Complaining About The Train That You're On

On Abellio Greater Anglia (GA) services, as seen on Twitter, people like to complain about the condition of the interior of the train, and more often than not, rightfully so. GA's Twitter Team like to get as much information out of you as possible before they report it. Not that they do anything about it once they've got the information. But it helps to know what to look for when they ask, just on the off chance they surprise us by actually sorting it out.

Information they usually ask for:

Service that you are on. Always pay attention to which service you're boarding, most people usually get on the same services every day when they commute, so it should be fairly easy. Most railway station platforms have 2 or more screens with information about the next train on them, look at one of them before boarding the train, even if they train is late the screen will show the when the train is supposed to be running and when it's due, include the time the train is supposed to leave rather than the time it actually leaves. Also tell them the station you're getting on at and the station you're alighting at.

Carriage Number. Each train carriage has a 5 digit number identifying that specific carriage. If the train is a diesel multiple unit (DMU), an electric multiple unit (EMU) or a diesel electric multiple unit (DEMU) then the set/unit will also have a 6 digit set/unit number. The number they usually want is the 5 digit carriage number. If you're not as familiar with trains, you may not know where to find the number they're asking for. On most trains, the carriage number is usually printed on both sides of the outside of the carriage and either above or to the side of the interior doors leading to adjacent carriages.

Above: Example of the carriage number on the inside of a Class 360 train, you can see the number (74571) is at the top to the left of the door leading to the next carriage.

Above: Example of the carriage number on the outside of a Class 360 train, in the case of the Class 360's the number is between the two external doors, near or below GA's logo.

Above: Example of the carriage number on the outside of a Mark III carriage (12034), in the case of the Mark III's the number is towards the left or right hand end of the carriage.

If the train is a DMU, EMU or DEMU then the train set in question will have a set number too. These will be 6 digits and will be printed on the outside of the train, on the end carriage, either on the end on or near the yellow panel, or on the side of the end carriage near to the end of the carriage. The first 3 digits indicate the class of train it is and the second 3 digits completes the specific set/unit number. 

Please note that GA's InterCity Norwich-Liverpool St trains aren't multiple units, they are formed of a Class 90 electric locomotive coupled to Mark III unpowered trailer carriages and a Mark III driver van trailer (DVT). Each carriage, DVT and loco are completely interchangeable with one another. Therefore, neither the loco nor the DVT will include a 6 digit set/unit number, they will however carry 5 digit carriage/train numbers instead, which, like the carriages, is unique to that loco or DVT. So, in the case of complaining about a Mark III InterCity carriage, only include the carriage number as that carriage could be coupled to a completely different set of carriages, DVT and loco from one week to the next, something they can't easily do with a multiple unit train.

Above is an example of the train set/unit number on a Class 360 (360121), in the case of the Class 360, the number is on the yellow panel in the top right corner, just below the driver's window.

Description or photo of problem. Most people have smart phones with cameras on them these days. If you can take a photo of the problem, take a photo of it and include it on your tweet. A photo provides proof of the problem's existence, plus a photo is usually better than any description, especially with the limited number of characters you have to tweet with. Obviously, if the issue can't be photographed, for example, carriage too hot or too cold, a description will have to do.

These steps can be used to tell any Train Operating Company (TOC) about problems on their trains, but remember to mention the TOC's Twitter account name in the tweet, otherwise they won't get it. If you're tweeting about GA, someone who's trying to lobby for a better service will probably pick up on it. The person most likely to is my friend and fellow campaigner who uses the Twitter account: @Delayed_Again and we'll use it to help us campaign for a better service.

Feel free to share your problems with @Delayed_Again or with myself, @RealDC80 too and we'll add it to our gallery to help us campaign.

E-Mail to Eric Pickles and His Response

I e-mailed the so called "Right Honourable" Eric Pickles MP (given that he is my MP) about lobbying for improvements to the Great Eastern Mainline railway run by Abellio Greater Anglia on 9th July. Yesterday, after 3 weeks waiting for a response, I got one. In this blog, I'm going to include a copy of my original e-mail and Mr Pickles response.

My Original E-Mail (Dated 9th July 2014)

Dear Mr Pickles,

I am writing to you to encourage you to get behind upgrades and improvements to the Great Eastern Mainline.

As you may be aware, your colleague and MP for Norwich North, Chloe Smith organised a meeting for commuters to speak to MPs and Greater Anglia bosses to express our concerns and to get them to buck their ideas up. This is a meeting I attended.

The service is appalling thanks to many things, including, but not limited to:

Old, ill maintained rolling stock.

Poor infrastructure

Lack of investment (from Greater Anglia, Network Rail and most importantly, the DfT)

The network has suffered an historic lack of investment and that has led to trains developing faults on a daily basis, overhead power cable faults, signal faults and track faults. Given than we, the Greater Anglia customers, pay more per mile for our train journeys than anywhere else in the country, we deserve a better, more reliable and more punctual train service. This can only happen if the required investment is put in place across the network for the trains and the infrastructure.

