Meet the managers session

[maggiew]

Did anyone else meet the managers at LB on 26th Feb?

I did and what was I found was:

1. The person I spke to, the head of communication, did not seem to be
aware that they had reduced the service to Eastbourne in the peak
hour.

2. He had no understanding of the effects the timetable and capacity
changes.

3. That we may have to wait until December to get any fixes

4. That he seemed surprised that communication was not getting to
passengers during their journeys.

I didn't get any feelings that the Eastbourne service was in any way a
priority

Needless to say I was not impressed so I am with Mori as we need to
focus and cordinate our efforts.

[jpryanuk]

I met them and found them very apologetic in a knid of PR way.... .'we
understand you concerns and will make note of you complaints, but the
decisions lie elsewhere'

USELESS!!

What we neeed to do is almost 'Flashmob' them at the next one, if we
can get a hundred + people, ALL to turn up at the same time, then
they may take notice. The thing is that they're not daft and only hold
them when they know we are in too much of a hurry to stop.....usually
because the trains late!!

[Berni]

All,

Southern are holding a Meet the Managers session at Victoria on
Thursday 26th March (tomorrow).

Please try to take a few minutes to express your frustrations at the
service we have to live with.

Berni

> > focus and cordinate our efforts.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Tom Roper]

Especially after this morning. 656 Seaford to Victoria didn't run. Was
announced as delayed. Then disappeared from display completely without
a word of explanation. When I got to Lewes I found they had cancelled
it, but couldn't be bothered to tell anyone.

Sent from my iPhone

[Berni]

Appaling journey into London this morning, with little acknowledgement
from Southern of the inconvenience caused.

If you can spare 5 minutes tomorrow, stop by the 'Meet the Managers'
event and share your thoughts with them.

On 25 Mar, 08:35, Tom Roper <tom.ro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Especially after this morning. 656 Seaford to Victoria didn't run. Was  
> announced as delayed. Then disappeared from display completely without  
> a word of explanation. When I got to Lewes I found they had cancelled  
> it, but couldn't be bothered to tell anyone.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>

> >> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

[maggiew]

Unfortunatley I cannot make the Victoria meet the managers session
however I would appreciate somone raising the reduction in capacity
between 5pm and 6pm with the new time table (approx 30%) and now
southern appear (according to Laurent) to be reducing the capacity
between 6 and 7pm by a further 2 carriages, as the 6:22 is going to be
come a 10 coach train.

Good luck to those who attend...!

[Andrew Leach]

On Mar 25, 8:17 am, Berni <b.vanhaef...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> Please try to take a few minutes to express your frustrations at the
> service we have to live with.

I spent ten minutes with Andy Byford (Operations Director) and
expressed my frustrations, which he promised to feed into the revision
process.

He acknowledged that the evening service in general and on Coastway
East in particular was not good. He did say that the evening timetable
was specified by the DfT and that Southern were "trying to make it
work". However he also mentioned that they may need to go back to the
Department and say that it isn't workable!

He said that the evening timetable is not robust and any perterbation
(eg a sticky door at a station) can have major knock-on effects, and
they are planning to tweak it [his word] to make that less of a
problem. He explained that the timetable was modelled using Railsys --
Network Rail's virtual model railway software -- and it appeared it
would work. They are feeding back their experiences to NR as it looks
like the model could be improved.

He said that they were looking to reduce the number of stops on
Brighton trains -- specifically not Coastway trains! -- in order to
improve running.

He mentioned that they had tweaked the morning timetable in order to
improve punctuality and seemed a little taken aback by my objecting to
adding odd minutes on to the length of a journey which was already
long and uncomfortable. I mentioned the three minute extension to the
Littlehampton service which the new Btn-LBr service had necessitated,
and the introduction of stops like Horley. That led on to discussing
the 442 stock [new Gatwick Express] which I really like as it's far
more comfortable than our 377s; and I'm looking forward to the 1822
LBr service changing to that -- see the other discussion thread.

Andrew

[Berni]

I also spent a few minutes talking to Andy Byford who appeared to be
uncomfortable with the fact that historical performance data was not
on their website.

Also, he acknowledged that the performance had seriously declined
since December '08, and that the recent tweak had not been totally
successful - he asked that we give it a week and then feedback our
views.

All things considered, one of the more positive discussions that I've
had at these sessions.

[simond]

I didn't do as well - I guess I'm just a beginner! See response
below. (Actually, I did state precisely which connection I was
talking about.)

Dear Mr Dunton

Thank you for your comments at our recent meet the managers event.

I am sorry to hear of the problems you have experienced on your
commute since the introduction of our new timetable on 14th December
2008. I regret that your weekly commute is now 2 1/2 hours longer,
however, as we do not have any details of the journey you make we
cannot look into this journey in particular. Similarly we are
currently unable to look into the problem of connecting trains for the
same reason.

I should mention that the timetable does reflect how the majority of
trains do run, and we do endeavour to make sure that our services do
stick to this. I note your comments about a bottleneck at Gatwick
Airport, and can confirm that a number of recent delays have been
caused by problems in this area. However, as we now operate more
services through there, in addition to the extension of Gatwick
Express services to Brighton at peak times, it is not currently
possible to cut down the number of trains going through there.

Lastly, we are contractually obliged to provide stock to other train
operators, especially where they run on routes shared with ourselves,
and so are unable to refuse to loan stock to companies such as First
Capital Connect.

Please contact us if you have any further enquiries.

Regards

Mark Rowbottom
Southern Customer Services

> > Andrew- Hide quoted text -

[simond]

Mr Rowbottom's reply to my follow-up email is directed more clearly at
some of the points I had attempted to make at the meeting on the
station, is thus more encouraging, and should be appended to the
preceding post.


Dear Mr Dunton

Thank you for your e-mail of 6th March.

I am sorry to hear you were not satisfied with my previous reply. I
note your comments regarding the specific connection of trains ta
Hampden Park and can advise that we do try to run services on time
where possible to ensure such connections are made. I have checked our
records and can confirm that there have recently been frequent delays
on this route, meaning services have not always made this connection.

I have passed your comments on to our train manager and our planning
group for review, as we have another timetable update due in May, and
it may be possible to amend the timing of services to ensure this
connection is possible. However, details of that timetable update have
not yet been published, so I am unable to give specific details at
this time.

I also note your comments regarding track at Gatwick Airport. I have
checked with the station manager and can advise that we do not own the
land near the airport you are referring to. Some of that land is owned
by the airport itself, but some is privately owned. As a result we
cannot at this time use that land for more track or sidings, but again
I have passed these comments to our planning group for review.

Please contact us if you have any further enquiries.

Regards

Mark Rowbottom
Southern Customer Services



On Mar 26, 10:02 pm, Berni <b.vanhaef...@googlemail.com> wrote:

> > Andrew- Hide quoted text -