London Midland Trains

[Other Walsall Tony]

Did I say it was? But what is LUDICROUS is the decision to run private past from Rugeley to Walsall.  And past loads of work commuters.  Why not pick up at at least Hednesford and Cannock and omit Walsall which already has a service?

Might some of the passengers want to alight at Walsall?

[Kevin]

Might some of the passengers want to alight at Walsall?

We can take that further, might some passengers want to travel to Bloxwich?
Just a hypothetical situation of course

[Alex]

It did NOT call at Hednesford.  And you should be able to rely on it to get to work. For a 930 start you can't even rely on the 830. Took 4 mins short of an hour to get there today too. That's not including the late departure!

Yeah, it did. And Tame Bridge Parkway as well. And all trains are scheduled to take 4 minutes short of an hour, its called a timetable...

Service 2K82 07:41 Rugeley Trent Valley to Birmingham New Street.

                      Scheduled      Actual
Rugeley TV        07:41           07:57
Rugeley Town    07:45           08:00
Hednesford       07:53            08:07
Cannock           07:56            *
Landywood       08:00            *
Bloxwich Nth     08:05            *
Bloxwich           08:07            08:16
Walsall             08:15            08:23
Tame Bridge     08:21            08:28
Birmingham      08:37            08:43

* Station call was omitted

[Sh4318]

Yeah, it did. And Tame Bridge Parkway as well. And all trains are scheduled to take 4 minutes short of an hour, its called a timetable...

Service 2K82 07:41 Rugeley Trent Valley to Birmingham New Street.

                      Scheduled      Actual
Rugeley TV        07:41           07:57
Rugeley Town    07:45           08:00
Hednesford       07:53            08:07
Cannock           07:56            *
Landywood       08:00            *
Bloxwich Nth     08:05            *
Bloxwich           08:07            08:16
Walsall             08:15            08:23
Tame Bridge     08:21            08:28
Birmingham      08:37            08:43

* Station call was omitted

According to my LM app, that service called at Walsall and New Street only.. then again, I don't know why I'm involving myself in this  ::)

[T840MAK]

Incidentally it didn't call at Rugeley town or tame bridge either you don't know what your talking about

If you read my post properly it said that looking at reporting patterns and time that the train made up. The reason that the train went fast was to reduce disruption to the unit's later diagram. Crew could have been running close to hours.
It doesn't matter which stations it omits, but a call at just Walsall will still make the train pick up some time lost - by the time you've called all stations to Walsall, there's not much point.
Shut up with your complaining for once in a while. It's getting tiring.

[Bob]

I was at Hednesford and it didn't serve it. And when I'm regularly late for work on a weekly basis cos LM can't get It together to even run on time or at all I won't shut up complaining cheers

[BK63 YWP]

At least arriva cannock thread is getting a rest  8)

[Tony]

If you read my post properly it said that looking at reporting patterns and time that the train made up. The reason that the train went fast was to reduce disruption to the unit's later diagram. Crew could have been running close to hours.
It doesn't matter which stations it omits, but a call at just Walsall will still make the train pick up some time lost - by the time you've called all stations to Walsall, there's not much point.
Shut up with your complaining for once in a while. It's getting tiring.

I'm with Bob on this one.

It was a stupid decision by LM Control. That is the only four car train of the day and usually carries about 400 people from the stations North of Walsall. To send it with just the dozen or so that catch it at Rugeley Trent Valley and miss the other 400 out when the following train is a two car is stupid. If it needs to be back on time for crew or scheduling reasons the more normal method is to turn it short at Hednesford. Yes it will still miss Rugeley Town (which it missed anyway) and Rugeley Trent Valley, but that would have put it back exactly on time and it would have actually picked up about 300 of the 400 usual passengers. The to Platform 1 at Hednesford was specially lengthened for the very purpose of turning this 4 car service there in times of disruption.

[Bob]

What made it worse was the two car one for the next trip. Although it'd probably cope ok usually

[andy41]

I'm with Bob on this one.

It was a stupid decision by LM Control. That is the only four car train of the day and usually carries about 400 people from the stations North of Walsall. To send it with just the dozen or so that catch it at Rugeley Trent Valley and miss the other 400 out when the following train is a two car is stupid. If it needs to be back on time for crew or scheduling reasons the more normal method is to turn it short at Hednesford. Yes it will still miss Rugeley Town (which it missed anyway) and Rugeley Trent Valley, but that would have put it back exactly on time and it would have actually picked up about 300 of the 400 usual passengers. The to Platform 1 at Hednesford was specially lengthened for the very purpose of turning this 4 car service there in times of disruption.

