What's wrong with Wimbledon?

[Wombat]

I'm currently on the delayed 19:54 from Waterloo to Epsom. The delay is unsurprising because the line goes through Wimbledon, and Wimbledon seems to be strangely prone to failure.

This isn't a recent revelation, but things have been particularly grim in the last couple of weeks, to the extent that I don't think I've had a single journey that has suffered only the "standard" delay on this line. Bear in mind that it's only spring, we haven't yet arrived at the summer months where the network falls over as a matter of course.

Just arriving at Clapham Junction, 17 minutes after our late departure from Waterloo. My wife is at the restaurant in Stoneleigh, looks like she'll be waiting a while.

Anyway, I find it genuinely hard to imagine anyone defending this sort of performance with a straight face. I'm a relaxed kind of guy but I have now had enough. What I'd appreciate knowing is: what's the problem, whose fault is it and what is being done to fix it? My MP is Grayling, so if the problem is under-investment in network rail I can make an appointment to give him some grief. Which won't make any practical difference, of course, but it will make me feel slightly better.

Sorry, this has become more ranty than I intended. But I really am fed up and would like to apply whatever pressure I can, however fruitless it might be.

 

[NSE]

People here will defend the railway and rightly so to be honest (this is a railway forum after all ). I get what you’re saying, as I commute daily with SWR (on a train right now) and pass through Wimbledon up to 2/3 times a day, but in all honesty they can’t always help the delays. Things like points and signals are not maintained or oven operated by them, so when it goes wrong it’s like blaming you, the car driver, for potholes. I get it’s annoying, I’m lucky, I generally need stations that still have a high frequency so it doesn’t usually matter where the train ultimately goes. But in short, there’s not much they can do.

 

[DelW]

The OP didn't actually mention SWR, he asked what the problem is, and who should be fixing it, to which the answers may be 'infrastructure' and 'Network Rail' respectively.

It does seem that delays have been much worse since last summer's blockade, and that much of that has been down to track and signalling issues.

Of course a few years ago we were told that the NR/SWT Alliance would fix such issues - until that all fell apart a couple of years later.

 

[TEW]

The reason for the daily delays through Wimbledon in the peak is simple, the timetable is no longer fit for purpose. Even on a day when nothing goes wrong, you are very lucky to be on time. The timetable is basically the same as in 2004, and the huge growth in passenger numbers since then means it no longer really works. Trains cannot reliably keep to the timetabled timings on the section between Raynes Park and Waterloo. That may only be 10 or 15 seconds, but when trains are running every 3 minutes for the whole peak that can soon build up, so that by the end of the peak, pretty much every day, 5 minute delays are standard performance.

 

[AM9]

... What I'd appreciate knowing is: what's the problem, whose fault is it and what is being done to fix it? My MP is Grayling, so if the problem is under-investment in network rail ...

Well if you were told what the problem was and how much investment was needed, - (not just for the bits that you want but enough to satisfy every other disgruntled passenger), the question back to you would be: how do you want to pay for it? - in your opinion, would it be

increased fares,
higher taxes,
cuts to other public funding (NHS, Education, Pensions and benefits, Roads etc.,)?​

In other words, ultimately, enough money (and time) could solve all the problems that rail travel has. - Then a more sensible conversation could commence rather than just seeking to blame somebody else for your inconvenience. The next problem would be, who in an election would vote for it?

I am no apologist for Grayling, the Conservative party, the government or anybody except myself but as long as the electorate doesn't answer the question as to how they want to pay for it, the situation will go on.

 

[Wombat]

Sorry for yesterday's rant. I'm feeling calmer this morning, though I'd still like to get to the bottom of this.

I didn't intend to point the finger at SWR (even though, irrationally, I would like to). I'm very accustomed to the routine delays to which TEW refers, which are the "standard delays" that I mentioned in my opening post. Of the additional problems over the last couple of weeks, from memory, one was due to a broken-down train and the rest were track and signalling faults. From what I can tell, there appear to be two problems:

The major problem is that infrastructure at Wimbledon seems to be very fragile. I can't speculate on why that is in any sort of informed manner - perhaps it's a complicated layout that doesn't attract sufficient budget for that complexity? I am guessing wildly. All I know is that over the last few years, Wimbledon has featured surprisingly frequently as the location of various infrastructure failures.

The minor problem is that when failures occur, nobody seems to know what the impact will be. Sometimes that's entirely reasonable - I don't expect anyone to know how long it will take to fix a given fault before they've had a chance to look at it properly. But if, say, trains are obliged to run slowly over a particular section of track (as happened a few days ago) I'm surprised that it's not possible to model the impact on the service. Again, I don't claim to be an expert, but as a layman it seems that there's a culture of "oh well, stuff happens, what can you do, there will probably be a train running at some point".

