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Northern Passengers Taking “Direct Action.”

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thejuggler

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The best way to show your destain for a business that isn’t providing the service you want is to withdraw your custom.

That doesn't help those who have no choice.

Northern management and those sent to give the message to the media, including Government, have being giving platitudes and treating passengers with disdain since May 2018. All will be better when etc etc.

Since then things have become even worse. Government now have a "blue wall" of voters, many are Northern users, who expect improvement. Whilst this action cannot be condoned I can see it becoming far more organised at major stations very very quickly.
 
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Cuboid

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I can see the passenger's point of view even though it's quite daft to do so.

Problem is, to the general public they are not seeing an improvement in local train services & really haven't improved in the last 2-5 years. For the amount of money it costs for tickets & season passes it really isn't on to be honest.

New trains (as in actually new built in the 2010s - not this 'refurbished' malarky) = hardly any and even if you do then it breaks cos of doors, braking systems and so on.
Longer trains = lol, don't be daft
Chance of a seat = better in a cattle truck
On-time = nope
Air conditioning = only if you stick your head out the window.
Electrified = not unless you're in the south east
Poor management = yes, doesn't change even if franchise does & still won't change if DfT is the OLR.
Train crew = some not the most customer service friendly, hiding in the back when the train can be walked through doesn't endear well to the general public. Why should I support any strike to keep guards on the trains if you're not doing the customer service part of your job. Why should the general public care who opens & closes doors?

This is what the general public see - unless all of this changes then you will get irritated and annoyed people who will just eventually abandon trains altogether.

Some is Northern's & Arriva's fault, some is Network Rail's fault, some is DfT's fault, some is the policy maker's fault (i.e government). None of it is the fault of the general public.

Guess what - I want 6-8-carriage new trains in the North, I Want longer platforms, I want more new stations, I want better signalling, I want electrification everywhere, I want £m's spending on the North, and the South West and other areas outside South East like we should have been getting for the last 40 years. It's absolutely pathetic.
 

mirodo

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Personally, I don't really give a *, but in general the term has become an insult thrown out in conversation to dismiss and deem irrelevant people of a certain age that the person throwing the ok boomer pejorative doesn't want to listen to, but would rather live in their own echo chamber. #life

It’s a reaction to the “snowflake” epithet often used against people of another certain age.
 

Horizon22

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The better way to take "direct action" would probably be passengers en masse refusing to buy tickets and overloading guards and barrier staff.
 

Horizon22

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How exactly? I commute through south Manchester and driving or getting the bus from the Wilmslow area is simply is not an option. I’m with the passengers on this one. The service is shocking, has been for ages and May 2018 sticks in the craw.

Therefore you are on the best option. It is interesting when people comment about "I have no other options" when you've actually discounted all your other options as being too slow / costly / inefficient.

Not related to whether Northern's service is good (it clearly is not) but you are still selecting this as better than car / bus / bike whatever.
 

Andyh82

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This is all whipped up by the likes of Burnham and all the press telling everyone that Northern lost their franchise last week (look at any reply to any Northern tweet) and everything will be better once they are gone.

I also think the DfT will abandon this notion of keeping the same TOC name forever, as all this has caused here is for passengers to think it’s been the same operator since 2004, so why are new trains or accessible trains only just coming now? They’ve had 16 years?!
 

SteveM70

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The best way to show your destain for a business that isn’t providing the service you want is to withdraw your custom.

If you’ve ever tried commuting by car into central Manchester you’d realise that for the overwhelming majority of passengers from outside the city that Northern are the only option
 

TUC

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Ok that train seems to show as cancelled throughout due to congestion. Also shows as cancelled on National Rail live departure boards, looks like a problem with the data input.
But no one believes any delay/cancellation reason given by Northern. I'm not sure why they find it so difficult to simply be truthful.
 
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ASharpe

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Patience on the Airedale line seems to be wearing thin with guards and ticket sellers (on a Penalty Fare route mind) barging their way through crush loaded services between Shipley and Leeds. We normally all travel in silence but they manage to cause people to vent their frustrations.

Even passengers with seats get annoyed by it as their feet are trod on or a crotch gets pushed into their face.

I don't know why some guards are happy to barge through shouting at passengers while others just take the extra minute at Shipley to walk along the curved platform before unlocking.

And there is no excuse for the ticket seller on the 0744 Shipley to Leeds in the morning.
 
