Greater Anglia Good and Bad Discussion

[LAX54]

They are obliged to get you to your destination, but I assume as the 2003 was running which gets to Harlow a 2210 ( or 2239 if the 2003 is late) that was acceptable

 

[Richard1960]

They are obliged to get you to your destination, but I assume as the 2003 was running which gets to Harlow a 2210 ( or 2239 if the 2003 is late) that was acceptable

Not to me as the last bus is 20.33 to where i live from Harlow town Station and i had to pay £10 for a cab on top.

Even if they could have arranged for me to use my ticket on Cross Country over the phone i would have found it more acceptable helpful they were not.

My dinner going in the bin so i could sort it out was the last straw.

 

[jopsuk]

I'm not sure why you were told there would be a 1903 as that doesn't exist.
If you'd got that EMT at 1856 it was late into Ely and you might have missed the XC (thouh it was a minute late and you'd have had cross platform interchange), but a GN service (Anglia Plus valid) running an hour late(!) would have been through a few minutes later (if GN had been running to time, there would have been a right time service at the exact same time!) which would have got you to Cambridge in plenty of time for the 1932, which was on time into Harlow at 2009.

Sounds like a combination of duff information plus you maybe fixated on the (lack of) XC validity, forgetting about the GN validity?

 

[LAX54]

From the AGA website:

Area of Validity
Both the Anglia Plus One Day Ranger and Flexi Rover are valid on the following train services.

•Abellio Greater Anglia services north of Ipswich and Cambridge inclusive, on the following routes:-

◦Cambridge - Ely - Thetford - Norwich
◦Cambridge/Ely - Bury St Edmunds - Stowmarket - Ipswich
◦Ipswich - Stowmarket - Diss - Norwich
◦Ipswich - Felixstowe
◦Ipswich - Saxmundham - Lowestoft (East Suffolk Line)
◦Norwich - Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth (Wherry Lines)
◦Norwich - Cromer - Sheringham (Bittern Line)

•East Midlands Trains services between Ely and Norwich
•Great Northern services between Cambridge and Ely.

 

[Richard1960]

I'm not sure why you were told there would be a 1903 as that doesn't exist.

If you'd got that EMT at 1856 it was late into Ely and you might have missed the XC (thouh it was a minute late and you'd have had cross platform interchange), but a GN service (Anglia Plus valid) running an hour late(!) would have been through a few minutes later (if GN had been running to time, there would have been a right time service at the exact same time!) which would have got you to Cambridge in plenty of time for the 1932, which was on time into Harlow at 2009.


Sounds like a combination of duff information plus you maybe fixated on the (lack of) XC validity, forgetting about the GN validity?

Er no i got the 18.57 EMT into Ely from Norwich .

The Cross country service come in at around 19.25 pm and got into Audley End at around 20.48pm, ,the greater Anglia service from Cambridge , got in at20.17 and Harlow Town at around 20.45 ,i would be interested to learn how you thought i could catch the 20.33 bus.

 

[jopsuk]

Much like the clocks, I've lost an hour somewhere, sorry. But regardless, having got the EMT, you could have got the same GA train, from Cambridge, you caught at Audley End using the GN train from Ely to Cambridge, without the argument about validity

 

[Richard1960]

Much like the clocks, I've lost an hour somewhere, sorry. But regardless, having got the EMT, you could have got the same GA train, from Cambridge, you caught at Audley End using the GN train from Ely to Cambridge, without the argument about validity

I got the same train at Audley end as i would have got from ELY the EMT train and Cross Country was in front of the next AGA ,i did not see it overtake it.

Which is what CS at Norwich eventually told me what to do.

 

[jopsuk]

wait, 2055, did you go via Stansted Airport rather than changing at Audley End as you appear to be claiming? Because the 2053 arrival at Harlow Town is a Stansted Express, the Cambridge services were 2039 and 2110.

 

[TheEdge]

Not to me as the last bus is 20.33 to where i live from Harlow town Station and i had to pay £10 for a cab on top.

I hate to say it but that's not what you've got a ticket for. AGA (or any other TOCs) responsibility stop at the station to which you have a ticket.

So i went for a meal over the river at the Lord Nelson phoned up from there to check again, only to be told the next train was 20.03 two hours later.

So you asked someone who just had an RMT badge (bearing in mind that could be anyone of any grade from station cleaner, train prep to guard or TRI, maybe not customer service, maybe not even AGA), then left the station to phone customer services to check train times? At no point did you think to check any of the screens at Norwich?

Assuming you arrived on the 1745 arrival from Sheringham was there some reason you didn't board the 1754 (booked, 1803 act) EMT departure?