 

[Wombat]

the question back to you would be: how do you want to pay for it? - in your opinion, would it be
increased fares,
higher taxes,
cuts to other public funding (NHS, Education, Pensions and benefits, Roads etc.,)?

Yes

I mean, you seem to be endorsing my speculative theory of fragile infrastructure due to underinvestment (and apologies if I'm misunderstanding you). In which case, yes, I'm happy to pay more in fares and taxes to have a functional rail network. Would I be happy to pay enough? Well I have no idea, because I don't know how much it will cost. If it adds 50p a day to my ticket then yes, if it adds £50 then no. If Grayling were to say "Yes, we can fix Wimbledon and it will cost £100bn, and if re-elected the government will/won't spend that money" then we can vote accordingly as you suggest. You say that the electorate isn't answering the question of how to pay for infrastructure fixes, but as far as I can tell we're not being asked the question in the first place.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

I am no apologist for Grayling, the Conservative party, the government or anybody except myself but as long as the electorate doesn't answer the question as to how they want to pay for it, the situation will go on.

Voting patterns in the past fifty years indicate strongly that most of the electorate do not want to pay for it though taxation.

 

[Cavan]

Well if you were told what the problem was and how much investment was needed, - (not just for the bits that you want but enough to satisfy every other disgruntled passenger), the question back to you would be: how do you want to pay for it? - in your opinion, would it be

increased fares,
higher taxes,
cuts to other public funding (NHS, Education, Pensions and benefits, Roads etc.,)?​

In other words, ultimately, enough money (and time) could solve all the problems that rail travel has. - Then a more sensible conversation could commence rather than just seeking to blame somebody else for your inconvenience. The next problem would be, who in an election would vote for it?

I am no apologist for Grayling, the Conservative party, the government or anybody except myself but as long as the electorate doesn't answer the question as to how they want to pay for it, the situation will go on.

This a good post and should be read by all rail "fantasists" before they ask, "why is?", "why don't TOCs/NR do this?"

 

[Mikey C]

Well if you were told what the problem was and how much investment was needed, - (not just for the bits that you want but enough to satisfy every other disgruntled passenger), the question back to you would be: how do you want to pay for it? - in your opinion, would it be

increased fares,
higher taxes,
cuts to other public funding (NHS, Education, Pensions and benefits, Roads etc.,)?​

In other words, ultimately, enough money (and time) could solve all the problems that rail travel has. - Then a more sensible conversation could commence rather than just seeking to blame somebody else for your inconvenience. The next problem would be, who in an election would vote for it?

I am no apologist for Grayling, the Conservative party, the government or anybody except myself but as long as the electorate doesn't answer the question as to how they want to pay for it, the situation will go on.

I suppose another more controversial option, would be to reallocate existing railway expenditure, so that the Wimbledon issues (for example) get solved at the expense of another part of the network...

To an extent that's how politics works, a major controversy erupts, politicians are under pressure to do something, and money is found. Similarly, rail expenditure can be reallocated to deal with hot potatoes...

 

[Astradyne]

Voting patterns in the past fifty years indicate strongly that most of the electorate do not want to pay for it though taxation.

A given all the griping in January when the fares go up ... saying you make the passengers pay is not going to be a big vote winner either!

 

[AM9]

I suppose another more controversial option, would be to reallocate existing railway expenditure, so that the Wimbledon issues (for example) get solved at the expense of another part of the network...

To an extent that's how politics works, a major controversy erupts, politicians are under pressure to do something, and money is found. Similarly, rail expenditure can be reallocated to deal with hot potatoes...

Apart from the results of local public pressure being directly related to both the pinfluence of the local MP and the level of political embarassment that his/her inaction may cause, anybody in a democracy must understand that limited resources may not address what they personally see as their highest priority. So a commuter on a platcomplaints about class form waiting for a SW Railway train may be further down the queue for attention than for example those saying that class 800 seats are too hard.

 

[infobleep]

The reason for the daily delays through Wimbledon in the peak is simple, the timetable is no longer fit for purpose. Even on a day when nothing goes wrong, you are very lucky to be on time. The timetable is basically the same as in 2004, and the huge growth in passenger numbers since then means it no longer really works. Trains cannot reliably keep to the timetabled timings on the section between Raynes Park and Waterloo. That may only be 10 or 15 seconds, but when trains are running every 3 minutes for the whole peak that can soon build up, so that by the end of the peak, pretty much every day, 5 minute delays are standard performance.

Given the new timetable from December is about increasing the number of trains, I'm not sure it will get resolved. More trains will just run delayed and have stops removed on which ever bit of their service is the the last used by passengers. So this might be it's return journey.

We could simply accept this is the case and it needs to be for economic reasons but I doubt anyone would want to publicly say that.