Rail travel encouragement

[Shrop]

And what percentage of the total number of trains was that?
Has Covid been taken into account?
Have mechanical problems been taken into account?


Is it? I've used that route in the last two weeks and it was never crowded.


Are they? I wouldn't believe everything you hear on that radio station!


But are they really?
I suspect it isn't the case but it does make a good sound bite.

A couple of responses for you. My comment about overcrowding was, as it said, about routes throughout the country. There are many examples of this, they shouldn’t need proving. That particular comment wasn’t about the Cambrian route.

Connections weren’t mentioned on Radio Shropshire, it was simply one of my concerns about rail services generally. Or more accurately the lack of connections. I’ve personally seen examples in a number of places in recent years, of people reaching their onward train, only to find the doors already closed and the train then leaving without them. I remember when, if a number of passengers were approaching a train, the guard would generally allow them to board. There are many times when this doesn’t happen now, even when the connection is advertised.

UK rail fares are among the highest in the world. This is simple fact, not a soundbite. I’d be interested to know what evidence you have to the contrary?

 

[telstarbox]

We're one of the richest countries in the world as well so what do you expect? And "in the world" is meaningless when even some developed countries like the USA don't have anywhere near the network density that we do.

 

[6Gman]

Connections weren’t mentioned on Radio Shropshire, it was simply one of my concerns about rail services generally. Or more accurately the lack of connections. I’ve personally seen examples in a number of places in recent years, of people reaching their onward train, only to find the doors already closed and the train then leaving without them. I remember when, if a number of passengers were approaching a train, the guard would generally allow them to board. There are many times when this doesn’t happen now, even when the connection is advertised.

With TOCs now penalised if they cause consequential delays and performance now measuring "right time" as absolute punctuality rather than the old 5/10 minute rule the days of "let's give them five minutes" are - I fear - gone.

UK rail fares are among the highest in the world. This is simple fact, not a soundbite. I’d be interested to know what evidence you have to the contrary?

Walk-up fares are expensive. Some of the advance booking options are, I understand, low by international standards.

Personally I'd be happy with a "flatter" fares structures but then I never use advance fares; those who do will be very upset to lose them.

 

[Llanigraham]

A couple of responses for you. My comment about overcrowding was, as it said, about routes throughout the country. There are many examples of this, they shouldn’t need proving. That particular comment wasn’t about the Cambrian route.

In the last month I have caught the train to York, to Wolverhampton, and to Manchester, and funnly enough none of them were crowded. Methinks you overgeneralise.

Connections weren’t mentioned on Radio Shropshire, it was simply one of my concerns about rail services generally. Or more accurately the lack of connections. I’ve personally seen examples in a number of places in recent years, of people reaching their onward train, only to find the doors already closed and the train then leaving without them. I remember when, if a number of passengers were approaching a train, the guard would generally allow them to board. There are many times when this doesn’t happen now, even when the connection is advertised.

And yet you opened a thread about connections at Shrewsbury, and several members here provided you with detailed explanations of why they cannot often be held, both at Shrewsbury and at numerous other places. You seem to be ignoring those points, and I'm sorry but what used to happen in the past, when railways were funded very differently, canniot be compared to now.UK rail fares are among the highest in the world. This is simple fact, not a soundbite. I’d be interested to know what evidence you have to the contrary?

UK rail fares are among the highest in the world. This is simple fact, not a soundbite. I’d be interested to know what evidence you have to the contrary?

Are they? I can get from Caersws to London and return for just over £60, that isn't expensive to me. Others here have also shown that your statement is incorrect. I've certainly caught trains in Switzerland that I thought were much more expensive than here.

And I will ask again why you have ignored the effects Covid has had on the railways in this thread when we have explained to you that this has indeed caused lots of problems?

 

[Shrop]

With TOCs now penalised if they cause consequential delays and performance now measuring "right time" as absolute punctuality rather than the old 5/10 minute rule the days of "let's give them five minutes" are - I fear - gone

As I've said before, these days passenger welfare is only important if operational convenience isn't compromised. This is not a good way to run a successful business which depends upon passenger revenue.

 

[6Gman]

As I've said before, these days passenger welfare is only important if operational convenience isn't compromised. This is not a good way to run a successful business which depends upon passenger revenue.