What I am asking you to do, and urging other people to urge yourself (and their own MPs if they live in other constituencies) is join up with Chloe Smith MP (Norwich North), Ben Gummer MP (Ipswich) and Sir Bob Russell MP (Colchester) and put pressure on the DfT and The Rt. Hon. Patrick McLoughlin MP to make the investments and improvements that are 

Your constituents and constituents of other MPs in the area deserve a 21^st century railway network and that is not what they are getting.

Yours sincerely,

Daniel Collins.

Mr Pickles Response (Dated 25th July 2014 - Received 29th July 2014)

Dear Mr Collins

Thank you for contacting me about the Great Eastern Mainline.

Our region is one of the fastest growing in the country and we are establishing ourselves as a world leader in science, technology and manufacturing. To support this growth we need to have modern, efficient rail services and improved connections. I was part of a group of MPs and local business leaders who put forward the case for greater investment in our rail network in 2012.

The Government have recently announced that a taskforce of Department for Transport (DfT), experts from Network Rail, and local MPs will identify practical and affordable options to improve services to stations along the line from London to Norwich. This will include examining the potential for cutting journey times to London by around 30 minutes.

The DfT has also asked the current operator Abellio to develop plans to refurbish and modernise the current fleet, by updating interiors, with new seat covers, new carpets and better lighting and by providing improved facilities, such as power sockets so commuters and business travellers can work more easily as they travel by train.

The new franchise deal between Abellio and the Government announced in April will mean real improvements for passengers on our network, delivering value for money for the tax payer, and supporting the national multi-billion pound investment programme in our railways.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.

With best wishes.

Yours sincerely,

Rt. Hon. Eric Pickles MP

Brentwood and Ongar

Well thank you for your response, Mr Pickles, but I can't help but think this is well rehearsed BS coming from your stereotypical MP.

Responce from DfT about re-franchising Great Eastern Mainline

Dear Mr Collins,

Thank you for your email of 17 July to the Rt Hon Patrick McLoughlin MP, Secretary of State for Transport, regarding the Abellio Greater Anglia franchise; I have been asked to respond.

The Abellio Greater Anglia franchise commenced in February 2012, with an expiry date in July 2014.  This short franchise length was to allow the Secretary of State to consider the outcome of the consultation on franchising policy together with the recommendations of the McNulty review of 2011.  It was envisaged at the time that bidders for the longer franchise to be let in 2014 would propose improvements to the franchise. As such it would have been unrealistic to expect the incoming franchisee to deliver largescale improvements in performance when utilising the same trains and infrastructure as the previous operator, or provide new rolling stock in such a short time-period. 

As I said, Abellio started running Greater Anglia services in 2012, when they stepped in to replace National Express as franchise holders. Since then, as with all rail regions, Network Rail (who own and maintain the UK rail structure) have been investing money in both maintaining and improving in the Anglia region; with the Crossrail project improving services from Shenfield, and the recently announced ‘Norwich in Ninety’ looking into ways to speed up rail services to the East of England by as much as 25% being two obvious examples of such work. Network Rail has also started to invest almost £1 billion in 800 miles of track and station improvements in the Anglia region. For more detail please see http://www.networkrail.co.uk/aspx/7063.aspx

Network Rail has invested, and will continue to invest, billions of pounds in maintaining and improving the rail network. In the next 5 years, over £38 billion will be invested by Network Rail across the UK rail network. This programme takes forward the plan set out by the Government in its rail investment strategy (RIS/HLOS) published in 2012.

In 2002 when Network Rail took control of Britain's Rail infrastructure, train performance was languishing at record low levels (78.6% of trains arriving on time nationally). Since then, it has risen to averaging around 90%. Network Rail has been tasked with ensuring that 92.5% of trains arrive on time nationally by 2019.

As you may be aware, the new franchising programme announced by the Secretary of State in March 2013 required a further short term contract to be entered into with Abellio, to run until October 2016. The new Franchise Agreement includes refurbishment works to be carried out on some of the rolling stock. There are two committed obligations in the Franchise Agreement.  The first; the refreshment of the Mark III rolling stock is for the franchisee to procure, undertake and complete during the franchise period, and the Franchisee has already begun the tendering process for the work to be carried out for this refreshment. The second is for the Franchisee, during the Franchise Period to use best endeavours to procure the carrying out of refurbishment works to 12-4 car Class 321 units which is a project being led by the Rolling Stock Owning Company that lease the stock to Abellio Greater Anglia.

The Department is aware of stakeholder aspirations for improvements to the rolling stock for Greater Anglia services and will be considering whether improvements can be made ahead of the long term franchise which will commence in October 2016. A consultation process will commence during 2015 to inform the specification for the long term franchise. 

