anti-pacer's observations on rail travel

[GrimsbyPacer]

Dont worry chriss, now Anti Pacer has discovered that TPEs trains leav Liverpool complete with full sacks of rubbish He'll be starting a thread soon entitled The State of Liverpool Bound 185s and having another moan.

With regard to the rubbish bags on TPE maybe they come off at iether the nearest TPE Managed station or the nearest one where they have iether an onboard cleaner or a service contracter based? ↲

If people aren't to talk about the state of trains and the railways this forum would be empty. Train cleaning is essential to the future of the railways, if all trains were dirty many would rather not travel.

On another note about those 185s, I think it's funny leaving the bin bags in 1st class.

 

[TOCDriver]

Cleaners are quite frequent on my services so I don't know where this topic has sprung from. 3 very hard working chaps travel between Bolton and Stockport very frequently

 

[Bodiddly]

Some people in general, are bone idle when it comes to litter. A litterer who normally has a clean house/car seems to think it is perfectly acceptable to leave their crap behind them when they leave the train because they expect their crap to be removed by an employee of the railway. Our Scotrail snack trolly bods will come through the train during the journey with a binbag and do their absolute best to collect all the rubbish. Sadly, some people still think it is ok to throw their crap under the seats where I find it when I am trying to carry out my maintenance.
Littering, as I have stated before in another thread, is a national disgrace and not confined to the railways and needs to be educated out of people.

 

[RAPC]

Try travelling DAILY on Northern!

I do and I have to say that with the exception of late night services from Manchester, I haven't experienced much in the way of dirty services, or trains that had a lot of rubbish on them. May be depot / area specific, but no complaints on that score for my daily commute at least.

 

[TOCDriver]

The good guards, and Northern do have quite a few of them, will go through the saloon between services and bin the rubbish.

 

[LowLevel]

EMT have cleaners at Lime Street and Norwich and the trolley hosts will usually go down and pick the easy stuff after Warrington. Otherwise a cleaner travels between Chesterfield and Nottingham. On the other routes there's cleaners based at Nottingham, Derby, St Pancras, Skegness and Lincoln. In an emergency you can get attention at Leicester and Sheffield too. As a conductor tidying of tabletop rubbish is in our terms but not down the sides of seats or on the floor. We don't get issued with any cleaning materials bar one small bag and a pair of silicon gloves for emergencies. I do my best but beyond cups and cans there's not much you can do and I don't touch the toilets bar to lock them out as I have nothing to clean them with.

To be fair while EMT is generally pretty presentable evening and weekend afternoon services can be as bad as any - if the previous load of animals have totally trashed the coach I just have to leave it as my little bag won't do the job.

 

[Starmill]

I get the strong impression that Northern's cleaning capacity isn't really sufficient. It has improved a little though, and people will always leave coffee cups, plastic bottles and cans and general debris behind. But the problem I have with, particularly 150 is ingrained dirt. Some of them are filthy in the corners, around the doors and where the ill-fitting buts of trim and patched up seat bases meet. This says nothing of 142s, some of which have fairly serious dust issues and smell mouldy. You can't expect litter pickers to deal with any of these issues. The pacer and (much more importantly, as none are going anywhere just yet) Sprinter fleet are maintained very badly and as such they look and feel dirtier than anywhere else. Some 156s and 153s on the East have had this problem fairly well sorted out through a reasonably good refurbishment though. The 158 should be the pride of the Northern DMU fleet, but they are not kept as well as their ATW and slightly less so EMT cousins. This makes smaller piles of litter seem worse.

 

[fowler9]

Well, Blindtraveller, I apologise for wanting to travel on clean trains. I mean, it's obviously wrong of me.

Tell me, do you ever eat out? If so, would you accept a table that had the remains of someone elses rubbish? Of course you wouldn't!

Northern have introduced more mobile cleaners as a result of low scores in a survey, as pointed out by another forum user. So us passengers can't all be wrong, even though it's fellow passengers causing the problem.

Sorry if you don't have the same standards of cleanliness as me, but accept some people want to travel on clean trains.

To be fair if I wanted to eat out I wouldn't include getting a take away and jumping on a Northern Rail service as being the luxury option. I accept that you want to travel on clean trains but I really haven't seen the scenes of carnage that you seem to have spotted.

 

[323235]

I do and I have to say that with the exception of late night services from Manchester, I haven't experienced much in the way of dirty services, or trains that had a lot of rubbish on them. May be depot / area specific, but no complaints on that score for my daily commute at least.

I too travel on Northern daily and we used to get a lot of rubbish deposited on seats but now we have the Manchester Piccadilly - Stockport travelling cleaners things are more pleasant. I was surprised to see one of them board my Buxton - Manchester service today, given I thought they perhaps didn't work Sundays.

 

[HowardGWR]

Just a thought this. Travelling through some city streets, I wonder just how many people actually ever cook at home, judging by the huge quantity of outlets. This could explain all the rubbish created.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Littering is a problem, but as I've said before, bins on trains are insufficient. Most trains have bins, but they are tiny little piddly things either wedged in a vestibule or between two seat backs. A couple of coffee cups and the bins are full, and you can't take it with you because there are no bins in the stations either. You need someone with a bin bag and some rubber gloves to go through the train and collect it. The good TOCs have this and the rubbish ones do not.

