Snow Service Changes 25/02/18 onwards.

[Dr Hoo]

Only a fraction of eligible passengers will actually claim, and the cost of the claims will be exceeded by the handsomer Schedule 8 payment they’ll receive from Network Rail

Noting that compensation claims jumped from £44.9m in 2015-16 to £73.6m in 2016-17 (according to a recent story in RAIL) and that schemes have subsequently become more generous and performance has got worse and travellers have become more savvy I would have thought that over £100,000,000 in 2017-18 was in the right ballpark.
Schedule 8, of course, is compensation for depression of future revenue and nothing to do with Delay Repay. It is no coincidence at all that recent sluggish revenue growth and falling passenger numbers in some areas have followed chronic performance problems at several operators.

 

[PHILIPE]

Heart of Wales Line re-opened this afternoon

 

[mikey9]

Inverness Aberdeen (which survived almost unscathed during the snow of the last week.), Now all service suspended due to flooding!

 

[ChiefPlanner]

The Heart of Wales is booked to run normally on Wednesday (ATW only bused Llandovery to Swansea - which is not surprising) ....

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Heart of Wales Line re-opened this afternoon

I thought (see below) - services re-start Weds ? - in which case apologies - I sincerely hope there was no one stranded at Sugar Loaf Halt...

 

[Antman]

This seems rather generous

 

[Failed Unit]

Only a fraction of eligible passengers will actually claim, and the cost of the claims will be exceeded by the handsomer Schedule 8 payment they’ll receive from Network Rail

Yep. Heard many people complain about how difficult it is to claim. It isn’t worth it. I am in that camp.

 

[westv]

Difficult? Hardly! A few clicks and it's done.

 

[Failed Unit]

Difficult? Hardly! A few clicks and it's done.

Clearly you haven’t tried doing it with GTR then!

Recapcha the first issue to cause pain.

Then the mandatory rejection.

Then resubmit including having to upload everything again. (As they don’t offer another way to appeal - including recapcha)

If you are lucky they will pay on the 2nd attempt. If not you go to passenger focus.

It is soul destroying- hence why I no longer bother. They never pay out on the first attempt. Always give some nonsense reason which you need to correct. But we have had countless threads on how bad GTR delay repay is

 

[Dr Hoo]

Yes, it can certainly be a pain (having recently spent over three months of many aborted web-forms, emails and phone calls getting a refund from Caledonian Sleeper after a cancellation) but as I noted above, £73.6million, going on a hundred million, can't be all bad.

And, as also noted above, Schedule 8 only covers the TOC for future revenue loss, not Delay Repay and other costs (such as taxis, hotels, staff overtime, etc.) so there is a real incentive on the TOC to handle incidents well, even if the root cause is Network Rail.

 

[westv]

Hull Trains service decimated again tomorrow with no through trains to/from London despite them claiming earlier that things were getting better. And with no morning VTEC service either it'll be more chaos for any morning travellers to London from East Yorkshire.
Omnishambles??

 

[SamYeager]

Omnishambles??

I'm sure you've given up your sleep and are working hard to fix all the faulty trains......

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Hull Trains service decimated again tomorrow with no through trains to/from London despite them claiming earlier that things were getting better. And with no morning VTEC service either it'll be more chaos for any morning travellers to London from East Yorkshire.
Omnishambles??

HT had a train fail on the up yesterday at Letchworth .....so assume another set down.

 

[Failed Unit]

HT had a train fail on the up yesterday at Letchworth .....so assume another set down.

What is interesting is that VTEC are not accepting tickets and HT customers need to go via MML. VTEC are advertising a nearly normal service. Are they really that full?

 

[westv]

What is interesting is that VTEC are not accepting tickets and HT customers need to go via MML. VTEC are advertising a nearly normal service. Are they really that full?

How does ticket acceptance work? Is it my mutual agreement or does cash change hands?
Rather helpfully VTEC have decided, in their infinite wisdom, to cancel the only other direct service from Hull to London this morning. Why they had to do that when they knew Hull Trains had problems I have no idea. I'm just glad I only normally use the route to come into London on a Monday.

