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Olympic experiences tonight 3/8

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gazthomas

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Really good organization leaving the main stadium tonight.

No problem getting a Javelin - only a 5 minute queue.

Good old First Capital Connect - 4 car 365 on a semi-fast Cambridge!

Do these idiots not know there is an Olympics on!!!

I defended them in the past, but this is unforgiveable.
 
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ainsworth74

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You assume they did it deliberately? Could there not have been an unavoidable reason for the short forming? Perhaps another unit had suffered a failure in the day and was therefore unavailable to run the service?
 

westcoaster

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Really good organization leaving the main stadium tonight.

No problem getting a Javelin - only a 5 minute queue.

Good old First Capital Connect - 4 car 365 on a semi-fast Cambridge!

Do these idiots not know there is an Olympics on!!!

I defended them in the past, but this is unforgiveable.

Not every train can be strengthened, it just can't. Why people think otherwise I'll never know, last week in the evening all trains I worked were 8 cars just hauling around fresh air, maybe this week with the athletics on it might be different.
 

gazthomas

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Utter rubbish.

It is called intelligent diagramming.

This would have been one of the first services after the event.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Don't be so defensive and for once think of the customer.

Yes trains run shorter valid reasons but how unreliable are EMU's?

It is called intelligent diagramming.

This would have been one of the first services after the event.
 

Simon11

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When planning for the Olympics, FCC wouldn't diagram sets for specific days, but more for the whole two weeks to make it easier to use the sets to the best potential. (Ie a weekday, sat & sunday to diagram). FCC are more likely to want to strength the late night trains as this is where there could be problems if people are unable to catch the last trains of the day.

Additionally FCC are really short of units atm due to accidents, which doesn't help!
 

John55

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Really good organization leaving the main stadium tonight.

No problem getting a Javelin - only a 5 minute queue.

Good old First Capital Connect - 4 car 365 on a semi-fast Cambridge!

Do these idiots not know there is an Olympics on!!!

I defended them in the past, but this is unforgiveable.


Is the semi-fast the one that stops at the short platforms between Hitchin and Cambridge?
 

quarella

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Utter rubbish.

It is called intelligent diagramming.

This would have been one of the first services after the event.

In my opinion that was intelligent diagramming. Major events invariably over run over meaning the first services after the advertised end time are under utilised. Saving the strengthening for the next couple of services gives more chance for the crowds they are intended for to have made it to the station.

Also remember, hard though it may be to believe there is life outside of the Olympics and finite resources to cover it all.
 

gazthomas

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Nobody was left behind, but in my view it was dangerously over crowded in side. People where falling all over the place as there were not enough hand rails/holds, probably not helped by alcohol consumption.

I got off at Stevenage and I was really surprised that there were no staff working to assist passengers as well.

I know these forums are naturally going to be pro rail, but it would be nice to see someone say "we got it wrong last night". Having a counter argument is not always the best way to learn - defensiveness doesn't lead to honest discussion or improvement.
 

142094

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Nobody was left behind, but in my view it was dangerously over crowded in side. People where falling all over the place as there were not enough hand rails/holds, probably not helped by alcohol consumption.

Part of the problem is that passengers don't understand that trains are designed to take a crush load of people, which to many might seem extreme, but is perfectly safe. If you say to people, "if this train is so unsafe then why did you choose to get on, and not wait for another one?" then they usually go quiet.

gazthomas said:
I know these forums are naturally going to be pro rail, but it would be nice to see someone say "we got it wrong last night". Having a counter argument is not always the best way to learn - defensiveness doesn't lead to honest discussion or improvement.

I agree there is always room for discussion and improvement, but at the same time many passengers have no idea what it takes to run and plan a railway, which is why staff naturally get defensive. It's a catch 22 situation.
 

dcd

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The 10:35 Waterloo to Southampton Central was a four car 450 which was full and packed with standing all the way to Farnborough. I am sure this is usually a 444


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 

Greenback

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Nobody was left behind, but in my view it was dangerously over crowded in side. People where falling all over the place as there were not enough hand rails/holds, probably not helped by alcohol consumption.

I got off at Stevenage and I was really surprised that there were no staff working to assist passengers as well.

I know these forums are naturally going to be pro rail, but it would be nice to see someone say "we got it wrong last night". Having a counter argument is not always the best way to learn - defensiveness doesn't lead to honest discussion or improvement.

Sometimes TOC's are justifiably criticised, soemtimes the criticism is not justified.

Personally, I would love to have a railway where there is capacity for everyone to travel when they want to, with their bicycles if they want to, surfboards, five suitcases each, and with plenty of staff on hand to sell tickets, provide information and assistance from the first to the last trains of the day.

Sadly we don't have that. We could, but it would eithe rmean a radical, and I mean radical, rethink of what we want from our railway system and how it should be funded, or greatly increased fares (again) to pay for it all.

