3.5% of services were cancelled for part or all of their journey across the whole First Capital Connect network. FCC do not publish these stats for the Thameslink route alone.

Excuse of the month: Train failure north of Farringdon. For more excuses see out FCC excuses page.

The full statistics can be found on the FCC website here (pdf)

We have been contacted by Dispatches who are producing a feature on the UK train operators and want IhateThameslink readers to submit their stories, pictures, and video to them. This really is a great way to expose the shambolic First Capital Connect. I encourage everyone with a camera or smart-phone to take as much footage of their crowded journeys or bad conditions and submit it to Dispatches.

Video – You can upload your video footage to YouTube here, showing the train conditions and your experience of them.

Comments -You can post comments about your experiences directly to the Dispatches website by using the comments box at the bottom of this page. Alternatively you can email your comments and stories to dispatches@channel4.co.uk. Comments and video sent to this email address will not be published on the Dispatches site.

Tweet - You can tweet your stories to Twitter using the hash tag #trainpain

Get involved!

FCC invest in a new de-icer...

When combined with the Great Northern route, First Capital Connect managed to get 73.0% of trains to their destination less than 5 minutes late.This suggest the Great Northern Route performed slightly worse than the Thameslink route in this period. Furthermore a whopping 14.1% of trains were cancelled across the entire network.

This month, FCC had the following excuses for their terrible performance:

Adverse weather conditions
Overhead line damage near St Neots
Overhead line damage near Huntingdon
Person hit by a train at Mill Hill Broadway

It was pretty clear that FCC were not prepared for the cold weather (wasn’t it cold this time last year too?) although on their website they claim that staff have been trained in the use of a new de-icer to reduce the risk of doors freezing;

We are also working hard to prepare our fleet for the winter. All work to increase the resilience of the traction motors against snow ingress has been completed. We have also sourced a new de-icing fluid which, unlike the one used last year, is effective at temperatures down to minus 25 degrees Centigrade. This has been delivered to train depots and strategic stations on our routes to reduce the risk of doors freezing in severe weather. Staff have been trained in its use.

Good job guys…good job (see pic).

Update 13/01/11: Information can now be found on the First Capital Connect website about this offer, hidden away on the ‘Spotlight on Seats‘ section. According to the website, this offer has been launched to ‘celebrate’ additional seating now available on the Great Northern Route.

But, there is always a catch. Apparently this offer is open to ‘new customer only’ and to those who have not bought a season ticket in the last six months. This seems very unfair to all the existing customers who have put up with cramped conditions over the years.

New customers will be able to claim back the cost of one month’s travel after they have made six monthly purchases.

Another month’s free travel will be provided if a further five purchases are made, meaning you can travel for a year and only pay 10 months.

Customer service director Michelle Smart said: “We believe this latest offer provides new and qualifying monthly tickets holders a great way to save money.” To qualify for the Monthly Recurring Debit Season Ticket Scheme, you must buy your tickets through FCC’s website.

<sarcasm>Great news for all those travelling on the Thameslink route</sarcasm>

FCC gave the following excuses for the poor performance.

Defective train near Welwyn Garden City
Weather related train problem near Purley
Road vehicle struck rail bridge near Elephant & Castle
Adverse weather conditions in Southern England

Ihatethameslink.co.uk have frequently highlighted the insufficiencies with the official FCC statistics, and you can read more about them here. For more accurate statistics check out the websites below;

www.stuckwithfcc.co.uk/live-fcc-statistics

www.thameslinkstats.info

A few months ago I posted regarding engineering works forcing me to drive to work - and costing me about 4 times as much as the train – because First Capital Connect refused to provide a bus service to replace their regular timetable.

I wrote to FCC asking for compensation to the tune of 79 miles at the standard £0.40 per mile, minus the cost of what the train ticket would have cost me (£7.90), a total of £23.70. I also asked for a reassurance that if engineering works affected regular arrival times in the future, they would run a replacement bus service to arrive at least as early as the first train normally would.

This is the response I received (click the image to see the original, or below for the text:

As you know, on the above day [22nd August 2010] engineering works were taking place on the route. This meant we were unable to run our usual train service. We always try to minimise disruption where possible with most works taking place at nights or weekends.

Because of possible changes to the timetable, we would always recommend that customer check their journey details before they set out (which I understand you did).

However, engineering works are essential and on this occasion were advertised in advance. While I do appreciate that you decided to drive to get to work on time, we won’t be able to offer any compensation towards the petrol you spent. If you purchased a rail ticket prior or have a season ticket then please send this into us.

I hope we have been able to clarify our policy on this matter.

Some points…

I appreciate engineering work has to take place, and grudgingly accept that the best time to do this in the evenings and weekends when less – but importantly not ‘no’ – people are travelling. Inevitably, when engineering works are taking place, trains will be disrupted or possibly not run at all.

While I do accept this, I consider the timetable – the regular one printed in the thick booklets twice a year – to be a form of contract between the TOC and customer, especially when it comes to first and last trains of the day.  If the timetable states the first train should arrive at a certain time, then the company should ensure that the first replacement bus arrives at that time, even if it has to depart earlier.