When launching the new franchising programme in March last year, the Secretary of State made it clear that the new programme would give  fair weight to passenger satisfaction, which has not always been respected as it should have been;

[the] future competitions will also place passengers in the driving seat by ensuring that their views and satisfaction levels are taken into account when deciding which companies run our railway services.

(https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/franchise-announcement)

I hope that this provides some insight on the Government’s approach to the matters you raise.

Kind regards

Alistair Hobbs

Rail Commercial Correspondence Manager | Rail Executive

Weekly Report WC: 21st July

Monday 21st July
No train usage

Tuesday 22nd July
12:03 Shenfield to Chelmsford - Train # 360119 Carriage # 74569 - On Time, usual rubbish and threadbare seating
21:16 Chelmsford to Shenfield - Train # 360111 Carriage # 65561 - Left Chelmsford on time, stopped just outside Shenfield for roughly an hour due to someone being hit by a train at Shenfield. Once on the move, driver announced we would not stop at Shenfield but made an additional stop at Brentwood instead. Anyone who needed to get off at Shenfield was adviced to get a Metro Service train back to Shenfield.

Wednesday 23rd July
12:03 Shenfield to Chelmsford - Train # 360119 Carriage # 74569 - 8 Minutes Late, Air Con not working.
21:16 Chelmsford to Shenfield - Train # 360101 Carriage # 68551 - On Time, usual rubbish and threadbare seating

Thursday 24th July
12:03 Shenfield to Chelmsford - Train # 360107 Carriage # 65557 - 3 Minutes Late
21:16 Chelmsford to Shenfield - Train # 360113 Carriage # 68563 - On Time, usual rubbish and threadbare seating, stains that look like sick on the carpet

Friday 25th July
12:03 Shenfield to Chelmsford - Train # 360116 Carriage # 74566 - 4 Minutes Late, Orange and black stain (AKA Dougal) still there, first reported 14th February
21:16 Chelmsford to Shenfield - Train # 360111 Carriage # 65561 - On Time, filthy seats and floor, reported to GA on Twitter @greateranglia

Saturday 26th July
11:03 Shenfield to Chelmsford - Train # 360115 Carriage # 65565 - On Time, dirty floor and threadbare seats
20:09 Chelmsford to Shenfield - Train # 360110 Carriage # 65560 - On Time, dirty floor and threadbare seats

Sunday 27th July
No train usage

Good Punctuality - 60%
Delays Leaving Departure Station: 15 minutes
Delays Getting to Destination Station: 15 minutes + 60 minutes at alternative destination station

Abellio Greater Anglia's Day of Hell, Episode 2,345,666, Friday, 18th July 2014

Hello again to all my disgruntled Greater Anglia commuters.

On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being quite nice and 10 being absolutely and unbearably horrendous, how was your commute to and from work on Friday, 18th July 2014? I would hazard a guess that for the vast majority of people, it was around the 10 mark.

Friday Morning

Thanks to a little bit of bad weather, the Great Eastern Mainline, upon which Greater Anglia operate a lot of their trains, there was three separate signal failures, at Ingatestone, Romford and Liverpool Street. While the signals are the responsibility of Network Rail, not Greater Anglia, you can but wonder if the fact that there was three signal failures was the result of a drastic under investment of cash put into the GEML. Other areas had them too, so it wasn't a problem unique to the GEML, but other networks has one or two signal faults at the most and they were more quickly fixed than those affected on the GEML. These signal failures caused havoc for commuters well into the morning and lines were still being affected into lunch time and early afternoon. My 12:03 Shenfield to Chelmsford was delays by 11 minutes, quite nice when you consider others were being delayed by an hour or more.

Friday Afternoon

Residual delays from the mornings events were still a bug bar, plus more to come. On Thursday, Greater Anglia announced that they would be altering their Friday service between 1:00pm and 8:30pm, on advice from Network Rail, as speed restrictions were put in place to 'protect the infrastructure'. Over 10 trains were pre-cancelled and other services had additional stops added to them as a result.

Am I the only one who things that putting speed restrictions on a line because of 34 degree heat is a bit excessive? Alas, had the correct investment and work been carried out to the infrastructure, it would be able to cope with trains travelling at normal speeds during a 34 degree heatwave.

But even given the speed restrictions and re-timed services, Greater Anglia still could not run on time. Queue the excuses from Greater Anglia on this one, but we all know the real reason was because of their ageing fleet which has not been maintained properly by either Abellio or their predecessors, National Express.

Friday Evening

Evening rush hour in weather that Poula Fisch would have described as "Sorchio", was never going to be fun, even if the trains were running on time. Given that Greater Anglia only have 21 air conditioned Class 360 units, which when coupled together to make 12 carriages would have made 7 trains, assuming they were all working and in service and their other air conditioned units (Class 379) being on the Stansted Express service and the Mark III carriages being used exclusively for InterCity Liverpool St-Norwich services, this meant that they had to roll out loads of non air conditioned Class 321 units.

