Keith’s Travel Diary April 2014
During April I did take some leave so the following data is not necessarily in respect of full working weeks; my travel experiences were as follows: –
- In the week commencing 31 March I experienced 40 minutes of lateness; the worst being 7 minutes delay to my journey home from London on Thursday.
- The following week 25 minutes of lateness. 6 minutes late at Sevenoaks from Bat & Ball on Wednesday morning being the longest delay.
- The week starting on Monday 14 April saw 11 minutes of delays to my journeys; 5 of these minutes were on my journey from Sevenoaks to London on Thursday.
- The four working days after Easter managed to accumulate 19 minutes of delays.
- The last week commencing 28 April took the wooden spoon this month; a total of 78 minutes.11 minutes on my journey home from London to Sevenoaks on Monday, 37 minutes between Bat & Ball and Sevenoaks on Tuesday,(train cancelled), my first Delay Repay claim this month. The return working towards London of my train that was cancelled ran to time therefore it would seem likely that the train was running late at Bromley South and a decision was taken to cancel this service between Bromley South or Bickley and Bat & Ball and divert the train via Orpington running fast to Sevenoaks so that it would depart from Sevenoaks on time. This demonstrates how little respect SouthEastern has for customers travelling away from London in the morning peak period.
Incidents and this month’s issues: –
- 8 April, the 18.02 from Sevenoaks to Bat & Ball was only four coaches (half the normal train length)
- 23 April, an announcement on 17.24 from Cannon Street; “due to a faulty ticket issuing machine there will be no commercial activity on this train until after Ashford”. I have heard this before; is this official SouthEastern speak or just the same member of staff. Why not just apologise that due to faulty equipment I am unable to sell any tickets until after Ashford!
The travel diary for March is here.
You may have noticed that the Sevenoaks – Blackfriars services have been retimed to from 02/32 to 00/30 since the new May timetable making some previously tight connections impossible with up/down services.
This was the response to my moan about this –
“I’ve spoken to our timetable planning department. They’ve informed me that the reason for this change was due to the Herne Hill corridor. In order to both meet passenger demands, and protect our own services from delays caused by congestion in the area, we’ve had to add some time to our Orpington to Victoria services. The Sevenoaks services have had to be retimed so as not to clash with the altered Orpington trains.”