Grand Central Chaos

[bb21]

Power failure at Billingham, 1A60 ran mainline, FTS Hartlepool and Eaglescliffe.

As in Durham - King Edwards East - Park Lane - Heworth, etc?

 

[wensley]

As in Durham - King Edwards East - Park Lane - Heworth, etc?

Yes, additional stop at Darlington to collect passengers, then rejoined booked route at a Northallerton!

 

[Michael.Y]

Exactly, how early do you want Southampton fans to get up? Sky are the villains here, scheduling what must be one of the longest journies in league football (not just the PL) for a 1245 kick-off. Madness. If they must schedule a lunchtime kick-off, at least pick a sensible one. Its the fans that go to matches that make the game not the armchair fans.

Point of order : It was on BT Sport, not Sky, who have all the Saturday lunchtime kickoffs and have an obligation to show certain clubs a certain number of times in the season as part of their contract. In mitigation I would point out the facts that a) irrespective of broadcaster this was a TV game and as such b) a non-3pm kickoff has been known for a number of weeks now.

At least your game wasn't called off at the last minute like at Exeter!

 

[Get-Pulled-Off]

Point of order : It was on BT Sport, not Sky, who have all the Saturday lunchtime kickoffs and have an obligation to show certain clubs a certain number of times in the season as part of their contract. In mitigation I would point out the facts that a) irrespective of broadcaster this was a TV game and as such b) a non-3pm kickoff has been known for a number of weeks now.

At least your game wasn't called off at the last minute like at Exeter!

Fair enough, BT Sport. But to schedule a game for 1245 with a team 320 miles away still shows contempt for away fans who are what make the atmosphere in games. Weeks is not a great deal of notice for those unable to use club transport and may need hotels or cheap train tickets.

 

[Tetchytyke]

BT Sport chose the games before Christmas, people knew what the story was. It is a PITA having to travel so far for such an early kick off, I agree.

I also don't think leaving an hour before a kick off is "cutting it fine", given it's about a fifteen minute walk to the Stadium of Sh*te. I certainly don't think people should go around assuming that their trains will be two or three hours late, or that they will be cancelled entirely. I also think there is something going wrong at Grand Central as there have been several cancellations in recent weeks due to defective trains. I've heard mutterings out of Heaton in the past about a lack of willingness to spend money too. It probably doesn't help that Grand Central don't maintain their own trains, even if the Northern-employed train maintenance staff are on a specific Grand Central team.

This is the problem with advance tickets- there is no right to travel by an alternative operator, and The Manual states this pretty clearly. Given ATOC's continued attempts to use these fares to justify the extortion that is the walk-on fare, this is not right.

 

[londonbridge]

In response to some of the more recent posts. As some members will know I'm a London-based Sunderland fan and a member of the London Supporters Branch. We did have an arrangement with Grand Central for a discounted fare for our group travel to home games-there were anything up to forty of us on each trip-but after Arriva took over the arrangement collapsed and consequently members have been making individual bookings on advance tickets, be they with Grand Central or East Coast, or else driving and/or making other arrangements. My half brother lives in and supports Southampton and before the arrangement collapsed the plan was simply for him to join me on our branch trip as my guest. Once we saw that the game had been picked by BT Sport and after speaking with him about the arrangement colllapsing I booked the GC advances for the pair of us. This was back in November and thus answers the question of how long the 12.45 k/o had been known about. It also meant my brother setting off at 5.10 for a train to Waterloo in order to meet me at Kings X, which addresses the point of Southampton fans having to depart at silly o'clock. For London branch members like myself though it made no difference as the 8.11 was obviously the train we used every home Saturday regardless of whether the k/o was 3.00pm or 12.45. As another member pointed out it is a 15 min walk from Sunderland station to the stadium and whilst trains do get delayed you should be able to reasonably expect to make the game on time when you are originally scheduled to arrive fifty five minutes before kick off.

