Worcester 14 February, or good intentions gone bad

[edwin_m]

I was returning from the south-west yesterday and arrived at Worcestershire Parkway on the 1514 departure to Nottingham. It was held there with profuse apologies from the conductor due to "a signalling problem ahead". At about 1550 she advised passengers to get the 1554 from the high level platform and change at Foregate Street for the 1624 to New Street via Bromsgrove.

Not having much time to think about whether this was the best choice, I hurried to the other platform where the 1554 was held a few minutes so I assume everyone that wanted to made the connection. Meanwhile a notification had appeared on National Rail of disruption in the Droitwich area, and at Shrub Hill the conductor announced that only one platform was in use at Foregate Street and there was a delay due to other trains in the way. This proved to be a total closure of the curve from Henwick towards Droitwich with some trains allegedly running via reversal at Shrub Hill.

At Foregate Street there were various announcements variously blaming a nearby landslip or a signalling problem, with all trains cancelled between there and Kidderminster. Eventually they announced that the signalling had completely failed and there would be no trains until further notice. They advised passengers which buses from the bus station would go to Kidderminster or Bromsgrove. With several others I opted for the latter, catching a 144 that took nearly an hour to get to the nearest stop to Bromsgrove station, which was a 25min brisk walk. I was in time for the 1830 Cross-City which caught the 1909 New Street to Nottingham, which arrived on time at 2020. This was 197min later than my itinerary, and incidentally the same unit I had been on originally which had run to Derby and back to New Street in the meantime.

With the benefit of hindsight:

• The original train at Worcestershire Parkway departed about 25min after I left it and got as far as Derby, and had I stayed on board I would have ended up being "only" 74min late at Nottingham.
• Had I stayed on the platform at Foregate Street the Birmingham train would have departed at 1705 and got to New Street at 1744 and I would have ended up being "only" 137min late. It might however have been packed, as it was the only Birmingham train to have run for at least an hour. It didn't lose any more time between Foregate Street and Droitwich so I suspect it didn't have to divert via Shrub Hill.
• It appears whatever problem affected services via Worcestershire Parkway was resolved, but there was no announcement at Foregate Street suggesting getting a train or bus to the Parkway. As far as I can tell the problem at Parkway never made it to National Rail, including during the time when the train was definitely being held there, and the report about a problem at Droitwich didn't mention any impact on CrossCountry. So not seeing any mention of the problem later I didn't know if it was resolved or continuing but just not made it on to the site.
• As far as I could see information at Worcester bus station was limited to one screen giving departure times stand numbers and ultimate destinations. Most of the destinations were obscure places with no map or other indication of via points. Foregate Street had mentioned the 144 for Bromsgrove and i did work out from Bustimes that the bus to the Parkway was the 50 or X50. but I would have missed the 144 by the time I could have worked out when and where this left from and whether there would be a train when I got there.

So while the staff on the ground where trying to be helpful, this was some combination of a landslip and perhaps up to three separate signalling failures, possibly a result of the amount of rainfall in Worcestershire recently. I don't know if there was any attempt to establish and communicate the expected time to resolve any of these problems, but I certainly didn't hear anything. Sometimes having choices of onward route can lead to bad decisions!

 

[fandroid]

I think that many of us have been in similar situations. Without a realtime overall picture of the state of the network, there's only mixture of guesswork and previous experience to guide you. Unless we know otherwise, following the advice of a crew member is normally the best bet at the time. I'm not so sure about station staff, though.

 

[Haywain]

Sometimes having choices of onward route can lead to bad decisions!

And, for railway staff, sometimes being on the front line at the time of developing disruption situations can lead to advice being given which turns out, with the benefit of hindsight, to be bad.

 

[edwin_m]

I think the problem is that the crew member at Parkway didn't know there were other problems affecting her suggested journey via Foregate Street, which I think had only just appeared on National Rail at the time. And the platform staff at Foregate Street were clearly trying to give people information on alternatives, to the extent of looking up specific bus departure times. But they were not suggesting the option via Parkway, possibly because a bunch of people had just arrived from there, and maybe they didn't know the nature of the incident there either.

Delay Repay duly submitted, although XC doesn't have an option for free text so I've had to send a separate message requesting reimbursement of the bus fare.

 

[Bevan Price]

For a city or town of its size, Worcester has rather poor "out of town" bus services - it once had through services to Birmingham. Now hourly to just beyond Bromsgrove mostly hourly. 4 per day to Redditch & Bewdley ; 2 to Kidderminster. Nothing to Hereford - nust 4 per day to Ledbury with mostly poor onward connections.
And nothing at all to Cheltenham. So not a good place to get stranded if your train service gets disrupted.