And on it goes
I really don’t intend to turn this blog into a parochial southeastern failure update, but how they manage to get worse every day is quite impressive right now. This morning – train cancelled, just like yesterday. This evening – 5.10pm train cancelled, and the next train on the Greenwich Line was running with 6 instead of 8 carriages, and the one after cancelled. That NEVER happened before I buggered off for 6 weeks. I’ve come back to a completely different service. Just what is happening?
Two points – Firstly the national rail live departure website now appears useless in the advance of southeastern’s shitness. 10 minutes before todays cancellation both this morning and afternoon showed no problems, as I’ve now taken to checking the site religiously. Same thing yesterday.
Second point – Southeastern now show carriage length on their display boards. The Greenwich Phantom had a post about that a couple of months ago wondering why it had gone, as it was commonplace under the state owned predecessor that ran trains before GoVia’s franchised ‘Southeastern railways’ arrived. It’s good that it’s back, but it’s aligned perfectly with every train running short. Still, good to know you’re going to have a shit journey 4 minutes before the train arrives, or doesn’t.
All in all the timing is very suspicious coming after Govia got a 2 year franchise extension. They keep blaming faulty trains. So why has half their trains packed up then at once? Is it because they have less staff to fix them? Or less drivers?
Hi Murky
And have you noticed that SE Trains no longer display the “London Connections” poster anywhere on their trains, only the SE Trains network map? Not a lot of use if you need to check your journey and it involves the tube, the DLR or any other train network serving London. I had to change my journey mid-way a while back and eventually had to get off the train and find a London Connections poster on a station. I complained about this to our friends at Southeastern and they told me that (in a nutshell) it “costs too much to keep updating the London Connections map on every carriage”. This, of course, really means “We have replaced useful and necessary information that passengers/tourists might need but which earns us nothing with adverts which earn us quite a lot of money thank you”. I took this up with the Passenger Consultative Committee who were very concerned and raised it with SEastern but were told “There is no statutory obligation on us to display maps or other information and you have no power to make us do so, so nyahh nyahh nyahh”.
Can’t say I’ve seen that as I’m normally just doing my set route. Pretty poor show not having the information. Today Southeastern have cancelled the 5.10 train. Yesterday the train I take wasn’t cancelled but the one before was, so it was dangerously overcrowded and some heated discussions were taking place. The train was short again.
I can’t believe how the service has fallen off a cliff. 7 weeks ago it was pretty much fine. This week and last not one day has been anywhere near acceptable. One thing I read earlier was that upon having their franchise extended in March they set about getting rid of more staff. Assuming that’s true and now beginning to bite they must have less depot staff which would explain the massive amounts of faulty trains. Also morale would be poor so exiting staff would have less incentive. That’s not confirmed though. Still, as they’ll be subsidised by the taxpayer I doubt they care about their service.