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Broken & Late Ltd: Britain's Railways

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    Greenguage 21 consultancy have knocked up a 20 year rail strategy. Middlesbrough would get a new bit of railway over the estuary to reduce time to Newcastle.



    Something similar suggested between Port Talbot to Swansea, which would effectively remove my station from the mainline.

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      Ooh, pretty please. I'm surprised there's nothing there for Sunderland, they're super badly connected to anywhere outside Tyneside. Then again maybe the idea is that everyone in the North East is expected to commute to Newcastle now or something.

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        I suppose they'd get more trains southwards with the extra HS2 capacity.

        Some positive news on the Northern front?

        https://www.manchestereveningnews.co...ivers-14755584

        Northern finally agree deal for drivers to work overtime - but why didn't they do it earlier?
        A pre-existing shortage of drivers has been exacerbated by the fact drivers were not working outside their contracted hours - a problem raised repeatedly over recent weeks

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          This is not unexpected.

          https://www.theguardian.com/business...-of-franchises

          Rail passenger numbers in the UK fell last year to 1.7bn in the biggest decrease since privatisation in the 1990s, casting fresh doubt on the viability of struggling franchises.

          According to figures published by the Office of Rail and Road, usage fell by 1.4% in the 2017-18 financial year, the first annual fall since 2009-10 and the biggest since 1993-4.
          The franchises have been good earners for the Treasury (even ones that make a net loss have likely cost the government less than running the service itself because the franchisees push the boundaries on fares more than the government would). But that model looks like it's not viable any more- the fares charged to pay for those franchises are keeping people off trains.

          I'm not impressed by the sort of talk you get from somein Labour- Andy Burnham is one of the worst- where TOCs (often "foreign owned state companies" who "subsidize their own country's fares") cop much more than their share of blame, but renationalizing screwed up franchises is a good policy. You do though also need a proper discussion of what the government should pay towards the cost of fares, or else this will bite them in the arse in power.

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            Connex Charlie's gone:

            https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-44497080

            Good riddance. Every franchise he's involved with turns into a complete shitshow.

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              I'd have preferred Grayling, but I'll take it.

              Meanwhile, TFL commissions Piccadilly line trains. With air conditioning, hallelujah.

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                Assembled in Yorkshire. Funny, I don't expect to hear the same fanfare we got about the "Boris Bus" being made in Britain. Or maybe we will, and Sadiq's "distracting from stabbings" or something.

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                  What's Lisa Nandy going on about? Sure, as MP for Wigan you'd not be very happy about hearing that there are people in government who see a train route through your constituency as "valueless".

                  But what's this got to do with the current timetable problems?

                  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...ester-44550682

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                    There is a real clusterfuck of deception in what has been revealed here, but both the press and the politicians have missed it.

                    Basically, the proposed timetable that Northern won their bid with was two fold.
                    1) Putting their most profitable (ie least loss making) services through the key Oxford Road corridor in Manchester.
                    2) Joining together services that previously terminated in Manchester from opposite directions.

                    Point number one potentially drives up revenue, but at the same time makes an absolute operational nightmare, as those services that now use the corridor have a succession of conflicting moves on flat crossings.
                    Point number two means you can run the same number of services but with a reduced amount of crew and trains, as they no longer have the down time as they turn round at terminus stations. However, this is an absolute disaster for robust operation, as a few minutes delay at Dewsbury, put the train out of path, it misses a succession of timetable slots on route, so is multiple minutes late by the time it arrives at Southport, and is therefore late on its return journey.

                    The e-mails refer to the services that used to go into the more favoured Oxford Road and Piccadilly stations, now going to Victoria, which is deemed secondary (yet is closer to the shopping area), so instead the message has been "you can now get directly to Brighouse". The tone of the message has taken the headlines, when actually the key scandal should be that no one from Hindley et al would ever want to go to Mirfield, and reliability has been shot to bits with the revised timetable.

