We don’t have enough trains
Rail boss blames chaos on timetable that doesn’t work and rising demand
AWEST Midlands Railway boss has admitted it has too few trains and carriages to cope with a rising number of passengers.
Corporate affairs boss Francis Thomas repeatedly apologised for letting down its increasingly frustrated customers.
He revealed there were:
Not enough trains and carriages to cope with rising demand, despite bringing in rolling stock from around the country. Most new trains are still a year away.
There are 150,000 extra passengers a week on the services this year – but performance has dropped dramatically
Rail services were performing better than ever in the first half of the year – but the introduction of a new timetable designed to get more people on the train had “not worked” and chaos has ensued.
More passengers should complain and demand compensation over delays “to strengthen the case” for more resources.
Most delays are due to things “outside our control”, including signal failures, trespassing and broken-down trains from other operators blocking line.
A new December timetable would see improvements – but it was no silver bullet.
West Midlands mayor Andy Street recently ordered an urgent high-level summit with train operators and network chiefs to come up with some quick solutions to make things better.
Mr Thomas said: “At the turn of the year rail became the number one choice of people coming into
Birmingham. We growth
London.
“The solution we need is new trains that we are bringing in to increase capacity by 25 per cent.
“We ordered those on the day we were awarded the franchise in have seen phenomenal – more than in
December 2017, but it takes three years to get those trains ready.
“In the meantime we are bringing in as much stock as we can and revising timetables to improve performance. We reiterate our apologies.”
He added: “We are always conscious that people have a choice to use the train or not. People say they don’t have a better choice right now. Demand for train travel is at record levels here in the West Midlands. We have brought more trains in and are investing in brand new trains, but unfortunately we could have done with this investment much earlier.”
He admitted the introduction of a new timetable in May, designed to make trains work harder and provide more ‘journey opportunities’ had not worked.
“We designed a new timetable that enables us to offer more journeys and gets 150,000 people a week onto our network. Unfortunately that intensity creates another problem – if there is any disruption it is harder to deal with the knockon impact. We realised there were problems early into the timetable.”
When asked why problems were not foreseen, he said: “The timetable was scrutinised and desktop tested but sometimes when you put it into play it just does not work and that is what has happened.
“We are unreserved in our apologies
Figures released by Network Rail last month showed the worst performance since West Midlands Railway took over the franchise nearly two years ago.
Over the previous month, almost 10 per cent of trains were cancelled.
A quarter of passengers on West Midlands Railway, the main provider of services, are being forced to stand during morning rush hour.
to customers. We have not put together a timetable that does what it is meant to have done for the people of the West Midlands.”
He confirmed staff at West Midlands Railway had put the timetable together, based on the demands of the Department of Transport around increased services.
“No one person then signs it off, it is done collaboratively with Network Rail, other operators and so on. We take responsibilty and say it did not work and let us do something else.”
That ‘something else’ is new, less complex timetable that comes into force next month. But it was not a ‘silver bullet’, admitted Mr Thomas.
It will be the middle of next year onwards before trains ordered two years ago will be ready.
The timetable was desktop tested but sometimes when you put it into play it just does not work
a
Francis Thomas