Euston no trains 15/10/23

[Oxfordblues]

Some passengers might welcome their Delay Repay refunds which can be 100% of the fare for a single ticket: i.e. free travel! A few might feel the delay has been worth it financially. Plus the Delay Repay office will no doubt be offering lots of overtime to its staff over the next month to deal with the thousands of claims.

 

[Zontar]

Some passengers might welcome their Delay Repay refunds which can be 100% of the fare for a single ticket: i.e. free travel! A few might feel the delay has been worth it financially. Plus the Delay Repay office will no doubt be offering lots of overtime to its staff over the next month to deal with the thousands of claims.

Just out of curiosity, does delay repay cover priv rate tickets?

 

[CC 72100]

Just out of curiosity, does delay repay cover priv rate tickets?

Yes - albeit relative to the price paid to the ticket. Same levels (ie. X% for Y-minute delay) but according to the price paid originally.

 

[northwichcat]

Some passengers might welcome their Delay Repay refunds which can be 100% of the fare for a single ticket: i.e. free travel! A few might feel the delay has been worth it financially. Plus the Delay Repay office will no doubt be offering lots of overtime to its staff over the next month to deal with the thousands of claims.

It won't just be the ones serving Euston who end up paying out. For example, if a Merseyrail delay caused you to miss an onward connection to an Avanti service that arrived at Euston on time, and the next one was very late, then Merseyrail become liable for Delay Repay.

 

[ajp999]

Some passengers might welcome their Delay Repay refunds which can be 100% of the fare for a single ticket: i.e. free travel! A few might feel the delay has been worth it financially. Plus the Delay Repay office will no doubt be offering lots of overtime to its staff over the next month to deal with the thousands of claims.

Whilst this is true, for anyone travelling where time is critical i.e. attending a pre-paid event they could find themselves not just missing the event but out of pocket as well. You also need to consider the number of people including families that may have had their Sunday ruined by this disruption as well as the number that may have had to make alternative travel arrangements such as taxis that could run into three figure costs. Even four hours after the issue was resolved, there was still large gaps in the service of over an hour for customers heading north from stations such as Watford Junction and Milton Keynes Central. There was also no sign of any replacement bus services being provided. Would be interested to know how many delay repay claims will be for journeys north of Euston i.e. for journeys such as Birmingham to Milton Keynes Central as services were being held back further north.

 

[norbitonflyer]

For leisure travel it probably depends how risk adverse you are.

I wish people, especially railway management, would find a different name instead of "leisure" for travel that is neither (company) business nor commuting, as it implies the travel is optional and passengers can use advance tickets and/or pick and choose the time they travel. Much of such travel is on essential personal business, often urgent. For example I would not call a funeral a "leisure" activity. Nor is a hospital appointment. In neither case do you get much choice in the timing.

Most users of peak rate or "anytime" tickets are not business travellers, who can plan their meetings in advance and in my experience get the 3rd degree from their T&S departments if they try to use anything other than an "advance" ticket - (they also require us to book through the Trainline, which makes changes and refunds more complex - and of course you pay their booking fee - but that's another story).

The only times I can recall travelling long distances on an "anytime" ticket were on very urgent personal business - as neither of my parents gave me much notice they were going to die and I lived, at the relevant times, 150 and 300 miles away from them. To call such mercy dashes "leisure travel" is worse than insulting, and the high prices demanded for such journeys is exploitative.

 

[Gaelan]

I wish people, especially railway management, would find a different name instead of "leisure" for travel that is neither (company) business nor commuting, as it implies the travel is optional and passengers can use advance tickets and/or pick and choose the time they travel. Much of such travel is on essential personal business, often urgent. For example I would not call a funeral a "leisure" activity. Nor is a hospital appointment. In neither case do you get much choice in the timing.

The only times I can recall travelling long distances on an "anytime" ticket were on very urgent personal business - as neither of my parents gave me much notice they were going to die and I lived, at the relevant times, 150 and 300 miles away from them. To call such mercy dashes "leisure travel" is worse than insulting, and the high prices demanded for such journeys is exploitative.

Well said.

Most users of peak rate or "anytime" tickets are not business travellers, who can plan their meetings in advance and in my experience get the 3rd degree from their T&S departments if they try to use anything other than an "advance" ticket - (they also require us to book through the Trainline, which makes changes and refunds more complex - and of course you pay their booking fee - but that's another story).

I suspect this varies a fair amount by the employer and the role.