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Purple Orange

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Therefore you are on the best option. It is interesting when people comment about "I have no other options" when you've actually discounted all your other options as being too slow / costly / inefficient.

Not related to whether Northern's service is good (it clearly is not) but you are still selecting this as better than car / bus / bike whatever.

Whether the train is the better option is irrelevant in many circumstances given that the other options are generally not feasible. The bus is actually no longer an option from Wilmslow as it happens. Cycling? Not realistic. Driving is possible if you have a car, have time on your side and are content with polluting the air, but if we all did that I dread to think how clogged up Manchester would become. Ironically my train often pollutes, when there are wires overhead.
 

TUC

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Patience on the Airedale line seems to be wearing thin with guards and ticket sellers (on a Penalty Fare route mind) barging their way through crush loaded services between Shipley and Leeds. We normally all travel in silence but they manage to cause people to vent their frustrations.

Even passengers with seats get annoyed by it as their feet are trod on or a crotch gets pushed into their face.

I don't know why some guards are happy to barge through shouting at passengers while others just take the extra minute at Shipley to walk along the curved platform before unlocking.

And there is no excuse for the ticket seller on the 0744 Shipley to Leeds in the morning.
Especially when too many other Northern guards sit in the cab and claim a moderately busy train is too full to provide ticket checks or provide any service to the public.
 

theironroad

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Patience on the Airedale line seems to be wearing thin with guards and ticket sellers (on a Penalty Fare route mind) barging their way through crush loaded services between Shipley and Leeds. We normally all travel in silence but they manage to cause people to vent their frustrations.

Even passengers with seats get annoyed by it as their feet are trod on or a crotch gets pushed into their face.

I don't know why some guards are happy to barge through shouting at passengers while others just take the extra minute at Shipley to walk along the curved platform before unlocking.

And there is no excuse for the ticket seller on the 0744 Shipley to Leeds in the morning.
Especially when too many other Northern guards sit in the cab and claim a moderately busy train is too full to provide ticket checks or provide any service to the public.

Dammed if they do and dammed if they don't it seems.

Maybe staff should only show their face when the train is optimally loaded, maybe certain criteria need to be satisfied like a) no passengers standing at any point and b) only 75.76% of available seats occupied.
 

ivanhoe

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Northern is and has been a basket case for a number of years. Passengers have just put up with things. However, generational change and a hint from Government that things may change, have caused this. There is no easy solution.
Northern in its current form, will not survive. Sea changes in Management and worker practice are required. I don’t see anything on the horizon other than managed decline
 

Djgr

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Perhaps it would have been better if Northern had been dumped six months ago, as it is difficult to see how customer relations can recover whilst they are still lingering in the air.
 

Bantamzen

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Perhaps it would have been better if Northern had been dumped six months ago, as it is difficult to see how customer relations can recover whilst they are still lingering in the air.

By dumped do you mean the operator, or just the brand name? Because neither would actually resolve anything, so its difficult to see how either would recover relations when the same problems would continue.

The problems with the franchise and deep & fundamental, and start at the very top, i.e. DfT. The very first thing that needs to happen before anything else will even have a chance of working is drop the franchise requirements for subsidy reduction, at least for the foreseeable. Without this, all other solutions will be considerably more difficult to achieve because the franchise needs funding, not draining.
 

Chrisyd

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Interestingly, whilst I am sure this is a coincidence, all four of the trains between Clitheroe/Blackburn to Manchester via Bolton between 7 and 9 have been four carriages this morning, which is the first time since the timetable change that I can recall this happening!
 

notlob.divad

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It will just go down to disruptive passengers so it costs Northern nothing at all. Doesn't matter either to the train crew, they get paid to stand on the platform too where as the passengers who are late for work get nothing.
I assume any that claim it would be able to get delay re-pay, as they are over 30 minutes late. If this action hadn't been taken they probably would have arrived 'on time' (29 minutes late) and got nothing.
 

Camden

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For a coincidence to arise, two or more unrelated things have to occur together.

The supposed event, that has sparked two pages of furious chatter, however, didn't happen.
 

SteveM70

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Interestingly, whilst I am sure this is a coincidence, all four of the trains between Clitheroe/Blackburn to Manchester via Bolton between 7 and 9 have been four carriages this morning, which is the first time since the timetable change that I can recall this happening!