What we do have, as has already been pointed out, is a system which is finite in terms of capcity, both in terms of the number of carriages available, and the number of staff. Against this background, TOC's are really fighting a bit of a losing battle during this period, and that is before unexpected train faults and failures come into the equation.

One of the most frequent comments I hear on my daily travels is 'Why can't they put more carriages on?'. The simpel answer is 'There aren't any', but people do, rightly or wrongly, expect that there are. I always tell people to have a look around, it's not as if there are sidings full of stock just sitting there waiting fro football matches, concerts, ash clouds, or the Olympic Games!
 

Simon11

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Nobody was left behind, but in my view it was dangerously over crowded in side. People where falling all over the place as there were not enough hand rails/holds, probably not helped by alcohol consumption.

I got off at Stevenage and I was really surprised that there were no staff working to assist passengers as well.

I know these forums are naturally going to be pro rail, but it would be nice to see someone say "we got it wrong last night". Having a counter argument is not always the best way to learn - defensiveness doesn't lead to honest discussion or improvement.

I will let you know how one of the tocs analysed the olympic demand and how challenging it was.

Firstly, the work on analysising the potential demand who done at the early party of the 2012. This is a one off event and there is no other events like the olympics to look at the demand.

The oda(olympic delivery authority) provided data to all toc with infomation on what the demand may be every hour during the olympic to and from london for a section of the route- like watford juntion -euston section. This data was based on the postcodes of the olympic ticket holders There were however many faults with this data and it was never going to be perfect.

The harder part to analyse was working out the demand for other events in london which were non olympic such as hyde park, victoria park, etc. The only information at that time was the capacity. We then had to assume how many of these passengers would travel on our route, guess what times they will travel to and from the event. All very challenging making lots of assumptions.

The final stage was to work out the total olympics demand.

Using the planned timetable, for every train service running through the games, we found out of the capacity of the service, added in regular demand for that train(minus summer holiday reduce demand)

Finally we could estimate overcrowding and using this data work out what services to strengthen abeit with limit stock to solve all issues.

Hopefully this will give you some idea of the amount of work that went into working out the demand, without even going into how they planned how to utilise stock!
 
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DarloRich

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I have to say i have had no trouble to and form work this week.

LM have extended their trains and run extras, Virgin have run extras and the Tubes has been fine.
 

gazthomas

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By how many people would you say it was overcrowded?


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Worse than a Moorgate train at FPK at its absolute worst. And unlike 20-30 mph in the 313 when we went over points people where hurting themselves pumping into each other and the interior
 

Monty

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Really good organization leaving the main stadium tonight.

No problem getting a Javelin - only a 5 minute queue.

Good old First Capital Connect - 4 car 365 on a semi-fast Cambridge!

Do these idiots not know there is an Olympics on!!!

I defended them in the past, but this is unforgiveable.

Utter rubbish.

It is called intelligent diagramming.

This would have been one of the first services after the event.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Don't be so defensive and for once think of the customer.

Yes trains run shorter valid reasons but how unreliable are EMU's?

It is called intelligent diagramming.

This would have been one of the first services after the event.

Nine times out of ten short formations are due to short term rolling stock shortages (mainly failures). So it's a case of running it short or not at all. So don't be so quick to rubbish others plausible explanations, no amount of intelligent diagramming can plan for that. Unless you have evidence the service was diagrammed as a 4-car? No? I thought not.
 

John55

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Worse than a Moorgate train at FPK at its absolute worst. And unlike 20-30 mph in the 313 when we went over points people where hurting themselves pumping into each other and the interior

What does this mean in a quantifiable way? Last year I travelled on a train from Broad Green to Lime St (4 x 156) which was exceptionally full and being a numbers person I counted at least 70 standing in my coach. The other coaches were busier as my coach had a faulty door which meant people tended to use another coach. My estimate was then that there were 300 seated passengers and 320 standing on that train. Was it that bad?

I have travelled on trains from Aintree to Liverpool with well over 100 standing in each coach (limited by the loading arrangements). Was it that bad? And on a train from London Bridge to Falconwood with ~150 standing in each coach which left 300 - 400 behind at London Bridge and was the most uncomfortable journey I have ever made. Was it that bad?

None of these would I count as dangerous. My only concern was getting to the doors when I wanted to get off.
 

monty9120

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chiltern were running a 9 or 12 coach 168 last night. it was still full up and we had to sit on the floor

not fun for a few hours
 

91101

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So a four car unit was full? If you eek that out to an 8 car, it would have probably been about 70% of overall capacity across the 8 car set!
 

A-driver

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If it was that full and dangerous then why did people continue to get on? Everyone had a choice weather or not to board that service and there would have been other teains after it.