I'm not defending, just explaining.

I'd prefer a more relaxed railway where connections are held, but the rules changed and the TOCs adapted. It's not "operational convenience" - it's the railway the government (presumably on behalf of the public) has specified.

 

[Shrop]

I'm not defending, just explaining.

I'd prefer a more relaxed railway where connections are held, but the rules changed and the TOCs adapted. It's not "operational convenience" - it's the railway the government (presumably on behalf of the public) has specified.

Ha ha, therein lies the problem! The Government may claim to run the railway for the benefit of the public, but in fact they have very little interest in railways, and certainly very limited capability indeed. At the last General Election it was very noticeable how little was said about railways, and indeed about transport generally. Almost nothing has changed since Sir Humphrey pointed out in Yes Minister back in 1982 (Bed of Nails episode), that no right minded Minister would ever want a job in transport. The Government might specify the way the railway is run, but this is designed around company profits, often at the expense of passenger convenience. Maximising company profits necessitates operating to a rulebook, often over-ruling the use of staff discretion, which I maintain is operational convenience.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Ha ha, therein lies the problem! The Government may claim to run the railway for the benefit of the public, but in fact they have very little interest in railways, and certainly very limited capability indeed. At the last General Election it was very noticeable how little was said about railways, and indeed about transport generally. Almost nothing has changed since Sir Humphrey pointed out in Yes Minister back in 1982 (Bed of Nails episode), that no right minded Minister would ever want a job in transport. The Government might specify the way the railway is run, but this is designed around company profits, often at the expense of passenger convenience. Maximising company profits necessitates operating to a rulebook, often over-ruling the use of staff discretion, which I maintain is operational convenience.

A punctual/'right time' railway is 'for the benefit of the public'.

Whilst delaying another train at Shrewsbury might give an initial impression of a caring railway just wait until it turns up late onto the congested Wolverhampton-Birmingham New Street-Birmingham International corridor; crossing the WCML on the flat at Crewe; sharing the single line north of Wrexham; setting out onto the single line Cambrian system; or even rocking up late on the busy South Wales Main Line at Newport through to Cardiff, Swansea and beyond. Before you know it there are dozens of delayed trains all across Britain.

People have been criticising the Public Performance Measure (0-5 or 0-10 minutes late is a 'success') ever since it was invented over 20 years ago and these days things have been understandably tightened up after year-after-year of gradually declining performance on a creaking network.

None of this has anything to do with practices allegedly (and erroneously claimed as) being designed around 'company profits'.

 

[Bletchleyite]

A punctual/'right time' railway is 'for the benefit of the public'.

Yes and no. Not holding a Cornish branch line train 5 minutes for a late inbound InterCity in August is silly. If it's the last one of the day, even more silly. But equally, holding a Merseyrail train at Ormskirk for a delayed service from Preston is also silly.

This sort of thing - and being able to consider the number of itineraries issued and average loadings/interchanges as well as impacts elsewhere - is a job for artificial intelligence.

 

[6Gman]

Ha ha, therein lies the problem! The Government may claim to run the railway for the benefit of the public, but in fact they have very little interest in railways, and certainly very limited capability indeed. At the last General Election it was very noticeable how little was said about railways, and indeed about transport generally. Almost nothing has changed since Sir Humphrey pointed out in Yes Minister back in 1982 (Bed of Nails episode), that no right minded Minister would ever want a job in transport. The Government might specify the way the railway is run, but this is designed around company profits, often at the expense of passenger convenience. Maximising company profits necessitates operating to a rulebook, often over-ruling the use of staff discretion, which I maintain is operational convenience.

Railways are not a high priority for governments because - frankly - they're not a high priority for the public! A fair proportion of the public never use them, many others only rarely. There's regular polling on what issues are important to the public - public transport is well down the list.

I disagree with the government spec being around "company profits". The government has no interest in inflating the profits of the TOCs, they just want the railway to tick over at the lowest practical cost to the Treasury. So they basically want the minimum profit levels to keep some competition for franchises.

The rulebook is NOT about "maximising company profits"; it's about operating a safe, practical railway. As has been pointed out a member of staff exercising discretion to help a handful of passengers at station A can create problems for many more people down the line at stations B, C, D etc.

