A bad week for South Eastern

Not a good week for SouthEastern, at least for me, with disruption almost every day.

Monday was fine, but on Tuesday we got as far as Paddock Wood only to be told that we were being diverted to Victoria.   Inconvenient as I had a 9am meeting and instead of arriving at London Bridge at 8.15, we got to Victoria at 8.40 and then it was a slow and crowded trip on the tube back to London Bridge.   What surprised me was that the 'live running information' continued to say we were expected at Cannon Street 'on time', even after we gt to Victoria

Wednesday was more problematic as I had an 8.30 meeting so I was annoyed when I checked just before leaving home to find that the 6.42 had been cancelled.   I hurriedly got the car out and drove to Ashford.   Getting there's not too bad, but coming home through Ashford at peak hour is very slow.   So another claim on 'delay repay'.

Thursday was even more tight as I was flying from Heathrow to Dublin and really needed the trains to run to time.   After two disrupted days I thought the chances were good but was shocked to check and find the 0642 was cancelled again!  This caused me some concern and I decided to go down to the station in any case and get the Canterbury train to see if I could pick up the High Speed there.   Chris, another regular was also at the station.   He hadn't bothered to check times and was dismayed when I told him the train was cancelled and double checked his phone - which said the same thing.   The platform indicator said 'on time', but we place little reliance on that as we know it is accurate as much by chance as anything else.

But the signal was green and while we were standing there waiting for the Canterbury train, we saw lights coming down the track from Canterbury.   And there came the 6.42, which turned up, amazingly enough, 'on time'.

Which was all well and good for me, but how many other people checked their Internet to find a message that it was cancelled.   And, as far as the internet was concerned, it remained 'cancelled' until at least 7.40, which was when I last checked.

If Thursday was a virtual disruption, Friday was not and was the climax to the week.

I had thought I was doing quite well.   My plane from Dublin had landed at Heathrow at 5.45, with a gate right where it left the runway.   So, given I had no passport check, it was just a brisk stroll to catch the 6.03 Heathrow Express.   Some fairly quick interchange work at Paddington meant that when I arrived at King's Cross I had 5 minutes to get from the Circle Line to platform 12 at St Pancras.   This is tight but not impossible and I just caught the 6.40 to Ashford.

When I saw the crowds on the platform at Ashford I knew something was wrong, but I thought luck might be with me as there came an announcement that the train would call at all stations to Ramsgate.   That should mean that I got to Chilham about an hour and three-quarters after my plane touched down - which is not bad.

But it was not to be.   We sat at Ashford for 15 minutes and then they said the train was cancelled.   Apparently there had been a lineside fire in the old car body works at Chilham and it was now believed that this involved gas cylinders, so the line was closed for the foreseeable.   Indeed, Tom subsequently told me he had heard a large explosion at about 7 and this clearly accounted for it.

I shared a taxi with three other guys going to Canterbury and we found the A28 was closed too, with all the traffic diverted up our lane.   This lasted until Saturday morning and there were no trains either - though this didn't prevent the website from saying that the trains were expected 'on time'.   To be fair they also showed bus times an I'm glad I didn't wait for one.

Belgian - no, London - waffle

A postscript to my sad trip to Bruxelles with Eurostar.   Eurostar have now told me that becasue my two and a haf hour delay was casued by a fatality on the line they are not liable and therefore no compensation.   Not even South Eastern would try that on.

Early Doors

Since the timetable change in December, my normal train in the morning leaves one minute later – at 0642 instead of 0641 – and arrives at Ashford two minutes later at 0656 instead of 0654.   Beyond Ashford there has been no change.   It also leaves Ramsgate 2 minutes earlier, at 0608 instead of 0610.

The 0641 was never a brilliant timekeeper, always two or three minutes late for no greatly apparent reason.   Not that the platform indicators would admit as much – always showing the train as running ‘on time’ whenever it actually left.

So the group of half a dozen us regulars would always be seen huddled around the various apps we have on our smartphones, comparing predictions as to how late the train would be today.   Somewhat surprisingly, they didn’t all match.   It didn’t really matter because the 3 minutes wait the train was scheduled for at Ashford, combined with an on-going schedule that is hardly challenging meant that the degree of lateness (if any) arriving at London Bridge bore little relationship to the degree of lateness arriving at Ashford.

Nevertheless, the new timetable promised the chance that the train would be more on time than in the past and this must, on principle, be a good thing.

And so it has turned out in practice.   We still all hudle around our apps because we don’t trust the platform indicator, but (more by chance than anything else) the indicator’s usual display of ‘on time’ has been shown to be more foten accurate.

The huddling around apps has, however, shown something else.   While our departure is now more usually actually on time, the usual departure time from Minster is shown as 2 or 3 minutes early, while the departure from Sturry is usually shown as 5 minutes early.   Now that might be true.   The times are, after all ‘automatically’ generated by the train’s progress.   If so, were I a passenger from Sturry I would be truly irritated about a train that regularly left 5 minutes early.   Early running is, after all, a cardinal sin.

