Lumo (West Coast) - passenger experiences

I used the 0726 Crewe to Euston service yesterday. No seat reservations was chaos but I managed to get a single seat in coach G by the wheelchair space and nobody came to claim it. Seats were ok. No toilets in my coach or AC.

The staff were really annoying and wouldn’t shut up with pointless long rambling announcements.

I would probably avoid them in the future - but can see why they do well when the Avanti at 0732 wanted £130 and Lumo was £30…

1M00 and 1S02 cancelled due to unit faults today. How long is it likely to be before the 5th unit appears, because clearly running four diagrams with four units is ... not resilient.

Toilet story now picked up by the BBC

Six-hour train services between London and Stirling running with no toilets

Some services have since been stopping for longer at stations such as Preston to allow passengers to get off and use toilets on platforms.

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MalaiseForever said:

I used the 0726 Crewe to Euston service yesterday. No seat reservations was chaos but I managed to get a single seat in coach G by the wheelchair space and nobody came to claim it. Seats were ok. No toilets in my coach or AC.

The staff were really annoying and wouldn’t shut up with pointless long rambling announcements.

I would probably avoid them in the future - but can see why they do well when the Avanti at 0732 wanted £130 and Lumo was £30…

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Yes, hope they sort the seat reservation displays. What worries me is when Lumo is cancelled and ticket acceptance.

On Lumo today from Preston to Motherwell.

It pulled into Preston 15 minutes early so there was quite the wait for our path (had to wait for late Avanti to overtake).

The Train Manager (or whatever they're calling them) actually scanned my Railcard, I think they're the first person to have ever done that (and I travel a lot).

Sat in D53 since that's where my reservation is, isn't too busy, I have my pair to myself at least for now (and most of the rest of the carriage is 1 person per pair), also one or two pairs free at least for now.

Leg room is ok, head rests quite low for me but seems about the height of the rest of the people in the carriage so I guess I can just file that under tall people problems.

WiFi is functional, don't need a toilet but not heard of any out of use.

Catering trolley is staying at Coach G apparently due to Staff shortages (is the train manager staffing it?), but I don't need anything from the trolley anyway.

Got the Down Fast through Lancaster, there's a late running Pendolino 4 minutes behind us so hopefully we'll get some rare track or a loop to let it overtake, although it's stopping at Penrith so maybe not.

I notice on realtimetrains today that the 1S01 10.19 Euston -Stirling service operated by 222602 was running ca 25 mins late in Scotland and got terminated short at Motherwell at 15.58 'due to a problem with the train'. The return 1M03 17.09 Stirling - Euston service which does not normally call at Motherwell was correspondingly cancelled from Stirling and instead started from Motherwell at 1741-ish so as to maintain the normal 1M03 path subsequently.

Has anyone experience of what arrangements are made for southbound Lumo passengers awaiting at Stirling/Larbert etc when such very short-notice curtailments occur? The Motherwell train was activated on TRUST at 16.01.

Solweytracker said:

I notice on realtimetrains today that the 1S01 10.19 Euston -Stirling service operated by 222602 was running ca 25 mins late in Scotland and got terminated short at Motherwell at 15.58 'due to a problem with the train'. The return 1M03 17.09 Stirling - Euston service which does not normally call at Motherwell was correspondingly cancelled from Stirling and instead started from Motherwell at 1741-ish so as to maintain the normal 1M03 path subsequently.

Has anyone experience of what arrangements are made for southbound Lumo passengers awaiting at Stirling/Larbert etc when such very short-notice curtailments occur? The Motherwell train was activated on TRUST at 16.01.

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From Lumo's JourneyCheck:

'Customers may use there [sic] tickets on ScotRail services to travel to Glasgow where connections can be made towards London Euston using the 18:40 Glasgow Central - Euston service operated by Avanti West Coast.
Customers are also welcome to join the train at Motherwell and use ScotRail services to travel to Motherwell.'

hexagon789 said:

Answering: Has anyone experience of what arrangements are made for southbound Lumo passengers awaiting at Stirling/Larbert etc when such very short-notice curtailments occur?

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hexagon789 said:

From Lumo's JourneyCheck:

'Customers may use there [sic] tickets on ScotRail services to travel to Glasgow where connections can be made towards London Euston using the 18:40 Glasgow Central - Euston service operated by Avanti West Coast.
Customers are also welcome to join the train at Motherwell and use ScotRail services to travel to Motherwell.'

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Thanks. These curtailments have happened a few times already. For cross-border passengers suddenly having to chop and change at Motherwell (handy for Polmadie repairs/replacement?) is better than Avanti's notorious dumping of passengers at Preston I suppose. However it seems not without travel risks for the non-savvy, faint-hearted, inaccessible or infirm passengers from Stirling/Larbert.

