10 Things ... I hate about South West Trains
Announce a train that is late to make it look like it's on time
I quite often get the 09.05 from Epsom which is often 2 or 3 minutes late. So what the station announcers do is that at 09.05 and 50 seconds say that "The train now arriving at Platform 4 is..." when it's still a minute away, but psychologically it would cause your average passenger to glance up at the clock, see that it' still 09.05 and make them perhaps think that the train isn't that late.
The information display system gives a "due" time in the past
When a train is late (most of the time) the information systems often lie by a minute or two, either because they can't keep up, or because they're programmed to so as to make it look that a train isn't running as late as it really is.
I've often stood at Wimbledon waiting for an Epsom train that is scheduled at say 17.32
The 'due' time on the information system will say 17.34
At 17.35 (and quite a few seconds) the trains pulls in, takes it time and doesn't eventually leave until 17.36. All this time, the information board has been saying 17.34, even though that time is quite clearly passed.
Here's a classic example of when it was really wrong. The 19.22 to Dorking was 'Expected' at 19.25, and yet by now the time was 19.37. Why isn't their something built into the software that makes the simple check that "A train cannot arrive in a time in the past". Pretty obvious, huh?
They love over apologising when it's completely pointless due to other trains
I've often stood at Vauxhall waiting to travel south, but watching the the northbound service into Waterloo. There is only one stop heading north after Vauxhall and it is Waterloo.
So even when it's working and you get announcements of "The next train is for ... " (let me guess now, would it be "Waterloo" by any chance?) " ... Waterloo" which is annoying in itself, what's more stupid is when the system had no intelligence to cope with one late train and all the other are on time.
i.e.. You will get an announcement "We're sorry to announce that the 2234 to London Waterloo is running .. eleven minutes late". But no one fuckingcares because trains are so frequent that as that announcement is begin made, then 2237 (or whatever) train is rolling in also going to Waterloo, making the announcement somewhat bloody pointless.
They thank you for using their train service when there is no alternative
This is sooo annoying this one. I live in Epsom. I want to travel to London Waterloo. There is only one train provider that lets me do that - South West Trains. And yet when I get the train direct into Waterloo, they say "Thank you for traveling on South West Trains today".
Really? Why? Did I have some other choice of train provider that does that journey? No! Completely bloody stupid announcement that makes me really annoyed.
Blaming someone else when your train is late
SWT do this all the time and it really fucking annoys me. You get to Waterloo and find out that the services are screwed due to a failure, and they make a big fuss about the fact that "It's Network Rails fault, not ours", which is so pathetic!
I don't care who's fault it is SWT, I'm just pissed off yet again that my journey home is yet again screwed, so stop blaming other people and just do what you can to help me get home as quickly as possible, ok?
When they alter the timetable dramatically to make up for 'known' lost time, rather than having accurate timings
Look at the morning timetable, with all the times highlighted in the red boxes below. It clearly takes 3 minutes for a train to get between Epsom and Ewell West.
Now let's look at the timetable for the evening coming home.
Well what do you know! Suddenly the journey take either 1 or 2 minutes longer, taking it to 4 or 5 minutes. In the case of the 1805, it takes - gosh! - 8 minutes to travel the same distance that it took only 3 in the morning.
On top of that, the 1826, 1851, 1856 and 1922 have also an extra minute or two to sit 'waiting' at Epsom.
And why do they do this? Obviously to make up for the face that they know that their services lose time in the evenings on the run down from Waterloo. But what is annoying is that they choose to make up 5 minutes worth (as in the case of the 1813 arriving at Epsom) in one go, thus making it look as if a train is not late.
i.e. If i'm on the 1737 from Waterloo, and by the time it's got to Ewell West it's running 5 minutes late and it's 1810.
That train is 5 minutes late at Ewell West, but as it then only really takes 3 minutes to get to Epsom it does so at 1813, and magically it is back on time.
Now I've got no problem with them adjusting their timetables, but they should make time adjustments all the way down the line - i.e. choose four timing points at four stations and add on a minute, rather than make it all up on one foul swoop at Epsom.
What of course, is more worrying about this is that all the times that I've logged on this website (on the way from Waterloo to Epsom) are as per the adjusted timetable time at Epsom.
Can you imagine how late it would be if I calculated the Epsom arrival time as being Ewell West +3 minutes? It would make my logs show even more time wasted.
In some places in my logs I've done this, and have called it the 'Adjusted EW+3' time, to highlight what the real delay is.
