How Good Are South West Trains?
This new index page is specifically to blog the first week or two of the new timetable that came into effect on Sunday 12th December.
What I already don't like about the new timetable
A
lot of the 'blurb' about the new timetable said that it would make people's
lives easier.
It's fair to say that there will be winners and losers, and it seems that I am a loser. Here's why:
To get to work by 9am, I have to be at Wimbledon station by 8.25am to get the District Line.
(1) Before, I was able to get the 08.00 train from Epsom, which got me to Wimbledon in time. This train has now been pushed BACK to 07.48, and the next train is at 08.04 - and stops everywhere, and gets to Wimbledon after 08.25. So I either have to leave 12 minutes earlier to get to work at the same time, or leave at the same time and arrive 10 minutes later.
(2) There are no off-peak/weekend 'fast' trains to and from Epsom anymore. This I simply cannot understand. I pity the poor people that live in Dorking and want to come into London at the weekend as their train now has to agonsingly stop at Ewell West and Stoneleigh. This does not benefit anyone who lives between Epsom and Dorking because it makes our journey longer.
(3) The timings have been adjusted, so not only are trains stopping in more places (2), but they've been scheduled to take longer becaue they've admitted that they can't keep to the current times. So journeys will take longer because trains are stopping in more places, and because they've simply been timetabled to take longer.
(4) In the timetable book which I picked up, they merged Epsom/Dorking trains with Guildford trains - where they used to be on seperate table numbers - this is annoying. They've also removed the 'route codes' from the head of each column in the timetable where before you could see at a glance where a train was going without having to run your eye down the (now expanded column) to see where the train is going. This is stupid South West Trains, as you've made the time table harder to read.
And despite all that, here is a fair and accurate log of SWT's activities over the next two weeks.
Monday 13th December 2004
Me: I got to the station to get the 08.18 - knowing I will therefore be 10 minutes late for work. Bizarrely when I get up to the platform it says 'Delayed', but just as I get my camera out to take a photo, it changes to 08.18 (on time) and duly arrives. I get to Wimbledon on time.
Coming home, I miss the 17.40 from Wimbledon (on time) by 10 seconds! So have to wait for the 17.46
It arrives at Wimbledon at 17.46 but leaves at 17.47 .. by the time it gets to Epsom and arrives ay 18:09, it is technically running 6 minutes late, but because SWT add in 'make up' time of 6 minutes between Ewell West and Epsom (for a journey that takes 3 minutes), they make up 3 minutes, but it's still late.
The train terminates, but I noticed (confusingly) that the display boards think that it is the 18.20 to Effingham Junction. I speak to the guard - it's not! As I leave the station, I notice that the 18.20 going back up to Waterloo is cancelled.
My
girlfriend: Her journey in the morning was fine, but coming home, at Wimbledon
the 18.40 was running 7 minute late, so she
thought 'sod that', went shopping and came back to get the 18.55
which was also running 7 minutes late, and lost 2 more minutes
on the way down to Epsom arriving 9 minutes behind the timetable at 19.24
Late running trains .. losing more time througout the journey .. hmm.. so exactly the same as before then!
Tuesday 14th December 2004
Well,
they're doing well so far! The 08.18 was
bang on time this morning, no time wasted at all, and coming home this
evening on the 18.00 from Waterloo it arrived
in Epsom at 18.36, one minute later than
the timetable - but they'd included 2 extra minutes to allow 'make up'
time, turning the 3 minutes trip from Ewell West to Epsom into a 5 minutes
scheduled one, so that's really 3 minutes late in my book!
What was more interesting though, was the fact that the train I got home was one of the new refurbished units that they're rolling out on the local suburban lines over the next three years. This train has been out 'on the network' for the past couple of weeks, and today was the first time that I got to travel on it.
One of the things that they've been hyping most of all about it, is it's widened door space area and vestibules.
And there does seem to be a bit more space getting on and off, but I'm not sure how much .. so at somepoint in the future I'm going to have to dig my tape measure out and mark it accurately to see what the actual figures are.
Anyway,
it's a nice train - less seats though, but it's cleaner and brighter and
more space for people to move about in, and overall I really liked it.
The seats are now high-backed and they've got rid of the 'three seats together' configuration which has become unpopular with commuters over time.
Trouble is - there's just this one new train at the moment, and I wish they were all like it! South West Trains are slowing rolling out all the refurbished units between now and 2007 - two to three years before they're all complete!
But are the doors really that much wider?
So they've got all these fancy posters saying how fantastically wide their new doors are, and how it's quicker for people to get on and off - but to me the doors didn't really look that much wider.
I
need to know if they really were that much bigger or not. How? By measuring
them of course!
It took me a while to get round to it, but eventually in September 2005, armed with a friend who wasn't afraid to take photos of me with a tape measure, we went out with my tape measure!
We picked a busy station, and loitered around trying not to look like trainspotters and jumped on and off measuring the width of the doors as trains came through.
