10.57am East Coast Service packed

[DelayRepay]

Do you purposely choose busy trains as not *every* voyager is full and standing leaving Birmingham.

You're right, there must be a few late night ECS moves

 

[Dave1987]

Can I just make a brief point to hoffers.

TOC's have to plan diagrams and workings weeks in advance for them to be sent to network rail and input into the system. This enables the relevant stock to be got in the correct place and crew diagrams to be modified so all trains have crews and the signal boxes know the timings of each service. Also it is so that the timetable can be advertised to passengers well i advance. Unfortunately this means the that train planners have to make an educated guess as to what the level of demand will be. They also have to work around Network Rail and their planned engineering works. And once that decision has been made there is very little scope to increase the service to meet unexpectedly high demand. Also they may not have the extra capacity due to lack of available paths or rolling stock. They usually cannot just put on extra trains on the day because demand is high. Unfortunately this results sometimes in services being very crowded. But as Greenback has pointed out this is the nature of the beast with us having a walk up railway.

 

[Mainliner]

No, but if you didn't have a reserved seat, and you got on at Newcastle, going to London, and you saw seats reserved from York to London, why are you going to stand all of the way when you can just sit down until York, then IF/when the person gets on and asks you to move, you move.

I had booked the cancelled train from Newcastle this morning. The following one was pretty full, due to half term. I'd have been quite happy to stand, except I needed to work on a laptop, so I and a newly found companion, after walking through most of the train, managed to sit in seats that were reserved from Darlington. Unfortunately their rightful occupants turned up, so we got off there, and on the next train (again, pretty full) sat in seats that were reserved from York. Same thing happened at York, where we then walked over to the almost empty 1201 YRK-KGX train, in which we completed our journey in uninterrupted comfort

Bit of a pain re the changes, but more than compensated for by the unexpected pleasant company

 

[yorkie]

Welcome to the forum

If you had reserved seats, the reservation labels were displayed so EC were honouring the seats, and you chose not to ask the people sat in them to move (99% of people are happy to move, in my experience! a simple "excuse me, I've reserved this seat" will nearly always result in them moving, and it is rare that they are anything less than polite about it) then I don't think you can legitimately claim under East Coast's Seat Guarantee Scheme.

However you can claim under Delay Repay. You can scan the tickets and do this online if you wish. You will get half the cost of the single tickets back - which isn't bad! (a taxi would charge you for a delay! )

We thought leaving it a little later at around 11am would be better as all the commuters would be on earlier trains.....

Loads of seats on the "commuter" trains from York, as they aren't really used by commuters, more business people going for meetings. It's the first off peak ones that get very, very busy during the holidays. Sundays are even worse. Saturdays depends on events such as football.

I see the 0600 has been suggested. Yes, a good bet to find seats from York, but it would be very busy from Peterborough I'm sure as it's a commuter train from there!

 

[trainophile]

Just want to give Dave1987 some thanks and recognition for his excellent post #32. Covers a lot of valuable information in laymans terms that all adds to the understanding that we as "just" passengers probably never even think about.

As for Mainliner... I trust this isn't going to end up in the RUSH-HOUR CRUSH section of the Metro!!!

 

[Dieseldriver]

And the drivers!

What do you mean by that?

 

[route:oxford]

My wife, daughter and grandson had booked advance tickets/reservations on the 10.57am service from York to London Kings X today and arriving nearly 20 minutes late the train was packed and it took at least 5 minutes just to get a foot onboard, it was standing throughout and even though reservation tickets were on seats the usual muppets still sit in them.
A Network Rail guy suggested the next train would be a lot quieter and marked their tickets to allow passage on next train.
Train arrives and same again but they got on this time and stood all the way to Peterborough.
It's just so wrong! A busy week like half-term just doesn't creep up, the dates are known months in advance yet these so called respected railway companies get away with running the same service and passengers have to stand for all or part of a long journey.
Turns out the previous train had been cancelled. Priceless!! The first day of half-term.
Moan over . . .

I'm totally confused.

How do you know that "muppets" were sitting on the reserved seats when your family hadn't boarded the train.

 

[SPADTrap]

What do you mean by that?

Just a joke, who likes to be up at 6am? Someone said that 6am is too early for the commuters

Didn't mean anything by it

 

[hoffers]

I'm totally confused.

How do you know that "muppets" were sitting on the reserved seats when your family hadn't boarded the train.

