There were clearly already problems because this service was
to be started from London Bridge, the inbound service clearly having arrived
too late to go up to Charing Cross and back.
This isn’t too much of an inconvenience if you know about it – though
not if you turn up at Charing Cross only two or three minutes before departure.
In this case it wouldn’t really have mattered because we
were 5 minutes late leaving London Bridge, in any case but I was prepared to be
up to 30 minutes late and so it turned out.
The conductor on the train was excellent, keeping everybody
informed about progress and making it clear where he had no information and
where he was just relaying what he had been told. After we left Tonbridge, by this time 35
minutes late, he even ensured the catering trolley offered everyone free drinks
(though there wasn’t ,much left by the time they got down to me).
So far, so good, and I was prepared to write a very
complimentary piece about South Eastern as a result. However, Ashford control then stepped
in. Readers of previous entries will
know that Ashford control has a tendency to make off the cuff decisions which
normally involve people having to get off trains for no obvious significant benefits
to anyone except themselves.
As we sat in Ashford station there came an announcement
saying that the train would now run fast to Canterbury West, instead of
stopping at Wye, Chilham and Chartham.
This would save about 5 minutes, I estimated.
And when was the next train to Chilham? Another 35 minutes as that train was running
even later than the one I was on, making me 70 minutes late home. And could they stop the high speed? No they couldn’t. I even rang the customer service desk to see
if they could be persuaded to stop the high-speed at Chilham, but, after
suggesting that I wrote in a letter to ask for it, they just hung up.
There were about 15 people travelling to the local stations
who were already 35 minutes late at Ashford and now had to wait an additional
35 minutes. Admittedly more were
travelling through to Canterbury and Ramsgate, but this move saved them only 5
minutes when they were already 35 minutes late. It was an absurd decision but of a piece
with Ashford control’s usual standards.
A more cynical explanation is that they thought that if they
ran fast from Ashford to Canterbury they could just get down to under 30 minutes
late and so would not have to pay delay-repay.
Admittedly they would end up paying twice as much to the people wanting
to go to the local stations, but there are fewer of them.
Needless to say this disruption did not feature on SouthEastern’s
twitter feed or on their website – which merely recorded ‘minor disruption’ on
the Ashford line.
There is a huge tendency on South Eastern to try and
minimise any disruption, either by not reporting it or by reporting it as
smaller than it actually is. Hence large
scale delays of 30 minutes or more are ‘minor disruptions’, many delays and
cancellations are not shown in the ‘live information’ and the forecast length
of delay is minimised. So, at Ashford,
waiting for 35 minutes, the train was initially reported as 18 minutes late,
then 25 minutes late and then 28 minutes late, when looking at its progress it
was clear it was 35 minutes late all the time. Such deceit helps no-one and only leads to
regular travellers just not trusting anything that South Eastern says.⨪
