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The shambles that is LNWR on the WCML South

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Sprinter107

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Friday at New Street showed how useless LNWR are.
All 3 services from the north arrived ~10mins late.

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P44887/2019-12-06
(the data for this train is wrong, as it was still sat in P1 when the following train [P45250] arrived at ~18:30. This looks a lot more like the actual departure time https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P44378/2019-12-06 )
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P45250/2019-12-06

That first train was absolutely rammed, & people kept opening the doors to try & squeeze on. There were no LNWR staff to stop them doing so, & there was no train guard. He turned up ~18:20 & did nothing. There was no announcement that the train would terminate early.
(I was able to get on the train behind it, only needing to go to International)


That first train then got to Northampton at least half an hour late, (18:54 timetabled) & terminated early. (It was due to go to Euston)
It initially looks good that they held the 19:25 Euston departure from Northampton, but that service doesn't do the Berkhamsted, Hemel Hempstead & Watford Junction stops.
The guard may not have been notified that the train was to terminate early. We arent always told, until we get to the place where it's going to be caped.
 
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Silverlinky

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Remedial measures......I think that's what they call it......and I believe that's what they're in!

The ongoing industrial issues, the lack of overtime payment....the company used to pay "12" for lots of stuff but that has been scaled back as the wage bill is under the microscope from board level. As now is sickness and non-attendance.

At the Southern end of the line there is a higher than average turnover of staff, some have left, a few going to Virgin or whatever its called now, I think they are losing drivers to East Midlands too, as well as a lot of retirements. There is at least one driver training course ongoing, maybe two, and some people have dates for a future course starting in January. But it takes 9-12 months for a Trainee Driver to make it to driver......and they can't seem to keep up with the amount of staff they are losing.
 

Parham Wood

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Maybe someone in charge of the rail industry ought to look at this training issue across all TOCs. If TOCs are training limited numbers of staff but making this up by "poaching" from other TOCs then this is obviously unfair and causes issues for passengers. Maybe some regulation can be brought in such that drivers cannot transfer until a certain period in a job even if they resign. This is a bit draconian and I would hope for a more amicable solution but clearly if not enough training is being done then it needs a national level overview, not that I have much confidence in those in charge to be able to resolve this.
 

STKKK46

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Anywhere but here...
WMT are actively recruiting for train crew. They can’t do any more than that.

I think this board is a wonderful place, slagging WMT to the absolute maximum when a cancellation issue is a Conductor is late notice sickness.

Hey if it went DOO that train would run.... but everyone wants to keep the guard on the train....

Genuinely don’t understand what more people want them to do. Or maybe it’s just the popular bandwagon to jump on at the moment.
 

Bletchleyite

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Genuinely don’t understand what more people want them to do

To plan and publish a timetable (an emergency timetable if necessary) which it is realistic to reliably and punctually (>95% as an absolute minimum) deliver using the staff and rolling stock they have available to them would be a start.

LM was punctual and reliable give or take the odd bit of sloppy sub-10-minute late running in the evening peak. The day that new timetable came in the entire TOC fell completely to bits and has not recovered and shows no sign whatsoever of doing so.

Have a nose at this:
https://www.londonnorthwesternrailway.co.uk/about-us/our-performance/train-performance

Punctuality, using the 5 minute measure - 56.6%. That is, just under half of trains were over 5 minutes late. Half. I have never, ever seen such a poor performance in all my 40 years outside of the likes of strike action.

Reliability - 18.3% of trains cancelled. That is nearly one in five. One in five. Again, even Central Trains didn't fail that badly, and they really were the pits.

If they can't fix it, it's time for the franchise to be pulled. They do not deserve one penny of profit for such a grossly incompetent performance - and one they were warned about, so it's wilful incompetence, too.

For a franchise like this both measures should be sitting above the 95% point, and LM largely was.
 
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Clarence Yard

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After my strong misgivings about this timetable, i’ve left it six months to see how it settled down. It hasn’t. In 42 years of travelling from Watford to Euston, i’ve never had to bail and get the Met home as much as I have had to in the last few months. It’s pathetic and some people need to go down the road for this and that is something I very rarely say. That is because they were warned that it wouldn’t work and they went ahead anyway.