Because we stood where 'Coach C' stops and I could see the seat nos (even though the carriage lights were not working) and looking through the window EVERY seat was occupied plus a full line of standing people. They just got one foot in the door before the guards were ready to whistle the departure and suggested catching the next train.

 

[Qwerty133]

Because we stood where 'Coach C' stops and I could see the seat nos (even though the carriage lights were not working) and looking through the window EVERY seat was occupied plus a full line of standing people. They just got one foot in the door before the guards were ready to whistle the departure and suggested catching the next train.

That's weird as I think coaches without lighting can't be used for 'health and safety' reasons

 

[hoffers]

That's weird as I think coaches without lighting can't be used for 'health and safety' reasons

It was in darkness because we all commented on it, but from memory the other carriages seemed okay as they passed before stopping.

 

[MCR247]

I still don't see why the people are muppets

 

[Muzer]

That's weird as I think coaches without lighting can't be used for 'health and safety' reasons

I've had coaches without lighting before (see my other ranty thread about the Wessex Main Line and my experience on a 150 ).

 

[hoffers]

I still don't see why the people are muppets

I didn't say people were muppets, I said the usual muppets; Kermit, Animal, Miss Piggie

 

[dk1]

I dont see the problem. Trains on the ECML are well known for being overcrowded at busy times like school holidays, fridays etc its nothing new. If i get a seat between Peterborough & York i always consider myself very lucky indeed & ive been doing that run for over 25 years.

 

[306024]

Can I just make a brief point to hoffers.

TOC's have to plan diagrams and workings weeks in advance for them to be sent to network rail and input into the system. This enables the relevant stock to be got in the correct place and crew diagrams to be modified so all trains have crews and the signal boxes know the timings of each service. Also it is so that the timetable can be advertised to passengers well i advance. Unfortunately this means the that train planners have to make an educated guess as to what the level of demand will be. They also have to work around Network Rail and their planned engineering works. And once that decision has been made there is very little scope to increase the service to meet unexpectedly high demand. Also they may not have the extra capacity due to lack of available paths or rolling stock. They usually cannot just put on extra trains on the day because demand is high. Unfortunately this results sometimes in services being very crowded. But as Greenback has pointed out this is the nature of the beast with us having a walk up railway.

That pretty much sums it up except it isn't necessarily the train planners that make the 'educated guess'. It all depends on how good your commercial intelligence is in the first place. With the best will in the world most TOC planners are busy doing all the operational things Dave1987 refers to.

Most TOC's have a commercial department to analyse and advise on passenger loadings, special events etc, and recommend changes to cope with demand. The TOC train planner will translate the commercial requirement into an operational plan (if possible) and submit it to Network Rail planners in the hope that it will be accepted. It helps if your planners regularly travel over all their routes but most TOC's cover a large geographical area.

Experience is vital, but sometimes it does depend on how shiny your crystal ball is.

 

[alastair]

That's weird as I think coaches without lighting can't be used for 'health and safety' reasons

If this is so,then clearly no-one has told West Coast (the charter TOC),they have some very tired old coaches with iffy electrics & no lights is not at all unusual. Inoperative heating,PA and bad wheelflats are often featured too!

 

[Oswyntail]

So a group of travellers who quite legitimately booked seats (because they realised they were travelling at a popular time) and could not get on their train are a) criticised here for travelling at a popular time b) advised to stand or sit in the vestibule and c) criticised for not actually getting as far as the seats they had booked so as to ask those sitting in them to vacate them! Sometimes i despair, I really do.
The chief problem here is crowd control. I believe that it should be possible for those with reservations to be given priority access (time to arrange this even if the previous stop was Darlington) And (and here is the difficult bit) those without reservations prevented from getting on the train until those with reservations were seated.

 

[Wolfie]

So a group of travellers who quite legitimately booked seats (because they realised they were travelling at a popular time) and could not get on their train are a) criticised here for travelling at a popular time b) advised to stand or sit in the vestibule and c) criticised for not actually getting as far as the seats they had booked so as to ask those sitting in them to vacate them! Sometimes i despair, I really do.
The chief problem here is crowd control. I believe that it should be possible for those with reservations to be given priority access (time to arrange this even if the previous stop was Darlington) And (and here is the difficult bit) those without reservations prevented from getting on the train until those with reservations were seated.

You strated so well....

Q: What if those without reservations are already, as it appears was the case from the OP, on the train? Are you seriously proposing to throw them off(and how exactly?), even if they have horrendously expensive Anytime tickets, to let on the OP who may have the cheapest Advanced ticket going?

