is still waiting for a manager's attention so that's by the by, but I thought this one might be easier. I got to keep the ticket, and I had the forethought to ask the TVM at Waterloo to print a receipt, so I was well-armed for a DR claim, or so I thought.
The service I used was this one:
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W37727/2017/10/14/advanced
because in my infinite wisdom I decided to let the previous Reading train past since this one was due to arrive at Waterloo sooner.
After being strongly encouraged to detrain at Putney following a man on the track & traction current off at Wandsworth Town (and fair play to them for allowing the doors to be opened at an unscheduled stop within 10 minutes), I used the service below to get back to Waterloo, but fundamentally, the delay was very similar to what it would have been if I'd stayed on the train.
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W36894/2017/10/14/advanced
So that's either 39 or 41 minutes' delay, in either case clearly above 30.
As a result, because I was late getting back to Liverpool Street for the remainder of my journey, I missed the preceding train, blissfully unaware there was a 43 minute gap in the timetable which TfL did not advertise beforehand. As a result, I took the next train (not actually considering the possibility that an off-peak TfL service would skip Brentwood) and once I realised my mistake when the driver announced the omissions, rather than wait 40 minutes at gone midnight on an exposed platform somewhere, since the last westbound train of the day had already departed I used a taxi from Shenfield to Brentwood instead.
Not expecting much, I sent the DR form in citing the actual delay to my journey which ended up at 70 minutes, due to the missed connection. That would be accurate whether or not the taxi was used (longer in fact if I hadn't), so I filed a claim of '60+ minutes', attached my ticket, CC receipt, the taxi receipt and a covering letter explaining the entirety of the above, the reason for claiming what I did, in the hope that it might prompt them to actually give me the £5 extra back on top of the 60 minute claim at best, just give me a 60 minute claim at worst. If all else failed, I knew I was at least safe to get a 30 minute claim back. Does this seem reasonable?
Two days later I received an email back saying the claim had been rejected as the delay was under 30 minutes. My interpretation of that is that someone processing DR saw all the info attached to the claim and simply hit the reject button, 'nah not dealing with that, too complicated'.
I have of course disputed this but will have to wait 15 working days for a reply. Another 50 minute phone call is certainly not worth the effort given I stand to get £10 back at best. The wait time is so great that unless making a very high-value claim it'd be better to assume there is no telephone support. Fundamentally action only seems to be taken in response to emails anyway, even though their own emails ask you to call them.
Once again it's a fairly small amount of money, but the principle certainly leaves a very sour taste. Technically TfL are more to blame than SWR are as they can't prevent a man fallen onto the tracks, whereas TfL could certainly make more of an announcement about cutting services from the late night timetable, but since the only part of the journey that was officially delayed was on SWR, that's where I had to file the delay.
I (mercifully) only use SWR very occasionally these days, but given that I've already lost hours of my time dealing with this from just two round trips, what must it be like for the poor folk who commute on this route every day? Especially when you consider that the 'upgrade' works at Waterloo haven't actually had any impact on the two delays I've experienced. Frankly, based on my experience of SWR's customer service, coupled with the punctuality stats that I've witnessed from the botched Waterloo upgrade, I would say that SWR right now is as bad, if not worse than the height of the Southern industrial action. I don't say things like this lightly and am usually quite defensive of the railways, but at present I'd vote SWR as the worst TOC in the country. GTR are not a lot better, but I use their services a lot more often and although I'm almost always a little late, I don't have to put up with this.
The service I used was this one:
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W37727/2017/10/14/advanced
because in my infinite wisdom I decided to let the previous Reading train past since this one was due to arrive at Waterloo sooner.
After being strongly encouraged to detrain at Putney following a man on the track & traction current off at Wandsworth Town (and fair play to them for allowing the doors to be opened at an unscheduled stop within 10 minutes), I used the service below to get back to Waterloo, but fundamentally, the delay was very similar to what it would have been if I'd stayed on the train.
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W36894/2017/10/14/advanced
So that's either 39 or 41 minutes' delay, in either case clearly above 30.
As a result, because I was late getting back to Liverpool Street for the remainder of my journey, I missed the preceding train, blissfully unaware there was a 43 minute gap in the timetable which TfL did not advertise beforehand. As a result, I took the next train (not actually considering the possibility that an off-peak TfL service would skip Brentwood) and once I realised my mistake when the driver announced the omissions, rather than wait 40 minutes at gone midnight on an exposed platform somewhere, since the last westbound train of the day had already departed I used a taxi from Shenfield to Brentwood instead.
Not expecting much, I sent the DR form in citing the actual delay to my journey which ended up at 70 minutes, due to the missed connection. That would be accurate whether or not the taxi was used (longer in fact if I hadn't), so I filed a claim of '60+ minutes', attached my ticket, CC receipt, the taxi receipt and a covering letter explaining the entirety of the above, the reason for claiming what I did, in the hope that it might prompt them to actually give me the £5 extra back on top of the 60 minute claim at best, just give me a 60 minute claim at worst. If all else failed, I knew I was at least safe to get a 30 minute claim back. Does this seem reasonable?
Two days later I received an email back saying the claim had been rejected as the delay was under 30 minutes. My interpretation of that is that someone processing DR saw all the info attached to the claim and simply hit the reject button, 'nah not dealing with that, too complicated'.
I have of course disputed this but will have to wait 15 working days for a reply. Another 50 minute phone call is certainly not worth the effort given I stand to get £10 back at best. The wait time is so great that unless making a very high-value claim it'd be better to assume there is no telephone support. Fundamentally action only seems to be taken in response to emails anyway, even though their own emails ask you to call them.
Once again it's a fairly small amount of money, but the principle certainly leaves a very sour taste. Technically TfL are more to blame than SWR are as they can't prevent a man fallen onto the tracks, whereas TfL could certainly make more of an announcement about cutting services from the late night timetable, but since the only part of the journey that was officially delayed was on SWR, that's where I had to file the delay.
I (mercifully) only use SWR very occasionally these days, but given that I've already lost hours of my time dealing with this from just two round trips, what must it be like for the poor folk who commute on this route every day? Especially when you consider that the 'upgrade' works at Waterloo haven't actually had any impact on the two delays I've experienced. Frankly, based on my experience of SWR's customer service, coupled with the punctuality stats that I've witnessed from the botched Waterloo upgrade, I would say that SWR right now is as bad, if not worse than the height of the Southern industrial action. I don't say things like this lightly and am usually quite defensive of the railways, but at present I'd vote SWR as the worst TOC in the country. GTR are not a lot better, but I use their services a lot more often and although I'm almost always a little late, I don't have to put up with this.
spark001uk
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I'm still waiting on my claim from 4th Sept (from the huge disruptions on the very day they introduced delay-repay. I know, the irony!!). I got my day travelcard on the smartcard, also assuming it'd make a claim easy. Oh no, not in the slightest. The opposite. First they said no, then I reapplied and they wanted me to get hold of tfl for a printout of the day's taps, then they changed their mind, then they ignored me. It's only a few quid so I'm not too fussed now, but I agree with you that's not the point, it's the principle really! And I bet that's why they do it, because most people end up giving up!
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