After big events everyone arrives at stations at once. The javelin will work as it is a constant stream of shuttle trains to st panc but they can't do that from every station to every destination. Perhaps some people should have waited for the next. I can assure that FCC are using all stock at the moment and unfortunately that particular train was only 4. If they made that an 8 then perhaps the peterbourgh after it would have had to be a 4 and then people in that would complain.

You can't accuse TOCs of operating dangerously when it's the passengers themselves who are continuing to force their way on. This is a huge event this summer, there are not enough spare coaches in euroupe to cover the expected crowds and this has been well publicised to passengers over the past months so people should take some responsibility and stagger going home times. Go get a pint on the way to kings cross or something.
 

dk1

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Yesterdays 10.56 Kings Lynn-Kings Cross was reported FAS from Lynn.

I was at Ely when the 09.56 pulled in almost full but not standing. There where however approx 150 waiting to board here :o Not sure whether or not a further 365 was waiting to attatch at Cambridge.
 

Skimble19

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It doesn't exactly help that out of the 41 365s built 3 are currently out of service because of accident damage. (yes, I'm including 526 which is still around, somewhere!)
 

infobleep

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It's interesting. South Eastern ave had to massively alter their services but south West Trains services are largely the same as usual.

Apart from a few later night extra trains and earlier trains on a Sunday, and increased capacity to Weymouth, South West Trains are not done anything to change their services. This is obviously due to the fact it was not considered necessary. Saying that they are advising people living in Alton that on Sunday's they will not be able to get to morning sessions in time. I guess maintenance issues are the problem here for not being able to run earlier trains everywhere on the Network.

I was talking to someone the other morning and he was off to the Basketball. He said he would be driving towards London. I replied but no South West Trains are running later trains to Guildford. They are not wanting people to drive. The point of later trains was that you could get home after the events.

But alas not so if this calculations are right. The basketball ends at midnight and the last train to Guildford is 0.50. He didn't seem to think it would be possible to get out of the Olympics Pack and back to Waterloo in time for 0.50 train. If that is the case then I do think that is a shame, given that the Games are trying to encourage people not to drive.

On a more general note I do wish South West Trains could run more trains during the night. Southern are able to do it.

Of course with travel being less popular thought out the games, due to people staying at home or going away, no doubt thought the advise of TFL, rail companies might think running late night trains isn't worth it. For example South West Trains are running a 0.50 train every night of the games to Portsmouth Harbour. There is already one after 1am to Weymouth. If this 0.50, which currently only runs on a Sunday night, is not popular, they won't think it worth introducing full time.

I think such a late service would be very useful. Clearly they think it's worth running on Sundays, instead of just running a ECS so why wouldn't it be popular on a Friday or Saturday night?

I have noticed though that the extra late night trains are not picking people up from all stations. Some such as Wimbledon are to set down only. Given that their is not meant to be any engineering work during the Olympics, expect for emergency work, I would have thought picking people up from Wimbledon would be okay. After all they are allowing people at Woking to join the train and Woking as no events on at all.

I do think though that on the whole the trains have run well to the Olympics. Better than the two weeks just before it even!
 

Firestarter

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Nobody was left behind, but in my view it was dangerously over crowded in side. People where falling all over the place as there were not enough hand rails/holds, probably not helped by alcohol consumption.

I got off at Stevenage and I was really surprised that there were no staff working to assist passengers as well.

I know these forums are naturally going to be pro rail, but it would be nice to see someone say "we got it wrong last night". Having a counter argument is not always the best way to learn - defensiveness doesn't lead to honest discussion or improvement.

What has train formation got to do with platform staff??
 

Skimble19

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At the end of the day there would still have been a few staff members at Stevenage, down under the stairs. What exactly did you want them to do, come and offer to carry your bags? Anyone who actually needs help (e.g. Access to the lifts) will already know where to find them, so what's the problem?
 

12CSVT

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It doesn't exactly help that out of the 41 365s built 3 are currently out of service because of accident damage. (yes, I'm including 526 which is still around, somewhere!)

Unless they construct a new DMCO to replace the one that was practically destroyed, the prospects of 526 ever coming are about nil.
 

Skimble19

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It is rather unfortunate.. I hold out some small hope that somebody would realise it could be worth it, but realistically I don't expect it to happen.
 

asylumxl

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To be honest I think the OP has a point.

During the week I have observed many 4 carriage formations on Thameslink, which I know usually are 8 carriages from experience of my commute.

On Thursday every Bedford bound service I observed (and chose not to board) was full and crush loaded, with only one or two people able to board.

It's worth pointing out that a passenger was taken ill at St Albans that evening too and when the paramedics arrived they did not want to move the man, so obviously a serious incident. I have no doubt that the severe overcrowding of the service he was onboard did not help matters.
 
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