Or it might not be true.   In which case what does this say about the ‘automatically generated’ times showing the train’s progress?  South Eastern has already admitted that the indicator on Chilham station platform is a work of fiction that crudely approximates to reality, so maybe the truth about reporting times is similar?   And, if so, where does this leave the last year performance figures that showed that South Eastern beat the threshold for season ticket discounts by 0.04%?⨪

Belgian Waffles

My recent experience on Eurostar suggests that I might be quite unfair in criticising South Eastern when other operators seem to have even greater problems.

The 7.28 from Ashford is due to get to Bruxelles at 1008 and it duly left on time and pulled up in Lille on schedule.   There we sat for a bit until the announcement came that there was a fatality in Belgium and we would be delayed until 1015 and then take a slower route.   That’s understandable and I expected to take the old route through Tournai and be, perhaps, 30-40 minutes late in Bruxelles.   I had plenty of time today going out so that didn’t really matter.

But we left at 10, on the LGV at speed and crossed the Belgian border at about 1010 before grinding to a halt alongside the conventional line near Silly (what an appropriate spot).   And there we sat for about 2 hours (moving two short distances) as we had conflicting announcements that we would arrive at 11.30, then 12.15, then 13.00.   Some of the announcements said we would transfer to the conventional line and some that we would stay on the LGV which would re-open.

And during this time we watched trains go past on the conventional line.   Not that many – the service from Ath to Bruxelles is only two an hour.   During the whole of the two hour delay SNCB managed to route only two trains in each direction between the old line and the LGV.

To be fair to Eurostar they continued to let us know what they knew – which wasn’t much and kept changing – and we got an extra cup of coffee!

Our final arrival in Bruxelles Midi – Two and a half hours late.   Compensation?   You will have to ask back in London, sir!

Robbing the Sick

I had to drive to William Harvey Hospital at Ashford (just visiting) on several days recently.   As with most hospitals these days, you ave to pay for the car park.   And almost without exeption, when I went to the machine to pay there was another driver muttering outrages about having to pay to park.

It beats me who they think should pay the costs of operating and maintauining the car park.   Should it come from patient care?   If not, from where?   Nothing is for nothing, but drivers, in particulalr, feel that they shouldn’t have to pay their full costs – or, indeed – in some cases, any costs.

Knickers in a Twist

Our normal train home had reached Sevenoaks where it seemed to stay for quite a time.   Then came the announcement that everyone feared – a problem on the line ahead so a delay – indefinite.

Actually it wasn’t too bad because we had another announcement about five minutes later telling us what had happened – though the content wasn’t to everyone’s liking.   Trespassers on the line at Pluckley meant that the line was closed.   We would be diverted via Swanley and Maidstone East (fine for those for Ashford and beyond) passengers for Tonbridge could take the adjacent Hastings train (OK for them) and passengers for stations between Tonbridge and Ashford should go to Tonbridge and wait for a bus (at least 30 minutes – not great).

So, good marks for some quick thinking and organisation.   As promised, the Hastings train lkeft a little later and, not much after that, we headed out backwards to Swanley via Otford.   I wasn’t quite sure why we couldn’t reverse there, but never mind that.   At least we were on the move.

And so, we got to Swanley and the driver got out to walk back along the train.   A little frisson as a stopping train to Sevenoaks pulled in at the adjacent platform.   Would they let that train out first meaning we would have to follow behind as it stopped everywhere?   But no, common sense prevailed and we left first.

But here, perhaps, common sense left us because the conductor then announced that the main line had re-opened so we would go back to Sevenoaks and on the normal route with normal stops.   So, a return to Sevenoaks, leaving there an hour late then a stop at Tonbridge.   I didn’t know why, as all the passengers for Tonbridge had been told to get off at Sevenoaks first time round.   Any passengers from Tonbridge would have got on the later train – now running in front of us.   It would have made more sense to run non-stop from Swanley to Ashford (by whichever route) as previously advised.

Common sense did return a bit at Tonbridge as we then ran non-stop to Ashford.  Well, I say non-stop, but of course we were now behind a stopping train so we stopped regulalrly only between stations rather than at stations.

Nobody had said anything about after Ashford but I had my suspicions as the website was saying that the Canterbury West portion had been cancelled.   So, I fully expected to get to Ashford to be told to get off and wait for another connection.   Clearly some change had been agreed because as we approached Ashford the conductor announced that the front half of the train would only go as far as Dover and not continue to Ramsgate as originally scheduled.   He repeated this as we came to a stand.

But this was not the view of the Ashford station announcer who said that the rear four coaches would, indeed, be terminated at Ashford and passengers for Canterbury should wait for the next train (which we had, in fact, overtaken at Headcorn).

So, as expected, we traipsed over from platform to platform 6 and waited the admittedly short time for the next train to appear.

Overall, the train I left London on had five changes of route in 90 minutes – and three in 30 minutes.   Probably every decision taken on its own was sensible but it gives no-one any confidence that anyone really knows what they are doing.   There are times when you should just get a plan and stick to it.