Not so Greater Anglia

[185]

Did someone sat in an Amsterdam coffee shop design their website after eating several space-cakes? A bit of an embarrasment for Abellio.

It's poop. Really poop.
http://www.greateranglia.co.uk/

 

[Eagle]

It's poop. Really poop.
http://www.greateranglia.co.uk/

I'm sure it'll look better when it's not broken...

 

[Tringonometry]

I'm trying to think exactly what customer service training they could have provided to the staff, before actually taking over the franchise...

Surely a remote control Jedi mind trick could have been arranged ...

... sorry - it seems to be the norm to talk out of ones ar$e in this thread, so I thought I'd join in.

Muppets. :roll:

 

[jopsuk]

Interesting that current recommended route to Norwich from london is Kings Cross and FCC, when (as they say) the West Anglia is running fine- purely because of the faster journey times on FCC?
I guess they won't be able to strengthen the Cambridge-Norwich service (normally 3-car Turbostars) to cope with addtional passengers?

 

[O L Leigh]

There were roadshows for staff to attend where the company introduced themselves and took questions. The problem was that the staff were not employed by them but by NX, so attendance was voluntary if you happened to be off that day as they could not authorise their release to attend. That is why there could not be any training prior to 5 Feb.

Stop me if I'm insulting anyone's intelligence.

O L Leigh

 

[tbtc]

no they are not......they are getting blamed for very, very poor customer service during disruption......if they had not have been spouting for months about how it was "our main priority" then they would not be getting the kicking they are! Rod....own back springs to mind!

Look at this thread. They are blamed for signal failure, for the speed restrictions of stock in snow, for engineering work, for the cost of tickets, for rolling stock being "twenty years out of date"... these are not "customer service" issues.

 

[jopsuk]

I'd rather assumed that was the situation, always better to have spelled out by someone that knows for certain. Ginger probably thinks that you should have all spent every spare off-work moment you had being trained by an elite team of abellio customer service experts to be ready for day 1.

 

[Tringonometry]

Stop me if I'm insulting anyone's intelligence.

That would be as hard as underestimating it.

 

[Tomonthetrain]

Its not Greater Anglias fault, its the hand they were dealt with

 

[Pugwash]

Its not Greater Anglias fault, its the hand they were dealt with

Agreed fully - It would be nice to see someone, be it the DFT, Abelio or NR try and take some ownership of the problems both Infastructure and Rolling Stock to provide some reassurance for long suffering passengers.

I feel sorry for Greater Anglia and the staff, this cannot be easy for them, but lack of long term investment has meant that the service levels are way short of what should be expected.

 

[WatcherZero]

The short forming of services on the 29 month franchise is Abellios fault, they put in a cheap bid saying they could save money by tighter fleet management reducing leased rolling stock which would be returned when the next franchisee takes over.

 

[Zoe]

The short forming of services on the 29 month franchise is Abellios fault, they put in a cheap bid saying they could save money by reducing leased rolling stock which would be returned when the next franchisee takes over.

No-one forced the DfT to accept the bid though did they?

 

[cj_1985]

No-one forced the DfT to accept the bid though did they?

that is one of the big factors that people should remember... Abellio may have made the offer. But the DfT are the ones that agreed to it.

i do find it odd that the DfT, that micro manage almost everything (or did), did not stipulate the number of units/carraiges that the franchise must have...

and, that no one higher up the food chain checked and allowed the DfT to sign/agree a contract with Abellio that would mean carraiges being removed from a franchise just months before they are expected to be in huge demand... or removed at all for that matter.

 

[87015]

that is one of the big factors that people should remember...

i do find it odd that the DfT, that micro manage almost everything (or did), did not stipulate the number of units/carraiges that the franchise must have...

and that no one higher up the food chain allowed the DfT to sign/agree a contract with Abellio that would mean carraiges being removed from a franchise just months before they are expected to be in huge demand... or removed at all.

But the DfT is heavily leaned upon by the treasury to accept the bid with the highest return, the ball has come from Abellios court to start with before you again start blaming everything on the DfT...

I see the 1700 Liverpool St - Norwich is cancelled tonight, good thing there are those extra seats on the 1702 stopper then!

 

[WatcherZero]

Indeed, with subsidy being cut the ball is in Dft's court to cut costs and Abellio claimed they could cut costs without drastically harming service.