 

[philosopher]

Oxford is shut today with rail replacements running to various destinations, also rail replacements Banbury - Dorridge, so that's possibly why Avanti didn't agree ticket acceptance this way.

Today is certainly one of the worst days for this sort of incident of occur. Typically you would a lot, possibly most of the London to West Midlands passengers to shift over to Chiltern if trains at Euston were heavily disrupted, therefore easing the pressure at Euston.

Alas today this could not happen as passengers would have just got stuck waiting for rail replacement buses at Banbury which would have likely not had the capacity to accommodate all the passengers decamped from Euston.

 

[SCDR_WMR]

Whilst this is true, for anyone travelling where time is critical i.e. attending a pre-paid event they could find themselves not just missing the event but out of pocket as well. You also need to consider the number of people including families that may have had their Sunday ruined by this disruption as well as the number that may have had to make alternative travel arrangements such as taxis that could run into three figure costs. Even four hours after the issue was resolved, there was still large gaps in the service of over an hour for customers heading north from stations such as Watford Junction and Milton Keynes Central. There was also no sign of any replacement bus services being provided. Would be interested to know how many delay repay claims will be for journeys north of Euston i.e. for journeys such as Birmingham to Milton Keynes Central as services were being held back further north.

With the amount of RRBs in operation today due to engineering works, it was probably nigh of impossible to order anything meaningful and so they don't. Trains and train crew were massively displaced today, so it's of no surprise it left gaps in service for hours. Remember, there may not be any active industrial action today, but there will be very few train crew looking to do favours outside or their job cards!

 

[TheSmiths82]

Just got back from all the chaos. I was aware quite early on about the problems but my train was 17:54 so I didn't worry too much and did the stuff I wanted to do in London as normal. I checked around 3pm and everything seemed to be clearing up. I the checked at around 4 and everything was saying delayed. I decided to get to Euston early and see if they would let me on any train (I had an advance single). I asked the help desk and he said there is train at platform 5 if I am quick.

I asked the gate staff if I was allowed get on that train with an advance single for a later train and they said it would be fine. Ended up getting to Manchester 42 minutes earlier than planned, although the train did take nearly 3.5 hours. My "delayed" train also ended up running on time, but the two in-between were delayed or cancelled and when I got the this train nobody knew my train was in fact going to run on time.

I got the impression that the Northern services were running quite well but most of the Midlands services were cancelled or heavily delayed, possibly because there were alternatives to those places.

All in all I was impressed with how well the Avanti staff handled the situation.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

There were media complaints that today's infrastructure failure was down to "lack of investment over decades".
There can't be many sections of railway that have had more investment recently than Euston (and the rest of the WCML).
£8 billion-odd went into WCRM (which started with remodelling and resignalling Euston).

 

[TheSmiths82]

There were media complaints that today's infrastructure failure was down to "lack of investment over decades".
There can't be many sections of railway that have had more investment recently than Euston (and the rest of the WCML).
£8 billion-odd went into WCRM (which started with remodelling and resignalling Euston).

From a passenger prospective it seems to be getting worse, maybe I am just unlucky but at least half of my recent (this year) WMCL journeys have been delayed either due to signal or points failures. It makes me wonder if the maintenance regime isn't what it was.

 

[andyjhatton]

Whatever happened today was pretty catastrophic.
I abandoned the idea of getting from Birmingham to Euston, trains cancelled at short notice everywhere.
I'm surprised there hasn't been more media coverage.

 

[Omnishambles]

@alxndr Pretty much bang on from my days of working Control .
Also worth noting there used to be a Euston and Willesden S&T team 24/7 as well as a Mobile Ops Manager at both. The Euston MOM was only 2 shifts Mon-Fri and both may even have been scrapped now (it’s been a while). I would imagine nowadays 1 MOM, 1 team both covering to North Wembley with the S&T probably unable to attend straight off if they already have a set of points in bits doing maintenance (highly likely)

From a passenger prospective it seems to be getting worse, maybe I am just unlucky but at least half of my recent (this year) WMCL journeys have been delayed either due to signal or points failures. It makes me wonder if the maintenance regime isn't what it was.

Agree here, WCRM was finished 15 years ago this year and we went through some pain for the years it was going on, 7 day overruns, 8hr overruns 4hrs into a possession (!?!) so for me it’s not a lack of investment it’s more about maintenance regime and component renewal management across all disciplines

 

[Deafdoggie]

I'm surprised there hasn't been more media coverage.