What to do? Don’t combine disparate service groups together, like Central Trains did in the 1990’s to disastrous effect.

Don’t try and run your service with minimum stock, on minimum turnarounds, like Central Trains did in the 1990’s to disastrous effect.

Don’t have your train crew running around like crazy, crewing multiple service groups, like Central Trains did in the 1990’s to disastrous effect.

Don’t employ the planning genius whose party pieces are combining service groups, over optimising stock and over optimising train crew, just like he did on Central Trains in the 1990’s.

Rule number 1 of running a London Commuter operation. When it goes Pete Tong you have your crew waiting for their train, not the other way round. Especially if they are stuck on Camden bank waiting for a vacant platform but the train they are due to take out is one of those that are stopping them getting in!

Basic planning parameters ignored. Your base plan has to be robust to deal with some degree of delay. This timetable hasn’t got a chance of doing that and passengers are suffering unnecessarily as a result. Not remotely good enough.
 

Merle Haggard

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I noticed this poster at Milton Keynes Central today. It wasn't positioned in a very visible position, possibly out of shame.
Note that the message is that 'We were trying too hard!'
Delays never caused by no train crew available, evidently...


LNwR.jpg ...
 

gazzaa2

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Is it just my perception or have the problems with the LM/LNWR franchise been getting progressively worse since they started operating to Liverpool?

Since they extended the Lime Street-New Street to Euston it's got bad. As a fairly regular user of the Liverpool-New Street service it's completely ruined that service as well, it used to run generally well enough, it doesn't even start from Lime Street half the time now with cancellations and delays.

A complete botch up.
 

Silverlinky

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In May 2020 they will pretty much go back to the old timetable with no joining and dividing of trains at New Street, this will solve a lot of the issues.

They are giving all season ticket holders a 3% discount on the cost of their new season tickets for next year, which negates the 2.8% fare increase planned for January. So commuters will see prices fall in real terms for the first time in a long time! There will also be some sort of Summer off peak deal for leisure travellers.
 

bramling

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In May 2020 they will pretty much go back to the old timetable with no joining and dividing of trains at New Street, this will solve a lot of the issues.

They are giving all season ticket holders a 3% discount on the cost of their new season tickets for next year, which negates the 2.8% fare increase planned for January. So commuters will see prices fall in real terms for the first time in a long time! There will also be some sort of Summer off peak deal for leisure travellers.

It’s all very well giving discounts, but this doesn’t help people get to and from where they need to be *now*.

X percent off a season ticket doesn’t make up for hours of people’s lives that they won’t get back, and an off-peak deal seems more about driving up discretionary demand rather than making it up to regular users.

This farce was entirely predictable, and quite simply shouldn’t have happened. Something has gone wrong with the industry’s setup that such a timetable could have got through the planning process and become reality.
 

hwl

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In May 2020 they will pretty much go back to the old timetable with no joining and dividing of trains at New Street, this will solve a lot of the issues.

They are giving all season ticket holders a 3% discount on the cost of their new season tickets for next year, which negates the 2.8% fare increase planned for January. So commuters will see prices fall in real terms for the first time in a long time! There will also be some sort of Summer off peak deal for leisure travellers.

Effectively copying the Govia bid plan but DfT preferred the Abellio joined up service approach as it sounded better for users.

May be time to bring Govia back as they actually understand practical reality unlike Abellio bid teams...
 

bramling

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Effectively copying the Govia bid plan but DfT preferred the Abellio joined up service approach as it sounded better for users.

May be time to bring Govia back as they actually understand practical reality unlike Abellio bid teams...

There does seem to be a theme with Abellio going for headline deliverables. But equally there’s a theme of DFT approving it.

The GA total fleet replacement was a case in point. In this industry change is best delivered on an incremental basis, not by wading in like a bull in a china shop.
 

gazzaa2

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In May 2020 they will pretty much go back to the old timetable with no joining and dividing of trains at New Street, this will solve a lot of the issues.

They are giving all season ticket holders a 3% discount on the cost of their new season tickets for next year, which negates the 2.8% fare increase planned for January. So commuters will see prices fall in real terms for the first time in a long time! There will also be some sort of Summer off peak deal for leisure travellers.

