First Capital Connect : Latest Stats - Total abject failure

On the First Capital Connect website, the company have just put up the train performance statistics for the last period :-

7 Feb-6 Mar - 86.1%

This is appalling. Nearly 15% of trains arrive more than five minutes after their scheduled arrival time. Lets look at all of the excuses they didn't have this time.

There was no work to rule by drivers
There was no snow
All of the new trains have been deliverer
The problems with the trains have been fixed.
There are no leaves on the line.

Now it is bad enough only running 62.8% of trains on time in the period 13 Dec - 9 Jan, when they had a whole host of excuses, but they haven't and they still provide a tardy rubbish service. They haven't got anywhere near even 10% of trains on time for the last six performance periods. So what does this mean to you as a regular user. It means that in a two week period, you can expect at leasdt three trains to be late. Bear in mind how many train schedules they amend for "operational reasons" - what we know as "Whooshers". Trains which suddenly become fast, zooming through your station to catch up so they don't show up. Are there any stats for what percentage of trains have their stopping pattern altered "in flight"?

However you look at these stats, they are a sign of abject failure from a basket case company. Only 178 signatures are required on the no 10 petition to get the number up to 6,000, so please, now more than ever, sign this if you haven't already. First Capital Connect are pulling out the PR stops to pretend they are doing a good job. They are not and now there really is no excuse. I know we are all tired of it, I know we all think that the protest has run it's course. IT HASN'T. There is a general election in under 2 months. This is a golden opportunity to remind your MP's that they need to sort FIRST CAPITAL CONNECT out. Email them to tell them that the stats are still rubbish. Tell them that you will only vote for a candidate who is prepared to take firm action against FCC NOW. The issue hasn't gone away, but if you miss the chance now, then when they get re-elected in May, they'll be back to living the high life on expenses and will do nothing at all.

First Capital Connect : London Pride

The BBC reports on a sale of posters from "The Golden Age of Railways". The one featured above caught my eye. This poster was issued by the Great Western Railway to promote travel to London. Featured in the picture is the River Thames and The Houses of Parliament. The modern day successor to GWR is First Great Western, owned by the same company which operates the Thameslink franchise. First Capital Connect has established a reputation as the worst train operating company in Britain. So first off (pardon the pun) lets see what todays commute on this awful railway brings? This was on their website (clearly not updated from yesterday)

Customer information - updated: Wednesday 3 March 2010, 13:45

From approximately 12.25pm all trains will begin calling again at London Bridge following the earlier line-side fire. Delays of around 15 minutes should still be expected and First Capital Connect tickets will continue to be accepted on local bus and Tube services to/from London Bridge.

As this blog previously established, the FCC route is particularly prone to fires due to electricity supply problems. Not exactly reassuring when you are stuck in a tunnel at Farringdon. The route has seen a proliferation of ANTI FCC websites (see the sidebar) spring up. These have allowed commuters to get organised and vent their spleen. Yesterday the Daily Telegraph reported that rail operators are failing to provide the required number of seats set out in their contracts. Do passengers who have to stand due to the company failing to meet their contractual obligations get anything off their ticket? Of course not. The only beneficiaries are the directors and shareholders of the operating companies who make massive profits. It will come as no surprise that FCC are one of these companies operating a shoddy service.

So what can be done. Well as the poster above shows the Houses of Parliament, let me urge anyone who hasn't signed the No 10 Petition to strip FCC of the Thameslink franchise to do so now. we only need another 215 signatures to reach 6,000. This landmark will allow us to remind the powers that be that the problems haven't gone away.

When was the last time that you felt "London Pride" travalling on a train operated by First Group PLC? Many of us see the River Thames from our train in the morning/evening. I'm a very proud Londoner and I passionately believe that London deserves a better service than that provided by First Group. They've had their chance, sack 'em.

First Capital Connect - Petition - only 256 more signatures needed !

As regular readers of this blog will know, we've been supporting the No 10 petition to strip First Capital Connect of the Thameslink Franchise. There are now 5,744. Only 256 more signatures are needed to get to the magic 6,000 mark. This is important because this landmark number will show the Government and the regulators that customers are still unhappy. If you haven't signed this petition, please do (unless you think First have done a good job). Only yesterday we had the unprecedented news that Customers had refused to get off a perfectly good train that FCC had decided to take out of service at Cricklewood. The latest figures from their own website show that nearly 1 in 4 trains are late - 10 Jan-6 Feb 76.8%

If you want a decent service, keep up the pressure, sign the petition and make sure everyone you know also signs the petition. Here's the link - it's also in the sidebar. Send it to your friends.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/FirstCC/

The First Crapital Con Job !!!!!

There are lies, damn lies and First Capital Connect performance statistics. If you look at the First Capital Connect website, you will see that for 13 Dec-9 Jan only 62.8% of trains arrived on time. Pretty shabby you may think. Well, it may surprise you to know that for the vast majority of passengers, the figures were far worse. You see the figure tells you how many trains arrived at their destination within 5 minutes of the scheduled arrival time. For someone like me, who regularly travels from Mill Hill Broadway to St Pancras, what does this mean? Not a lot as the actual destination for the train is Sutton. If it arrives 20 minutes late at St Pancras, where the vast majority of passengers get off and are inconvenienced, it doesn't count as late. It is only late if it arrives at Sutton 5 minutes late.

This means that if First Capital Connect can make up the 15 minutes between St Pancras and Sutton, then the train was officially on time, even though 95% of the passengers for that journey were extremely late. So you may ask, how can a train which is 20 minutes late make up 15 minutes?