The problem is Tony that the Hednesford plan was fine when nobody caught the train to Rugeley on its outbound trip, but now you'd be booting half the Amazon workforce out at Hednesford and I can promise you that would not be easy! That is probably why they had to run it all the way. Unfortunately they were probably in a catch 22 with this one, as if it didn't make any time up atall getting back to Walsall it may have lost its path completely and not got back to New St atall for it next working. And there is nowhere for it to dwell at Walsall in order to turn it there to go back to Rugeley.

[Tony]

The problem is Tony that the Hednesford plan was fine when nobody caught the train to Rugeley on its outbound trip, but now you'd be booting half the Amazon workforce out at Hednesford and I can promise you that would not be easy! That is probably why they had to run it all the way. Unfortunately they were probably in a catch 22 with this one, as if it didn't make any time up atall getting back to Walsall it may have lost its path completely and not got back to New St atall for it next working. And there is nowhere for it to dwell at Walsall in order to turn it there to go back to Rugeley.

That one doesn't take many to Rugeley, the shift change is before that one gets there, the next one was running 10 minutes behind to take those that are. It's not normally too difficult to get people off at Hednesford, Once an announcement is made that it's going back to Birmingham and if they stay on they will end up in Cannock at the least they soon leave!

There appears to be someone in LM control taking a liking to stop hopping instead of turning short, the other Saturday they sent my daughters train non-stop to Rugeley Trent Valley, and then Non-stop back again as well, a completely pointless exercise. Now Rugeley Power Station has shut there is no freight on the line either, so hanging around at Hednesford doesn't cause any problems for other services either like it used to

[Westy]

As I've said before, why ain't the bus companies taking advantage of LM issues?

I know the buses will take longer, but it's better than nothing.

(I haven't done a proper count of the Cannock X51's, but there's a fair few normally on journey 2's lower deck, by the time it gets to my stop in Bloxwich. I know one bloke catches from Ashmore Park & changes onto it at Bloxwich!)

[mikestone]

There appears to be someone in LM control taking a liking to stop hopping instead of turning short, the other Saturday they sent my daughters train non-stop to Rugeley Trent Valley, and then Non-stop back again as well, a completely pointless exercise. Now Rugeley Power Station has shut there is no freight on the line either, so hanging around at Hednesford doesn't cause any problems for other services either like it used to

Or an ill-advised management instruction and controllers taking the line "if that's what they want" rather than "I'm being paid to make  such decisions".

[T840MAK]

I'm with Bob on this one.

It was a stupid decision by LM Control. That is the only four car train of the day and usually carries about 400 people from the stations North of Walsall. To send it with just the dozen or so that catch it at Rugeley Trent Valley and miss the other 400 out when the following train is a two car is stupid. If it needs to be back on time for crew or scheduling reasons the more normal method is to turn it short at Hednesford. Yes it will still miss Rugeley Town (which it missed anyway) and Rugeley Trent Valley, but that would have put it back exactly on time and it would have actually picked up about 300 of the 400 usual passengers. The to Platform 1 at Hednesford was specially lengthened for the very purpose of turning this 4 car service there in times of disruption.

It may well have been a stupid decision by LM Control but it's widely known that for control to take some decisions it has to be forced upon by the traincrew. There could also be issues whereby the crossover at Hednesford was out of use for whatever reason, and the original plan of turning the service short wasn't available. There's a whole host of factors that need to be considered before turning a train short.

The question in my mind is why did it not run fast from Birmingham to Rugeley, where it was already 10/15 minutes late, to inconvenience less people than running fast on it's way back - although this brings the issue with the crossing at Hednesford to the forefront of the issue - most likely they planned to turn it there and were told No, we can't.

There's always more than meets the eye in these situations.

These are assumptions from not knowing the track layout at Hednesford - I'm only aware of what it's like at the two Rugeley stations.
The same issue with points presents itself on light rail systems - on Thursday we had two consecutive incidents and this meant that the two emergency crossovers closest to one of the accidents were out of use as they're usually clipped. There were no staff available to respond to this incident, or to unclip the points, as there was a fatality elsewhere on the network which used up all of Supertram's resources.

[Bob]

As I've said before, why ain't the bus companies taking advantage of LM issues?

I know the buses will take longer, but it's better than nothing.

(I haven't done a proper count of the Cannock X51's, but there's a fair few normally on journey 2's lower deck, by the time it gets to my stop in Bloxwich. I know one bloke catches from Ashmore Park & changes onto it at Bloxwich!)

I wish there were. If there were later to and from trips I'd give the train up like a shot