Class 321 trains being packed full of commuters with no on board air conditioning and operating in 34 degree heat with only the warm air coming through the open windows to cool people down, to me is a recipe for disaster. I've had an ex-colleague who now commutes from Chelmsford to London for work, coming into me, at M&S Simply Food after returning to Chelmsford on a Class 321 train, looking exhausted and red in the face from being so hot, luckily for him and other commuters that M&S is often quite cold and in this heat, quite refreshing. Now if this isn't a call for more air conditioned trains, I don't know what is. Seems to me that the Class 321 trains are a public health hazard waiting to happen, especially given how warm they are in this heat when they're not packed in like kippers in sardine cans.

Liverpool Street-Shenfield Metro Services

Friday also saw the inevitable happen. Greater Anglia use 34 year old ill maintained Class 315 units for their Metro services, along with other services. On Friday 24 of Greater Anglia's Class 315 units that they were using on the Liverpool Street-Shenfield Metro services suffered pantograph damage and overhead power cables on the Metro lines were also damaged as a result.

It has not been made clear what caused the damage or whether the overhead power cables were to blame or the pantographs, although Greater Anglia are pointing their fingers firmly at the overhead power cables. Although without further explanation, we'll never know for sure what actually happened.

Thanks to the amount of Class 315 units taken out of action and the ensuing investigations from Greater Anglia and Network Rail, all Metro services were suspended on Friday evening, causing havoc for people needing to use railway stations that mainline and Southend services don't normally stop at. 

And further to that, Greater Anglia announced on Sunday evening that they would be running a Saturday service on the Metro lines, Monday to Wednesday while they get the pantographs fixed. Then on Monday morning, they deleted that tweet and the web page explaining about it, before releasing another statement saying they'd run a normal service, but to expect delays. Not normal then, is it, Greater Anglia? Well to them, I suppose a delayed service is a normal service.

Alas on Friday, 18th July 2014 was appalling, not a single on time train (not from what I saw anyway), little over a month after the joys of 17th June. Greater Anglia, Network Rail and the Department for Transport need to pull their fingers out, start investing, make things better. We're paying Tesco Finest prices for a Tesco Value service, it's not good enough!

Delay Repay

Don't forget people, if you were delayed by at least 30 minutes, you are entitled to what is known in the industry as "Delay Repay" whereby you get a refund, by means of a travel voucher, for some or all of that journey. It's not a lot, but if you were delayed by 30 to 59 minutes, you get a travel voucher for half the cost of the affected journey, if you were delayed by 60 minutes or more, you get the whole journey cost as a travel voucher. You can pick up a Delay Repay form from railway stations, or you can download and print of a Greater Anglia Delay Repay form here: http://www.abelliogreateranglia.co.uk/files/download/1834

E-Mail to Patrick McLoughlin MP, Minister for Transport

Dear Mr McLoughlin,

I am writing to you today to ask you to consider re-tendering the Great Eastern Mainline railway franchise and strip Abellio Greater Anglia (AGA) of their control of the franchise. I am one of many disgruntled passengers who would like a different company to take over, a responsible company, a company who takes pride in their trains and a company who strives to provide a punctual and reliable service.

As you may be aware, Chloe Smith organised a meeting between MPs, high ranking managers from AGA and railway passengers on Monday 7th July 2014 at 6pm at Portcullis House. Along with 5 other commuters who regularly use AGA's services, I attended this meeting. The purpose of this meeting was for the commuters to air our complaints and concerns directly with MPs and the managers present, which included their Managing Director, Jamie Burles.

Points raised during the meeting included:

The number of reoccurring and daily train faults, which is due to the ageing rolling stock used by AGA and lack of proper maintenance.

Train toilets - dumping human waste on tracks within stations and between them sometimes spraying over staff working on track side, overflowing being put out of use as a result, general odour from them.

General train cleanliness and upkeep - exteriors and interiors are always dirty, carpets and seats are often dirty and threadbare, stains on carpets having been reported and not cleaned for months on end (one example, I reported on 14/2/14, it was reported by someone else on 1/7/14, and it was still there this evening (16/7/14) when I boarded the train)

Faster trains between Liverpool Street and Norwich.

More investment in the network generally (more aimed at Network Rail side of things) including electrification, signals, level crossings, overhead power cables, etc not breaking down so often. (A manager from Network Rail was also present)

Mr Burles admitted, during the meeting, that the service they provide was no where near good enough, this was in reference to train faults, maintenance, train cleanliness and delays caused by things they had control of. He also assured us he would improve these things. 