Well there are two rather clever little tricks that I've noticed. The first trick is that they suddenly change the schedule, so that the train doesn't stop at certain stations. I've read that every stop a train makes adds 2 minutes to the journey time. This is the time to slow down, stop, let passengers off and then speed up. Between Blackfriars and Surrey there are 10 stations. If all of these are missed and the trains is made not stopping, it will arrive on time at Sutton and therefore will not count as a late train. Sadly for the 5% of passengers who want to travel to stations between Blackfriars and Sutton and who are already 20 minutes late, they have been completely let down. How many times have you arrived at the station only to find that the train is "not stopping". This is why. It is purely to allow First Capital Connect to avoid penalties for running a late train.

The second trick is even more sneaky. Have a look at these timetables Firstly we have the Bedford - Brighton timetable.  If you look at the Journey time from Bedford to Flitwick. The first train leaves at 18:54 and arrives at Flitwick at 19:04. A journey time of 10 minutes. Then look at the the journey time for the same train between Gatwick Airport and Brighton. It leaves Gatwick at 20:41 and arrives at 21:18, a journey time of 37 minutes.

Now have a look at the Timetable for Brighton to Bedford. Take the first train shown. At 17:08 the train leaves Brighton and arrives at Gatwick airport at 17:39. The journey takes 31 minutes. This is six minutes less than the train travelling exactly the same distance in the other direction. Now look at the arrival time at Bedford. It leaves Flitwick at 19:26 and arrives at 19:38. A journey time of 12 minutes, when the train travelling in the other direction takes 10 minutes. This pattern is repeated throughout the timetable.

You may wonder why this is relevant and why it is a con. Because as I said at the top of the article, the train is only late when it arrives more than 5 minutes after it's scheduled time at it's final destination. On trains travelling to Bedford, they are allowing an extra 2 minutes to catch up. On trains to Brighton, they are giving it 6 minutes. What this means is that it your train from Bedford is 10 minutes late getting into St Pancras, it can catch up between Gatwick an Brighton and so counts as on time. Look at this another way. Likewise, if your train is six minutes late at Flitwick, it will be "on time" when it arrives at Bedford. One other "little con" I've noticed is the fact that "semi fast" trains from St Pancras to Mill Hill (stopping only at West Hampstead) are now timetabled to take 15 minutes. In the days of British rail, the journey from Kings X Thameslink, stopping at West Hampstead, to Mill Hill took 14 minutes ( a longer journey). Could it be that they are running the trains slower, so they can speed them up if they need to catch up? I suppose it's irrelevant as the stats say they are usually late anyway.

What is truly staggering is the fact that with all of these fiddles and cons going on, they still only managed to run 62.8% of trains on time. From the blog stats I see that "Westminster" are reading this blog. If you are reading this Lord Adonis, this has gone on long enough. Strip First Capital Connect of their franchise. The figures you see for lateness are being nobbled. And if you are just a regular passenger and you haven't yet signed the petition, please do this now by following the link in the sidebar (unless you like being conned).

No 10 Petition for the truth about the death of David Kelly

As you know,Lord Hutton has said that the results of the autopsy on Weapons Inspector Dr David Kelly will be supressed for 70 years. A friend of mine, Nick Page (a fine musician to boot)I has started a petition on Number 10's website. If you feel as strongly as I do that the results should be made public,please click the link below and sign it. It reads :

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to make public the results of the post mortem of Government Weapons Inspector David Kelly"

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/TruthaboutKelly/

If  there's nothing to hide, why hide it or 70 years? 

This link will also feature in the sidebar

First Capital Connect - Sack them now !

Just a quick update to let you all know that the No 10 petition to Sack First Capital Connect as the operating company for the Thameslink service now has over 4,000 signatures.

You may find this article interesting
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23796488-train-company-could-lose-thameslink-franchise.do

The most interesting thing is the reams of comments

The end of Crapital punishment

Are you sick of the awful service level provided by rail operator First Capital Connect? I am. I've had enough of travel chaos. I've had enough of turning up for a train and finding that they've all been cancelled. I'm fed up of getting messages from my staff at the studio telling me they can't get into work because all the trains are cancelled. I'm fed up going to get a train, finding it cancelled, waiting for hours on end as trains too full to board stop and I can't get on, whilst other half empty trains zoom past Mill Hill. I'm fed up with excuses. Most of all, I'm fed up with the fact that Moir Lockhead, the managing director of First Group said in an update that the train operations were performing well.This man gets over a quarter of a million pounds in renumeration for running this awful service.

If you feel like me then it is time to do something. Sign the No 10 Downing Street petition, which I've put a link to in the sidebar. It's a simple process. You click on my link, you enter your name and address. You click the button, then you receive an email from No 10 website, which you reply to and you're done. It costs nothing and the more people who sign this, the more the Government will take notice. If the Government sack First Group from the Thameslink franchise, then all of the other rail companies will sit up and take note. We may all get a better service. Now, I've written countless blogs about this. I'm asking a little favour of you. Please would you email any friends you know with the details of the petition. Either put a link to this blog or direct to the petition in an email.There is an election soon. Many of the seats which First Capital Connect pass through are marginals, so the Government are more likely to take note now. If you can't be bothered, don't moan next time you are stuck for hours on a platform, as your train is delayed for hours. Let these greedy fat cat companies know that we won't take poor service for one day longer.

Picture : The Image First Capital Connect would like to portray. You may notice that rather interestingly there are no passengers in the picture, which sums up their attitude.