South West Trains and a blocked line

As many of you know on the days when I’m in the office I commute the 30 odd miles from home to work. I’ve blogged about the trains on occasions before and I’m generally a fan of the railways but two things caught my eye yesterday. First was an article in the Metro paper saying that new statistics show that 1 in 3 trains run late, despite what official figures have shown in the past. Apparently they are changing the way the figures are compiled. Trains are only recorded as being late if they arrive at their destination a certain number of minutes after their due arrival time at their destination. This time difference is being reduced. Now the question I want to raise is who decided that train punctuality was the main way we measure train companies performance? As far as this commuter is concerned if my train arrives a few minutes late on the odd occasion then I’m not going to loose any sleep over it. To me there are far more important issues. As punctuality is the way train companies are judged the train companies seem to be adjusting things to try to ensure that according to the figures. The introduction of the 30 second rule is the one that grates with this commuter the most. The doors of the trains are locked up to 30 seconds before the departure time. Why? Just too improved punctuality at the expense of passenger satisfaction? I’ve been caught out a couple of times recently because of this. The thing is that I’ve been feet away from the train when the door are locked and the platform staff then have the gall to try to apologies to me. I really find it very hard to believe that they are sorry for signally to the guard to lock the doors when they can see someone running for the train and will reach it in a matter of seconds. If they were truly sorry they wouldn’t do it. It’s the lies I can’t stand. I’d rather live with a thief than a liar. At least you always know where you stand with the thief. So if the train company said that it would scrap the 30 second rule but punctuality would decrease I’d vote for it. But to me the most important issue is fares. Again if the train company asked if we wanted 10% reduction in fares or 10% improvement in punctually, I’d vote for the former. It’s like the airline industry. People moan about poor service and all the hassles of using the likes of Ryanair and Easyjet but they must be doing something right or they would be taking delivery of brand new aircraft every few weeks. I think that thing they are doing correct is price, despite the ‘hidden’ extras. Now I can’t let a blog about South West Trains pass without mentioning Sway. The line was blocked at Sway yesterday due to flooding. I did see a joke tweet last night from someone saying that the train companies apologies for not controlling the weather. I think they have totally missed the point. The situation was a line blockage. That blockage could have been caused by anything, it just so happens that water was blocking the line yesterday. Its how they cope with the problem is the issue. A blocked line can occur anytime and anywhere so where was the emergency planning? It would appear that the best they could do was a guy standing outside of the station telling people to club together, get taxis and claim the fare back from South West Trains. £80 later and me, two people from London and a woman from Lichfield were in Southampton. The cost of everyone getting taxis must be huge. So again where was the emergency planning? Councils have emergency planning officers and teams for such an occasion. They have to think of every scenario and try to come up with solutions to that problem. The public EXPECTS them to act in times of need. Is it too much to think that a major transport company have emergency plans in place to overcome a simple thing such as a line blockage? I would have felt sorry for the ONE guy left to cope with all the passengers last night. He was obviously dumped in it big time. However he was the one who decided to signal for the doors to be locked on me a few weeks back because it was 30 seconds before departure even though I was 20 feet from the train. I know it was probably wrong of me and makes me a bad person, but I didn’t mind the abuse he was getting. If it was any other person at Bournemouth I would be outraged. I do get on with them all, Stop and chat with them, They are a good bunch of people, but this one guy is the rotten apple in the barrel. Sorry but I’m only human. I also noticed that the South West Trains twitter feed went very quiet last night again not good when people want information. Talking of which you may recall my blog a few weeks ago about the South West Trains having an underscore in their twitter name and the fact that it cannot be displayed correctly on the train information screens. Well I see they have come up with a solution. The screens now just say ‘follow us on Twitter’ with no name given. Hmmmm