Yet every day since there has continued to be daily train faults on multiple trains and carriages causing delays and short formed trains, both of which cause inconvenience for commuters, being late for work and/or being crammed into smaller spaces. Cleanliness has also not changed, trains I use to get home from Chelmsford to Shenfield are always littered with copies of the Evening Standard, amongst other things, not to mention stains on carpets which have been there for at least 5 months. Toilets are still dumping on tracks and smell unpleasant.

As the Minister for Transport, I ask you, please re-tender the Great Eastern Mainline Franchise, to a far more responsible company than AGA. Please also get the DfT to invest in the infrastructure of the Great Eastern Mainline. Please also make it a requirement in the new franchise to replace all the aged trains and to maintain the current rolling stock properly all the time the franchise holder still operates them.

Thank you for taking the time to read this e-mail. I look forward to your response and possible action.

Kind Regards,

Daniel Collins

Letter from DfT about Abellio Greater Anglia

OK, so I complained to the Department for Transport (DfT) about Abellio Greater Anglia (GA) and their total lack of commitment to improving their service. Today, I got a response from them, and here it is:

Dear Mr Collins,

Thank you for your e-mailed message of 19 June 2104 asking that we start a re-tendering process for the Abellio Greater Anglia rail franchise.

We announced a new directly awarded franchise agreement with Abellio Greater Anglia on 16 April 2014  please follow the link https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/rail-franchising-greater-anglia  . This will see the company continue to provide passenger rail services from July 2014 to October 2016.

 This will secure continuity of service until the new competed franchise, that is expected to start in October 2016, is let. The franchise will deliver £20 m of investment in improvements to services. Following comments from the public and partners in the rail industry, the government has secured a number of additional rail services in the off-peak period as part of the deal, which will lead to more services on local lines, providing a boost to the region’s economy. It will also mean more services between Cambridge and Stansted Airport, which will boost the city’s links with the rest of Europe.

The agreement secures tangible benefits for passengers, including a refresh of the Mark II rolling stock fleet that will see the installation of power sockets, new carpets, new seat covers and better lighting. The new agreement also requires Abellio Greater Anglia to install controlled emission toilets on to their train fleet, which will significantly reduce the amount of waste dropped onto the tracks on the network.

There will be a phased withdrawal of toilets which deposit sewage on the tracks. In particular the rolling stock used on the Norwich route will have modified toilets and new carpets and seat covers.

The next franchise will be awarded following a competition and as announced by the Secretary of State, the process will start with the OJEU expected in Spring 2015.  We will conduct a full public consultation to inform our specification. Details of all stages in the process will appear on the Department of Transport’s website.

I hope you will find this reply helpful.

Yours sincerely,

Sally Thomas

Franchise Design

I'm not sure if this is that helpful, to be honest, stuff that we've already been told really and the DfT not really listening to my complaints (shock horror). Come on DfT, throw us a bone.

The Case of the Train That Couldn't Wait

Ever wondered what happens when you get caught short while you're travelling on a Greater Anglia train? Ever wondered where it goes once you've done your business? Wonder no more, because the Greater Anglia trains are classy birds, and just let it all out over the tracks. Yes, you read that right, your wee and your poo end up on the track side.

You'll have to excuse the orientation of the Video, this was taken at Southend Victoria on Wednesday afternoon as I was about to commence my return journey back to Shenfield. You can visibly see the Class 321 relieving itself all over the tracks while it was stopped at Platform 4, quite visible are a quite sizable amount of logs to go along with the ballast. Lovely picking if you're a dung beetle, not so nice for everyone else.

I know Southend has a reputation of being a S*** tip, but there's no need to take it literally.

Chelmsford Station and Jonathan Denby

Chelmsford Station (Also known as CHM)

So the small bit of investment that the GEML has been given is being used to refurbish Chelmsford Railway Station. This station is right next to where I work (M&S Simply Food on Duke Street) and I do at times look at the station to see if I can see any more work being done on it.

The refurbishment was announced last year, to bring it more up to date, made bigger and make passenger flow a lot easier. They started the refurbishment in February and progress has been slow to say the least. A couple of extensions have been built including a new stair tower an a smaller extension directly opposite M&S, these have gone up 6 or 7 layers of bricks at a time with no activity for a couple of days then 6 or 7 more layers of bricks, I'm no builder, but even I think that's a bit slow, even allowing for the mortar to dry.

For the past couple of weeks, I have seen even less activity, just a bunch of contractors wandering around, talking and not really doing a hell of a lot. Then yesterday I heard a rumour, the rumour consisted of the suggestion that work was on hold until after the V Festival (weekend of 16th/17th August). Given the fact that V Festival brings people to Chelmsford in the thousands, a lot of whom travel to V Festival via train. To come to Essex's only City via a station that is in a shambles will not be a good experience. Temporarily, gone are the stations 3 entrances, we now only have 2, as one is blocked off because of the new stair tower and adjoining steel work, which is probably not even half way completed.