The problem with things like this is the trains are already packed out at the weekends and you end up stood up through a journey when half the people have sat down have paid a pittance.
 
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19 Dec 2013
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Maybe someone in charge of the rail industry ought to look at this training issue across all TOCs. If TOCs are training limited numbers of staff but making this up by "poaching" from other TOCs then this is obviously unfair and causes issues for passengers. Maybe some regulation can be brought in such that drivers cannot transfer until a certain period in a job even if they resign. This is a bit draconian and I would hope for a more amicable solution but clearly if not enough training is being done then it needs a national level overview, not that I have much confidence in those in charge to be able to resolve this.

This is the free market so many are in favour of. There's a simple way to keep staff, but the usual suspects won't like that.
 

Elecman

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Maybe someone in charge of the rail industry ought to look at this training issue across all TOCs. If TOCs are training limited numbers of staff but making this up by "poaching" from other TOCs then this is obviously unfair and causes issues for passengers. Maybe some regulation can be brought in such that drivers cannot transfer until a certain period in a job even if they resign. This is a bit draconian and I would hope for a more amicable solution but clearly if not enough training is being done then it needs a national level overview, not that I have much confidence in those in charge to be able to resolve this.

Could be sorted by writing into new trainees contract that they stay with the relevant operator for 5-7 years or pay back a sliding % of the training costs
 
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Could be sorted by writing into new trainees contract that they stay with the relevant operator for 5-7 years or pay back a sliding % of the training costs

Why do so many people think that train drivers should be exempt from normal practice? If someone wants to give them better conditions or more money then it is up to them if they choose to take up the offer. Why is it any different than any other job?

Stop them striking, tie them to contracts, make them work overtime and on and on, it's tiresome.
 

43074

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Effectively copying the Govia bid plan but DfT preferred the Abellio joined up service approach as it sounded better for users.

May be time to bring Govia back as they actually understand practical reality unlike Abellio bid teams...

Yes virtually the same has happened with East Midlands regional services, abandoning the Norwich to Matlock idea has resulted in a solution very similar to the Arriva bid being proposed...
 

setdown

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Ludicrous. It's been an unmitigated disaster.
I notice that on Sundays since the December timetable change, the Liverpool to Euston trains are now 8-coaches throughout, without any joining/splitting. The reliability seemed to be ok yesterday, so maybe that’s something they can bring to the midweek services too?

It must be said that this has resulted in 8-car working on Sunday services between Crewe and Liverpool, a massive improvement considering the last services used to be full and standing.
 

pt_mad

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Effectively copying the Govia bid plan but DfT preferred the Abellio joined up service approach as it sounded better for users.

May be time to bring Govia back as they actually understand practical reality unlike Abellio bid teams...
Is it known in any detail what the Govia bid included for WCML services?
 

Merle Haggard

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Travelling to Northampton of an evening occasionally, I gave up on the 1752 fast; although it's 12 coaches, the last time I caught it, it was full and very standing - the front first class had about 8 standing - and its platform was announced only about 5 minutes before departure time.
So tonight, I went for the 1753 all stations, 12 car (319s). Euston concourse was jammed with people waiting for the announcement of platforms for LNwR services - so jammed that it was very difficult to move towards the barriers.
The platform for the 1753 was announced at 1751, meaning that by the time the barriers were reached the conductor was blowing his whistle.
According to Open train Times, the 1753 Northampton departure is formed of the (booked) 1750 arrival from Tring.
3 x 319 has around 900 seats, and it was about 2/3rds full. About 600 people given 2 minutes notice of their train's platform The inwards train was quite busy too.
Is this rapid loading of customers planned to happen anywhere else?
 

Scott M

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Always cancellations due to lack of train crew over Christmas, is code word for staff don’t want to do overtime over Christmas.
 

Bletchleyite

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Euston platforming is quite consistent and there's RTT, so a very significant number of people will already be on the correct platform long before they can be bothered to put it on the PIS.

But the answer is yes - on exactly the same units on Thameslink platforms in one minute, not three.

And in any case it's booked in at 1741, not 1750. It was nine minutes late:
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/EUS/2020-01-21/1753
 
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