What with rail strikes and other disruption I don't think the media see it as newsworthy. Also of note, a lot of media outlets don't see rail as relevant to most of their readers/viewers so it isn't a high priority to cover. In the recent strikes our major station was completely closed, but there was no mention at all on the local news and only a passing reference in the travel news. I guess the alternative is them saying how awful rail travel is, so I guess in some ways it's better?

 

[The Planner]

There were media complaints that today's infrastructure failure was down to "lack of investment over decades".
There can't be many sections of railway that have had more investment recently than Euston (and the rest of the WCML).
£8 billion-odd went into WCRM (which started with remodelling and resignalling Euston).

All very well having a new railway 20 odd years ago, but it gets battered every single day since. Its going to start failing at some point, sods law dictates it does it with only two lines open.

 

[northwichcat]

I wish people, especially railway management, would find a different name instead of "leisure" for travel that is neither (company) business nor commuting, as it implies the travel is optional and passengers can use advance tickets and/or pick and choose the time they travel. Much of such travel is on essential personal business, often urgent. For example I would not call a funeral a "leisure" activity. Nor is a hospital appointment. In neither case do you get much choice in the timing.

In the context of long distance travel to and from London, most of it will be business or leisure. Some local rail travel will be essential shopping, medical appointments etc, but if you're travelling from Milton Keynes to London for shopping it's probably not to food or to travel to the nearest shop selling shirts or kettles.

Most users of peak rate or "anytime" tickets are not business travellers, who can plan their meetings in advance and in my experience get the 3rd degree from their T&S departments if they try to use anything other than an "advance" ticket - (they also require us to book through the Trainline, which makes changes and refunds more complex - and of course you pay their booking fee - but that's another story).

I don't know what type of company you work for but the types of businesses I've worked for can't schedule in meetings for specific times 2-3 months in advance and expect those times to remain unchanged. I had a provisional date in my diary for London this coming Wednesday, it's now been moved to 1st November and the head of department has said train tickets can't be booked before 19 October as it's possible the date will change again.

Even if the date was confirmed 12 weeks in advance there would be some team members arriving on Avanti, some on East Midlands Railway, some on GWR and some on LNER. Trying to find cheap Advances that allow everyone to arrive and depart at similar times would be almost impossible. Making allowances for different peak/off-peak restrictions on different routes is difficult enough! That's the effect of post-COVID hybrid/remote employment - not everyone is in the same location anymore.

The only times I can recall travelling long distances on an "anytime" ticket were on very urgent personal business - as neither of my parents gave me much notice they were going to die and I lived, at the relevant times, 150 and 300 miles away from them. To call such mercy dashes "leisure travel" is worse than insulting, and the high prices demanded for such journeys is exploitative.

What you're describing is extremely rare. A parent dying happens, at most, twice in your entire life. I've lost one parent and it didn't result in me making a single rail journey. I've made around 10 business trips by rail since joining my current employer. 4 involved buying Anytime tickets for short journeys and 6 have involved buying Off Peak Returns for London.

I'm surprised there hasn't been more media coverage.

It was on a Sunday. If it had been a weekday there would have been many journalists reporting on it on their own social feeds, as they would have been stuck themselves.

 

[DarloRich]

It was awful yesterday - my train from Manchester to MKC was 2 minutes late. Shocking. It was very busy due to the high number of cancellations so standing space was at a premium.

Maddeningly Avanti ran a 9 car south and took the 11 car on the adjacent platform out of service. I know both trains had arrived at Manchester VERY late & I KNOW it isn't that easy to swap things around in an instant but to many on the platform it looked VERY poor to see a longer train chug off to the depot empty while we all squashed on a 9 car train. The guard at least made all but the very front coach accessible to plebs.

I'm surprised there hasn't been more media coverage.

it was a Sunday so media staffing levels are lower than during the week ( when they are already low!) In any event there isn't a big enough story here as no high level media/politico types were stuck on a train

 

[pitdiver]

Just out of curiosity, does delay repay cover priv rate tickets?

Yes it does. I got 50% refunded by Caledonian Sleeper after being delayed for 58 minutes. Fortunately we were in a platform ( Bridge of Orchy) so could get out and stretch our legs. I think it meant the two sleeper returns cost me about £90 ultimately.

 

[Oxfordblues]

I see the Down Fast is blocked this afternoon between Harrow and Bushey with everything crawling along the Down Slow.

The Down Fast has reopened but there's now a train-regulation nightmare at Watford North Junc.

 

[Boodiggy]

I see the Down Fast is blocked this afternoon between Harrow and Bushey with everything crawling along the Down Slow.

