GEML Disruption (01/11)

[LAX54]

Events like these just annoy me because when you have events such as signal failures which aren't easy to predict and fix causing disruption all day, then an idiot decides just as service recovers to take a stroll along the track for whatever reason.... The sense of some people really is shocking.

Not only was the OHL switched off, and trains stopped, the Main Road out of Colchester the A133 was closed too over the bridge for 3 hours, the person was sitting or hanging over the bridge, seemingly ready to jump

 

[Class 170101]

Another highlight was when 2 emus escaped from a farm near Bishops Stortford and ran down the Cambridge man line.

Perhaps they thought they could solve the train unit shortage.

 

[Class 170101]

Friday doesn't look like that it will be any better. The line is currently blocked between Stowmarket and Ipswich "due to the emergency services dealing with an incident".

Body may have been there for sometime apparently. Have the authorities discovered what train hit this person?

 

[F Great Eastern]

Problem is that it not just leaf fall season, short forming has lasted pretty much all year. First it was the beast from the East, then supplier problems now we've segued into leaf fall! GA putting out a message in the summer that the problems were over has turned out to be somewhat hollow. And yes I know that the engineering team are having a difficult time at the moment, works at Crown Point and Ilford full to bursting with all three operators introducing or about to introduce new fleets of trains but the travelling public do actually deserve better as some peak trains are almost permenantly short now and some days all the hauled sets are short of one of sometimes two coaches. As has been discussed before the short formation regime in the Franchise Agreement isn't fit for purpose as it appears not to provide enough of an incentive or capture enough of the trains affected. Unfortunately this does not give confidence that the total fleet replacement that is about to happen will be pain free, at least in the short to medium term!

The reliability and availability of all classes of trains has suffered a lot over the year with up to 100 short forms a day being advertised on JourneyCheck, regardless of what the official figures say. If it was one or even two classes I'd understand GAs point more, but the fact that it's across the board suggests that it's something within the organisation itself.

It's either down to poor management with a lack of rail experience (the ED has only 2 years rail experience, all in GA during this time) horrendous luck, or short term focused maintenance as the stock is going off lease and won't be their problem very soon, so they're not spending too much.

Given that they're in financial difficulties, I'd say it's the later.

 

[dk1]

The reliability and availability of all classes of trains has suffered a lot over the year with up to 100 short forms a day being advertised on JourneyCheck, regardless of what the official figures say. If it was one or even two classes I'd understand GAs point more, but the fact that it's across the board suggests that it's something within the organisation itself.

It's either down to poor management with a lack of rail experience (the ED has only 2 years rail experience, all in GA during this time) horrendous luck, or short term focused maintenance as the stock is going off lease and won't be their problem very soon, so they're not spending too much.

Given that they're in financial difficulties, I'd say it's the later.

Money hasn't got anything to do with it. It's the sheer upheaval going on at depots such as Crown Point & the fact that IC maintainance for a start is being done at Ilford & Bounds Green. Disruption was to be expected & im surprised it wasn't to a greater extent. Add to that a several fleets that are coming to the end of their life or going off lease & it's not surprising really. There will be a few mor months if not a year of disruption yet whilst everything sorts itself out & hopefully settles down.

 

[Shunter_69]

Also some of Fridays short forms were caused by stock displacement after the trespass incident.

 

[700007]

Not only was the OHL switched off, and trains stopped, the Main Road out of Colchester the A133 was closed too over the bridge for 3 hours, the person was sitting or hanging over the bridge, seemingly ready to jump

I had no idea at the time of posting a person wanted to jump. As it was written as trespass incident, I assumed it was someone, most likely a vandal or hoodlum trying to play about the tracks. But wow, did he come out of the situation okay?

 

[Alfie1014]

GA's latest performance figures, https://www.greateranglia.co.uk/about-us/our-performance/performance-figures published this week are not brilliant it's leaf fall after all, were a PPM of only 83.63%, against a target of at least 90.5% (and a MAA of 87.15%), though to be fair much of this is NRs fault.

Most bizarrely though they declared short formation figure of 1 (one) train for the whole period! Considering that on many days they have communicated at least 20-40 a day something's there's a bit fishy! I have tweeted them querying this, no reponse as yet.

 

[F Great Eastern]

GA's latest performance figures, https://www.greateranglia.co.uk/about-us/our-performance/performance-figures published this week are not brilliant it's leaf fall after all, were a PPM of only 83.63%, against a target of at least 90.5% (and a MAA of 87.15%), though to be fair much of this is NRs fault.

Most bizarrely though they declared short formation figure of 1 (one) train for the whole period! Considering that on many days they have communicated at least 20-40 a day something's there's a bit fishy! I have tweeted them querying this, no reponse as yet.

There was almost 100 a day at one point in a previous period.

Someone else on here stated that they only measure short forms in the figures if it leads to the train being overcrowded, which I believe is highly misleading, but there you go.

However another theory, I had from an ex GA staff member was that this metric relates to the number of trains that end up having shorter trains than advertised on the LED screens as that is what the DFT measure them on.

If the second one is actually the case, it's essentially saying that short forms are only considered an issue if people don't have notice of them, which speaks volume about how little the DFT care about the likes of you and me.

 

[306024]

Someone else on here stated that they only measure short forms in the figures if it leads to the train being overcrowded, which I believe is highly misleading, but there you go.

However another theory, I had from an ex GA staff member was that this metric relates to the number of trains that end up having shorter trains than advertised on the LED screens as that is what the DFT measure them on.

Someone else didn’t quite say that. What I actually said was that a train was measured as short formed if the formation was less than that agreed with the DfT. That only includes peak trains in the peak direction, and even then some don’t count for perfectly sensible reasons that you just happen not to agree with.

As for your other theory, sorry, nothing to do with any LED screens.

 

[700007]

The thing is with GA is yes they have a lot of 'short forms' but on contract majority of their trains aren't specified to be 12 coaches or even 8 coaches. They do lay on extra coaches daily to help out with crowding and to create a better customer experience but ultimately it does come from their own hearts which I will praise.

 

[dave75]

The thing is with GA is yes they have a lot of 'short forms' but on contract majority of their trains aren't specified to be 12 coaches or even 8 coaches. They do lay on extra coaches daily to help out with crowding and to create a better customer experience but ultimately it does come from their own hearts which I will praise.

If that is the case, something is very wrong with the contract. As a regular peak time commuter suffering with constant short forms.