                    I would say that Theresa May's handling of the timetable issues have been at best pathetic, and at worst none existant, completely leaving it to her close ally Grayling to take the shit, so expect a peerage for him in a few years. I had to deal personally with May (and Boris Johnson) during the 2006 GWR timetable issues, and she was an absolute nightmare. She just show boated to the press without ever understanding the quite basic issues, coming across to even the most ardent tories on the rail side, as an absolute fuckwit.

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                      Rail must be about the worst thing going for that sort of fuckwittery from MPs. So what's happened here is the DfT (with Treasury likely in the wings) trying to reduce the subsidy?

                      Is there any prospect of these flat junctions being rebuilt any time soon?

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                        The service has improved a fair bit since the introduction of the interim timetable. I also noticed, playing with the scheduler, an interesting change on my service (Lime Street to Victoria), they are introducing 2 services an hour in July...well chuffed with that, hope that interim last further than planned..

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                          Sunderland was cut off yesterday morning as the strike emergency timetable was further riven with cancellations.

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                            Crusoe's cross...

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                              Struggling on the new HST seats, I must say.

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                                Have thankfully avoided the timetable alterations til now- we had free scratch-off Virgin east Coast 'anywhere standard single' tickets, due to a disastrous air-con failure last summer.
                                Had been planning to use on a trip to Glasgow, so popped into central stn yesterday to check that 'LNER' would honour them: yes; but there are now no trains from Newcastle-Glasgow direct with VTEC/LNER. Fucking shite.

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                                  Don't Go West!

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                                    Originally posted by Gangster Octopus View Post
                                    Heh, I was on the platform wondering when I would be able to get on a fucking train. Didn't realise it was all kicking off outside AMT and WH Smith. It's the middle class revolution.

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                                      Originally posted by Walt Flanagans Dog View Post
                                      I'm in a fairly one sided battle with Virgin Trains over a Delay Repay claim from February. I made the claim the next day, from my phone on the return journey. The website requires you to upload a photo of your tickets to accompany your claim. However I had etickets, so I explained this and uploaded a screen shot. I got a reply a couple of weeks later saying I need to upload a photo of the tickets. I explained again I had etickets, and provided the booking references and eticket references.

                                      After a few weeks without reply, I made a complaint and got an email asking for a photo of the tickets. Explained again, provided the details, then nothing.

                                      Made another complaint, no reply. Have sent multiple emails using the claim reference number but they are all being ignored.

                                      I've made another complaint today.

                                      Where do I go next? I've looked at Transport Focus but they want to see the train company's response to the complaint before they pursue it? So if the train company never responds you can't ever escalate it?

                                      It's only £40 but I'm not giving up, out of principle.

                                      I know the moral of this story - if you book through Virgin directly you get the money back automatically, but that is restrictive practice in itself.
                                      Got there in the end. Whether it was the (roughly) 30th email, the fifth complaint, or the one in which I called them a f***ing disgrace I don't know but I got my £40 today. And two free return tickets for anywhere they serve, anytime. So that'll be a London trip in the autumn half term for me and daughter.

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                                        Fucking marvellous. There go my hopes of using the air conditioning on the Thameslink trains to survive the commute during summer.

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                                          It's official, they can't even manage the reduced timetable. Everything out of Cannon Street is delayed.

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                                            It's an absolute shit show. Currently on a rammed train out via Lewisham, which was massively delayed and is, effectively, a sauna on wheels. I'm heat sensitive at the best of times, this is fucking torture.

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                                              Starting to rack up the Delay Repay payments now. And if I've read the industry compensation page right, I'll be due a month's compensation in August under their new scheme (which if I can cash it in should be about £291).

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                                                Also applied for the compensation scheme, a month worth of ST, will do nicely...

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                                                  2 trains an hour London Bridge to Brighton on a Sunday is not enough.

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                                                    And as I learned this weekend, no direct Thameslink trains at all through London from Deptford. Have to change to get to Luton. Or King's Cross.

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