Sadly Northern Rail are a rubbish TOC, who will simply not do anything at all unless they are paid to do it or it is in their contract. That's why their trains are always full of rubbish and why their trains are tatty, with mismatching seat covers and battered old seat and wall panels.

 

[sprinterguy]

So how do EMT and LM manage it? Two of the other operators who operate out of your home town station, Liverpool Lime Street.

Plenty of abandoned cups, cans and newspapers on selected London Midland local services around the West Midlands by the end of the day. Not a majority by any means, but nor is it when I travel on Northern services.

I cannot quite get my head around your peculiar assertion that littering is endemic to the north of England. There's good and bad the country over.

I would also add however that, like starmill has said, the generally basic standard of upkeep of much of Northern's stock does not encourage passengers to help maintain train presentation when it is perceived that the operator has shown little effort in this area themselves.

 

[anti-pacer]

Plenty of abandoned cups, cans and newspapers on selected London Midland local services around the West Midlands by the end of the day. Not a majority by any means, but nor is it when I travel on Northern services.

I cannot quite get my head around your peculiar assertion that littering is endemic to the north of England. There's good and bad the country over.

I would also add however that, like starmill has said, the generally basic standard of upkeep of much of Northern's stock does not encourage passengers to help maintain train presentation when it is perceived that the operator has shown little effort in this area themselves.

Having lived all over this country, I can confidently tell you that the litter situation is worse in the North than it is in the Midlands, South and East.

I also think statistics from Keep Britain Tidy back this up too.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Having lived all over this country, I can confidently tell you that the litter situation is worse in the North than it is in the Midlands, South and East.

Then you've never been on a train down here either in the morning or evening peak. The morning peak sees trains littered with coffee cups and Metros, the evening peak sees plenty of sandwich wrappers and yet more coffee cups.

I see the cleaners go through my train home and they've normally got at least 1-2 big bags full of rubbish from an 8-car train.

 

[anti-pacer]

Then you've never been on a train down here either in the morning or evening peak. The morning peak sees trains littered with coffee cups and Metros, the evening peak sees plenty of sandwich wrappers and yet more coffee cups.

I see the cleaners go through my train home and they've normally got at least 1-2 big bags full of rubbish from an 8-car train.

I'm talking litter in general.

In fairness it's rare I'm on trains down there in peak hours, but at least your TOC cleans them.

Up here it does sound like things are better in the North West than here in Yorkshire.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I'm talking litter in general.

In which case you're even more wrong.

 

[anti-pacer]

In which case you're even more wrong.

I must have just visited Hemel on good days then.

 

[Agent_c]

I find it weird that first can keep scotrail trains relatively clean, but it's impossible to see out of most First Glasgow busses (presuming you can stand the stench long enough to get inside)

 

[northernchris]

Up here it does sound like things are better in the North West than here in Yorkshire.

Out of interest which services do you frequently use? The 333s are generally very well turned out and the majority of Calder Valley services are litter picked at some point in the day between Leeds and New Pudsey. The litter issue on Northern is no worse than TPE, East Coast etc. and Northern are actively addressing the situation don't really see what the problem is

 

[anti-pacer]

Out of interest which services do you frequently use? The 333s are generally very well turned out and the majority of Calder Valley services are litter picked at some point in the day between Leeds and New Pudsey. The litter issue on Northern is no worse than TPE, East Coast etc. and Northern are actively addressing the situation don't really see what the problem is

The 17:39 Shipley-Leeds (ex Bradford FS) is often littered with empty cans, crisp packets, etc.

If I ever get the xx05 Leeds-Nottingham train, especially around the evening peak, they are often littered.

Maybe you personally don't see an issue with it, but if Northern introduced roaming cleaners as a result of bad feedback regarding the matter, there's obviously a problem, and one that matters to more than just myself.

Northern have taken a step forward, granted, but still do less than most other TOC's, in my opinion.

 

[anti-pacer]

I catch the 1745 Leeds-London service most evenings to Wakefield and on departure from Leeds, there is always, included in the announcement, that due to a "technical issue" there will be no trolley operating through Standard Class.

This "technical issue" seems to happen each evening, or is it more of a case that they're just not providing one?

I personally don't need it, but I just wondered why?

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

I catch the 1745 Leeds-London service most evenings to Wakefield and on departure from Leeds, there is always, included in the announcement, that due to a "technical issue" there will be no trolley operating through Standard Class.

This "technical issue" seems to happen each evening, or is it more of a case that they're just not providing one?

I personally don't need it, but I just wondered why?

If this happens often they shouldn't advertise the trolley. It'll save on announcements. Doncaster might be where the trolley gets on as it's where TPE kick it off when heading to Cleethorpes so it has facilities.

 

[anti-pacer]

If this happens often they shouldn't advertise the trolley. It'll save on announcements. Doncaster might be where the trolley gets on as it's where TPE kick it off when heading to Cleethorpes so it has facilities.

I supposed if it's advertised in timetables though maybe they've got to announce it. It should be no hardship though to passengers as there's still the buffet.