 

[junglejames]

no they are not......they are getting blamed for very, very poor customer service during disruption......if they had not have been spouting for months about how it was "our main priority" then they would not be getting the kicking they are! Rod....own back springs to mind!

So you come across one example in less than 48hrs, and all of a sudden they are rubbish? Crikey, nothing like taking a balanced view is there. Dont tell me. If you only travelled with the worst ever operator once, and on that day everything went well, you'd be saying they were the best in the world wouldnt you? If you suddenly decided to travel with Virgin for the first ever time next week, and due to a one off problem the pendy couldnt go any faster than 100, you'd slag off virgin/ Alstom for building a train that couldnt do what it was meant to do. ie 125mph.

I suggest you all wait and take a balanced view.

I could always take after you though. I once travelled from London to Norwich, and the train left quite late. However by taking out all the stops except Ipswich, we arrived on time, and I spent less time onboard the train. So obviously NXEA were the best in the world because they managed to make up so much time and get me to Norwich on time. I only need to take one experience into it to be able to make a balanced opinion. So its official. NXEA were amazing.

Sound stupid doesnt it? Precisely, now you know how you lot sound.

 

[dk1]

But the DfT is heavily leaned upon by the treasury to accept the bid with the highest return, the ball has come from Abellios court to start with before you again start blaming everything on the DfT...

I see the 1700 Liverpool St - Norwich is cancelled tonight, good thing there are those extra seats on the 1702 stopper then!

The 17.02 was still well loaded at Diss. Good job they didnt wait for the 17.30 as that got blocked in at Liv St by points failures & underwent a last minute set swap & subsequent delay.

 

[Helvellyn]

Oh hello. It's the bandwagon again.

*Waves at it passes*

That got a laugh from me!

The way some people are going on, I had to do a check that it was the Dutch who had taken on Greater Anglia and not the Italians. Because the way some people are going on it's almost though they expected Mussolini to be running the show now!

 

[Firesprite]

That got a laugh from me!

The way some people are going on, I had to do a check that it was the Dutch who had taken on Greater Anglia and not the Italians. Because the way some people are going on it's almost though they expected Mussolini to be running the show now!

Mussolini for the record only made sure one train run on time his own. When
he was summoned to the palace in Rome see the King Vittorio Emanuele in 1922.

 

[87015]

The engineering work section of the website is very different...

http://www.greateranglia.co.uk/travel-information/journey-planning/engineering-work

 

[NLC1072]

So, day one for this Mickey Mouse operation that's been completely and utterly useless for over 25 years.

One, National Express, Greater Anglia, or whatever you want to call yourselves this year. The Liverpool Street line is nothing short of a shambles.

They didn't fail to disappoint this morning. 5.58am from Chelmsford cancelled and then the 6.14 turns up over 10 minutes late, so a delightful 35-40 minute wait for everyone. Points failures at Manningtree and Liverpool Street area, same old rubbish over and over and over again.

354.90 for a monthly ticket now from Chelmsford to Canary Wharf too, just to make sure you pay for the delightful experience on traveling on this joke of a service.

National Rail have done continued "engineering work" on this line and it's got progressively worse.

Rolling stock is 20 years out of date. Doors not closing properly between carriages, opening during the journey and hitting passengers with a -2 wind in your face for the entire journey. In the summer you can also endure the added bonus of no air conditioning. It's like something out of the dark ages.

When are these jokers going to get their house in order? I'm so sick of commuting with these inept monkeys at the helm. How can they get away with this appalling line?

At least the 05:40 has been perfectly on time every day, oh and my 06:04 connection in Shenfield =)

 

[Bellwater]

Maybe they should get TOWIE to run it given the list of complainants.

 

[whhistle]

Rolling stock is 20 years out of date. Doors not closing properly between carriages, opening during the journey and hitting passengers with a -2 wind in your face for the entire journey. In the summer you can also endure the added bonus of no air conditioning. It's like something out of the dark ages.

Ha ha, try saying that to those in Northern's Leeds area.

If you don't like it, don't travel on the railways.
If you say you have no choice, get a new job.
If you don't want to get a new job because your current one pays well, get a Landrover :P

 

[YorkshireBear]

Must admit the dark ages bit is the bit that cracks me up... Send you back to dark ages for a year and suddenly it might not seem so bad!!!!

I think TOWIE wold do a great job! and when they don maybe people will stop liking them and they can get the **** off of my TV.

I think if we have this thread in 7 months time once the olympics are over and the transpoirt network has settled back down into its standard pattern this thread will look a lot different, until then its pretty much pointless to judge.