I find myself strangely happy when I see a Lumo WC (no pun intended) train passing by . I'm seeing one most mornings at the moment as there's one goes through Clifton southbound at the point I'm returning from my morning run.

One thing I don't understand- why do they start/finish at Sterling (rather than Glasgow for example)? Just seems a bit random to me (though obviously very useful if you're heading to or from Sterling).

Skiddaw said:

I find myself strangely happy when I see a Lumo WC (no pun intended) train passing by . I'm seeing one most mornings at the moment as there's one goes through Clifton southbound at the point I'm returning from my morning run.

One thing I don't understand- why do they start/finish at Sterling (rather than Glasgow for example)? Just seems a bit random to me (though obviously very useful if you're heading to or from Sterling).

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*Stirling.

I'm guessing either it's less congested/more paths available for Lumo and/or potentially cheaper for them.

Skiddaw said:

One thing I don't understand- why do they start/finish at Sterling (rather than Glasgow for example)? Just seems a bit random to me (though obviously very useful if you're heading to or from Sterling).

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Presumably so it doesn't look as "primarily abstractive" as it probably really is.

Skiddaw said:

One thing I don't understand- why do they start/finish at Sterling (rather than Glasgow for example)? Just seems a bit random to me (though obviously very useful if you're heading to or from Sterling).

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There is platform capacity there to terminate a train, and allow it to dwell until it returns south. As others have noted, it can be claimed to be offering services to an unserved market by going somewhere that direct trains don't currently link. In practice, the service is just a way to extract revenue from the existing operations at Crewe, Preston and Carlisle.

Oh OK. Makes sense.

I have accidentally subjected myself and my poor mother to journeys by Lumo twice (one bout of suffering each).

My mum didn't even board. They cancelled her train, and gave massively conflicting information regarding ticket acceptance, and she ended up like a sardine on an Avanti service.

I did board, and because of their delays I missed my connection back to Birmingham. Had the devil's work trying to get them to cough up my compensation.

Never again.

I travelled on Lumo West Coast recently for the first time and wasn’t impressed. The air conditioning wasn’t functioning in half of the carriage, the selection of catering items on board was poor and the trolley only came around once just after Motherwell and then wasn’t seen again for the rest of the journey, (from Scotland to London).

The reservation screens showed incorrect information as apparently they don’t have access to ‘the software’, but were insisting passengers sat in their reserved seats (how can you tell which ones aren’t reserved and for what duration?) which led to arguments between passengers in the carriage. The toilets were dirty and the PA system was bust, producing a high-pitch screechy noise every time one of the ambassadors used it (which was a lot).

Passengers were bringing large volumes of luggage and pushchairs on board and were just shrugging when staff were telling them they shouldn’t. The luggage racks were completely inadequate.

Are the 222s known to restrict phone signal? I had no, or very little data connection for the whole journey. It’s not usually that bad on a Pendolino.

First Group really need to review their PA policy too. Why do they need to tell everyone ‘the doors are now being closed for your comfort and safety’ at every station? Is that not a given when you're in most moving vehicles?

When using Lumo East Coast last week, I literally heard ‘see it say it sorted’ said six times from on board staff just between Newcastle and Edinburgh, and there’s only one intermediate stop at Morpeth. It was complete overkill and took away from the enjoyment of the journey.

Parallel said:

The reservation screens showed incorrect information as apparently they don’t have access to ‘the software’, but were insisting passengers sat in their reserved seats (how can you tell which ones aren’t reserved and for what duration?) which led to arguments between passengers in the carriage. The toilets were dirty and the PA system was bust, producing a high-pitch screechy noise every time one of the ambassadors used it (which was a lot).

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I completely agree with you in regards to Lumo's ongoing problem with them not being able to show reservations properly on their West Coast trains. I think they should make their trains unreservable until they've sorted it out and also have at least one carriage completely unreserved.

To insist that passengers sat in their pre booked seats when the reservation system isn't working is just asking for trouble as you describe yourself. Surely Lumo should be trying to promote a so called less stressful travel experience on their trains. It seems like they're doing the opposite and getting several very basic elements of their onboard services (e.g. Catering, Reservations, Toilets and Announcements) rather badly wrong.

Parallel said:

First Group really need to review their PA policy too. Why do they need to tell everyone ‘the doors are now being closed for your comfort and safety’ at every station? Is that not a given when you're in most moving vehicles

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Yes I hate unnecessary announcements and I seem to remember there being far too many on my only trip with Lumo so far, from Preston to Nuneaton a couple of months ago.