Infrastructure problems in Thames Valley causing disruption elsewhere - ongoing, since Oct 2014

[whole diary]

[thetrout]

NickB....no, you're paying for 5xdaysx52 weeks of travel, less public holidays.

Just so I am clear in my head with this Chris B. Are you saying that by paying for 40 weeks out of 52 weeks. Those additional 12 Weeks of 'free travel' that the Railway is not obliged to for-fill its contract in getting the passenger from A - B? Also to renegade on offering compensation for significant delays?

Not sure I can agree with that. NickB is entirely right to say "I expect compensation if the trains are timetabled to run and they don't" What you seem to be suggesting is that passengers who travel on Weekends / Bank Holidays are not entitled to compensation if everything goes horribly wrong?!!

Maybe I've read too much into that. But if we take a different approach here. What about those who use their season tickets to get to work to serve us Sunday Lunches who work Wednesday - Sunday inclusive? Why should they be held at disadvantage because they have their weekend on Mondays and Tuesdays?

I hold a season ticket and will be required to work Saturdays every so often. If the train gets me to Bristol over an hour late. I would expect to be entitled to compensation.

Day of the week is irrelevant in my view. Whether you hold a CDS^▸ (Off Peak Day Single [ticket type] (formerly 'Cheap Day')), FOR, Season Ticket. If trains are advertised to run as per a timetable. If they do not, then rightly so you should be able to seek redress.

[JayMac]

And let's not forget that those Season Ticket holders who travel with TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) that have the 'Delay Repay' scheme get compensated for every delayed journey, regardless of the day of the week or purpose of the journey. For an annual Season Ticket you divide the price by 546 for a single journey price, then are awarded 50% of that price for a delay of 30-59 minutes, 100% for 60-119 minutes, and 200% for 120+ minutes.

[grahame]

Alterations to services between London Paddington and Reading Due to over-running engineering works between London Paddington and Reading some lines are closed.
Impact:
Train services running to and from these stations may be delayed by up to 15 mins or revised. Disruption is expected until 09:00 28/12.
Customer Advice:
First Great Western ticket holders may use their tickets on London Underground and / or local TfL^» (Transport for London - about) bus services in the area.
Additional Information:
Please note that customers holding tickets dated for travel on the 27th December on First Great Western routes affected by this problem may use those tickets to travel today on Sunday 28th or Monday 29th December instead.

My bolding. Updated 23:48.

[ChrisB]

See post #554 previously for a quote that sers out current compensation.

It is rumoured that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) are moving to Delay Repay in the new franchise, we'll have to wait & see.

Now 0915 with further updates promised

[grahame]

TV this morning talks about old people in their 80s and 90s with luggage and families with children being stranded for hours, though main focus is on King's Cross.   Is that because that was a worse (more people) mess, a worse (more cancellations) mess, or because signalling and system failures and overruns don't happen often there and are more newsworthy?

Talk too of the Office of Rail Regulation fining Network Rail, and of Network Rail having to pay compensation to the Train Operating Companies.   Talk of further disruption today (and indeed I see London to Hayes and Harlington trains starting at Ealing Broadway), and that tickets from yesterday are valid today and tomorrow, so trains are expected to be very busy.

Yesterday was an incredibly busy day on the forum - 125 posts.   As we were open on Christmas day and Boxing day, that wasn't caused by people having to put off their contributions - I suspect it was the lift that we see when things aren't going quite right.   To give you a 'measure', average daily traffic somewhere in the 60 to 65 messages range.  Figures have only been higher this year on 11th and 12th February (178 and 151), and on 6th October it went just higher to 127.

[bobm]

Ironically I think the main focus has been on Kings Cross because the problems were signposted by the announcement on Boxing Day that the work was not running to plan.  That allowed the news crews and photographers to make plans to get there and see the disruption.  The problems at Paddington unfolded on Saturday morning and while they did receive some coverage later on, the focus was on Kings Cross because that's where the pictures were coming from.

[TonyK]

Ironically I think the main focus has been on Kings Cross because the problems were signposted by the announcement on Boxing Day that the work was not running to plan.  That allowed the news crews and photographers to make plans to get there and see the disruption.  The problems at Paddington unfolded on Saturday morning and while they did receive some coverage later on, the focus was on Kings Cross because that's where the pictures were coming from.

In Scotland, at least, they were warned of Kings Cross, the truth being in the caption:

[TaplowGreen]

When all the petty arguments, semantics and point scoring have died down, there needs to be a fundamental examination of the offering given by FGW^▸ (First Great Western) to its customers at the moment and going forward.......yesterday the rail industry as a whole failed utterly and dismally - no ifs, buts, blaming each other as to who did what to who etc.....what matters is that tens of thousands of customers were let down.....again - this seems to be overlooked in the battle to apportion blame to NR^» (Network Rail - home page) etc.

It seems that every year at Christmas, when demand for long distance travel is at its highest, overcrowding is endemic, reliability lowest, services do not match customer demand (I won't revisit the Boxing Day issue here but clearly it needs to be explored and addressed), and above all, engineering works, which we are promised will make all the difference, overrun and cause chaos, albeit not to the extent of yesterday's meltdown.

