How to stop Southeastern cutting trains to Charing Cross and Victoria

SouthEastern Trains really want to simplify your journeys.

They think your life would be much simpler if you had more interchange opportunities when going on your daily commute to Charing Cross or Victoria.  Maybe you’d like to change at Lewisham?  I’m pretty sure your ticket price will remain the same.

If you think this is total bollocks, and SouthEastern ought to be ashamed of themselves, then you have some options.

You can sign this petition, just like 14,500 other people have done.

Please email BetterSouthEastern@dft.gsi.gov.uk, you can use the text below as a template – please amend it to reflect your experiences:

Dear Sir/Madam,

This following is a formal response to the South Eastern Rail Franchise Consultation document published in March 2017.

I’m responding as an individual.

My personal details:

First Name, Surname

First Half of Postcode (eg SE3)

My nearest station is Blackheath

I normally travel to Victoria and Charing Cross from Blackheath Station.

I usually travel some time between 6am-9am and 5pm-8pm every weekday.

The reason I travel is to get to work, but also during leisure time.

My accessibility needs are…

I am responding specifically to Question 17 in the consultation.  I strongly oppose the idea of  SouthEastern stopping offering routes to Victoria and Charing Cross.  I do not want to make multiple changes on a line that previously offered a direct route.  I do not believe that SouthEastern will offer significant improvements in reliability or regularity in service, and suspect they are just using this as a way to lessen the burden of their license, whilst passengers will still have to pay the same prices to get into London.

Finally, there’s public consultation at 10am on Saturday 1st April at Glass Mill Leisure Centre map (the one next to Lewisham Station.  That’s today/tomorrow, depending on when you’re reading this!  Please attend if you can.

 

Blackheath station updated

I can’t read architectural drawings. As several people have pointed out, there is no plan at all to stick a whopping great shutter over the front of Blackheath station. Instead the plan is to keep the external windows and entrance unchanged, but to reduce the size of the newsagents at the upper floor, and to shift the ticket office to the right, which will make more room for ticket machines, as well as revealing the windows on the other side overlooking the tracks. Above is a before and after animated gif, to show the changes more clearly (hopefully). Sorry… I’ll get my coat…

Rolling shutters – just what Blackheath station needs

UPDATE: There is no plan to stick a great big shutter over the front of Blackheath station. I got it wrong. See the comments below, and this updated post.

Following on from the News Hopper’s piece today about the station improvements, below are some images from the plans. You can see the full set of documents on the Lewisham planning portal.

I don’t know about you, but nothing says “this area is dodgy” like a roller shutter with graffiti on it. That appears to be what’s been approved for the station following renovation work (minus the graffiti to begin with).

A spot of colour in one of the planning documents:

Unusually, the track in the bay remains in situ, although it is now heavily overgrown
and otherwise obstructed. The area to the north (now a car-park) was formerly an
area of railway sidings, where commuter trains were stabled when not in use.

The bay platform used to come into its own when a circus was taking place on
Blackheath. Many of the animals would arrive in train vans. The circus would then
process through Blackheath Village on to the heath. There is a local legend that on
one occasion an elephant took exception to a passing bus — and the bus lost!

£420,000 of our money spent on tinkering with the station again. Bear in mind the lifts took nine months to be installed last time. Looking forward to the grand opening in 2035!

Artist’s impression of (badly photoshopped) Blackheath station with a shutter based on an image by Onnola on Flickr.

World class customer service

“Can I have two tickets from the boundary of zone three to three bridges please? I’ve got an annual gold card.”

He gives me two tickets from Blackheath, costing over £18, instead of £13.

When I question it, I’m told its because I’ve only got one annual gold card.

“But my wife has one too- she’s travelling with me!”

“If I can’t see it, you can’t have it. It’s policy”.

So I cancelled both tickets, go and get my wife’s card, and finally buy the correct tickets.

Why can’t I choose the start and end location of any ticket I choose to purchase? With a single annual gold card, I’m entitled to up to three off peak discounted tickets if the other people are travelling with me.

We pay £2,800 a year to the train companies to be treated like criminals.

The gravy train

You remember the little bit of wind we had a couple of weeks ago? All the train companies in the South East switched to emergency timetables just in case, and havoc ensued. My train was massively late, so I filled in the Delay Repay form on the Nationalised French Rail Operator’s website.