Me and my mate were also caught up in this mess on Saturday. We decided to chance our arm and get the xxxx EC to change at Newcastle (I had a priv any permitted return he had an advance GC only), despite multiple warnings from the TM that EC control said our tickets would be not be accepted. Luckily for us the TM was very reasonable and took the common sense approach and chose not to charge us for a new ticket, and with the metro connection to Sunderland we made it with about 5 minutes to spare.

What interested me was that the TM told us that GC and EC have had this problem before and they seemed to think that there was some ill feeling between the two on a manager/director level (something about GC being run by a load of ex EC/GNER staff or something). Whilst this may or may not be true it shouldn't be the passenger that loses out... and reflects quite badly on both TOCs in my opinion.

Oh and the 0900 was completely empty... maybe a quarter full with probably 2/3rds of the seats unreserved, so that certainly wasn't an excuse. I understand how advance fares work and that EC weren't getting any revenue, but in practise it was costing them nothing to transport the 50 odd Southampton fans, and if the others were anything like my friend, they would have made the ticket price back in alcohol sales on the 3 hour journey. Football fans are a pretty unique breed in that supporting their team is about so much more than money - my friend is a diehard and was ready and reluctantly willing to shell up the 120 or so quid to get him there in time - and this just felt like a pretty shameless 'we've got them over a barrel let's fleece them for as much as possible' approach, so thanks again to the TM for their excellent approach.

Can I ask, did you request permission from the TM to travel before boarding or did you simply just board and wait for the on-board ticket check? Since some fans tweeted that they had to buy new tickets I'm speculating that the decision to charge them was influenced by their approach and attitude to the TM. Looking back, the frustrating thing now is that we were sitting on the Grand Central train waiting for the permission to travel announcement (which, for the 9.00, was never made), whereas a polite word with the guard/TM would probably have seen us allowed to travel-although of course if this had been witnessed by others the TM would then have been faced with allowing everyone who asked to be carried-besides my brother I had met up with four other branch members but saw others who used to be regular members of our group among those arguing with the Grand Central lady on the platform.

Finally what's now even more frustrating is that I'd booked the Grand Central advances back in November to get a good fare, but I would probably have been able to get even cheaper East Coast tickets in their recent sale, which would have avoided all the hassle!

 

[142094]

As in Durham - King Edwards East - Park Lane - Heworth, etc?

It has done that route a few times before, although not very often. During the floods a few years back the last Grand Central into Sunderland was extended in service to Newcastle - the only time I've heard of them stopping at the station with passengers.

 

[wensley]

It has done that route a few times before, although not very often. During the floods a few years back the last Grand Central into Sunderland was extended in service to Newcastle - the only time I've heard of them stopping at the station with passengers.

It's been done a few times, when the Durham Coast boxes closed at night late running for the last down train has resulted in diversions to Newcastle vice Sunderland and I believe it's also been done following the cancellation of an XC service beyond York.

 

[Paul Duck]

In response to some of the more recent posts. As some members will know I'm a London-based Sunderland fan and a member of the London Supporters Branch. We did have an arrangement with Grand Central for a discounted fare for our group travel to home games-there were anything up to forty of us on each trip-but after Arriva took over the arrangement collapsed and consequently members have been making individual bookings on advance tickets, be they with Grand Central or East Coast, or else driving and/or making other arrangements.

If you still want to organise big group bookings to Sunderland home matches, give chester-le-track a ring at Eaglescliffe Station. We do large school/group bookings on Grand Central and other operators. We may not be able to promise you special (web-Only) deals, but will try our best to get you all sat in same coach together if rung far enough in advance. we will also apply the +10 group discount as per normal.

 

[Deerfold]

However I think its one of those chances you take with an OA operator, as there is little commercial incentive for EC to assist. This is not the case when EC assist Virgin and vice versa because they are on different routes and its mutually beneficially to accept each other tickets as its unlikely BOTH ECML and WCML will be disrupted at the same time.

This works the other way round too unfortunately.

