Engineering works - have SWT given up?

[joncombe]

Have South West Trains given up planning engineering work in advance? Already this year I've 3 journies disrupted when the times for the "Advance" ticket I've booked aren't actually running by the time I come to travel. Just checking for this weekend on the National Rail Enquiries site it shows an alert "It is not yet known how South West Trains will be affected by engineering work".

I thought train companies were meant to announce work and finalise 12 weeks beforehand yet here we are less than a week beforehand and they still don't know when the trains will be running. It happens week after week. Is this the fault of South West Trains or Network Rail? Given the terms of Advance tickets are they are only valid on the train specified, how can they be enforced if the train specified isn't actually running!

 

[Feathers44]

I doubt that SWT have ever planned any aengineering work. Surely, that's all down to Network Rail. Short doing major engineering on the rolling stock and taking it out of service I can't think of anything tha SWT could do to have the sort of impact you describe.

So are you asking if SWT are aware of planned Network Rail engineering work but ignoring it?

It sounds unlikely.

 

[infobleep]

Have South West Trains given up planning engineering work in advance? Already this year I've 3 journies disrupted when the times for the "Advance" ticket I've booked aren't actually running by the time I come to travel. Just checking for this weekend on the National Rail Enquiries site it shows an alert "It is not yet known how South West Trains will be affected by engineering work".

I thought train companies were meant to announce work and finalise 12 weeks beforehand yet here we are less than a week beforehand and they still don't know when the trains will be running. It happens week after week. Is this the fault of South West Trains or Network Rail? Given the terms of Advance tickets are they are only valid on the train specified, how can they be enforced if the train specified isn't actually running!

I don't know the reasons for it but your right it has happenes more often of late.

In fact in some cases it is known Network Rail are doing engineering works. Perhaps Network Rail don't yet know what the engineering works they are doing will be. Maybe it depends on how far they progress with works taking place in advance of this weekend.

That is just a random guess.

I'm surprised South West Trains are selling advanced tickets. I thought most TOCs would only sell advanced tickets once network rail have confirmed their engineering works plans.

 

[Deepgreen]

Have South West Trains given up planning engineering work in advance? Already this year I've 3 journies disrupted when the times for the "Advance" ticket I've booked aren't actually running by the time I come to travel. Just checking for this weekend on the National Rail Enquiries site it shows an alert "It is not yet known how South West Trains will be affected by engineering work".

I thought train companies were meant to announce work and finalise 12 weeks beforehand yet here we are less than a week beforehand and they still don't know when the trains will be running. It happens week after week. Is this the fault of South West Trains or Network Rail? Given the terms of Advance tickets are they are only valid on the train specified, how can they be enforced if the train specified isn't actually running!

SWT won't plan or arrange the works (NR does) but should plan/allow for them when providing trains/alternative travel options. However, their own future is now extremely short!

 

[swt_passenger]

SWT won't plan or arrange the works (NR does) but should plan/allow for them when providing trains/alternative travel options. However, their own future is now extremely short!

SWT are still putting out the usual detailed engineering work posters for weekends, at least they did last week, I haven't seen the poster for this upcoming weekend yet, but it is online, and gives the normal sort of details: https://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/g...eekly-summary-maps/15-3-to-9-july-2017-sd.pdf

It is probably more likely that NR are going for additional short notice alterations in the Waterloo approaches as the blockade gets nearer.

 

[theironroad]

Only long term work is planned 12 weeks in advance.

There have been an increasing number of infrastructure failures in the past 12 months often requiring engineering work at short notice.

 

[theironroad]

Have South West Trains given up planning engineering work in advance? Already this year I've 3 journies disrupted when the times for the "Advance" ticket I've booked aren't actually running by the time I come to travel. Just checking for this weekend on the National Rail Enquiries site it shows an alert "It is not yet known how South West Trains will be affected by engineering work".

I thought train companies were meant to announce work and finalise 12 weeks beforehand yet here we are less than a week beforehand and they still don't know when the trains will be running. It happens week after week. Is this the fault of South West Trains or Network Rail? Given the terms of Advance tickets are they are only valid on the train specified, how can they be enforced if the train specified isn't actually running!

According to the swt website there are NO planned major engineering works 8/9 July and work previously planned between Epsom and Dorking is cancelled.

 

[The Planner]

Only long term work is planned 12 weeks in advance.

Do you mean the work within the possession or the possession itself? The possession is planned long before that normally as it has to hit DPPP and CPPP timescales so the TOCs can bid for the STP paths.

 

[TEW]

On quite a few Weekends recently, SWT have described the work as late notice engineering work. Network Rail appear to have been taking a number of additional, short notice, possessions of various parts of Waterloo in order to prepare for the blockade in August.