For the last 3 months, since early October the level of service offered by FGW which is normally inconsistent at best has been unacceptable - there have been individual days when things have virtually ground to a halt, and hardly a day goes by without increasing levels of signal failures, non availability of staff, mechanical failure etc etc causing cancellations, delays and short formations......all this against a background of rising fares, overcrowding etc - customers are being asked to pay more for a deteriorating service.

Hopwood and his senior cohorts seem to be virtually invisible - aside from the occasional feeble apology and soundbite - any senior manager worth his salt would be visibly and extensively all over the other organisations causing  problems for his customers - he seems like a bit of a mushroom.

Alongside this the whole customer ethos has to change - aside from pockets of excellence, there is a general air of indifference, lack of information/communication and sense that the organisation is run largely for the benefit of those within it rather than its customers (admittedly not unusual for large public/quasi public sector monopolies) - the Business needs to fit around the needs of its customers, not the other way around, and there needs to be a reassessment of the sense of entitlement amongst a lot of the staff.

There needs to be an honest examination and explanation of the level of service that can be offered over the next few years before we reach (what we are told) is the holy grail of new rolling stock etc - expectations need to be managed and priced accordingly, if FGW care at all about its brand and its customers perception of it.

Some of this will get peoples backs up - tough - its nothing personal but its my perception based on my experience as a long term paying customer, it's up to FGW to turn my opinion around by providing a service worthy of the name, in return for the thousands of ^ that I and countless others hand over on a regular basis.

I hope that Hopwood, NR etc are sat down in front of a select committee and publicly given an almighty bollocking and instructions to come up with a recovery plan very, very quickly.....I can't see anything else that will catalyse a swift improvement, other than pegging their salaries to customer satisfaction/performance figures which may have a similar effect!!!

[Worcester_Passenger]

Yesterday (Saturday 27th), we got to Paddington at about 10:50, intending to catch the 11:06 back to Worcester, due into Foregate Street at 13:44.

I have to say that customer service at Paddington was really good. A lot of people in hi-vis jackets, who had spread out, which meant that there wasn't a queue. They were very apologetic. They'd got an empty station to point to. Their suggestion for Worcester was that we go to Marylebone and go round via Birmingham.

Too much luggage for that, so we retired upstairs into Sloe to wait and see. We'd got plenty of Christmas books, so waiting wasn't a problem. Downside about being in Sloe is that you can't hear the PA^▸ (Public Address), so from time to time we went off to find out what was going on.

Each time the same thing - very apologetic, very courteous, but we don't know when we may be able to get things going again. Meanwhile, Marylebone is our best suggestion. It probably helped that they'd got an empty station to point to, and that their basic message was to go somewhere else. I'm sure that that meant that the crowds didn't build up in the way that they did at Finsbury Park.

We cracked at about 13:10, and went off to Marylebone. Caught the 13:36 to Birmingham. Back at Foregate Street at 16:40.

Tried posting from the Chiltern train, but their WiFi is not very good.

[johoare]

Trains appear to be running ok from Maidenhead currently.. We have a half hour service which is the norm for a Sunday.. My son is going to have his second attempt this weekend at a day in London.. Hopefully he will be more successful this time

[BerkshireBugsy]

..snip..
I have to say that customer service at Paddington was really good. A lot of people in hi-vis jackets, who had spread out, which meant that there wasn't a queue. They were very apologetic. They'd got an empty station to point to. Their suggestion for Worcester was that we go to Marylebone and go round via Birmingham.
..snip..

Although I understand that service disruption and delays can and do cause frustration for passengers I'd like to commend WP on his objective comments regarding his own experience.

I'd also like to add that when I have been at Paddington and there have been major delays most of the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) staff on the ground are very helpful - I certainly wouldn't want their job at times

[Umberleigh]

..snip..
I have to say that customer service at Paddington was really good. A lot of people in hi-vis jackets, who had spread out, which meant that there wasn't a queue. They were very apologetic. They'd got an empty station to point to. Their suggestion for Worcester was that we go to Marylebone and go round via Birmingham.
..snip..

Although I understand that service disruption and delays can and do cause frustration for passengers I'd like to commend WP on his objective comments regarding his own experience.

I'd also like to add that when I have been at Paddington and there have been major delays most of the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) staff on the ground are very helpful - I certainly wouldn't want their job at times

FGW hi vis guy very helpful at Reading, announced that passengers for the Westcountry should take the Swansea train to Bristol Parkway.

 However the train manager on said train only made the standard announcements and no info on connections was offered, resulting in a lot if worried people. Finally she walked down the train after Didcot, but was in no mood for stopping, and I literally had to run after her. She gave me answers to all my questions, but still no announcement for everyone else. Very poor.

[phile]

There were a large number of traincrew shortages resulting in cancellation of trains, or legs of, so as a review of the whole picture as suggested this matter must be examined also.

[johoare]

Fingers crossed it's not going downhill again but the 21.15 from Paddington to Reading has just lost 20 minutes between Acton and Ealing Broadway..

[johoare]

According to National Rail (not made it onto journeycheck just yet)

"A signalling problem at Southall is causing delays of up to 30 minutes to services to and from London Paddington. There is no firm estimate yet of how long disruption will last but it is likely to continue until at least 22:30"