Today, the construction manager came into M&S to buy some lunch, so I thought I'd ask him about the station. He informed me that the station would take most of the rest of the year to complete, then when I asked him about why I hadn't seen a lot of work being done, he told me that most of the current work was being done behind the hoarding and across the other side of the road, pointing at where Chelmsford's new CyclePoint is. So rather than concentrating the main station building, which I thought would have been a priority, they're concentrating on viaducts underneath the railway between the CyclePoint and the Bus Station, something customers won't see or have access to, nor is it part of the actual station. OK then!

Jonathan Denby Lying About Re-branding on Live Radio

So, people who regular listen to BBC Suffolk in the morning might have listened to Mick Murphy interview Jonathan Denby, the Head of Corporate Affairs at Abellio Greater Anglia and a fella from Network Rail. Mr Denby is one of the managers from GA that went to the meeting in Westminster on Monday.

I have a lot of problems with his interview and Jonathan's answers, but lets just concentrate on a couple, shall we? The man is a liar, he avoids questions and tries to deflect blame whenever he's given half a chance. The main thing I want to talk about on my blog is the fact that a caller asked him about the new logo. 

Some of you might be aware that when Abellio won the franchise in 2012, the company was simply called Greater Anglia, together with a simple grey and red logo. But not to long ago the parent company, Abellio, decided they wanted more of the lime light and added their name to the company name thus re-named the company Abellio Greater Anglia. Together with the change of name, they changed the logo to include the word Abellio, the little symbol in the top right and then changed the type face used for the words Greater Anglia.

The aim of the question from the caller was to ask why the name and logo change came around and to ask if they were spending money on completely re-branding the trains. His answer was that they were only putting the new logo on carriages that were going through a refurbishment and repaint programme, which only included the Norwich to Liverpool Street InterCity Class 90 locomotives and Mark III carriages that they pull along. This statement is a blatant LIE! While some of the Mark III carriages have been repainted, others remain with the blue and white livery they were painted in while National Express owned the franchise and called the service ONE. These carriages that still have the blue and white One livery have had the old Greater Anglia logos removed and replaced by the new Abellio Greater Anglia logos. If you're going to repaint them anyway, what's the point in wasting the time and money putting the new logo on if you're going have to take it off again and put another new one on once you've repainted it? And why would you lie about it on live radio? But of course it's not just the InterCity trains that have had their old logos removed and replaced, Class 321 and Class 360 have also been given new logos without a repaint, care to explain that one, Mr Denby?

Then there's the issue of replacing uniforms, lanyards and name badges. The new logo is appearing on replacement uniforms, which are identical in every way, except the logo. I'd understand if this was happening for new employees, but replacing two year old uniforms for people who already have them, just so their uniforms have the new logo on it, is simply ridiculous.

How about when Mr Denby was asked about train faults? He deflected that one onto Network Rail. Erm Jonathan, your company own and maintain the trains, not Network Rail, they're in charge of the infrastructure. When asked about train faults, you start rabbiting on about how signal failures and overhead power cable failures can delay trains, and only added a sub note about the ever ageing, ill maintained rolling stock that GA own. Be honest here, you didn't really answer the question, did you?

Abellio Greater Anglia, Another Day of Delays and Train Faults

I would say, "what a difference a day makes", but alas the phrase, "same s***, different day" would probably be more apt.

Woke up this morning, and as I was writing this mornings blog post, I heard of a couple of train faults and emergency track repairs in not one, but two completely different locations on the Greater Anglia network, one near Broxbourne, the other at Wivenhoe. "How can this happen?" One asks... The answer, is simply because there has been far, far less investment on the Great Eastern Mainline (GEML) and West Anglia Great Northern (WAGN) network, which Abellio Greater Anglia (GA) have the franchise to run the trains on. 

Even though GA passengers pay more per mile for their journey than any where else in the UK, we get the least spent on the network per mile than any other network in the country. That's because the money the DfT get from your, mine, our train travel is put into one put and it then gets allocated to different parts of the rail network. A lot more gets allocated elsewhere.

Once the morning issues got cleared up (hooray), just as the evening rush hour hits (which seems to be a common theme) there was yet another train fault. A Class 321 train, a train that is 25 years old and as I pointed out to Jamie Burles (MD of GA), isn't maintained properly, had it's brakes seize on near Ilford. Now, Mr Burles promised us that GA would get broken down trains moved more quickly, three hours later and it was still causing havoc.

Thankfully for me, my 21:16 Chelmsford to Shenfield train was running on time. However things got rather more grim when I stepped onto the train. Threadbare seats, amongst the worst I've seen, and stains on a few from where they've not been cleaned properly. The carriage in question was 68567 on train 360117, it was in a truly disgusting state, you sometimes wonder why you pay for travel.

