Heatwave 22-27 June - effect on the UK Railway

[WillC]

The only problem was, that the "plans" for some TOCs were simply to cancel almost everything and to blame the passengers for having the temerity to travel if they got delayed.

Well I agree the 'do not travel' notices could be better presented ('due to heat we are running a reduced service and things may go to **** - so make your own mind up if you can cope with this uncertainty') but remove the hysteria and things seemed to pan out as expected.

 

[Iskra]

Unfortunately this whole thread, and not least the bit about the blinds, serves a reminder why I avoided any form of mainline rail travel last week. The more I read the more I’m sure I made the right choice. This is unfortunately a somewhat depressing state of affairs, as ideally one would expect rail to be the mode that gets through whatever, which is increasingly not the case nowadays.

My daily commute was absolutely fine, and un-impacted. If anything it was a little quieter. People will always discuss the negative and remarkable. But the reality is that most people last week would have still had entirely unremarkable journeys.

 

[Coleridge]

Well I agree the 'do not travel' notices could be better presented ('due to heat we are running a reduced service and things may go to **** - so make your own mind up if you can cope with this uncertainty') but remove the hysteria and things seemed to pan out as expected.

I'm really not sure what you mean when you say that things panned out as expected. There have been first-hand reports throughout this thread and in the media of trains being hours late, of being short-formed and/or terminated short of their destination, and of a total lack of information. TOCs simply gave up operating any services on many routes. If this was operating "as expected", I'd hate to see the railways in crisis.

 

[CharlieSpotted]

People do tend to extrapolate their own experiences. "My journey on my specific commuter route was fine" doesn't mean "The whole network is fine and everyone's making a fuss over nothing" and likewise "My journey was an unmitigated disaster and I got home hours late suffering from heat exhaustion" doesn't mean "The whole network is broken and everyone travelling today was horribly let down".

Clearly, people had differing experiences, parts of the network worked better/worse than others and it was better/worse at different times than others.

 

[josh-j]

I'm really not sure what you mean when you say that things panned out as expected. There have been first-hand reports throughout this thread and in the media of trains being hours late, of being short-formed and/or terminated short of their destination, and of a total lack of information. TOCs simply gave up operating any services on many routes. If this was operating "as expected", I'd hate to see the railways in crisis.

Increased likelihood of long delays, short forms
and early terminations is why they issued Do Not Travel warnings, though.

Disruption was expected.

 

[Bikeman78]

From what the original poster wrote it did sound like it was more an instruction than a request, though of course we weren’t there. One way or other it could well have led to the possibility of conflict, especially nowadays where people don’t seem to be capable of handling compromise.

I’m really not keen on the idea of making a journey where I can’t see out. I don’t think I’ve ever sat in a bullhead seat in my life, and have no intention of starting now. For me it would feel completely wrong. Even when travelling at night I like to look out and know where I am.

I have travelled on many trains with blinds, both here and abroad. I have never noticed it cause a conflict. What would annoy me most is yet more public address spam. I don't need someone to tell me to put the blind down. If it's too bright or too hot then I'll do it without instruction.

 

[An_Engineer]

I only wish the Great Northern trains had blinds (both the class 387/379, and the occasional class 700). The route between London and Cambridge is so flat that the only chance of shade is passing a particularly close cow. It is particularly uncomfortable in morning/evening commutes as the sun is coming in horizontally and looking out the window is risking going blind.

As to GTRs performance during the heatwave..... poor to abysmal? I commuted (KGX to CBG and back) on the first day but they blanket cancelled all the fast trains and then didn't have enough drivers for the rest, adding 1+ hours onto my commute each way. I saw same pattern of cancellations the following days so abandoned those journeys before I even started. They didn't provide any clarifications other than extreme heat (driver conditions, speed restrictions, other faults, who knows?) At a guess they realised they can't run on-time even in normal weather so decided not to bother.

 

[NeakPed]

If we can... ahem....close the curtains on the blinds issue, before this thread is locked, do we think the railway as a whole has learned any lessons from how it handled last week's heatwave?

I think most of us would agree that most TOCs overreacted in needlessly cancelling trains on several lines and issuing "don't travel unless your journey is essential" notices.

Perhaps in future the general message from the rail industry to its customers should be "Whatever the weather we'll get you there" instead of "only travel if you really have to"?

I suspect that most of the cancellations were a result of restrictions imposed by the company I believe you work for (based on previous comments you gave made) - Network Rail.
The TOCs can hardly be over reacting when a restriction is imposed on them.