The Down Fast has reopened but there's now a train-regulation nightmare at Watford North Junc.

Rough Ride reported Capenders Park by 13:16 Euston - Glasgow

 

[philthetube]

It was awful yesterday - my train from Manchester to MKC was 2 minutes late. Shocking. It was very busy due to the high number of cancellations so standing space was at a premium.

Am trying to decide if this is a typo or sarcasm?

 

[pokemonsuper9]

Am trying to decide if this is a typo or sarcasm?

The 16:53 at Milton Keynes appeared to arrive at 16:55 (Realtime trains, might've taken a minute to stop+open doors) so it's possibly accurate

 

[LAX54]

I wish people, especially railway management, would find a different name instead of "leisure" for travel that is neither (company) business nor commuting, as it implies the travel is optional and passengers can use advance tickets and/or pick and choose the time they travel. Much of such travel is on essential personal business, often urgent. For example I would not call a funeral a "leisure" activity. Nor is a hospital appointment. In neither case do you get much choice in the timing.

Most users of peak rate or "anytime" tickets are not business travellers, who can plan their meetings in advance and in my experience get the 3rd degree from their T&S departments if they try to use anything other than an "advance" ticket - (they also require us to book through the Trainline, which makes changes and refunds more complex - and of course you pay their booking fee - but that's another story).

The only times I can recall travelling long distances on an "anytime" ticket were on very urgent personal business - as neither of my parents gave me much notice they were going to die and I lived, at the relevant times, 150 and 300 miles away from them. To call such mercy dashes "leisure travel" is worse than insulting, and the high prices demanded for such journeys is exploitative.

But if you fly, stay in a Hotel and even a coach ticket, the question is the same Lesiure of Business, so its not just the Railway.

 

[DarloRich]

Am trying to decide if this is a typo or sarcasm?

The 16:53 at Milton Keynes appeared to arrive at 16:55 (Realtime trains, might've taken a minute to stop+open doors) so it's possibly accurate

I lied. It was 4 minutes late. 1715 from Manchester. ( left 16 late - but was, i think, moved forward in the schedule due to very late in bound working)

 

[Boodiggy]

I lied. It was 4 minutes late. 1715 from Manchester. ( left 16 late - but was, i think, moved forward in the schedule due to very late in bound working)

17:15 departed late yesterday and was non-tilt too! I was on it for part of the journey.

 

[artemic]

I lied. It was 4 minutes late. 1715 from Manchester. ( left 16 late - but was, i think, moved forward in the schedule due to very late in bound working)

Indeed it made up quite a lot of time (and it would have arrived early if the departure out of Euston hadn't been let out first!) - rather to my annoyance as I was hoping for a Delay Repay claim!
There was certainly a biblical crowd in the Standard coaches, perhaps the guard announcing 'Standard Premium has been declassified' wasn't immediately obvious to everyone as the coaches further up (H & J, which are still labelled as First on the coach stickers!) were quieter.
I think the lovely view of Aston at night did make up for it though...

 

[DarloRich]

There was certainly a biblical crowd in the Standard coaches, perhaps the guard announcing 'Standard Premium has been declassified' wasn't immediately obvious to everyone as the coaches further up (H & J, which are still labelled as First on the coach stickers!) were quieter.
I think the lovely view of Aston at night did make up for it though...

seeing Birmingham lit up like that must be one of the great views. Stirs the heart. Worth the fare alone. That and the dystopian brilliance of the Rugby Cement works..............

( I took a punt on the SP coaches being declassified - took until at least Stoke before people realised! )

 

[ChiefPlanner]

I see the Down Fast is blocked this afternoon between Harrow and Bushey with everything crawling along the Down Slow.

The Down Fast has reopened but there's now a train-regulation nightmare at Watford North Junc.

We should be gratefull that Watford North Junction is now back in service ..........Bourne End to North Wembley was a bit of a trek for the busiest mixed traffic railway I can think of....

 

[RJ]

I see the Down Fast is blocked this afternoon between Harrow and Bushey with everything crawling along the Down Slow.

The Down Fast has reopened but there's now a train-regulation nightmare at Watford North Junc.

I got caught up in that one on the 1533 Euston to Manchester service, delayed around 25 minutes. Hadn’t travelled out of Euston for ages so was nice to see a frequent service in operation and a long distance train that wasn’t packed to the gunnels. My journey actually originated in Cardiff but didn’t fancy a busy 150 all that way.