National Express East Anglia - frequency issues

[support-uk-rail]

Hi,

I'm speaking to you from a library in Felixstowe.
I finally made it, per annual tradition of visiting my grandma

I've always kind of held a grudge against East Anglia's railway networks, Anglia Railways, One, National Express - whilst all basically the same, I only see minor improvements each year.

But what really annoys me is the bad organisation of trains.
I was at Ipswich station yesterday, and within 30 minutes, 5 trains were for London Liverpool Street! And they were all empty, with no more than 25 people in each carraige or so it seemed.

National Express have got this wrong, surely. Surely they could cut two services and still not have the other three filled!

It's like a constant rapid transit system.

"Ya don't need a timetable for Anglia by rail".

Thanks,
Hakzi.

 

[rail-britain]

Depends on the time of day
If six trains go to London early in the morning, then they are likely to be full
You then have to get them out of London, one might go to the local depot and the other five might have to go to another depot, so may as well keep them in public use if the journey is quite long
The timetable will then go off-peak, and the reverse will happen at the evening rush-hour as the empty trains head back to London, fill up and run the commuters home
Not very efficient, but sometimes that is what has to be done

 

[dan_atki]

But what really annoys me is the bad organisation of trains.
I was at Ipswich station yesterday, and within 30 minutes, 5 trains were for London Liverpool Street! And they were all empty, with no more than 25 people in each carraige or so it seemed.

When in the day was this? Also, was there any disruption? Looking at the timetable I can't see any occurances of 5 trains in half an hour not even in the morning peak :?

 

[mawallace]

Normal pattern to London
Norwich to London - 1/2 hourly
Then, once an hour, either the Peterborough to London or Lopwestoft to London

Same pattern in reverse!

 

[thefab444]

As you said outside of the peak there are only 3 trains per hour to London leaving at xx08, xx30 and xx42 and during the peak they would mostly be wedge-exes.

Anyway is 25 people per carriage "empty"? :-? Maybe by FGW standards!

 

[support-uk-rail]

According to station announcements there were signalling failures near Whittlesea.

I'm not familiar with Anglia so I'm not sure...

But it was a minimum of 3 trains and maximum of 5 that came...

I think Ipswich is too cramped for all the traffic there, especially with the expansion of PoFelixstowe, which is the UK's largest container poirt.

 

[rail-britain]

I think I've seen this phenomenon before...
It happened at Ayr a few years ago
The line was blocked for about 90 minutes and the signallers/operations didn't react in time
As a result, instead of two trains per hour, which normally results in one or two trains in the station six trains queued up to arrive within 10 minutes
To the casual observer it could have looked like one train every 5 minutes!

 

[Nick W]

Ipswich used to have a far more frequent service, including Ipswich - London stoppers, before the gauge enhancements to Ipswich tunnel.

As others have stated, the off-peak timetable is only 3 trains per hour. You have to go to Colchester to get a so called "metro" service.

So since when did Felixstowe have more than one public library :P

 

[support-uk-rail]

Ipswich used to have a far more frequent service, including Ipswich - London stoppers, before the gauge enhancements to Ipswich tunnel.

As others have stated, the off-peak timetable is only 3 trains per hour. You have to go to Colchester to get a so called "metro" service.

So since when did Felixstowe have more than one public library :P

I said it in the context of:

"A library... that is in Felixstowe"

not "One of the libraries in Felixstowe":grin:

Metro service?

 

[Nick W]

I said it in the context of:

"A library... that is in Felixstowe"

not "One of the libraries in Felixstowe":grin:

Fair enough, I was joking :P

Metro service?

A service you can generally just turn up and use instead of having timetables, named after the Metropolitan Railway in London.

 

[support-uk-rail]

oh right. I know what a metro is etc, but is it branded as a metro service?

 

[dan_atki]

AFAIK no. The reason is because of the different origins of each of the trains to LST makes it pointless because they'd only be a 'metro' service for a part of their journey - same way as central London FCC between St Pancras and Blackfriars.

 

[support-uk-rail]

oh right

 

[yorkie]

I don’t know why Nick W says a ‘Metro’ service operates south of Colchester.

While it is perhaps true to say you can turn up without consulting a timetable at Colchester itself if wishing to travel to London as the trains are frequent enough that does not make it a ‘Metro’; the calling patterns of the 5 off-peak trains per hour are all completely different, as are the types of train you can get and none of which are ‘Metro’ style trains (170s with their slow acceleration, 90s and Mk3s with their slam doors, 360s and 321s being a bit too high geared and speedy at 100mph to be deemed Metro trains) and finally journey times do vary significantly and there is a gap in arrival times at LST of 22 mins (xx54 to xx16 between the ex-NRW expresses and the ex-CLT stoppers). Clearly this is not a ‘Metro’ service!

The Shenfield-Liverpool Street stopping service could be called, and branded, a ‘Metro’.

 

[support-uk-rail]

I don’t know why Nick W says a ‘Metro’ service operates south of Colchester.

While it is perhaps true to say you can turn up without consulting a timetable at Colchester itself if wishing to travel to London as the trains are frequent enough that does not make it a ‘Metro’; the calling patterns of the 5 off-peak trains per hour are all completely different, as are the types of train you can get and none of which are ‘Metro’ style trains (170s with their slow acceleration, 90s and Mk3s with their slam doors, 360s and 321s being a bit too high geared and speedy at 100mph to be deemed Metro trains) and finally journey times do vary significantly and there is a gap in arrival times at LST of 22 mins (xx54 to xx16 between the ex-NRW expresses and the ex-CLT stoppers). Clearly this is not a ‘Metro’ service!

The Shenfield-Liverpool Street stopping service could be called, and branded, a ‘Metro’.

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A service you can generally just turn up and use instead of having timetables, named after the Metropolitan Railway in London.

If Nick W's description is correct, which I beleive it is, frequency makes a metro, not neccesarily fast acceleration etc.