My dinner going in the bin so i could sort it out was the last straw.

Why? You had an extra hour to enjoy your dinner and as has been pointed out the Anglia Plus tickets are valid on GN services.

 

[Richard1960]

I hate to say it but that's not what you've got a ticket for. AGA (or any other TOCs) responsibility stop at the station to which you have a ticket.



So you asked someone who just had an RMT badge (bearing in mind that could be anyone of any grade from station cleaner, train prep to guard or TRI, maybe not customer service, maybe not even AGA), then left the station to phone customer services to check train times? At no point did you think to check any of the screens at Norwich?

Assuming you arrived on the 1745 arrival from Sheringham was there some reason you didn't board the 1754 (booked, 1803 act) EMT departure?



Why? You had an extra hour to enjoy your dinner and as has been pointed out the Anglia Plus tickets are valid on GN services.

Which GN services would have got me back to harlow.?

I would have been happy to pay my own cab fare if GA could have arranged for me to use my ticket on Cross Country instead of making instead my life much more difficult for me.Grrr

I often hear on the radio in the morning how train companies arrange for other companies to accept their tickets why not in my case.?

Sorry The Edge i am sure you are a good Guy.

 

[jopsuk]

the GN service from Ely to Cambridge would have meant you got on the same AGA service as you got by using XC to Audley End. Under normal circumstances, the GN service is only 6 minutes behind the XC service, and if you changed at Cambridge you'd have over 25 minutes to change from the XC service or just under 20 minutes from the GN service- ONTO THE SAME AGA service.

Basically, there's no need for the Anglia Plus to have XC validity between Cambridge and Ely, because there's always a GN service just behind it that connects to the same onward trains in either direction.

 

[Richard1960]

the GN service from Ely to Cambridge would have meant you got on the same AGA service as you got by using XC to Audley End. Under normal circumstances, the GN service is only 6 minutes behind the XC service, and if you changed at Cambridge you'd have over 25 minutes to change from the XC service or just under 20 minutes from the GN service- ONTO THE SAME AGA service.

Basically, there's no need for the Anglia Plus to have XC validity between Cambridge and Ely, because there's always a GN service just behind it that connects to the same onward trains in either direction.

Then why did not C//S upstairs on Norwich Station not tell me this.

Or the Kiosk in front of platform 1.?

They are employees i am not.

 

[jopsuk]

I honestly don't know. Though of course it still wouldn't have got you to your bus- nothing could do that with the service cancellations,

 

[Richard1960]

I honestly don't know. Though of course it still wouldn't have got you to your bus- nothing could do that with the service cancellations,

No fair enough thanks for your honesty which is more then i got from AGA .

You may also be able to claim a refund of a taxi fare if you're stranded at a station because of a delayed train. However, the train company may not pay this unless you told the duty manager at the station that you were going to have to take a taxi and they couldn't get you to your destination in any other way.


From Citizens advice

Interesting at Norwich they would not let me see a duty manager ..

At Harlow no one was Visible..

 

[TheEdge]

Which GN services would have got me back to harlow.?

None, but plenty would have got you to Cambridge.

I often hear on the radio in the morning how train companies arrange for other companies to accept their tickets why not in my case.?

Because there was no need. One train had been cancelled, EMT were still running, and GN services were running as normal between Ely and Cambridge. Why was the 1754 EMT service not suitable?

 

[LAX54]

Had the person not gone over the road to buy a meal, and caught the 1754, now although this was 12 late at Ely (1858) , would have caught another late runner at Ely, ( 1757 Kings Lynn which was at Ely at 1904 and arr Cambridge at 1920 28 late) made connections into 1932 at Cambridge and arrived at Harlow at 2010, but sadly due to some misunderstanding he had, did not catch the first train available from Norwich (1754) and waited until the 1856

 

[Richard1960]

None, but plenty would have got you to Cambridge.



Because there was no need. One train had been cancelled, EMT were still running, and GN services were running as normal between Ely and Cambridge. Why was the 1754 EMT service not suitable?

Because Greater anglia told me there were signalling problems on the route.


Now if GA could not run the 18.03 Norwich -Cambridge because of this how could EMT have run their train over the same track some 8 minutes earlier.?




All GA had to do was put some proper contingency plans in place which they had not. IE i was not told the times of the GN trains from ELY,nor had they tried to phone cross country before i had a go to accept GA tickets pretty poor all round as Cross Country arrived Train at ELY 5 mins after the EMT train left..