Noticeably more 2 carriage trains on the Wigan - Manchester - Blackburn route since new year


I assume any that claim it would be able to get delay re-pay, as they are over 30 minutes late. If this action hadn't been taken they probably would have arrived 'on time' (29 minutes late) and got nothing.

DR kicks in at 15 minutes not 30 now, but yes I take your point
 

Parallel

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Maybe something will happen if the passengers keep revolting. It reminds me of the FGW ‘Fare Strike’ on the Bristol-Bath corridor when they returned the 158s to 2 car when they took over the franchise. Many commuters started refusing to buy tickets. I think they were threatened with charges from the company. Eventually the 158 got the third carriages back, and an apology from the then MD Alison Forster (I think after the government got involved).

So in short, maybe something will come of it, and if things at Northern are really that bad then perhaps something does need to change. Delaying trains will be more of a detriment to the other passengers than Northern, though.
 

LowLevel

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I'm almost entirely sure the whole thing will be total wibble and nothing of the sort will have happened.

If anything if people don't move to let the crew on our usual tactic is to wander off and sit on a bench having a natter and a brew until some common sense sets in and people get fed up of being wedged in an airless doorway going nowhere.
 

TUC

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Dammed if they do and dammed if they don't it seems.

Maybe staff should only show their face when the train is optimally loaded, maybe certain criteria need to be satisfied like a) no passengers standing at any point and b) only 75.76% of available seats occupied.
I think there is a common sense approach most people would recognise. Unless one would have to squeeze past passenger after passenger then the normal expectation is for the guard to be visible walking down the train to check tickets and support passengers. Anything else is just a smokescreen some staff hide behind.
 

DarloRich

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So aside from expressing their, entirely understandable frustration, have they done anything apart from make themselves half an hour later home than they would have been?

absolutely. I can entirely understand the frustration but this is just silly. They are only making their dinner later. A better option would be a massive fares strike but that, like all strikes, needs mass and solidarity or you will be an easy target for criminal action. Is it worth getting a record for?

That train does not even look that busy compared to ones down south at rush hour.

indeed! looks like an off peak train. I bet they are only travelling 7 miles and paying a fraction of the cost as well. ;)
 

Spartacus

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I'm almost entirely sure the whole thing will be total wibble and nothing of the sort will have happened.

If anything if people don't move to let the crew on our usual tactic is to wander off and sit on a bench having a natter and a brew until some common sense sets in and people get fed up of being wedged in an airless doorway going nowhere.

Quite, I suspect fellow passengers would have had something to say about it too, before Christmas one berk who was delaying a train I was on 5/10 minutes due to refusing to buy a valid ticket quickly decided dealing with the RPIs on the platform was a better idea than remaining on with increasingly irate passengers he was making late.....
 

Bletchleyite

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absolutely. I can entirely understand the frustration but this is just silly. They are only making their dinner later. A better option would be a massive fares strike but that, like all strikes, needs mass and solidarity or you will be an easy target for criminal action. Is it worth getting a record for?

To be fair, if the service is that bad you will make more of an impact on the TOC by resolutely claiming all Delay Repay to which you are entitled, which is going to be a lot of it and has administrative costs to process, which simply not paying doesn't.

I don't know about Northern, but as things are on TPE at the moment Delay Repay looks near certain...
 

O L Leigh

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To be fair, if the service is that bad you will make more of an impact on the TOC by resolutely claiming all Delay Repay to which you are entitled, which is going to be a lot of it and has administrative costs to process, which simply not paying doesn't.

I don't know about Northern, but as things are on TPE at the moment Delay Repay looks near certain...

Completely agree with this approach.

If things truly are so bad on Northern it won’t take passenger action to trigger delay attribution fines, plus I’m not convinced that Northern themselves would be liable under such circumstances. But Delay Repay claimed en masse would have an impact without unnecessarily delaying themselves and others.
 

SteveM70

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To be fair, if the service is that bad you will make more of an impact on the TOC by resolutely claiming all Delay Repay to which you are entitled, which is going to be a lot of it and has administrative costs to process, which simply not paying doesn't.

I don't know about Northern, but as things are on TPE at the moment Delay Repay looks near certain...

Agreed

And whilst it might seem a little petulant, I always ask for DR in either free tickets or national rail vouchers (depending on whether over half an hour or not) as they represent the best value to me and cost Northern the most to administer.
 

headshot119

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I don't think any such "direct action" was taken, and @ok_boomr just jumped on the bandwagon.
 
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