Storm Warnings

St Jude’s storm was the most severe storm in the South East for many years and the winds were especially strong in Kent.   So some form of disruption on Monday morning was inevitable.   Warnings started to be given on Saturday and by Sunday morning most of the train companies in the south had said there would be no trains before 9am.  SouthEastern did not say this but, rather later in the afternoon, said it was possible that trains on some lines would not start before 9am.

On Monday morning, therefore, my first call was to the SouthEastern website, which still gave the conditional message of the previous afternoon.   And, under train cancellations, it listed half a dozen trains to and from Sheerness, and nothing else.   Specifically it said no cancellations on the Ramsgate – Canterbury – Ashford line.

How naiive anyone would be to believe this as, much as expected, on the National Rail live departures site it showed every train before 0900 cancelled.   Far more believable, I thought.

As the morning wore on National Rail started to show a train at 0959 – a bit later than 9am but I suppose a 0930 start from Ramsgate just about counts.   I needed to get to the office so I got ready and drove down to the station.   At 0950 I checked again and the train was still running, albeit about 10 minutes late.  Along with half a dozen other aspiring passengers we waited for the train and about 1015 it appeared in the distance.   Only to run through the station without stopping!

I pressed the enquiries button who told me that there was disruption this morning (I might have missed this) and then said that it probably didn’t stop because the train was full.   On asking about the next train I was told it would be at 11, but they could not confirm whether or not that train would actually run or, if it did, whether it would actually stop at Chilham.   Pretty much worse than useless I thought.

As the day wore on I monitored the train and though South Eastern claimed to be running an hourly or half hourly service on all except a very few minor lines by early afternoon.   As is often the case, this was not true.   In fact no trains were going through Ashford at all except the high speed services to London, and they were not venturing east of Ashford either.  In fact, there were no trains running in East Kent at all until late in the evening when two trains came through from Charing Cross.

Once again SouthEastern has proved wholly incompetent and unreliable on the information front.   It is so dishonest that they publish optimistic statements which then are wholly unfulfilled