My background was in operations. I can assure you that a right time rulebook system definitely isn't "operational convenience"!

 

[Llanigraham]

Had another read of this thread, and a point comes to mind.

The OP complains about connections not being made, and picked Shrewsbury and the Cambrian as his example, and now he "complains" that the railway is run to maximise company profits. Has he perhaps forgotten that TfW is a company owned by the Welsh government?

 

[Dr Hoo]

Yes and no. Not holding a Cornish branch line train 5 minutes for a late inbound InterCity in August is silly. If it's the last one of the day, even more silly. But equally, holding a Merseyrail train at Ormskirk for a delayed service from Preston is also silly.

This sort of thing - and being able to consider the number of itineraries issued and average loadings/interchanges as well as impacts elsewhere - is a job for artificial intelligence.

Fair enough, @Bletchleyite. I am sure that we can both agree that a typical Shrewsbury 'connection' (that started this thread) is not in any of those categories.

As a former Station Manager/Area Operations Manager I was well aware of which trains fell into which category. Holding main line trains towards London for a late running branch during the morning peak or upsetting the working through Southampton Tunnel when it was single track for an extended period for re-construction were not good ideas (as senior Divisional and Regional Management were only too quick to notice and, ahem, 'point out').

 

[Shrop]

A punctual/'right time' railway is 'for the benefit of the public'.

Whilst delaying another train at Shrewsbury might give an initial impression of a caring railway just wait until it turns up late onto the congested Wolverhampton-Birmingham New Street-Birmingham International corridor; crossing the WCML on the flat at Crewe; sharing the single line north of Wrexham; setting out onto the single line Cambrian system; or even rocking up late on the busy South Wales Main Line at Newport through to Cardiff, Swansea and beyond. Before you know it there are dozens of delayed trains all across Britain.

People have been criticising the Public Performance Measure (0-5 or 0-10 minutes late is a 'success') ever since it was invented over 20 years ago and these days things have been understandably tightened up after year-after-year of gradually declining performance on a creaking network.

None of this has anything to do with practices allegedly (and erroneously claimed as) being designed around 'company profits'.

I do wonder whether you've read my comments earlier I this thread? To reiterate, I fully understand the reasoning behind not want to delay a service for fear of compounding problems further along the route. My complaint is when trains are not held for even one minute when a dozen or more passengers are right at the train door trying to get in, at a time when there is no conceivable conflict at any later stage, such as in late evening.

Railways are not a high priority for governments because - frankly - they're not a high priority for the public! A fair proportion of the public never use them, many others only rarely. There's regular polling on what issues are important to the public - public transport is well down the list.

I disagree with the government spec being around "company profits". The government has no interest in inflating the profits of the TOCs, they just want the railway to tick over at the lowest practical cost to the Treasury. So they basically want the minimum profit levels to keep some competition for franchises.

The rulebook is NOT about "maximising company profits"; it's about operating a safe, practical railway. As has been pointed out a member of staff exercising discretion to help a handful of passengers at station A can create problems for many more people down the line at stations B, C, D etc.

My background was in operations. I can assure you that a right time rulebook system definitely isn't "operational convenience"!

Sorry but that's what companies do, maximise profits, they claim it as a duty to their shareholders. Please note my comments elsewhere in this thread, where I fully understand not wanting to have delays which then cause knock-on problems. My concern is about situations such as refusing to hold a late evening train for passengers who are literally at the door trying to get in, having arrived off what they were told was a connecting service, and at a time when there are no conceivable conflicts further along the route.

Fair enough, @Bletchleyite. I am sure that we can both agree that a typical Shrewsbury 'connection' (that started this thread) is not in any of those categories.

As a former Station Manager/Area Operations Manager I was well aware of which trains fell into which category. Holding main line trains towards London for a late running branch during the morning peak or upsetting the working through Southampton Tunnel when it was single track for an extended period for re-construction were not good ideas (as senior Divisional and Regional Management were only too quick to notice and, ahem, 'point out').

I'm not sure why people keep on about Shrewsbury. My original comment was about railways around the country, with just one recent example being something on Radio Shropshire which had upset a lot of passengers. The issues of concern are far more widespread, people who don't recognise these issues seem to be demonstrating that they're not familiar with a lot of realities of rail travel.

Had another read of this thread, and a point comes to mind.

