What's going on (or not) on GA?

[captainbigun]

We will be well rid of the Dusty bins inc the Renatus examples soon. We also give out copious amounts of bottled water day in day out with no expense spared. Stadler are hoping for huge U.K. Orders & makes me think they are pulling out all the plugs on the GA fleets.

Where’s the water?!! I’ve yet to see a bottle.

As, for Stadler....not sure, time will tell. Not sure I see huge orders. Siemens/Alstom, Hitachi and Bombardier all have a political advantage and BREXIT will likely strengthen that.

 

[captainbigun]

For me & most of my friends & acquaintances that would be a definite no no. Who would be the one to not drink? You did say family day out though which I suppose involves children & would be very alien in my world.

That’s what Uber is for!!

That aside, they need the commuters. Without those off peak fares will soon ratchet.

 

[dk1]

Where’s the water?!! I’ve yet to see a bottle.

As, for Stadler....not sure, time will tell. Not sure I see huge orders. Siemens/Alstom, Hitachi and Bombardier all have a political advantage and BREXIT will likely strengthen that.

Seriously? It's got so bad the regulars expect it. We have staff booked on purely to fill trains. I'm sick to death of having case after case in my cab. Where do my knees go when sitting secondmans side??

 

[dk1]

That’s what Uber is for!!

That aside, they need the commuters. Without those off peak fares will soon ratchet.

Uber?? I never use taxis unless the company pays & then detest it.

 

[captainbigun]

Seriously? It's got so bad the regulars expect it. We have staff booked on purely to fill trains. I'm sick to death of having case after case in my cab. Where do my knees go when sitting secondmans side??

Bins and desiros for me..... no sign of water.

Back cab?!

 

[dk1]

Bins and desiros for me..... no sign of water.

Back cab?!

Wow!! You should be more Intercity/local. We drown in the stuff.

 

[captainbigun]

Typical.....

 

[dave75]

It was pretty shocking tonight from Liv St. Only 4 carraige trains instead of 12, v.v.slow between Stratford & Romford in packed non air con trains. Given the # Chelmsford/Witham commuters, no effort seemed 2 be made to run shuttle services 2 CHM/Witham when Colchester was closed 4 5+ hours........& the classic no communication in heart of the rush hour......

 

[86246]

Norwich bound services are running through the area but with delays of over 100 minutes. BBC Look East reporting that the disruption is likely to continue into tomorrow.

Reminds me when I was trying to travel through Colchester on the night when some arsonists set fire to a stabled 312 at the station. They done a good job of wrecking the signals as well.

 

[stuart81]

This non stop GA bashing is getting rather boring

 

[F Great Eastern]

The new units will be painful and any claim otherwise is barking. Stadler have no UK experience. This purchase is using an inexperienced rosco who have missed some key questions. See axle weight, turn around times and a few other bits. Added to this the fleet will have to turn imperious availability to avoid cancellation. Having a such a thin fixed length fleet may transpire to be folly.

Then there’s the ongoing fiasco that’s the Aventura. They are proving to be utterly awful.

As for the aircon issues, 30 deg C should be well within operating spec. It’s not particularly hot for this country. It should work whether there’s one hot day or 30. Exited a 379 this evening, whole unit blowing hot air.

And to make it all worse the person in charge of engineering took his first job in the Rail Industry in Greater Anglia and in the last year or so has saw the availability of pretty much every class of rolling stock in the franchise decline to the point where it's possible that not far south of 100 trains a day can be short formed.

The management team is full of people who have lots of experience with bids and commercial knowledge but very short on people who have had to implement the projects of the size that they are putting in place to replace all of the fleet. That's got to be worrying.

I'd love to say I have confidence in GA since they've done some excellent things in their first few years, but the current service is about as bad as it has been, I just keep hoping it's a genuine decision to cut back on maintenance for departing stock at present.

I hope that the 114 seat Bombardiers are not as packed as I fear they will be and the FLIRTS will have better leg-room than I fear. But my biggest fear is that they are going to have teething problems and they don't have the experience or expertise to handle situations that will crop up. Couple that with one type of stock that's known to have issues and another that's brand new to the UK and if it goes wrong, it could go very wrong.

I am sure some consultant will earn a nice sum if it all goes wrong though!