Here's just a few of the examples of what I'm referring to:

These are just a few examples, but would you sit on these seats Mr Burles? I don't think you would, so why expect your paying passengers to?

Greater Anglia Meeting

So, last night, I attended a meeting at parliament with Abellio Greater Anglia, MPs and other passengers. The meeting was predominately for us commuters to address our concerns with the management of Abellio to  seek answers and possible improvements to the service they provide.

In attendance were:

Chloe Smith, MP for Norwich North
Ben Gummer, MP for Ipswich
Sir Bob Russell, MP for Colchester
Jamie Burles, Managing Director, Abellio Greater Anglia
Jonathon Denby, Head of Corporate Affairs, Abellio Greater Anglia
Jackie Gibbs, Head of Service Quality Standards, Abellio Greater Anglia
James Ager, Twitter Team, Abellio Greater Anglia
Hannah Briggs, Public Affairs Manager, Network Rail
Marie Finbow, Strategy Manager, New Anglia LEP

Passengers (Twitter Accounts in brackets)
Ian Edwards (@Delayed_Again)
Grant Lee (@grantkjl)
James Elmer (@jameselmer73trn)
Imogen Dempsey (@ImogenDempsey39)
Sandra Garvey (@Sandie_1783)
Daniel Collins - me (@realdc80)

Mr Burles, admitted short comings of the service, including the cleanliness of trains and their punctuality and told us he wanted to improve these things. But stopped short of saying he'd replace the aged trains, claiming that the company's hands were tied by the Department of Transport (DfT) and the short franchise agreement. He suggested that the next franchise would run for 7 years and if awarded to Abellio, they would look into replacing the trains.

It was mentioned that the Mark 3 carriages would be fitted with new devices so as to not dump toilet waste on the tracks and be given an upgrade after our concerns were raised about the toilets on the trains, but not the other trains (the ones that I use).

Other topics that were mentioned including how money is often diverted from the south east to other areas of the country, we all pointed out that if our money was paid for travel in the south east, that's where it should be spend, as there has been a historic lack of investment in the south east, in the infrastructure as well as the trains.

Fares and the increases to them are also out of Abellio's hands apparently. The DfT are the people who set the policy for the fares and whether or not they're increased and how much by. James pointed out that our fares were increasing year on year, yet the service is getting worse year on year, so the value for money in our transport in taking a sharp turn for the whose. Which is a point we all agreed with.

Better communications too, Greater Anglia's Twitter account (@greateranglia) is only manned by one person at a time and during busy periods, they do get very backed up with people tweeting them trying to get updates about the travel information. It was pointed out that there have been occasions when passengers have had to rely on each other for updates because the people who operate Greater Anglia's account can't keep up. I also pointed out that because the train service doesn't stop until early morning, the Twitter team signing out at 8:30pm isn't really late enough.

A new task force has been set up by Chloe Smith and her colleagues to try to get the DfT to invest more money into the Great Eastern Mainline (GEML) which hopefully would bring a whole raft of improvements to the infrastructure and the trains in the area.

What can I take away from the meeting? The warm fuzzy feeling inside that I had chance to moan directly to Abellio Greater Anglia's MD, rather that relying on their Twitter team, who by the way, do an outstanding job given the resources they are given. Hope that the cleanliness of the trains improves as well as the trains punctuality, but knowing there will be no new trains, at least until after the new franchise starts in 2016, which could be a new company if Abellio's service didn't improve it gets worse.

It might also be worth pointing out that the Greater Anglia train I travelled on from Stratford to Shenfield after the meeting, also had Jackie Gibbs travelling on it. She was sat in First Class in the carriage I was travelling on. After she got on, I noticed her tidying up newspapers that had been dumbed in First Class. Our train was then delayed by ten minutes, the driver made a couple of announcements apologising about the delays, but during the second one, he ever so sarcastically mentioned that he was because we had to wait because a freight train had been given priority. I hope Jackie was listening as freight trains given priority was another point that was mentioned and she too had to deal with the lack of punctuality and the uncleanliness of the trains.

Moans about Abellio "Greater" Anglia - Part 2

Now to show everyone how bad some of GA's seats are on the Class 360 trains.

Last night, I travelled on the 21:16 Chelmsford to Shenfield service, which forms part of the Colchester Town to Liverpool Street service. It was an 8 carriage train, formed of 360120 and 360116. The particular train I travelled on was 360116, carriage number 65566, which is an end carriage.

I took these photos while I was on the train, as examples of it's threadbare seats:

This is a common feature on the Class 360 trains, and it's not really acceptable given the fact that the 360's are only 11 or 12 years old. It's pathetic really how poorly maintained GA's trains are.

Sort it out GA. Put the Great into Greater Anglia again.

Moans about Abellio "Greater" Anglia - Part 1

Where should I start?