The OP complains about connections not being made, and picked Shrewsbury and the Cambrian as his example, and now he "complains" that the railway is run to maximise company profits. Has he perhaps forgotten that TfW is a company owned by the Welsh government?

You seem to be hell bent on picking holes in my comments, whilst making little or no attempt to understand the concerns that passengers have. You'd make a good politician, but you don't seem to understand the genuine reasons that the public have, for being unhappy with rail services.

Interesting that I started this thread asking for ways forward. I expressed concern about a number of issues and gave one recent local example, but most responses seem to be picking holes in my points, rather than understanding real world concerns and seeking ways forward. This is a shame.

 

[Llanigraham]

What I see is not anyone "picking holes in your points" but people on this forum who are more expert and who look at the bigger picture pointing out the errors in your argument.

 

[6Gman]

Sorry but that's what companies do, maximise profits, they claim it as a duty to their shareholders.

But the rules are not made by the companies, they are made by the DfT.

 

[Shrop]

But the rules are not made by the companies, they are made by the DfT.

Yes, my point being that Government / DfT need to re-think their approach. I've always recognised that there are excellent rail staff, they need to be pressing DfT harder, and DfT need to listen.

 

[greyman42]

Today it's not just talk that cars are moving towards being electric, petrol cars won't even be made in just 9 years' time.

In my opinion they will still be made in 9 years time.

 

[Dr Hoo]

You seem to be hell bent on picking holes in my comments, whilst making little or no attempt to understand the concerns that passengers have. You'd make a good politician, but you don't seem to understand the genuine reasons that the public have, for being unhappy with rail services.

I think that we can all buy in to a vision of minimising cancellations, overcrowding and so forth whilst recognising that the industry is in a bad place just now. There are major staff shortages because of training backlogs and so forth as well belated arrival of new, refurbished or cascaded stock for very many reasons. EMR is a classic example.

This is not the same as agreeing that punctuality should be forgotten about in favour of holding 'awkward' connections or subscribing to ideological or political points that may be rather off target anyway.

In my lengthy experience there is no such thing as holding a train at a busy station for 'just a few seconds', at least if done with proper consideration for all intending passengers. For every ideally placed, unencumbered athlete who dives of the arriving service and darts over the footbridge there seems to be an octogenarian at the far end of the train who is last to alight with heavy luggage and needs to use the lifts. And so on.

 

[Shrop]

I think that we can all buy in to a vision of minimising cancellations, overcrowding and so forth whilst recognising that the industry is in a bad place just now. There are major staff shortages because of training backlogs and so forth as well belated arrival of new, refurbished or cascaded stock for very many reasons. EMR is a classic example.

This is not the same as agreeing that punctuality should be forgotten about in favour of holding 'awkward' connections or subscribing to ideological or political points that may be rather off target anyway.

In my lengthy experience there is no such thing as holding a train at a busy station for 'just a few seconds', at least if done with proper consideration for all intending passengers. For every ideally placed, unencumbered athlete who dives of the arriving service and darts over the footbridge there seems to be an octogenarian at the far end of the train who is last to alight with heavy luggage and needs to use the lifts. And so on.

Yet again I reiterate that I do understand realities such as that of your octogenarian example. So let me ask you this.
When I arrived at Eastleigh at just before 11pm on the first train from London after a 3 hour delay due to trespass on the line, some 40 passengers alighted adjacent to the Portsmouth train and tried to board it. No octogenarians or anyone else, just people fit enough to cross the platform all within around 10 seconds, plus queuing time of another few seconds to disembark from the delayed train from London. But the Portsmouth train departed without them, and at that time of night there were clearly few risks of compounding delays further along the route to Portsmouth after waiting less than one minute to complete the passenger boarding. I should add that passengers were standing adjacent to the Portsmouth train for at least 30 seconds whilst its doors were locked, enough for everyone to board it.
When we complained to the person in charge at the station, he denied knowing that all trains through Eastleigh had been stopped for the previous 3 hours.
So please do tell me how this looks to passengers who were refused access to their train, including being faced with the station manager not even knowing how his station had been operating for the last 3 hours?
I'm not asking to hold all trains, far from it, I simply want to iron out the more blatant poor situations that make the railways look like they have no care about passengers.