 

[Failed Unit]

How does ticket acceptance work? Is it my mutual agreement or does cash change hands?
Rather helpfully VTEC have decided, in their infinite wisdom, to cancel the only other direct service from Hull to London this morning. Why they had to do that when they knew Hull Trains had problems I have no idea. I'm just glad I only normally use the route to come into London on a Monday.

I suspect VTEC are trying to share the pain. It is Hulls turn today. At least hull - London people booked on that can still use ECML.

 

[jellybaby]

They never pay out on the first attempt.

I've had 5 Delay Repay claims paid first attempt so far this year. Now I just need to decide how to treat myself with the £10.10.

 

[westv]

I suspect VTEC are trying to share the pain. It is Hulls turn today. At least hull - London people booked on that can still use ECML.

From what I remember it was cancelled yesterday and the day before so not really "sharing the pain".

 

[westv]

What I'm sure HTs passengers find frustrating is that the company is refusing to give any sort of idea as to how long the problem will last. Nobody should be expecting an exact date but just a very rough guide would be helpful. Is it days? Weeks? Months? At the moment people are given no idea whether their service is running until the evening beforehand or even later.

Edit: I feel sorry for the staff manning the phones. They must be getting a real ear full of grief at the moment.

 

[cuccir]

I presume that the reason that VTEC's early morning Hull service was cancelled is that it has a fairly long ECS run from Neville Hill in the morning. If stock is a little stretched, I can see how cancelling that 1 train might allow them to run a couple of other services. It's unfortunate however, given that Hull's still only had a total of 3 services run to Kings Cross since Friday, compared to a normal timetable of 8 a day!

 

[johntea]

Northern seem to be struggling more than usual this week in terms of carriages for services, coming back from Harrogate around 5-6pm units are usually doubled up but just singles this week - in fact 144012 was even doing a service a couple of days ago!

Wonder if the weather last week knocked out a few units or they're still in the wrong place.

 

[westv]

Hull Trains services still virtually wiped out.
Now thay VTEC services are back to normal is the fact that they are still not accepting HTs only tickets a case of them trying to stick the boot in?

 

[yorksrob]

Northern seem to be struggling more than usual this week in terms of carriages for services, coming back from Harrogate around 5-6pm units are usually doubled up but just singles this week - in fact 144012 was even doing a service a couple of days ago!

Wonder if the weather last week knocked out a few units or they're still in the wrong place.

A lot of unusual units on the Hallam line over the past couple of days. I can only assume that they're a bit stretched.

 

[MadCommuter]

North Berwick branch still suspended due to over hanging snow falling on to the line.

 

[Class 170101]

The video in Norway of train running in snow seems ridiculous. Running on tracks the driver cannot see - covered by snow and further to that running with the window absolutely covered by snow with no view out of the window.

 

[Llanigraham]

The video in Norway of train running in snow seems ridiculous. Running on tracks the driver cannot see - covered by snow and further to that running with the window absolutely covered by snow with no view out of the window.

Why is it ridiculous? It is a situation they are used to.

 

[Class 170101]

Surprised its still considered safe as you can't see if the track is screwed underneath and for driving without being able to see the signals - well....

 

[edwin_m]

No driver running at anything faster than walking pace has a hope of seeing if the track is still "screwed underneath", snow or no snow. Even if they see a problem they are unlikely to be able to stop before running over it. Not sure what train protection system they have in Norway but something equivalent to AWS would alert to an adverse signal aspect.

 

[furnessvale]

Surprised its still considered safe as you can't see if the track is screwed underneath and for driving without being able to see the signals - well....

Given that a snow plough only clears the track to around 8" above rail level AND the rule book allows a driver to move at normal speed with snow up to 8" above rail level, it follows that this practice must be safe.

The alternative would be to wait for the snow to melt or deploy sufficient manpower to remove the snow by hand.

The question of signal sighting is different, but not a lot different from driving through fog where the signal is not seen until the last moment.