Walked into the eye of the “storm” today as was booked on the 1302 Euston to Chester. Using the power of RTT we could see it was leaving from platform 12 and sure enough a 10 car voyager was there.
At around 1245 an announcement was made saying that there was a block on all departures bar overground due to the issue with the wires.
I get issues happen, and that information is fluid during disruption, but given the amount of times this happens there really should be some sort of contingency plan. Anything really.
The station was locked to new arrivals pretty quickly and tempers were fraying as no announcements were apparently being made to the rising numbers of people waiting outside. Security guards were treating people who simply had the misfortune to need to be somewhere with the usual disdain.
The people making announcements at Euston were mumbling and inaudible.
I did catch that the announcement customers for Chester should go via Great Western from St Pancras (!). This advice was repeated several times.
Checking the X feed there were some random acceptances allowed (chiltern to Birmingham, GW Paddington to reading, XC Reading to Birmingham), but users were quick to point out that anywhere other than Birmingham (and the random Chester announcement that wasn’t on their feed) were stranded. Advice was to stay put and wait, both over the announcements and from X. Where were the other acceptances? Several asking why XC couldn’t be extended to Manchester.
Gave up around 1330 - in my experience these things take hours to fix - and got a taxi to Marylebone. Couldn’t get the 4 car 1402 to Birmingham as it was crush loaded when we arrived. Using the power of RTT we waited on platform 3 for the 1436 - watched a 6 car DVT get hauled away to the sidings to be replaced by another 4 car 168 which was instantly crush loaded and unable to pick up customers at High Wycombe and Bicester North.
It’s not Chiltern’s fault obviously, but given that they were suddenly inundated maybe the 68 & DVT or an additional 168 to attach could have been found? Customers between London and Birmingham on Chiltern were avantied out of travel this afternoon.
We are on an advance purchase ticket and on arrival at New Street was told we would be fine to use to use the 1721 TfW, which we are currently on, but to sum the day up has been set swapped from a pair of 158s to a freezing 150 at Shrewsbury.
We will get home around 4 hours and 20 late.
Things happen all the time, but can’t help wondering if maintenance budgets are being cut to cause so many infrastructure problems? The weather hasn’t been windy anywhere we’ve been today.
More importantly surely to goodness someone could work out a contingency plan for the many days where this stuff happens? Some form of premeditated plan B. Yes it won’t always work perfectly, but it’s a start.
Someone needs to remember that the customer doesn’t give a shiny about TOCs and operations- they want a service, and to be somewhere. Blanket “do not travel” recommendations are a dereliction of duty.
