Now when I make similar remarks about Northern Rail I get lynched!
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West Coast OHL damage 1/3
- Thread starter howittpie
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Now when I make similar remarks about Northern Rail I get lynched!
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R
RailUK Forums
Mmm - I would put it down to LM being completely unable to cope with anything, and their preferred strategy is sit on their arses and watch the £££ flow in and other TOCs cop the bad press.
Actually that's unfair - they do have a back-up plan. It goes something along the lines of identify area of problem - quarantine it - give up and go home. The whole operation is a farce.
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Aha hadn't seen you'd got there before me
should've known it wouldn't be long!Geezertronic
Established Member
Most of the options are surely out of LMs control though? They can only utilise paths in a two line run that are available to them, with the assumption that VT get the priority as the IC operator on the line? If they cannot get trains down the lines what choice do they have? Push them through an unelectrified area?
David
Established Member
Mainly because LM have a lot of history with regards to throwing in the towel at the slightest hint of disruption, where as Northern were dealt a sh***y hand from the start by the DfT ....
ushawk
Established Member
Yes, they deliberately dont run a service and are just giving up :roll:
Just because you dont know the reasons, it isnt just them "giving up".
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Sorry, are you totally thick ? I assume you havent bothered to look at the picture of the damage, had you seen it, i doubt you would be saying its an "excuse".
But dont let facts get in the way of a pathetic rant.....
Thanks to Geezertronic to pointed me to this thread. I had started another one. If anyone wishes to remove that thread then please do.
On National Rail Enquiries this morning the 8.24 is shown was shown as running a minute late from Harrow and Wealdstone with no report for Euston and it departed Watford Junction on time.
However at the top it says This train has been delayed by overhead wire problems.
Now the 8.05 from Euston to Tring and the 8.34 from Euston to Tring and other trains which pass through Harrow to and from Euston just said delayed with a * by them. When you go in their is no information at the top to say why the trains are delayed. Bear in mind the 8.05 should have left Euston 50 minutes before I was looking at it on my app!
Wouldn't it actually make more sense to provide reasons for problems with those trains rather than a focusing on train which left Watford Junction on time and clearly wasn't very late leaving Euston!
From time to time I get the 8.24 and it's late with no reason given. Today it's practically on time. Most evenings my train is late leaving Harrow towards Euston by 2 or more minutes with no reason given.
It can't be that difficult to get the important information out instead of stuff which doesn't matter so much or is the NRE system or systems train companies use to link to it, really awkward to use, making less useful information easier to put out?
Later on I saw that the 8.24 was then showing as cancelled when earlier it was clearly showing that it was running and it had passed monitoring points.
Do London Midland actually know what they are doing? Why class a train as cancelled that run. Is the system so awkward to use that, that is easier than leaving it out. I noticed on their Web site that it said the 8.24 from Euston to Milton Keynes was an additional service this morning. It's not an additional service any other morning I might catch it.
Interestingly they also showed some other trains as cancelled, which were previously delayed and now did put up a reason.
I think they should really expand the message though to include the fact they can't use as many lines so that people understand why because Tring is not north of the problem but south of it. It should be about educating the passengers. The more info they have then hopefully the less they will moan. I wouldn't be moaning here if better information was given out.
Of course the message on the service disruptions page made no mention that services to Tring were cancelled. I see that from 10.30 London Midland finally acknowledged it. This isn't the first time they have decided not to refer to the fact trains are cancelled. In fact during many periods of disruption they don't put up the fact trains are all cancelled, especially if the disruption is taking place further up the line and they wish to use the line for other trains.
Of course London Midland services are cheap for off peak users so I assume they have less money to spend on providing good information. There Twitter feed is usually very helpful but they would get more information how to more customers quicker if they put it on their Web Site / NRE than having to reply to each tweet they are sent.
By luck, since I didn't know the problems would occur, I happened to get an earlier train today and travel via Clapham Junction. However I now see the problem is all day so I'm not immune to it.
UPDATE ***** I must praise London Midland.
All the Milton Kynes trains are stopping at Harrow and Wealdstone according to National Rail Enquiries timetable. That is amazing and surely a first. 
Certainly a first since I've been commuting on them. Usually we are told to clear off and get the London Overground. Now that takes more than twice as long to reach Harrow. So well done London Midland. I hope they do that during the future disruptions. But can hope *****
I do find the pic posted on tweeter fascinating to look at. Having watched the railway programme this week, I did wonder how soon they were allowed to start fixing the problem or whether they had to wait for rail investigators to turn up or not turn up.
On National Rail Enquiries this morning the 8.24 is shown was shown as running a minute late from Harrow and Wealdstone with no report for Euston and it departed Watford Junction on time.
However at the top it says This train has been delayed by overhead wire problems.
Now the 8.05 from Euston to Tring and the 8.34 from Euston to Tring and other trains which pass through Harrow to and from Euston just said delayed with a * by them. When you go in their is no information at the top to say why the trains are delayed. Bear in mind the 8.05 should have left Euston 50 minutes before I was looking at it on my app!
Wouldn't it actually make more sense to provide reasons for problems with those trains rather than a focusing on train which left Watford Junction on time and clearly wasn't very late leaving Euston!