Stow market was not an option as there were no through trains they were only going as far as Bury St Edmunds.:-x


You may also be able to claim a refund of a taxi fare if you're stranded at a station because of a delayed train. However, the train company may not pay this unless you told the duty manager at the station that you were going to have to take a taxi and they couldn't get you to your destination in any other way.

Duty manager nowhere in sight.

 

[TheEdge]

Because Greater anglia told me there were signalling problems on the route.


Now if GA could not run the 18.03 Norwich -Cambridge because of this how could EMT have run their train over the same track some 8 minutes earlier.?

Use your eyes? Use the heaps of information provided to you at the station via the CIS screens? The 1754 ran (http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/C80649/2015/03/29/advanced), as a matter of fact it pretty much ran in the path of the 1803.

I don't know the full details of what happened. Perhaps the signalling problems made sense to cancel the AGA stopper but the EMT train, possibly with Nottingham crew had to get through, it did loose a fair bit of time en route.

All GA had to do was put some proper contingency plans in place which they had not. IE i was not told the times of the GN trains from ELY,nor had they tried to phone cross country before i had a go to accept GA tickets pretty poor all round as Cross Country arrived Train at ELY 5 mins after the EMT train left..

As the poster above has pointed out had you got the 1754, which ran with a slight delay from Norwich you would have reached Harlow without boarding an XC train and in time for your bus. Why therefore should GA be arranging for XC to accept the tickets when its not needed?

By the way did you actually ask for the GN times? Or just explicitly expect some mind reading? Did you say and or explain that you held an Anglia Plus with its restrictions rather than just a normal ticket? All of this before you bizarrely left the station for dinner rather than on the phone.

Stow market was not an option as there were no through trains they were only going as far as Bury St Edmunds.:-x

It was an option but because of the RR bus I'm assuming you ruled it out? 18.00 to Stowmarket, RR bus to Bury St Edmunds, 19.41 Bury - Cambridge, 21.10 Cambridge to Harlow. Maybe not in time for the bus but still an hour earlier? And no XC to worry about.

You may also be able to claim a refund of a taxi fare if you're stranded at a station because of a delayed train. However, the train company may not pay this unless you told the duty manager at the station that you were going to have to take a taxi and they couldn't get you to your destination in any other way.

Duty manager nowhere in sight.

This seems like slightly dubious advice from the CAF. Without going too far off on a tangent I always believed the railways on paper had no obligation for costs like that and are only officially obliged to pay for taxis if they cannot get you to your destination station. Goodwill payments maybe.

 

[387star]

Two good recent videos I found here showcasing the current livery variation including a crossrail liveried 315 attached to a white 315 and on the second video two 317/6 joined together in the new full AGA livery joined together https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0KTHkOfQY28
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd5n3TvRz_g

 

[Richard1960]

Use your eyes? Use the heaps of information provided to you at the station via the CIS screens? The 1754 ran (http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/C80649/2015/03/29/advanced), as a matter of fact it pretty much ran in the path of the 1803.

I don't know the full details of what happened. Perhaps the signalling problems made sense to cancel the AGA stopper but the EMT train, possibly with Nottingham crew had to get through, it did loose a fair bit of time en route.



As the poster above has pointed out had you got the 1754, which ran with a slight delay from Norwich you would have reached Harlow without boarding an XC train and in time for your bus. Why therefore should GA be arranging for XC to accept the tickets when its not needed?

By the way did you actually ask for the GN times? Or just explicitly expect some mind reading? Did you say and or explain that you held an Anglia Plus with its restrictions rather than just a normal ticket? All of this before you bizarrely left the station for dinner rather than on the phone.



It was an option but because of the RR bus I'm assuming you ruled it out? 18.00 to Stowmarket, RR bus to Bury St Edmunds, 19.41 Bury - Cambridge, 21.10 Cambridge to Harlow. Maybe not in time for the bus but still an hour earlier? And no XC to worry about.



This seems like slightly dubious advice from the CAF. Without going too far off on a tangent I always believed the railways on paper had no obligation for costs like that and are only officially obliged to pay for taxis if they cannot get you to your destination station. Goodwill payments maybe.

Thanks The Edge.

The infamous CIS screens at Norwich once they changed them three times before we got on the right train.

And only last week at the last minute changed the 19.40 Norwich to Cambridge to platform 3 and sent the platform 6 one to Sheringham instead of Cambridge .

Also i do use my eyes and ears as the trains approach Norwich the driver says ex platform for Lowestoft,Cambridge etc etc he could have also stated the 18.03 Sunday eve to Cambridge had been cancelled so at least we could have rushed on the EMT train.

With all this communication Norwich could have told him to do this no.?

Yes the Stowmarket one i ruled it out be cause of the Bus issue.