 

[YorkshireRider]

50 posts on a train been cancelled and the following train been full as it has had to pick up passengers off the cancelled service

 

[Oswyntail]

You strated so well....

Q: What if those without reservations are already, as it appears was the case from the OP, on the train? Are you seriously proposing to throw them off(and how exactly?), even if they have horrendously expensive Anytime tickets, to let on the OP who may have the cheapest Advanced ticket going?

Well actually, yes, or not let them on in the first place. Now I realise there is a problem with reserved seats not being taken*, but if seats are reserved, you know how many spaces are left (including limits on standing). So you know how many to let on. And that is one difficulty with preferential pricing - if you use the argument that the expensive ticket has different expectations from the cheaper one, you are going to be stuffed. If you are going to have a reservation system, then there are implications, and having to deal better with overcrowding is one of them.
*Perhaps it might improve if there was a rule that said the ticket is only valid in that seat, thus reducing the number of ghost reservations "just in case".

 

[Butts]

I bet there were seats in 1st Class even if the service before was cancelled.

Advanced 1st is always the best bet on East Coast

 

[6Gman]

If a seat is pre-booked reserved it is hardly free for anyone to sit in it, is it? I don't sit in a reserved seat that reads York to Kings X because I know I'm gonna have to move. What's the point reserving seats if anybody just plonks their arse in it.

Half-term or anytime, I expect firms to cater for the demand. I supply wedding cars and have a B & B business and we don't hire out the cars unless we can do the job properly and safely or do we sell rooms that we cannot accommodate people in.

I often sit in reserved seats since they are frequently not taken up (for whatever reason). If the booked passenger turns up I will happily leave the seat.

If your wedding car breaks down at the start of a job, what do you do? Do you always have a spare on stand-by?

 

[FGW_DID]

.....not let them on in the first place....

So what you are basically suggesting is we adopt an airline style booking in system and you aren't allowed onto the departure area (platform) until you have your boarding pass.

Walk up fares need not apply!

 

[The North Briton]

If your wedding car breaks down at the start of a job, what do you do? Do you always have a spare on stand-by?

And how many wedding jobs involve transporting the bride 156 miles?

 

[dcsprior]

I bet there were seats in 1st Class even if the service before was cancelled.

Advanced 1st is always the best bet on East Coast

I was on this service from Edinburgh - King's Cross, having been booked on the cancelled 0800 (which started its journey from Glasgow Central at 0650), and it was standing room only in 1st (and I assume standard) from Newcastle onwards.

I was fortunate enough to get an unreserved seat, and kept it for the whole journey despite offering it to:

• An elderly woman (who got another simultaneous offer, which she accepted)
• An elderly man (who turned down more than one offer on the grounds he was an ex-railwayman. Regardless of any rules about people with staff benefits having to give up their seat to paying customers, I would've been a lot happier if he'd taken my seat)
• A pregnant lady with two children in tow (who was too busy being angry at the world in general as she walked past to be able to hear my repeated offers)

Lots of services to/from EDB from the West were cancelled, so East Coast can't be blamed - however there is one thing I'd criticise them for: At Edinburgh, train staff (catering / customer service staff rather than the conductor) were advising passengers who had reservations on the 0800 to sit in the same seat number as they "transferred over", these people were then disappointed when the passengers who'd reserved the seats on the train that was running

I think it'd be nice if people who had reserved seats they were denied due to cancellation got unreserved seats ahead of those with no reservations, but I don't see how this could be done short of having electronic reservations.

 

[Kryten2340]

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Isn't it not East Coasts policy to render reserved seats null and void whenever they withdraw a train from service?

This happened to me a couple of years ago when travelling from Kings Cross to Newcastle. My train was cancelled so 2 services became 1 which meant the reserved seats were cancelled.

 

[Mintona]

alol @ the suggestion that someone who pays £300 twice a week for a ticket should be thrown off the train so that a student with an £8.25 ticket who travels every 4 months can be given priority.

 

[D1009]

So what you are basically suggesting is we adopt an airline style booking in system and you aren't allowed onto the departure area (platform) until you have your boarding pass.

Walk up fares need not apply!

At the busiest times I'm sure I've seen a system used at Glasgow Central and London Euston (pre VHF timetable) where they will only allow a certain number of people without seat reservations on the platform, so as to reduce the amount of standing.

 

[dcsprior]

Isn't it not East Coasts policy to render reserved seats null and void whenever they withdraw a train from service?

Yes, just a shame that wasn't what some of their staff were telling passengers