 

[LAX54]

Norwich bound services are running through the area but with delays of over 100 minutes. BBC Look East reporting that the disruption is likely to continue into tomorrow.

Reminds me when I was trying to travel through Colchester on the night when some arsonists set fire to a stabled 312 at the station. They done a good job of wrecking the signals as well.

Think this was much the same result, as far as I know the fire started OFF Railway land, but spread very very quickly, as many will know the Fire Station is only about 100 yards away ! still took over 2 hours to get fire out, only then were Rail Staff allowed access to see the damage

 

[321446]

This non stop GA bashing is getting rather boring

To be fair, after the events on Monday GA deserve the flack. I’m staff so usually leap to defend them. Not today. I have never seen so many angry people. People were that angry they were quiet. It was appalling standing on a platform waiting for my next train and not be able to offer much more than “I’m really sorry, I sympathise but I know nothing” Made me look a right font of knowledge that did.

Complaining to management is useless “Well the thing is, there’s only 2peopke in Control...blah blah bla” After every Complete Horlics our internal communication is full of “we will form a working group to see what we can do better”

All the staff keep telling them to communicate. They give us tablets and phones but then don’t use them to pass out anything useful.

Shuttle service level Emergency planning should be bought in as soon as service degraded past a certain level. All the staff below management see it.

Pathetic.

 

[eastdyke]

Complaining to management is useless “Well the thing is, there’s only 2peopke in Control...blah blah bla” After every Complete Horlics our internal communication is full of “we will form a working group to see what we can do better”

All the staff keep telling them to communicate. They give us tablets and phones but then don’t use them to pass out anything useful.

Perhaps Control had nothing to communicate waiting for others, perhaps NR?
The reason for non-communication can be the 'caught in head-light syndrome' whereupon good news is always hoped for or expected imminently but doesn't materialise. So rather than put out more of the same there is simply silence?
I've always found front line GA staff to be excellent. Luckily never been caught in anything this bad though

 

[GB]

Shuttle service level Emergency planning should be bought in as soon as service degraded past a certain level. All the staff below management see it.

Pathetic.

The GE region (and I suspect other regions) do have laid out contingency plans for when large scale disruption of this nature happens. I don't have access to what each contingency plan actually means anymore but this incident was manged under plans "GE22" and "GE33". The location and nature of incident/disruption determines what plan or plans is used (or attempt to use) but as the situation is usually fluid, its difficult to manage when you have freights stuck everywhere or trains don't have crew.

 

[Z12XE]

GE22 Full Line Blockage between Colchester and Manningtree
GE33 Full Line Blockage between Colchester and Colchester Town

 

[GB]

Thanks

 

[HLE]

Well I feel like I can comment on this thread(ish)

Travelled on GA today as a passenger, Yarmouth to Norwich and return. Bottled water available on both trips and a very apologetic guard on the return trip despite being only 7 mins late.

Good of them to offer bottled water on non air con trains. Never happens over in the Midlands.

Hats off to the drivers that work the 37’s - must be worse than a 153 cab in this heat!

 

[F Great Eastern]

Front line staff are and have always been excellent.

 

[Panupreset]

Totally agree with 321446's comments. Days like Monday are becoming far to frequent and disruption feels like the norm at the moment. The constant mods to diagrams and late finishes due to disruption and cock ups is starting to wear thin.
The lessons never seem to be learned but those of us on the front line are constantly told we have got to do better with keeping people informed and improve punctuality etc etc
One thing I think that might help is robustness or diagrams. In general on GE, it seems diagrams are either all mainline work or a mix of mainline and branch line. So you might do a double London, then pass to branch line, pnb, one on the branch. Or one London, pnb, pass and three on a branch. This means when the mainline goes belly up, you get displaced and then the branch lines get affected too. It would seem better to have diagrams that were exclusively mainline or branchline, so if one or the other gets affected crews don't get displaced so as to affect the service elsewhere.

 

[Pugwash]

Well I feel like I can comment on this thread(ish)

Travelled on GA today as a passenger, Yarmouth to Norwich and return. Bottled water available on both trips and a very apologetic guard on the return trip despite being only 7 mins late.

Good of them to offer bottled water on non air con trains. Never happens over in the Midlands.

Hats off to the drivers that work the 37’s - must be worse than a 153 cab in this heat!

