In light of the recent disruptions caused by extreme weather, I am sure a lot of people will be wishing they could attend the event, but for whatever reason won't be able to make it.
I am going - I commute to ST Pancras Monday to Friday anyhow. You can leave me your questions below and I will attempt to get some answers back to you.
Please note this is not a rant space - there are plenty of other places for that. Rants will get deleted immediately, except if they are particularly well written and creative.
Please check that your question has not been asked already
T&C's
No gratuitous bad language
Keep it succinct with supporting data/information if you got it
Cheers.
@Metr0dude
There is a duty of care for the safety of the public when using your stations and trains (HSAW Act s.3), and whilst the bad weather will have demanded substantial resources to clear ice and snow can you explain why it was possible to employ revenue protection officers for ticket inspections whilst platform surfaces remained in a dangerous condition through ice and snow.
ReplyDeleteHow would you defend any actions for injury and other loss arising from such conditions on your stations which remain long after the original falls of snow, given that you clearly had staff resources for other activities? Why was it not possible to bring in spot hired labour to make your stations safe?
South West Trains immediately switched to a reduced Snow Conditions timetable, releasing staff and trains as a contingency reserve, and ensuring that all trains that ran were full-length,full capacity. Why did Southeastern not do likewise?
Good luck!
Southeastern receives a public subsidy of millions by the DFT. Will Mr Horton return the money to us based on service delivery failure as this seems only fair ?
ReplyDeletewhen are you going to get rid of the third rail and why did you knowingly buy into a franchise that was not fit for purpose (re: third rail)?
ReplyDeleteWhy is it not practical to maintain a small fleet of back up Diesel Locomotives to help better cope with Winter Conditions. These could be redundant Freight Locomotives made compatiable with your regular trains.
ReplyDeleteContrary to your notice at Otford Station last Thursday - trains were actually running. There was a Diesel-Hauled DRS (Governement-Run) freight train in the platform waiting only for the failed SE electric train in its path to be removed.
Surely maintaining a small fleet of diesel locomotives would enable you to run at least some trains on the main lines in Icy conditions. British Rail used to use this solution.
Given that the service level between Maidstone West and London has deteriorated to an appalling level before the snow, what do you intend to do to prevent the service becoming any worse than it already is - in normal, not snowbound, conditions. And how will SouthEastern improve the service which is plagued with non-running trains, late services, missed connections and worse
ReplyDelete1) Given the awful communication problems not only to passengers (sorry 'customers') but also to your own staff what do you intend to do about this?
ReplyDeleteWe've all seen your statements suggesting that things happen too quickly to update information, but why not have a twitter or similar page that could be updated by station staff?
2) any chance of a steam train with a snow plough?
What proportion of the 3rd rail is heated and long will it be before all of it is?
ReplyDeleteDoes Sarah Boundy really think that appearing on the news to tell us how the SouthEastern web site had been upgraded was a suitable response for commuters who had not been able to get into work because of the ineptitude of SouthEastern?
ReplyDeleteDear Manager Sir,
ReplyDeleteIf you are raising our fares, what are the real tangible benefits for passengers.
We've had consisten rise in fares, with services going the other way.
In any given week, I have to travel standing at least 5 times. Why can't we have proper planning in place and why can't first class be declassified when in overcrowding conditions?
Great initiative btw!
@chrisdeabreu
Although the service has to improve and the costs being charged are scandalous, the biggest issue for me is around communications. I got the only real accurate news during the snow from other passengers on Twitter - the Southeastern site, National Rail and others were neither accurate nor timely. And the email updates were also farcically inaccurate. This means that I cannot trust at any stage any of the information that Southeastern provide - making using their service a complete nightmare. It is not difficult in this day and age to have a communications system that works, even if it continues to be seemingly so hard to have a train service that works in nasty weather. Why have Southeastern not learnt from January and what are they going to do about their communications now? Saying "we are sorry and we have learnt from this" is just not good enough.
ReplyDeleteThe other inexcusable issue is why it takes so long to get back to anything like a normal service. Almost a week after the bad weather, this morning there were more short trains and my Ashford train last night had only 4 carriages instead of 12. The professional thing to do would be to work through the night to sort things out - but for Southeastern that seems not to be possible. They just expect commuters to put up with it. Some glib excuse from a customer relations manual is both insulting and ridiculous. How is that going to change?
Oh - and my train in every morning has not actually arrived on its scheduled time once in the last 2 months
Can Southeastern please provide an incentive for me to use their service to get to london from Canterbury? At the moment driving is both cheaper and quicker (and that includes using the 'high speed' train as it does not get me to the right part of london - as the old trains (which are now very slow) used to).
ReplyDeleteIf not, I will be using the car from January.
Do you do analysis across all of your services to monitor which of them underpeform below your targets? The service that I get (7.41am from Tunbridge Wells to London) is late without fail every single day. What processes/plans are in place to amend services that are consistently late?
ReplyDeleteWhilst much of the criticism levelled against Southeastern has been the lack of trains during the bad weather, the trains that failed leaving passengers stranded for several hours shows a flagrant disregard for Health & Safety and in particular the duty of care that Southeastern has for its customers.
ReplyDeleteI would be interested to know what risk assessments are in place for the safe running of trains and, if snow in particular is a highlighted risk, why these trains were allowed to run.
In short, how can Southeastern customers believe that they can travel safely on the network when such a flagrant lack of judgement is shown by those responsible for ensuring passenger safety?
Thank you.