Abellio Greater Anglia, commonly known just as Greater Anglia or GA, are the train company that currently run the Great Eastern Mainline (GEML) railway franchise in Great Britain. However, there is nothing great about the company or the services they run.

Like many commuters, I use the railways five days a week, every week to get to and from work, in my case, I travel from Shenfield (SNF), the station nearest to where I live, and Chelmsford (CHM), the station opposite where I work. And in my case, I generally travel to work at lunch time and home again in the evening.

As many commuters who use GA to get to and from work, most of, if not all of the trains are old, terrible and generally in a poor state of repair. GA owns and uses the following classes of trains that I've had to use:

Class 315 - which were built between 1980 and 1981, making them between 33 and 34 years old - GA owns all 61 of these bad boys, generally used for the Shenfield to Liverpool Street metro services and Western Anglia. No toilets, uncomfortable seats and quite terrible.

Class 321 - which were built between 1988 and 1991, making them between 23 and 26 years old - GA own most of them, the rest owned by London Midland, First Capital Connect and Northern Rail. I have had to use these, generally uncomfortable, small, smelly toilets. One of them has recently been refit to become the 321 Demonstrator, the abomination that GA created to show what they planned to do instead of replacing them.

Class 360 - which were built between 2002 and 2003 for the 21 four carriage versions GA uses, making them just 11 or 12 years old, some on the newest trains GA owns. Heathrow Connect owns 5 five carriage versions. These are comfortable enough, but often with threadbare seats and smelly toilets.

GA also own other ageing trains, some as old as the 315's, some actually older, yet GA refuses to spend money on replacing the 23 year old + trains and ill maintains all of their trains, instead, they spend their money on replacing signs at train stations that don't need to be replaced, I actually saw them doing this at Shenfield yesterday (1 July) and I thought April Fools was supposed to be on 1 April.

Because of how old and badly maintained their trains are, GA often has delays and cancellations thanks to mysterious train faults. Looking at their Twitter feed (@greateranglia) you can see tweets popping up left, right and centre about train faults. Come on now, is it much of a surprise when most of their trains are over 20 or 30 years old? Could you own a car that old and not expect it to go wrong occasionally? No! Get replacing them GA. The money GA regularly spend on fixing train faults, repainting old and knackered trains, rebranding, reupholstering old tired seats could be saved up and used to replace them all together. 

Give us some 21st century trains for 21st century travelling, other train companies are doing it, why can't GA? Their excuse is that because their franchise is so short they won't invest in new trains when it's possible another company is going to take over once the franchise is over. Now if I understand the franchise bidding properly, GA can bid to keep their franchise, bidding against the companies who want to take it on. Is it just me who thinks that if GA invested some money in new, more reliable, more comfortable trains, it might actually help them keep their franchise? The only reason the GEML franchise changes hands so frequently is because the companies that have run it, infrequently invest money where they should invest it, spending money on other things instead, like replacing signs that don't need to be replaced and lining the bosses pockets with gold and silver, taken from commuters who are paying over the odds for bad service.

I have said all this and I haven't even mentioned GA's week of hell. The week commencing Monday 16 June 2014. Which included the mother of all bad days, Tuesday 17 June. Just before the evening rush hour, a train snagged on the overhead power cables somewhere between Ingatestone and Chelmsford, which caused the train to fail and block the line coming out of London. Commuters working in London then endured an evening of hell trying to get home, rather than getting back to Chelmsford at somewhere between 5pm and 8pm, most didn't return until between 9pm and 10pm. I am led to believe, by a M&S customer, that the Monday was as bad, although I don't know the exact circumstances. Because GA were concentrating on getting the thousands of London commuters home (which for once was probably the right thing to do) it meant that I had to get a rail replacement bus in the opposite direction to Shenfield, taking me past the problem and to my destination station, everyone who wanted to go further had to get on the Metro services from Shenfield to their chosen station.

Then we have to talk about 17 May, when I was waiting 90 minutes for a train at Shenfield for a train to Chelmsford. I ended up being late for work, this was down to someone being hit by a train, something you can't really blame GA for. But they still issue delay repay compensation for people who are delayed by over 30 minutes. When I tried to claim this, they asked for my ticket, which I had already got rid of (opps). But given the fact it was a season ticket, I suggested they look it up on their system. Shortly afterwards, I got a letter, which I've attached to this blog, which issues me with travel voucher making up for my delay repay claims for 17 May and 17 June. Another twist in the story was that a day or two after I received the letter, I received an e-mail saying that if I don't sent GA my ticket they can't issue me with the refund, a refund they already had given to me. The letter was signed by Mike London and the e-mail signed by Lois Driver. Now Mike and Lois, it might be worth talking to each other, so one of you doesn't tell me one thing and the other tell me the complete opposite.

Anyway, I've had my own for today, I'll sign off now and leave you all to your devices.