An
old style train came through first .. in fact, lots of old style
trains came though first and we had to wait for about four five of them
to pass through first before one of the nice new ones passed through so
that we could measure that as well.
We got a lot of strange looks from people who wondered what the HELL we were doing, but I'm kind of used to getting strange looks from people really, so we wern't that bothered ...
Anyway,
here's the lowdown ...
Width between the edges of doors on the old unrefurbished units: 39 inches
Width between the edges of doors on the new refurbished units: 44 inches
Woo! A whole extra two and a half inches per door meaning an extra five inches gap in total!
I'm not sure if this really means that you could fit two fat hippos through as their poster would suggest, but I suppose being slightly wider is better than nothing .. but it's hardly as much as their adverts suggest, is it?
Wednesday 15th December 2004
Third
day in the row that I've got the 08.18 and
it was on time again! Wow. But still got into work late. Must
make the effort to get an earlier train tomorrow.
Coming home I stopped off at Wimbledon to do some shopping and got the 18.40 from Wimbledon, which arrived at 18.40 but left at 18.41, and got to Epsom just 1 minute late at 18.56. All good!
Thursday 16th December 2004
Got
the 08.18 which left on time, and all was
going well when just before Wimbledon the train came to stop, and the
driver announced that "Due
to a gantry falling onto the line earlier (now removed) all services were
being delayed", and we eventually
got to Wimbledon 6 minutes down on the timetable.
Then at Wimbledon itself, the story changed and I heard the some campaginers had unfurled a banner on the signals ahead and this had dropped onto the line, and had to be removed.
But it wasn't until coming home, that I read in the Evening Standard that nothing had fallen onto the line at all - but where Fathers4Justice had scaled up onto a signalling gantry, their banner was covering up some of the signals! So all trains had to be slowed to 20mph as they passed through, and that's what caused the delay.
So.. Fathers-4-Justice, whilst appreciating your cause and your protest, may I humbly suggest that pissing of 300,000 South West Trains passengers trying to get into Waterloo this morning, was a pretty fucking stupid thing to do - it's not exactly going to help getting people on your side, is it?
Coming home the 18.40 at Wimbledon to Epsom,
was a slam door train which I haven't been on for ages, was was already
2 minutes late at Wimbledon, and 6 minutes late by the time it got to
Epsom .. losing time as per usual ... ~sigh~
Friday 17th December 2004
Managed
to get up in time to get the 08.04 this morning,
which was packed anyway, but then didn't help that the Southern
08.05 service had been cancelled - so all
the passengers normally going to Victoria got on as well. Train arrived
on time at Wimbledon, but was so busy that I saw it leave a minute late.
Coming home, I hate the fact that after 8pm Epsom gets a twice-hourly service, so when I got to Wimbledon having just missed a train by two minutes, I had to wait 28 cold minutes for the next one - the 20.55, which arrived two minutes late, and lost another minute on the way home - it was again packed because it was a four-car train, and not the usual eight car! Not happy with that.
Oh, and the nice new refurbished train that I was on this week? It caught fire today at Surbiton and had to be taken out of service .. so that'll delay the rest of the refurbishments then ! ~exasperated sign again~
Monday 20th December 2004
Managed
to The 08.18 was on time leaving Epsom, but
did it's usally thing now of craaaawling on the approach to Wimbledon
and got there two minutes late.
Coming home, I got the 17.46 from Wimbledon to Epsom. It arrived at Wimbledon 2 minutes late, lost another minute by the time it had left, and got to Epsom 4 minutes later overall.
Tuesday 21st December 2004
I
got the 08.18 again which got to Wimbledon
a whole minute and half early - but I watched it leave today as well,
and by the time everyone had got on and off it left a minutes and half
later on time. I've realised that all the other times i've been
reporting this train getting to Wimbledon on time, it's been arriving
at the departure time, and then probably leaving a minute or two late
by the time everyone has got on and off.
Coming home the 17.46 from Wimbledon arrived 3 minutes late at epsom, where the driver gave his apologies - yet I overheard another passenger comment "It's not really that late, is it?". How late does a train have to be before people start to get annoyed I wonder?
Wednesday 22nd December 2004
I
went for the 08.18 - and missed it! It actually
left EARLY at 08.17 and 43 seconds ... I know because the doors shut and
I had to watch it leave - Grrrr!
So instead I got the 08.22 which was on time, but stopped everywhere (unlike the 08.18) which made for a slower overall journey. I went to Clapham Junction instead to get the Ken Olympia train to find that the time have changed their from 08 and 38 minutes past the hour, to 05 and 35 minutes past the hour - and i only just made the 09.05 !
Coming home I got the 18.10
from Wimbledon. It left one minute late, and was three minutes down by
the time we got to Epsom.
Other people logging journeys under the new timetable:
Chris Green - www.cgreen.net/southwesttrains/index.php
:: SWT page
:: Rants page
