UK RAILWAYS

> Last weekend I saw the photo in Modern Railways of the FGK TPX launch.
> Then I travelled from Manchester to York and back with them.
>
> Sunday afternoon: could have caught the 1642 from Picc., as it was
> delayed with a door fault. Decided to catch the 1700 and change at
> Leeds. That went OK for me, but for anyone wanting to go to South
> Milford, Selby, Brough or Hull, there was no on train information on the
> replacement bus service.
>
> Friday afternoon, arrived at York platform 9 for the 1620 to Manchester
> Airport. For the second time in three weeks this train was short formed.
> Full and standing all the way, and just grim between Leeds and
> Huddersfield, with many pax not able to get on at Leeds. No ticket
> check.
>
> Non-TPX sets seem to be appearing on TPX services regularly, although
> two sets were transferred to TPX to supposedly stop the need for this.
>
> Reminiscent of the Parkerism crumbling edge of quality. Is this just a
> minor blip? How are other TPX customers getting on?
>
> --
> Tim
>
> See my posting under Grand Central aims...

> Reminiscent of the Parkerism crumbling edge of quality. Is this just a
> minor blip? How are other TPX customers getting on?

> Tim Fenton wrote:
>
>
> > Reminiscent of the Parkerism crumbling edge of quality. Is this just a
> > minor blip? How are other TPX customers getting on?

> Like all these franchise changes, I doubt whether well really
> see any difference.

>
> The heating in First Class was not working (in either direction)
despite
> the very cold weather,

> and on the way out the refreshment trolley person
> damn near threw our complementary cups of tea at us,

> Like all these franchise changes, I doubt whether well really
> see any difference.

>Apparently there was a meeting last week between Vernon (and other
>management) and the Newcastle based ARRIVA staff on hire to TPX.
>
>The message from TPX was that for Feb the reliability and Punctuality
>figure were up on the previous month. Although it was soon pointed out that
>as far as TPX is concerned on the ECML north of York, the service has all
>but collapsed.
>
>Mainly due to a total lack of communication all round, between ARRIVA and
>TPX (with regards to the staff on hire), TPX Supervisors at York to TPX
>Train Crewe at York and even the ARRIVA a staff on hire hadnt been given
>the phone number of TPX control.
>
>This has also lead to failed units spending days in platforms before someone
>got round to sorting them out. Two cases were noted, firstly a 3 car set
>which sat at Darlington for three days and a 2 car set that sat in Platform
>9 at Newcastle for four days despite Heaton, its home depot being 3 miles up
>the line.
>
>Alot of this was news to the TPX management which says some thing about the
>people below them who should be reporting to them.
>
>One other thing that did come out at the meeting is that from December all
>trains will be at least 3 cars by splitting some two car sets to make more 3
>car sets.

>
>