70014IronDuke
Established Member
- Joined
- 13 Jun 2015
- Messages
- 3,699
As someone noted in today's thread about a person hit at Hemel Hempstead, the WCML has not been having a good time in the recent past. Indeed, there seems to have been at least two serious incidents a week for some time now. For sure, we seem to see "all lines closed" threads on the WCML and ECML far more often than, say, for the MML or, especially, Chiltern.
Chiltern has no overhead to get damaged, of couse, so much less chance of a total shutdown.
But on the WCML, when things go wrong, one of the first instructions to aspiring passengers to Birmingham/Coventry/Wolverhampton is to take Chiltern. Totally logical, of course - but who pays the bill - if one is paid - and how is it worked out?
ISTR reading, probably in here, that the various operators are just expected to 'help out' when ordered (by who, exactly DfT?) when services are stopped on 'parallel' lines. On the surface, that seems ok, but given the number of total stoppages on the WCML it would seem that Chiltern are all to often expected to assist in emergencies - certainly far more often than Virgin WC help out Chiltern. Is there any mechanism in place to compensate Chiltern for this service, seemingly so regularly offered - which, of course, is to the detriment of regular Chiltern customers?
Chiltern has no overhead to get damaged, of couse, so much less chance of a total shutdown.
But on the WCML, when things go wrong, one of the first instructions to aspiring passengers to Birmingham/Coventry/Wolverhampton is to take Chiltern. Totally logical, of course - but who pays the bill - if one is paid - and how is it worked out?
ISTR reading, probably in here, that the various operators are just expected to 'help out' when ordered (by who, exactly DfT?) when services are stopped on 'parallel' lines. On the surface, that seems ok, but given the number of total stoppages on the WCML it would seem that Chiltern are all to often expected to assist in emergencies - certainly far more often than Virgin WC help out Chiltern. Is there any mechanism in place to compensate Chiltern for this service, seemingly so regularly offered - which, of course, is to the detriment of regular Chiltern customers?