 

[Dr Hoo]

It would be pointless to second guess what might have happened in an 'edge case', late at night after severe disruption. My comments have clearly been intended to refer to sustaining punctuality in normal operation. Clearly Control and local staff have to use their initiative in real time when there has been a three-hour gap in service.

Communications these days have come on in leaps and bounds since my experience in the BR days of chuntering teleprinters and written messages 'passed out' of trains. But one would genuinely hope that the guard of your train had done a full 'walk through' and 'call over' (either as part of a ticket check or purely as a customer service exercise), identifying roughly how many passengers were planning to change at relevant stations. This vital information to then be conveyed to Control who could take a view on which connections to hold if at all possible (allowing for factors such as crews perhaps already well over hours and the proximity of other services that might also have been 'backed up').

Actually it comes as no surprise that a staff member might have little awareness of what had been going on at around 2300. Many rotating three-shift roles will have changeovers at around 0700, 1500 and 2300. I've done it myself. You have just arrived and are digesting a handover conversation or briefing note, checking the log, screens and so on, perhaps making sure that a night shift colleague has also arrived and suddenly there is a crisis outside the window!

This is called 'real life'. It is nothing to do with profit maximisation, privatisation, the DfT, "cuts", jobsworths, etc.

I am sorry that you were further delayed but can assure you that the great majority or rail staff on the front line and above continue to want to encourage rail travel.

 

[Shrop]

During my long wait at Basingstoke I spoke to staff at least 3 times. They promised they would inform staff at Eastleigh of our pending arrival. Two other passengers were with me, I'd never met them before, but they both politely expressed exasperation to the Basingstoke staff that they had previous experience of Eastleigh staff ignoring such requests.
You mention the handover at 11pm. What handover? How can anything possibly be called a handover when such a huge piece of vital information such as the stopping of all services for the previous 3 hours, is not passed on?
And you talk of communications advancing in leaps and bounds. Do you mean like centralised announcements from remote locations which say things like "the train now standing at platform 3" when it's actually just left, or "the next train to arrive at platform 5" when it's already there with doors locked and about to depart? Or the on train automated announcements which say "the next stop will be xxx", when it's actually left that station 2 stops previously? Or when the list of destinations is announced in reverse direction because the train manager hasn't changed them? Are you really not aware that these things happen, and are very confusing to passengers, particularly to your octogenarian who wants to believe what he's told?
Please stop finding excuses for these things, note that they do happen, and add your expertise to finding ways to make improvements.

 

[Llanigraham]

What handover?

Handover is the proceedure between two members of staff or their teams when shifts change, and can be either simple or damned complicated, and the more complicated the easier it is for things to get left out, especially when things that are safety related have to take priority.

 

[6Gman]

During my long wait at Basingstoke I spoke to staff at least 3 times. They promised they would inform staff at Eastleigh of our pending arrival. Two other passengers were with me, I'd never met them before, but they both politely expressed exasperation to the Basingstoke staff that they had previous experience of Eastleigh staff ignoring such requests.
You mention the handover at 11pm. What handover? How can anything possibly be called a handover when such a huge piece of vital information such as the stopping of all services for the previous 3 hours, is not passed on?
And you talk of communications advancing in leaps and bounds. Do you mean like centralised announcements from remote locations which say things like "the train now standing at platform 3" when it's actually just left, or "the next train to arrive at platform 5" when it's already there with doors locked and about to depart? Or the on train automated announcements which say "the next stop will be xxx", when it's actually left that station 2 stops previously? Or when the list of destinations is announced in reverse direction because the train manager hasn't changed them? Are you really not aware that these things happen, and are very confusing to passengers, particularly to your octogenarian who wants to believe what he's told?
Please stop finding excuses for these things, note that they do happen, and add your expertise to finding ways to make improvements.

We (I suspect) have all had the experience of connections not being held when it seems they could and should have been.
We (I suspect) have all had the experience of information not being passed on.
We (I suspect) have all seen/heard weird equipment malfunction - "this is the Birmingham Liverpool train, the next stop is Coseley" when it's actually the Liverpool Birmingham train and the next stop is Liverpool South Parkway.

Stuff happens.

And in large complex organisations stuff will continue to happen.

We should be trying to minimise it - any realistic suggestions on how to do that?