PHILIPE
Veteran Member
It inconveniences a few for the benefit of a lot more
I would say it should only be done if the skipped stops are announced in time for passengers to alight from the train at a station where can join a following train serving the missed stops without an excessive wait.
Why would it be any different under nationalisation. The same Control taking the same decisions for the same reasons. What do they gain financially?Not to this extent. You should be ashamed for supporting such bad practise purely for financial gain.
You might as well duck out, it seems to be a divisive subject where a large proportion of people refuse to accept that it's the only way to recover service and minimise larger issues in certain circumstances.Edit - actually on reflection I don't think it's a good idea for me to post on this thread since there's a risk that comments I make could end up printed in the Scotsman by a lazy 'Transport Correspondent' so I'm out.
You might as well duck out, it seems to be a divisive subject where a large proportion of people refuse to accept that it's the only way to recover service and minimise larger issues in certain circumstances.
Lack of communication with passengers, such as the Polmont example given above if true, is inexcusable. That said, in all the years I experienced skip stopping on the E&G never once was I unclear that my train was about to do it. But then I do read departure boards and listen to announcements.
I too have no more to say on this subject.
It inconveniences a few for the benefit of a lot more
...including one very senior manager who lives in Milngavie and uses the train to get to and from work every day.Hopeful there will be improvement soon though - it certainly isn't unnoticed by senior managers.
Prior to the opening of the Airdrie Bathgate line in 2010 Transport Scotland were warned that running trains all the way to Edinburgh from Milngavie was a risky strategy due to the single line constraints. However it went ahead with the results we are now. A service from Milngave must be on time at Westerton or it can cause serious delay right into Edinburgh affecting services as far as Aberdeen. There is alot of work ongoing at the moment to try to increase turnaround tines at Milngave - currently it is so tight even a driver using the toilet is causing late running. Again though, the only solution might be to reduce tbe number of trains. Hopeful there will be improvement soon though - it certainly isn't unnoticed by senior managers.
...including one very senior manager who lives in Milngavie and uses the train to get to and from work every day.
Well, there are other solutions, like not running them all the way to Edinburgh, as TS were warned was a bad idea. Also the option of reinstating a second track to Milngavie exists, albeit now expensively (AIUI). I mean, there are more options.
Well I hope he relies on the 7.39 service from Milngavie, which is maybe the worst affected service of all.
Way back in the day, when I used it to travel to college, it wasn't at all unusual for a delayed Northern stopper train on the Southport line to be converted to semi-fast, this missing out my stop. I then had to wait an hour for the next stopping service and miss an hour of college. On one memorable occasion I actually nearly missed an exam.
I can accept that an hour delay as a result of skip-stopping is harsh.
My understanding, though, is that services on the E-G line are 15 mins frequency? If that's the case then I would agree most strongly with those who are pointing out that skipping stops to recover the service is the best option. A 15 minute delay is largely irrelevant, and it's for the benefit of recovering the service to timetable for every other passenger that day.
A nice thing to whinge about by all means but, in all seriousness, if this is the worst thing commuters on these routes have to put up with then they really should count themselves lucky.
All of Linlithgow, Polmont and Croy have more than 2 services per hour.If you skip a stop at Linlithgow, Polmont or Croy that leaves an hour gap.
I didn't realise that. Nevertheless, if the alternatives are a) to have the service disrupted for the rest of the day, with knock-on effects to other services and potentially other areas of the network; or b) for ScotRail to run fewer services in the first place so that skipping wasn't necessary then I still think that skipping is the option which will inconvenience the smallest number of people and keep disruption to a minimum. I'm well aware that's no consolation when it's your stop that's skipped on the train you wanted to catch, but in the grand scheme of running the railway it does appear to be the least worst option.The majority of the stops on the E-G line are only half hourly though. Considering every call on the line has around a million passengers a year that’s not good enough to skip stops. If you skip a stop at Linlithgow, Polmont or Croy that leaves an hour gap.
I was once on a Thameslink service which ran fast from Haywards Heath to Brighton (we had been booked to call all stations). There was no announcement about that on the train at all, although the screens on the platform at Haywards Heath did say 'Brighton only'.Recently, an E&G expressed from Polmont to Glasgow and skipped Falkirk High, and passengers weren't actually told it was skipping until they have left Polmont...