Help is on the way..........
There's something in today's 'Telegraph' about 'Army buses poised to beat train strike'.........
:roll:
Cue bus drivers strikes over demarcation issues.
Last night at Redhill was 'interesting' - the information system there still believes that three trains can fit in one platform at the same time - the 1741 Gatwick, the 1743 Reading and the 1747 Tonbridge are all shown every day as occupying platform 1 together until the daily (again) last-minute correction!! It beats me how a known, daily-repeating error like this is allowed to persist, adding confusion for passengers who will be confused enough already by the workings at Redhill. Last night was made even worse than all the other days when the same thing happens by the fact that the previous GWR train had failed, and was formed into a six car train to Reading. As an aside, when this got to Betchworth, it stopped across the level crossing, despite the platform there being six cars long, and the rear three (out of use) cars' door lights all came on, suggesting that they weren't actually disabled!
This morning's Redhill saga was appalling yet again. Missed the 0831 departure to Victoria by a few minutes as the GWR train was late. The 0840 to London Bridge wasn't running and the next London train was shown as being the 0915 to Victoria!
Checked RTT to find that the 0853 departure to Victoria was running and was about 12 late en route. The indicators at Redhill did not show this train at any time and there were no announcements about its status at all. It arrived at about 0900 and the indicators still referred to it as the 0904 to Bognor!
I went to the front of the 12 car train and heard the platform staff tell the driver that "we don't know who you are"!!! With as much restraint as I could muster I shouted to him that it was the 0853 and that we, the passengers, know far more about the service than you do!! What an utter disgrace the situation at Redhill is.
This was followed by the platform indicator at Merstham saying the train would not stop (it was scheduled to and did) and then at Purley the platform staff ambled slowly to the front of the train to despatch it, adding another minute or so to the delay by his nonchalant attitude.
He also failed to spot the FLU sign immediately next to him was working loose in the wind and looked about to collapse, along with its eight foot post, with two of the four bolts into the platform having come completely loose allowing it to rock back and forth alarmingly. So, a very unobservant platform staff member and what of the regular 'safety' checks that are supposed to spot these things? From what I have seen, they simply walk up and down to key in at the various tags around stations, and don't actually check anything while doing so - brilliant!
Oh, and the overnight 455 was stabled in 'platform 4' at Redhill again - with the lights on, presumably for the entire day again - 'green' credentials indeed!