The Trouble is the majority of passengers i.e. class 321 users do not see this, we see lots of short formed trains and cancellations, with no room to move through the carriages and no free water and no staff on trains or at stations when things go wrong.

 

[LAX54]

You cannot forsee a fire, and a severe fire at that, with the line closed from Colchester to Ipswich, GA are at the mercy of Coach Operators to turn up, the chances of getting enough RRB's are pretty slim.
As far as I know the fire started off railway property and spread quickly, the Fire Station 100 yards away, still took 2 hours to get it out, or nearly out, only then can an assessment be made of the damage caused, which was it turns major, then to set up TBW also takes time to implement.

 

[F Great Eastern]

The Trouble is the majority of passengers i.e. class 321 users do not see this, we see lots of short formed trains and cancellations, with no room to move through the carriages and no free water and no staff on trains or at stations when things go wrong.

Short forms are happening pretty much franchise wide over all types of rolling stock.

 

[Shunter_69]

You cannot forsee a fire, and a severe fire at that, with the line closed from Colchester to Ipswich, GA are at the mercy of Coach Operators to turn up, the chances of getting enough RRB's are pretty slim.
As far as I know the fire started off railway property and spread quickly, the Fire Station 100 yards away, still took 2 hours to get it out, or nearly out, only then can an assessment be made of the damage caused, which was it turns major, then to set up TBW also takes time to implement.

The site of the fire was a small piece of land between the Clacton single line and the Up Mainline.

No matter how close the Fire Brigade were it is an awkward place to get to. I expect that took more time than actually dealing with the fire as it’s not a huge site.

With the bushes and ground there being very dry, it wouldn’t have taken very long to establish itself.

I’m not sure how anyone can blame NR or GA for this.

 

[vinnym70]

I don't blame GA for the fire. But I will happily blame them for the train that broke down outside Ilford depot making life much worse the other evening and their lack of comprehension that their contingencies really weren't working on the day -

The GA commuter population is thoroughly fed up with the short forms that have been going on for months now. The hot weather has made matters worse with planned speed restrictions and cancellations and, further, the lack of working or effective air-con on trains that actually have it.

Right now the service is close to the worst I can remember it being.

 

[AndrewE]

I blame them for not being able to run at all north of Ipswich, Cambridge or even Ely after a problem "the Manningtree side of Colchester!"

 

[Shunter_69]

I don't blame GA for the fire. But I will happily blame them for the train that broke down outside Ilford depot making life much worse the other evening and their lack of comprehension that their contingencies really weren't working on the day -

The GA commuter population is thoroughly fed up with the short forms that have been going on for months now. The hot weather has made matters worse with planned speed restrictions and cancellations and, further, the lack of working or effective air-con on trains that actually have it.

Right now the service is close to the worst I can remember it being.

You’ve obviously forgotten how bad it was under NXEA.

 

[Why]

Amazingly i had quite a positive experience in the end on Monday.

Went for my annual train day from Chelmsford to North Norfolk Railway at Sheringham.
GA ticket £11 each way, i thought a cracking deal
10.07 out and 18.50 returning from Sheringham.

• Got to sheringham at 18.30 to find was cancelled on the platform screen (RTT said it was running and at Cromer ... then disappeared !!)This meant missing the 20.00 from Norwich home.

• Next train Sheringham train 19.50. This duly came an departed on time only to be held at North Walsham awaiting the line to Norwich that i believe was occupied by another service.

• Got into Norwich to see the tail light of the 21.00 to Chelmsford disappear into the distance.
• Next train 22.00 .... came up delayed 16 mins ....then cancelled.

I then went into the GA customer office who without any hesitation said sorry, we will organise a taxi to Chelmsford. About 45 mins wait before the taxi arrived and home by 23.45.
Was told by the taxi driver that GA spend around £17,000 on taxis with his company alone over a year.

Nice day at NNR, Weybourne the filming of the Royal Train for Dads Army is a cracking station

 

[dk1]

Was a pretty good morning peak today as far as GEML performance was concerned. I was early at both Stratford & Liverpool Street. Been a while since I received so many greens

 

[F Great Eastern]

You’ve obviously forgotten how bad it was under NXEA.

NXEA were far worse operator overall, that I agree.

However I can't remember a situation where approaching 100 services a day could be short formed, across pretty much every single route there is and every type of stock.