I was booked on an EMT train from St Pancras to Nottingham last year when there was a fatality on the line and we were advised to go to Kings Cross and catch a train to Grantham and then another to Nottingham.

Having looked it up on my phone I saw a marvellous connection from the next Hull Trains train and onto a fast Grantham - Nottingham train which would have meant us only arriving about 15 minutes late.

I asked the EMT staff if we would be able to catch Hull Trains and was assured that we would.

However on arriving at Kings Cross the Hull Trains guard was making it very clear that if anyone with an EMT ticket boarded he'd be charging them for a new ticket because "EMT don't have an agreement with us"..

We ended up on the slow EC train to Newark and being over an hour late at Nottingham.

 

[northwichcat]

Section 6 here tells you what Grand Central do when things go wrong: http://www.grandcentralrail.com/media/127145/113411 GC Corporate Charter A4 - Final July 2013.pdf

 

[jricha]

@londonbridge - no we didn't see the TM before boarding we just took a lump it and see approach, but yes it's amazing how far some good manners and politeness go in easing potentially difficult situations!

 

[wensley]

This works the other way round too unfortunately.

I was booked on an EMT train from St Pancras to Nottingham last year when there was a fatality on the line and we were advised to go to Kings Cross and catch a train to Grantham and then another to Nottingham.

Having looked it up on my phone I saw a marvellous connection from the next Hull Trains train and onto a fast Grantham - Nottingham train which would have meant us only arriving about 15 minutes late.

I asked the EMT staff if we would be able to catch Hull Trains and was assured that we would.

However on arriving at Kings Cross the Hull Trains guard was making it very clear that if anyone with an EMT ticket boarded he'd be charging them for a new ticket because "EMT don't have an agreement with us"..

We ended up on the slow EC train to Newark and being over an hour late at Nottingham.

I had a similar situation at Kings X on Friday due to the dewirement, EMT customers turning up and we had no knowledge. A quick call to get the go ahead and we got them on their way - good comms can save a lot of trouble!!

It's amazing at Kings X, you're a 30 second walk from St Pamcras and the MML can be falling apart and nobody knows a thing!! As it's under a separate NR Control it can take a while to hear what's going on.

 

[CyrusWuff]

It's amazing at Kings X, you're a 30 second walk from St Pamcras and the MML can be falling apart and nobody knows a thing!! As it's under a separate NR Control it can take a while to hear what's going on.

Even when the same NR Control are involved it can take a while to filter through to those on the ground due to TOC Controls having to get involved as well...

Or people will decide of their own accord that a single cancellation means the service is falling apart and their Bargain Bucket Advance will automatically be valid on any train they want from a different station.

 

[wensley]

Even when the same NR Control are involved it can take a while to filter through to those on the ground due to TOC Controls having to get involved as well...

Indeed! Meanwhile you can soon get an angry mob building

 

[londonbridge]

Well after beating Kidderminster last week, in the FA Cup we were drawn at home to Southampton, and as per the league game it's now on BT Sport with a 12.45 kick off! Let's hope I actually make it in for kick off this time!

 

[Michael.Y]

Well after beating Kidderminster last week, in the FA Cup we were drawn at home to Southampton, and as per the league game it's now on BT Sport with a 12.45 kick off! Let's hope I actually make it in for kick off this time!

I wonder what berk decided that would be a good idea!!

 

[LowLevel]

I had a similar situation at Kings X on Friday due to the dewirement, EMT customers turning up and we had no knowledge. A quick call to get the go ahead and we got them on their way - good comms can save a lot of trouble!!

It's amazing at Kings X, you're a 30 second walk from St Pamcras and the MML can be falling apart and nobody knows a thing!! As it's under a separate NR Control it can take a while to hear what's going on.

A lot of the time though this is quoted and yet when I check the TOC involved's Tyrell messages it has indeed been paged out. When I was a dispatcher I always used to confirm with the guards on departing trains during disruption regarding ticket acceptance and kept the gen to hand in case they were unaware/hadn't checked/had left their work phone at home or similar.