Of course, it’s not really the nationalised French rail operator. I mean, we all know that free markets win out, and that the railway companies in the UK were privatised, so how could that possibly be true?

Except that it kind of is. Your season ticket for £1,424 goes to SouthEastern. SouthEastern are owned by Govia. Govia are owned by the Go-Ahead Group (65%) and Keolis (35%). And Keolis (keep up at the back) is majority owned by SNCF, the French equivalent of what used to be British Rail.

I’ve just paid £1,424 for a season ticket – that’s more than most people pay for a month’s rent in London. Then I receive a token for £1.10, which I can ONLY redeem with SouthEastern trains, and will be valid for exactly 12 months. It’s not even redeemable online.

How is this going to encourage the only train company that I use regularly to improve its service? In the notoriously left-wing rag City A.M., Alister Heath laments:

There is sadly mass support for nationalisation and price controls

There is also huge support for the nationalisation of the railways, at 66-23; again, not surprising given the weird public-private mish-mash that characterises the industry, the subsidies, the lack of transparency and accountability (who is in charge? Network Rail? The train firm?), the awful service and the lack of choice. We need a new deal for our railways – but state ownership was a disaster during the decades when it was tried.

Here’s the full YouGov poll.

Yes Alistair, it was a catastrophe… Except that Britain now has the most expensive fares in Europe, says the Telegraph.

The Go-Ahead Group (such a dumb name) which Southeastern is part of, made pre-tax profits of £82 million last year, and proposed to give a share dividend to investors of 81p per share. They’re doing just fine.

Keolis, the French part of South Eastern, made profits of 287m Euro in 2012.

Our rail system was a national asset. The market for rail companies isn’t working for anyone except its shareholders, more than 30% of which in our neck of the woods is now owned by the French government, and run for a profit, which is extracted from your pocket, into the French government’s.

Snowy Blackheath

It snowed. In case you haven’t looked out of the window. God knows how we’ll cope tomorrow, what with SouthEastern and everything. I really want to build a network of igloos on the heath, so here’s hoping there’s more snow… If you’ve got any nice pics of Blackheath, send them this way! Happy snowdays!
Here’s one from Philtocapacity on twitter:

And from David Boyle, an antisocial snowball:

Longer platforms at Blackheath?

Another interesting story on the Blackheath Village Residents Group site:

Network Rail has distributed this letter to residents living close to the station, advising that work will shortly be underway to lengthen the platforms to take 12 coach trains.

Didn’t they extend it to take 12 cars back in 2010?

Destination unknown

This morning Mrs Bugle’s train to Charing Cross mysteriously became a train to Victoria.  The driver apologised for the  “total mess causes by this, on behalf of the company”.

I’m starting to think that the fireworks conspirators may have a point…

Touching

No trains today. Angry line of “customers”. They’ve all touched in, because there is no sign on the oystercard reader. Touching out again will cost them £1.30. “Why don’t you put a sign on the reader?”

“The management don’t want us to.”

There is no independent thought within the Borg.

Met the managers

I went to meet the managers. A nice bloke from National Rail wrote down my problem with the sliding door on a piece of paper, and said he’d tell someone. The person I spoke to from SouthEastern trains said that they don’t have a Passengers Panel. They suggested filling out the web-form on their site, or writing a letter. On paper. In 2011!

Fixmytransport.com need an email address to send things to – they can’t work with webforms yet. They mentioned Passenger Focus and London Travel Watch as possible alternatives, and gave me the email address of the head of communications – sarah (dot) boundy (at) southeasternrailway.co.uk

Dear Sarah,

Please could you find a way to allow fixmytransport.com to contact SouthEastern Railways directly?

It’s a great site, designed by the people who make the democracy-based writetothem.org theyworkforyou.com and fixmystreet.com

The reason I’m asking is because there are more than 30 people at Blackheath Station who would really like SouthEastern to reopen the sliding blue door on the ramp up from the Kent-bound platform!

See below:

http://www.fixmytransport.com/campaigns/lets-get-southeastern-to-re-open-the-sliding-blue-

Many thanks,

Blackheath Bugle