 

[infobleep]

On quite a few Weekends recently, SWT have described the work as late notice engineering work. Network Rail appear to have been taking a number of additional, short notice, possessions of various parts of Waterloo in order to prepare for the blockade in August.

Perhaps they know in advance that it's likely Network Rail may need to do such a thing, so they announce in advance the engineering works is not known yet and once it is they either add it or remove the engineering works notice from the journey planners as it's no longer applicable.

 

[yorkie]

Given the terms of Advance tickets are they are only valid on the train specified, how can they be enforced if the train specified isn't actually running!

You can either take an earlier train or alternatively take a later train (including later connections where applicable) which, depending on the extent of the delay, would also entitle you to delay compensation.

 

[swt_passenger]

On quite a few Weekends recently, SWT have described the work as late notice engineering work. Network Rail appear to have been taking a number of additional, short notice, possessions of various parts of Waterloo in order to prepare for the blockade in August.

...Which is exactly what I expected you (or another colleague) to say. SWT are being unfairly blamed for this sort of thing. The idea that the guys in the info unit at Southampton (who normally produce what I consider some of the better engineering works information posters etc) have suddenly given up because of the franchise change is pretty far-fetched isn't it...

 

[bb21]

It also has nothing to do with the info team. It is between Network Rail and SWT train planning.

 

[joncombe]

Well the warning about Engineering Work not being confirmed for this weekend seems to have gone away so hopefully that means the published timetable will be what is running.

However I don't understand why SWT or Network Rail are unable to plan works 12 weeks in advance as happens on other TOCs or if they changed the times they seemingly don't make any effort to contact passengers that have booked tickets on trains that aren't now running.

It's not great from a passengers point of view to arrive at a station and find the train you are booked on isn't acutally running and you should have got an earlier one. This is particularly so when making a long journey and it means you miss a later booked connection and then have to try to convince barrier staff or guards that you didn't actually miss the booked train but that it wasn't actually due to run any longer. It's unfortunate that detailed PDF timetables during engineering works usually created any longer which means it's very hard to prove this after the event (since journey planners won't typically give you the times of trains in the past).

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

One of the challenges of a major engineering project (e.g. Waterloo) is that engineering needs change week-by-week. So if during last weekend's blockage something unexpected was discovered, went wrong or didn't get completed, very often a late-notice possession for this weekend must be taken to get things back on track. It is the reality of engineering; you don't know 100% what you'll find until you actually dig the hole. There is no way to predict that kind of issue at the 12-week booking horizon (actually planned at T-18 weeks) because of the timescales involved, and therefore customers end up being unavoidably inconvenienced. The alternative is a 12-week delay to the project.

You're quite correct that it isn't great, but in the long run the alternative isn't great either.

 

[Poolie]

Maybe not engineering works, but 'normal' trains into and out of Waterloo may have to take second place while the glory days of the last weekend of steam in 1967 are recreated.......that was a Waterloo Sunset

 

[The Planner]

There is no way to predict that kind of issue at the 12-week booking horizon (actually planned at T-18 weeks) because of the timescales involved, and therefore customers end up being unavoidably inconvenienced. The alternative is a 12-week delay to the project.

T-18 is when they should be bidding, not planning it, even though many TOCs miss that.

 

[306024]

Of course for TOCs to be able to plan properly they need an accurate and reliable confirmed possessions document from NR at T-26........

 

[The Planner]

Should we rename it to the BGPPP?

 

[bb21]

The answer is quite simple really. It all boils down to the fact that we don't live in an ideal world, and circumstances change.

Not much else can be said.

 

[infobleep]

Well the warning about Engineering Work not being confirmed for this weekend seems to have gone away so hopefully that means the published timetable will be what is running.

However I don't understand why SWT or Network Rail are unable to plan works 12 weeks in advance as happens on other TOCs or if they changed the times they seemingly don't make any effort to contact passengers that have booked tickets on trains that aren't now running.

It's not great from a passengers point of view to arrive at a station and find the train you are booked on isn't acutally running and you should have got an earlier one. This is particularly so when making a long journey and it means you miss a later booked connection and then have to try to convince barrier staff or guards that you didn't actually miss the booked train but that it wasn't actually due to run any longer. It's unfortunate that detailed PDF timetables during engineering works usually created any longer which means it's very hard to prove this after the event (since journey planners won't typically give you the times of trains in the past).

Real time trains Web Site www.realtimetrains.co.uk can help with past times.

People who book at ticket offices or buy tickets via TMVs clearly can't easily be told of train time changes.

However those who book online with timed departures could be. Just need a program that check if booked services are still running. As the timetable data is national, all companies could check against it, regardless of TOC running a service.

I don't know how feasible it would be with thr IT infrastructure in place. How long would such a query as that take to run?

So theoretically possible but is it practically possible?

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