TRANSPORT - TRAINS

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In order to attract more people to use public transport, Central Trains increased the fares on some of their services by as much as 22%. The reasons given were the increases of rising costs and the need to reduce overcrowding at peak times with some mainline commuter fares rising above inflation - simply because companies improved on the poor service following the Hatfield crash. Railtrack, who are responsible for the tracks, stations and platforms, said leaves have been "bigger and juicier" this autumn, which has led to longer delays to services. The company said the problem had been particularly bad in the Midlands and they issued a joint apology with Central Trains. A Railtrack spokeswoman said, "There were 30% to 40% more leaves on trees this season and they were 20% bigger and juicier, which caused delays on tracks." The company is also trialling a new anti-leaf train and has promised to buy 25 of the vehicles if the tests are successful.

Some of the excuses that have been used include:

* Leaves on the line.
* The wrong type of snow.
* It rained hard for three months.
* A broken down Virgin ahead.
* The sun reflecting off the rails.
* An increase in vandalism.
* An increase in track and station repairs.
* There are too many people on trains.

Rail bosses have come up with a slick solution to their leaves on the line problem, hair gel. A special mix of gel and grit is being sprayed on tracks to keep trains running smoothly. Anglia Railways said after blasting leaves off lines with powerful water jets they were now using the gel coating to give extra traction. The only trouble is that rain washes the gel away. It seems that at every turn British Rail are thwarted by freaks of nature!

South West Trains is having to withdraw a modern fleet from one of its busiest routes because the letters on information screens are 3mm too small to comply with disability regulations. The digital displays in each carriage, which show the stations that the train will stop at, are supposed to have letters at least 35mm high. The 28 trains in the Juniper fleet, introduced only seven years ago by SWT, have 32mm-high lettering. The Government’s disability advisers have persuaded ministers that the trains must be removed, even though thousands of passengers on the Reading to Waterloo route may have to cram on to shorter trains as a result. The Disabled Persons’ Transport Advisory Committee argued that the size of the letters could make it difficult for rail users with sight impairments or learning difficulties to distinguish the words. The committee recommended that SWT’s application for a longer exemption from the regulations be rejected even though the train’s audio system automatically announces each station in advance. (Source: Times Online, Apr/06)

Virgin has been forced to cut the speed of its new tilting trains because the brakes cannot cope with the age-old problem of leaves on the line. In recent weeks, the Pendolino trains have twice gone through red signals and hit the buffers twice at Liverpool's Lime Street station. Virgin Trains has reduced the top speed from 125mph to 110mph after the Health and Safety Executive issued an enforcement notice. The HSE told Virgin the braking arrangements for their trains were "not suitable and sufficient in conditions of low adhesion". David Frost, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said, "Every rail user in the country knows that we have leaves on our lines. It just defies belief that this was not considered when the tilting Pendolinos were considered." The new faster Pendolino services ran billions of pounds over budget and arrived a few years late.

Midland Mainline, which had one of the worst punctuality records in the UK, bought in 500 super-loud whistles to hurry passengers into carriages. Railway managers at the company came up with the plan to improve their punctuality record and say the tactic works, because the piercing sound of the 'Acme Thunderer' is already cutting delays. Officials say the whistles are so loud and penetrating that not only do they hurry passengers onto departing trains, but they also keep staff on their toes. Midland Mainline said minor delays at station stops quickly snowball because trains fail to hit key junctions in the correct time slot. So, the reason the trains are running late is because passengers are too slow at getting on them !!!!!!!!!

Rail passengers in Derbyshire have experienced a downturn in train punctuality, according to figures released by the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA). The passenger train watchdog has revealed that the punctuality of services run by Central Trains, Virgin Cross Country and Midland Mainline worsened in the last three months of 2002, compared to the same period in 2001. To be defined as punctual, Central Trains must arrive within five minutes of their advertised times, with Midland Mainline and Virgin Cross Country trains both required to arrive within 10 minutes.

Virgin Cross Country was the worst performing operator, running only 47.6% of trains on time from October to December, 2002, compared with 58.3% in the last three months of 2001. Midland Mainline had 62.4% of its trains running on time, which compares to a previous level of 70.8%. And 61.5% of Central Trains ran on time, compared to the previous standard of 67.3%.

Paul Fullwood, the secretary of the Rail Passengers Committee for the Midlands, said, "These figures are really quite disappointing. They point out the need to make the railways a priority and are the consequence of a lack of investment and years of fragmentation of the railways. The short-term answer is to tweak the timetables but longer term there needs to be heavy investment in the railways."

David Ewart, spokesman for Virgin Trains, said that the statistics for 2003 had already shown signs of improvement. He said, "The figures for January show that we were running at 64.8% punctuality and 70% in February. October to December saw very bad weather and problems that were beyond our control. We are continuing to work with the SRA and are introducing timetable changes in May to improve our capacity and service reliability."

Midland Mainline spokeswoman Emma Knight said, "This period had more problems than ever before, such as flooding at Clay Cross and system failures," she said. "We have been holding meetings with Network Rail to try to improve our performance and are spending £18.7m on refurbishing our high-speed trains, as well as £160m on the new Meridian fleet of 26 trains that come into use in 2004." Central Trains said that 74.2% of its services ran to scheduled times from January to March 1 in 2003, a rise of 12.7%.

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