 

[WillC]

I'm really not sure what you mean when you say that things panned out as expected. There have been first-hand reports throughout this thread and in the media of trains being hours late, of being short-formed and/or terminated short of their destination, and of a total lack of information. TOCs simply gave up operating any services on many routes. If this was operating "as expected", I'd hate to see the railways in crisis.

Expected as in pretty much what you describe - some things went wrong because of the heat, the things the operators said were very likely top happen. I'm not saying this is good, just that it was expected, so travellers could make their own risk-based judgements.

 

[The exile]

Expected as in pretty much what you describe - some things went wrong because of the heat, the things the operators said were very likely top happen. I'm not saying this is good, just that it was expected, so travellers could make their own risk-based judgements.

Round this part of the world (Bristol) if you looked at Journey Check before setting off for the morning commute, everything looked (and presumably was) fine. By the time all those commuters would have been coming home it was a very different story. Hundreds of people stranded for hours in 35+ degrees is not a good idea. Hence the warnings.

 

[speedy1]

What would annoy me most is yet more public address spam. I don't need someone to tell me to put the blind down. If it's too bright or too hot then I'll do it without instruction.

Agreed! Honestly at this stage I think someone higher up has a fetish for inflicting this audible spam upon us

 

[trainophile]

On a positive note, I put in a delay repay claim to TfW for my messy trip home on Friday, and yesterday received an acceptance email, followed this morning by another one saying my compensation has been processed. Given the hundreds of people affected, granted not all of whom would have bothered to claim, that was damn good service.

 

[Bornin1980s]

Interesting how the GWR IETs seem to have been good performers, particularly regarding air-con. They have a history of engine problems due to inadequate cooling. How did they manage on diesel power?

 

[Bletchleyite]

On a positive note, I put in a delay repay claim to TfW for my messy trip home on Friday, and yesterday received an acceptance email, followed this morning by another one saying my compensation has been processed. Given the hundreds of people affected, granted not all of whom would have bothered to claim, that was damn good service.

It appears TfW have auto approval for simple cases. I had one approved within minutes a few weeks back. No way would that be a person.

 

[3141]

I travelled on SWR from Whitchurch to Waterloo and back last Friday.

10.39 from Whitchurch: just three coaches, and crowded. With only one train per hour on the West of England line instead of the normal two, there must have been spare units which could have been used.

16.25 from Waterloo: three coaches. Crowded. At 16.20 the guard announced that the train was cancelled. There must have been well over 300 passengers who all got off. I asked the guard why it was cancelled. "Because of the heat," she replied. I pointed out that many other trains were running. "But they are electric, and this one is a diesel," she said. She then said that diesels were more likely to have failed air conditioning. They do at least have opening windows. She suggested there would be coaches at Basingstoke for the journey onwards from there.

The alternative was the 16.30 for Bournemouth. 2 x class 450 = 8 coaches. Very crowded as it had most of the passengers from the 16.25. I was in coach 2. If the aircon there was working it had absolutely no effect. No opening windows. It was a great relief to get out into the sunshine and 33 degrees on the platform at Basingstoke. No sign of any coaches, and the big information display on platforms 2 and 3 said the next train to Whitchurch was at 18.34, an hour later.

Maybe the aircon on all trains cannot cope with extreme heat and is liable to fail. Maybe that's why the two class 159 trains were only single units and the 16.30 was 8 coaches instead of a possible 12. But I would like to be told the truth about why there's overcrowding and a train is cancelled.

 

[harz99]

People do tend to extrapolate their own experiences. "My journey on my specific commuter route was fine" doesn't mean "The whole network is fine and everyone's making a fuss over nothing" and likewise "My journey was an unmitigated disaster and I got home hours late suffering from heat exhaustion" doesn't mean "The whole network is broken and everyone travelling today was horribly let down".

Clearly, people had differing experiences, parts of the network worked better/worse than others and it was better/worse at different times than others.

To add to that, the sort of comments quoted in this post would be far more useful if the original commentor also stated where their travel was from and to...

 

[Kite159]

Maybe the aircon on all trains cannot cope with extreme heat and is liable to fail. Maybe that's why the two class 159 trains were only single units and the 16.30 was 8 coaches instead of a possible 12. But I would like to be told the truth about why there's overcrowding and a train is cancelled.

The AC on the Sprinters is hopeless when it gets above a certain temperature, it can start the day working being nice and cool before the system trips itself out. What didn't help with the reduced timetable was all the dwelling at stations (one of the drivers mentioned it was basically run using snow timings), and Waterloo being a greenhouse. The 158s are slightly better, but even those were giving up the ghost last week.

As for the short formations, it was a nightmare when one service was 9 coaches with the following a 3 coach service, logically one of the units should have been split from the triple set and put onto the single set to give 2x 6 coach sets.