 

[tunster]

I really don't understand the complaints from the original poster. The problems go back further than National Express (stock wise) and especially any progress to getting a more modern/reliable service (related to national rail).

Give Abellio a chance! I felt sorry for them to take over managing a line infected with snow. Give them 3 - 6 months. Then we'll see if they are taking our concerns seriously. I hope they'll get on the back of national rail and hammer them to tighter SLAs when fixing issues and getting maintenance done quicker and more effeciently.

I was on a train from Chelmsford yesterday. We got more updates from the train driver (in the NXEA period - we would get one update or none at all). We all knew what trains were going to be cancelled in advance; what more do you want?

All Abellio need to do is become a better service provider (more comm's about problems and letting us know what they are going to do - that isn't difficult in comparison to NXEA).

If people want to make a difference:

- Get passengers around you to fill out the complaint forms all the time.
- Contact your local MP.
- Defuse your frustrations from here as this is not a complaint forum - take it elsewhere.
- Give the new provider a chance - I'm sure they wish they could transform the lines, trains and stations overnight.

It will take time and I hope this thread will be flooded with more optimism in the future months.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I could always take after you though. I once travelled from London to Norwich, and the train left quite late. However by taking out all the stops except Ipswich, we arrived on time, and I spent less time onboard the train. So obviously NXEA were the best in the world because they managed to make up so much time and get me to Norwich on time. I only need to take one experience into it to be able to make a balanced opinion. So its official. NXEA were amazing.

Sound stupid doesnt it? Precisely, now you know how you lot sound.

But I'm sure you are aware the Norwich to London route was the most costly service, but most impacting if enough people claimed for late arrivals etc.

That's why Norwich trains are like a red bull and is most important to the franchise running that line.

 

[O L Leigh]

While others are quick to criticise, I fear you might be equally quick to heap praise.

I was on a train from Chelmsford yesterday. We got more updates from the train driver (in the NXEA period - we would get one update or none at all).

That could simply be because you had a different driver this morning. Some drivers are more customer-focused than others and will make more PA announcements. I certainly have had no new instructions with regard to use of the PA, especially in times of disruption, since the advent of the "one minute announcement" introduced by, um, NXEA.

All Abellio need to do is become a better service provider (more comm's about problems and letting us know what they are going to do - that isn't difficult in comparison to NXEA).

For drivers at least, this has always been the problem. How do you get information to a train driver when he's out on the line?

The only authorised route for communications is via the signaller. But if it's all up the wall he's going to be busy too and won't have the time or inclination to pass messages back and forth between the controller and individual drivers. As a matter of course we are not allowed to have a mobile phone switched on in the cab, but obviously it may become necessary to use it if things become particularly bad. Which prompts the next question. When do you choose to take that course of action? When all you can see is a red light, how long do you leave it before you start hassling people for information?

O L Leigh

 

[andykn]

Greater Anglia have apologised:

http://www.greateranglia.co.uk/about-us/news/2012/02/greater-anglia-services-on-6th-february

 

[junglejames]

But I'm sure you are aware the Norwich to London route was the most costly service, but most impacting if enough people claimed for late arrivals etc.

That's why Norwich trains are like a red bull and is most important to the franchise running that line.

Im not worried about the reasons for doing what they did. Im just making a silly rash comment to show some of the others how their comments sound.

 

[jon0844]

For drivers at least, this has always been the problem. How do you get information to a train driver when he's out on the line?

Can someone come up with an automated way to pass information to drivers en masse during disruption (or by head code or whatever to narrow it down). A simple paging/text system that can display a text based explanation - that is either read off by the driver, or - dare I say it - automatically passed on via the PA system/screens?

I'm sure that when you're busy doing other things, you'd still like to know what's happening.

Can GSM-R offer this sort of thing? And, more to the point, would anyone invest in it - and would text alerts on a fixed screen/display in the cab be considered safe/unsafe?

 

[southerner2174]

GSM-R will allow the signaller to send out a pre-recorded messages to every driver in a particular area, giving them information about any incidents that are happening and any instructions they need to do.
This will obviously free them up to deal with whatever is causing the disruption instead of wasting time talking to each driver individually.

Works well on the ELL when there is disruption on the tube at various interchanges and if there is engineering work going on and the tube is shut eg Highbury & Islington and the Victoria line is shut a pre-recorded message will play to the driver and he can pass the relevant information on.