Southeastern - Missing Out Stations

[blakey1152]

Hope this is the right forum to put this in!

Southeastern quite often get trains to miss out stops on their metro services when they are delayed for various reasons - and most of the time these trains gain no time at all.

However, I do wonder who decides what stations are missed out and exactly why as I noticed this morning that because of the incident that has occurred between Waterloo East and Charing Cross there are many delays.

One in particular caught my eye. If you were unfortunate enough to miss the 0902 train from Erith to Dartford you might as well go home.
The 0932 was cancelled but the 1002 train which is currently running 15 minutes late is not stopping at Erith (it is however stopping at the next stop Slade Green - presumably for a driver change). This means the next train if its on time from Erith to Dartford is at 1032 - a 90 minute gap between trains!

I spoke to Southeastern who told me....to get the bus!

I understand that they have to get trains in the right places to regulate the service but I think in this case they have let passengers at smaller stations down.

Blakey

 

[hluraven]

This is Southeastern policy, any delay and the metro services gets slashed, because the Mainline trains have a "higher yield per passenger".

There was an incident in Hildenborough a year ago, they (as always) part cancelled all the Sevenoaks stoppers at Orpington, leaving Chelsfield, Knockholt and Dunton Green with no service. This was the case for 8 hours as they "forgot" to reinstate them, with no message on NRES or Southeastern's website at any time. Those stations always get their service cut as soon as any disruption occurs.

As with you, I was told to get a bus, but they hadn't actually told TfL to accept tickets. It will be very interesting when/if London Overground does take on the Metro services to see if the Mainline falls down during disruption, but it will definitely lead to a better service from Metro passengers.

 

[30907]

Hope this is the right forum to put this in!

Southeastern quite often get trains to miss out stops on their metro services when they are delayed for various reasons - and most of the time these trains gain no time at all.

However, I do wonder who decides what stations are missed out and exactly why as I noticed this morning that because of the incident that has occurred between Waterloo East and Charing Cross there are many delays.

One in particular caught my eye. If you were unfortunate enough to miss the 0902 train from Erith to Dartford you might as well go home.
The 0932 was cancelled but the 1002 train which is currently running 15 minutes late is not stopping at Erith (it is however stopping at the next stop Slade Green - presumably for a driver change). This means the next train if its on time from Erith to Dartford is at 1032 - a 90 minute gap between trains!

I spoke to Southeastern who told me....to get the bus!

I understand that they have to get trains in the right places to regulate the service but I think in this case they have let passengers at smaller stations down.

Blakey

Out of interest, were the other 4tph also run non stop outward from London?

 

[ComUtoR]

This is Southeastern policy, any delay and the metro services gets slashed, because the Mainline trains have a "higher yield per passenger".

Where is this policy ?

 

[mister-sparky]

Hope this is the right forum to put this in!

Southeastern quite often get trains to miss out stops on their metro services when they are delayed for various reasons - and most of the time these trains gain no time at all.

However, I do wonder who decides what stations are missed out and exactly why as I noticed this morning that because of the incident that has occurred between Waterloo East and Charing Cross there are many delays.

One in particular caught my eye. If you were unfortunate enough to miss the 0902 train from Erith to Dartford you might as well go home.
The 0932 was cancelled but the 1002 train which is currently running 15 minutes late is not stopping at Erith (it is however stopping at the next stop Slade Green - presumably for a driver change). This means the next train if its on time from Erith to Dartford is at 1032 - a 90 minute gap between trains!

I spoke to Southeastern who told me....to get the bus!

I understand that they have to get trains in the right places to regulate the service but I think in this case they have let passengers at smaller stations down.

Blakey

There's 6tph from Erith not 2...

 

[Seaeagle]

Believe me it's not just the Metro services that miss out stops, only the other day I went to get the 12.03 from Chatham to Victoria to find that because it was 18 minutes late it ran fast from Faversham to Bromley South.

 

[MikeWh]

There's 6tph from Erith not 2...

Quite!


Except that two go back to London via Barnehurst and two via Crayford, so only the other two end up at Dartford. Having said that, it must have been possible to get to Dartford quicker using one of those other services.

 

[blakey1152]

Quite!


Except that two go back to London via Barnehurst and two via Crayford, so only the other two end up at Dartford. Having said that, it must have been possible to get to Dartford quicker using one of those other services.

It almost certainly would have been quicker to use one of the loop services but of course we're relying on Southeastern to let passengers know this (bear in mind they told me to get the bus....) and that of course passengers themselves were aware they could go to Crayford or the evil long journey to Barnehurst and change. (evil as it has that long wait time outside of Slade Green!)

 

[ScotGG]

Yes, some circular journeys have very long waits (timetable padding) to massage the stats. A 5 minute journey is timetabled as 20 minutes, so not a great alternative to get to Dartford.

So often the trains that skip stops make up no time, as they are behind other trains on high frequency routes, so it achieves very little.