From time to time I get the 8.24 and it's late with no reason given. Today it's practically on time. Most evenings my train is late leaving Harrow towards Euston by 2 or more minutes with no reason given.
It can't be that difficult to get the important information out instead of stuff which doesn't matter so much or is the NRE system or systems train companies use to link to it, really awkward to use, making less useful information easier to put out?
Later on I saw that the 8.24 was then showing as cancelled when earlier it was clearly showing that it was running and it had passed monitoring points.
Do London Midland actually know what they are doing? Why class a train as cancelled that run. Is the system so awkward to use that, that is easier than leaving it out. I noticed on their Web site that it said the 8.24 from Euston to Milton Keynes was an additional service this morning. It's not an additional service any other morning I might catch it.
Interestingly they also showed some other trains as cancelled, which were previously delayed and now did put up a reason.
I think they should really expand the message though to include the fact they can't use as many lines so that people understand why because Tring is not north of the problem but south of it. It should be about educating the passengers. The more info they have then hopefully the less they will moan. I wouldn't be moaning here if better information was given out.
Of course the message on the service disruptions page made no mention that services to Tring were cancelled. I see that from 10.30 London Midland finally acknowledged it. This isn't the first time they have decided not to refer to the fact trains are cancelled. In fact during many periods of disruption they don't put up the fact trains are all cancelled, especially if the disruption is taking place further up the line and they wish to use the line for other trains.
Of course London Midland services are cheap for off peak users so I assume they have less money to spend on providing good information. There Twitter feed is usually very helpful but they would get more information how to more customers quicker if they put it on their Web Site / NRE than having to reply to each tweet they are sent.
By luck, since I didn't know the problems would occur, I happened to get an earlier train today and travel via Clapham Junction. However I now see the problem is all day so I'm not immune to it.
UPDATE ***** I must praise London Midland.
All the Milton Kynes trains are stopping at Harrow and Wealdstone according to National Rail Enquiries timetable. That is amazing and surely a first. Certainly a first since I've been commuting on them. Usually we are told to clear off and get the London Overground. Now that takes more than twice as long to reach Harrow. So well done London Midland. I hope they do that during the future disruptions. But can hope *****I do find the pic posted on tweeter fascinating to look at. Having watched the railway programme this week, I did wonder how soon they were allowed to start fixing the problem or whether they had to wait for rail investigators to turn up or not turn up.
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[says nowt]
Oh dear, oh dear oh dear!!!!!
Zoidberg
Established Member
I don't mind showing my ignorance - I've not come across "OCR" in the context of a "wiring train" before. What does OCR expand to?
And having typed that, I now wonder if it's a typo/autocorrect for OHLE.
Notwork fails OLE projects team " Overhead Condition Renewals".
Zoidberg
Established Member
Southwest
Member
I only hope the TOC's on WCML handle things better than their counterparts on the ECML last week.
The FCC website didn't reflect what was actually happening, classic example being that the website was telling customers that trains going southbound would start from Biggleswade and buses would take people from stations north of Biggs to catch the train. Reality was that the trains were running from the north and I caught one in Sandy and friends of mine caught theirs at St Neots.
Come on TOC's, it aint difficult these days to keep information up to date!
The FCC website didn't reflect what was actually happening, classic example being that the website was telling customers that trains going southbound would start from Biggleswade and buses would take people from stations north of Biggs to catch the train. Reality was that the trains were running from the north and I caught one in Sandy and friends of mine caught theirs at St Neots.
Come on TOC's, it aint difficult these days to keep information up to date!
Thank you
No problem, the cause will no doubt be known by now, wonder what colourful spin they put on it !?!?
Zoidberg
Established Member
I've not yet heard what the suspected cause of the problem is but NR tweeted about 15 mins ago that they hope to have all lines open later today. They must have some very adept un-knitters, or re-knitters or whatever.
gordonthemoron
Established Member
but will LM run any more trains when the lines do reopen?
Geezertronic
Established Member
Out of interest, how many TOCs were affected by the ECML failures? For the southern end of the WCML I believe it is just Virgin Trains, London Midland, and Southern to a lesser extent?
Every TOC has one (or more, six in the case of Virgin). You can find them linked from here over on NRE.
Or not as it could seem, all comes down to equipment failure, could this have been spotted on the last wire run??
According to LM on Facebook, the lines will open to traffic at midnight tonight, with a temporary repair in place and an emergency timetable in place until then.
A full timetable will operate tomorrow until 8pm (with trains "weaving around the affected area") when the line will again shut for permanent repairs to be carried out, and services between will be bustitued until Sunday
Source: http://www.facebook.com/londonmidlanduk/posts/458024804270581
A full timetable will operate tomorrow until 8pm (with trains "weaving around the affected area") when the line will again shut for permanent repairs to be carried out, and services between will be bustitued until Sunday
Source: http://www.facebook.com/londonmidlanduk/posts/458024804270581
westcoaster
Established Member
Was speaking to someone yesterday who said that both the radlett and st neots dewirements were caused by the same faulty component from the same batch.
asylumxl
Established Member
Thanks for that.
Is NR going to take any action against the manufacturer, considering all the costs they'll have incurred due to the components.
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