Yes there was a guy on the platform that told me the next one would be at 19.03 wrongly i took him at his word my fault.

Bishops Stortford once sent me on a cab journey when the electric cables were down,it was like a bit of a a bun fight to get through the barriers at Norwich for info once people had discovered the 18.03 AGA train to Cambridge was not running and that they had missed the EMT .

Not your fault The Edge really glad you come on here to answer though i think i am somewhat to blame but not entirely. once again thanks.

 

[Angliarailuser]

Perhaps The Edge does not travel on Greater Anglia.

If he/she does he/she wpuld be aware of the pathetic information displayed at Norwich station.

"Use your eyes" is a rather presumptive comment.

 

[transportphoto]

I have cause to believe that The Edge is fully aware of the situation and Abellio Greater Anglia's services and the information made available to customers; your comment "Perhaps The Edge does not travel on Greater Anglia." is rather presumptive isn't it?

I would argue that the information provided at Norwich isn't pathetic, living here myself and using the services through the station... it even has free 'The Cloud' Wifi, so that if you wish to check something that isn't shown on the boards, assuming of course you have a suitable device, you can quite easily check things online at no cost to yourself.

TP

 

[Angliarailuser]

I use Norwich statyion twice a week.

The operational staff, as usual with AGA, are exemplary. The staff usually have no clue what problems are and how to deal with them.

There seens to be a view of somer peope herre that TOCs can do wrong, and, if passengers have problems, it is automaticaaly their fault.

Persumptive?

 

[Richard1960]

I have cause to believe that The Edge is fully aware of the situation and Abellio Greater Anglia's services and the information made available to customers; your comment "Perhaps The Edge does not travel on Greater Anglia." is rather presumptive isn't it?

I would argue that the information provided at Norwich isn't pathetic, living here myself and using the services through the station... it even has free 'The Cloud' Wifi, so that if you wish to check something that isn't shown on the boards, assuming of course you have a suitable device, you can quite easily check things online at no cost to yourself.
TP

The boards can change quite often at Norwich so why would the info on the cloud service be any more accurate? once the boards changed three times before they decided which platform the train would leave from as we moved from train to train .

Also they couild give more info on incoming trains themselves such as the next train to so and so has been cancelled therefore giving incoming passengers the opportunity to use a different train info thery did not provide on the Sheroingham train sunday they said platform 3 i think for cambridge emittting it had already been cancelled.With all the communication the guard and driver have it should have been possible to impart this information i think.

 

[90sWereBetter]

There seens to be a view of somer peope herre that TOCs can do wrong, and, if passengers have problems, it is automaticaaly their fault.

Persumptive?

The railways would be so much better if they didn't carry passengers, you know that right?

 

[Darandio]

There seens to be a view of somer peope herre that TOCs can do wrong, and, if passengers have problems, it is automaticaaly their fault.

Don't you mean 'do no wrong'?

Don't you guys normally call these people 'apologists'?

 

[PHILIPE]

The railways would be so much better if they didn't carry passengers, you know that right?

Network Rail think that so there would be no interruption to track and signalling work.

 

[Shunter_69]

Deleted - wrong thread ??????

 

[TheEdge]

The boards can change quite often at Norwich so why would the info on the cloud service be any more accurate? once the boards changed three times before they decided which platform the train would leave from as we moved from train to train .

The boards themselves are fine. The problems comes from the fact that the PA system in the station is generally not loud enough. Especially is people are at the A platforms or on 6. Once you chuck in the ambient noise, 3 of 4 DMUs running they can be hard to hear.

The only times the allocations tend to change rapidly is during disruption. I'd like to hope people pay more attention during disruption than during normal running but that's not always the case. On Wednesday after the fatality at Whitlingham I took a load to Cambridge and despite constant announcements and a total lack of trains no one had noticed anything was up.

 

[Richard1960]

The boards themselves are fine. The problems comes from the fact that the PA system in the station is generally not loud enough. Especially is people are at the A platforms or on 6. Once you chuck in the ambient noise, 3 of 4 DMUs running they can be hard to hear.

The only times the allocations tend to change rapidly is during disruption. I'd like to hope people pay more attention during disruption than during normal running but that's not always the case. On Wednesday after the fatality at Whitlingham I took a load to Cambridge and despite constant announcements and a total lack of trains no one had noticed anything was up.

Yes the pa system is not very loud on platform 6 especially as you say with several DMUs in the background..

Sad to hear there was a fatality never nice especially for the driverad:ad: and despite announcements and a lack of trains that nobody noticed is bizzare indeed.

Thanks for your imput your posts are constructive and informative.