April 2002 Newsletter

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Rush Hour Performance Shocker

The first blow which we touch briefly upon this month is the latest performance figures released by the SRA. These figures confirm one fact of which many local commuters will be all too well aware. WAGN’s performance for the 3 months up to the end of 2001 was the worst of all of the London and South-East region train operating companies.

WAGN’s own web-site tries to put a brave face on this by saying that West Anglia performance is holding steady. The figures show that nearly one third of the trains during the rush hour were officially late, they were subject to more than three minutes delay compared with the time-tabled arrival time at London Liverpool Street.

WAGN have repeatedly laid the blame for this poor performance at Railtrack’s doors, but there is a perceptible increase in the number of trains failing in service. At the end of the day, passengers aren’t interested in whose fault the delay is anyway, they just want to be carried in reasonable fuss-free comfort. One day it might happen !!!

Network Railcard Fares Shocker

In a second blow, the Association of Train Operating Companies has struck out at off-peak travellers. In a manoeuvre which has been described in a popular rail magazine as being like lemmings at the precipice, ATOC, of which WAGN is a member, has decided to end Network Railcard discounts for any midweek journey costing less than £10.

This means that the cost of a one-day travelcard midweek from Harlow Town will soon rise from £5-80 to £8-80. The changes will only apply for Network Railcards purchased after June 2nd 2002.

ATOC attempt to justify this move based on the fact that occasional commuters have been buying a standard single in the morning and a discounted single in the afternoon using the Network Railcard, but still travelling in the peak. This move

has been estimated as costing the TOCs in the region of £5-10 million. By contrast, fare dodgers are estimated to cost the industry £30 million and the combined annual turnover of the NSE region is around £1 billion.

If you have a Network Railcard and are unhappy about this erosion of its usefulness, why not let WAGN and our MP, Bill Rammell, know. After all, the move seems unlikely to help the government’s 10 year aim of seeing 50% more people using the railways.

Journeys at weekends, on bank holidays and other railcards (e.g. Young person’s, senior citizen’s, family & disabled person’s) are not affected.

Windy Woes

March has seen the effect of high winds disrupting services. The author was unlucky enough to be travelling on Saturday, March 9th, when a tree, blown down by high winds, landed across the line just south of Cambridge. Nothing in the region moved at all for the best part of an hour-and-a-half, during which time the carriages of the stranded train got very cold given the high winds and the lack of power. Eventually a rescue train was sent down from Cambridge and all the passengers safely ferried there.

Cambridge station was a scene of utter chaos, with the departure boards indicating optimistically that many trains were on-time. In reality, no trains were going anywhere.

A replacement bus service was struggling under the load, and information about where to wait for buses for each destination was difficult to hear given the number of people waiting. The staff were obviously working hard, but sometimes a little more thought could make a huge difference, e.g. temporary boards showing where to muster for each destination would have helped avoid the huge crowd surge whenever a bus arrived.

If you’ve had a nightmare journey from hell recently, please let us know through the e-forum.