FCC suggested that I “decided” to drive to work and “decided” to spend more money than I had to. This is incorrect. As a freelance shift worker, if I’m an hour late for work, I don’t get invited back – simple as. I was forced to drive to work by a train company which has no respect for its off-peak travellers.

My final thought is this – if I did have a season ticket (I don’t, because I travel such a mix of peak and off-peak that it doesn’t justify it, price-wise), it’s implied that I would have been able to claim for the delay – even if I hadn’t even intended to make the journey. In fact, anyone with a season ticket could, in theory, have made some money out of the set of engineering works on the Sunday in question by claiming they wanted to travel on one of the first two regular trains that day.

Perhaps this thought will make First Capital Connect “clarify their policy on this matter”.

(Incidentally, this past weekend there were engineering works between Flitwick and Bedford, during which FCC were running a shuttle bus between these two stations. Yet East Midlands Trains were stopping at Luton/Parkway and Bedford as normal – meaning that Harpenden and south passengers would have been much better changing at Luton/Parkway and getting this superior service to Bedford instead of sitting on the 40-minute bus journey. Would FCC allow passengers from Flitwick, Harlington and Leagrave to travel to Luton and back up to Bedford on EMT rather than force them onto a longer journey on a bus without paying more for their journey? Don’t be silly!)

I’m Stuart, I work in a technical role for the BBC on a freelance basis in London, and commute from one of the often-forgotten stations between Bedford and Luton at all times of the day, week and year. When I’m not starting work at 06:00, I’m finishing at 23:00. When I’m not working on a bank holiday Monday, I’m trying to get some sleep after a 12-hour nightshift. You get the picture.

9-5 commuters may be aware of a little thing called the Thameslink Programme which currently closes the cross-London route for 25% of the week, and 100% of the weekend. This means Farringdon, City Thameslink and Blackfriars stations cannot be reached by using First Capital Connect services, and those needing to cross the river to complete their journey need to get the Tube between London Bridge and St Pancras.  This is scheduled to be the case for at least the next two years, and has already been happening for well over a year.

Sometimes, however, there is even more engineering works at the weekend. To the left is the normal northern Thameslink route (Bedford-London) timetable for Sunday (click to enlarge – my yellow highlighting). We can clearly see the first train leaves Bedford at 0542, arriving St Pancras at 0655. The second leaves at 0612 and arrives at 0725, and both trains stop at all stations along the way.

This Sunday I happen to be on a shift which, for my sins, starts at 0745. My workplace is a 5-minute Tube from St Pancras followed by a 10-minute walk, so both of these trains would allow me to reach work on time.

Now look at the special timetable (left – click to enlarge – my yellow highlighting) for Sunday 22nd August 2010. There is no train service between Mill Hill Broadway and St Pancras until just before 9am due to engineering works. First Capital Connect have provided a replacement bus service – as is standard practice during engineering works – to run to all affected stations.

Look closer though, and serious questions need to be asked.

1) Why do the buses start from Mill Hill (0600) before the first train arrives (0634)?

2) Why does the first proper replacement bus take 65 minutes (0642 to 0749) between Mill Hill and St Pancras when the entire Bedford to St Pancras all-station train journey normally takes only 73 minutes (0612 to 0725)?

3) Most crucially, why does FCC expect passengers north of Mill Hill to accept the earliest possible time they could arrive at St Pancras (0749) is 54 minutes – nearly an hour – later than is published in the normal timetable (0655)?

The last point means that, as FCC will not be starting services earlier than normal to compensate for the engineering works (which they have presumably known about for a while), my journey would take two hours and seven minutes, and I would still be late for work.

It also means that I will be forced to drive instead, costing me much more in petrol and central London parking (no congestion charge, fortunately) than the railcard Super Off-Peak Day Return (£7.90) that I would have bought. I can forget about any compensation – Delay Repay is not applicable as this is a revised timetable.

For the uninitiated, welcome to the world of off-peak railways. Sit down, make yourself comfortable – and prepare for a 12-mile replacement bus journey which takes 65 minutes.

As for me – I’m the one in a semi-permanent state of sleep. Wake me up when we’ve passed Luton – I’ve almost certainly only got 8 hours before I have to be back in work at ridiculous-o-clock.

Please click here to sign the petition, or to read why we have started this campaign, please read out campaign page.

In coming months we will be able to compare the official FCC performance statistics with more meaningful statistics thanks to our guest blogger Stuart who has created a superb application that records data direct from the National Rail database. The results should be interesting!

Screw up 1:  On the performance home page they state the Thameslink performance is 89.5% however on the report (PDF) it says it is 88.1% and that the FCC combined (Thameslink + Great Northern) is 89.5%.

Screw up 2: First Capital Connect have published their latest report but in true FCC style their performance home page is out of date and still has comments and excuses relating to the last report!

Whatever the correct figure is, it is still below their pretty low target on 90.32%. In fact, in the last eight periods they have only met their target 3 times.

These screw ups do not give me much faith in their stats, especially as they do not really give us the whole picture anyway. it. Post a comment below if you notice it has been changed!

They have blamed numerous events for their terrible service, but their excuse of the month is;

Lineside fire at Earlswood

Rumour has it this fire was started by FCC passengers in the middle of the night to keep warm after their train never appeared even though the board still stated ‘on time’.