Word on the street (ok T'inernet) has it that there are delays due to speed restrictions at Holme and in the Wakefield area - http://realtime.gner.co.uk/

As per usual the NXEC website reports no delays.

Oh, and I will just mention that all comments will now be moderated before release. You don't have to register but what you say will have to get passed my delete button. Having said that I promise I don;t expect to be too familiar with it. 'I Love NXEC' called me a Twat yesterday and I let that go but Ron, you won't be able to use that word that was once a descriptive word of somebodies country of birth which has now become a term of abuse for people of an Asian persuasion.

I'm thinking of altering this blog so that only people who are registered can add comments. However as most people who leave comments haven't registered, I decided to canvass opinion first.

Should I or should I not and if not why not?

Can it be true?? A few months ago this blog moaned when NXEC? moved the 06.10 departure over to platform 3 at Peterborough. Suddenly this week it has returned to Platform 2, did someone respond to our comments or was it so obviously such a stupid idea that they worked it out on their own?

The only decent thing GNER did for commuters in my eyes was to introduce the 06.10 Peterborough to Kings Cross service, in the 2 years that GNER ran this service I only every remember 2 cancellations. NXEC have been running the franchise for just 3 months and the number of cancellations of this train is now already in double figures (yes it was cancelled again this morning!!). Are NXEC just unlucky? or do they just not give a shit about commuters and cancel the 06.10 at the first oppurtunity?

Looks like my predictions were pretty much spot on.

It's 9am. Notwork Rail had a 'revised timetable' up at 0621, and indeed, as I said, "the following trains almost certainly won't run from Peterborough [this] morning: 0720, 0746, 0804, 0851."

NXEC? Still proudly proclaiming the same message they did at 2050 last night. Revised timetable? Go whistle for it. And today they announce they're cutting 95 jobs, too. Maybe they should sack the entire customer service team, after all they're not doing much.

[EDIT: the infamous Excel spreadsheet finally turned up at 0945. Sorry if your commute required you to be in before that, folks - especially since it's clear from the spreadsheet properties someone was working on the file at 0220 this morning.]

Turning up at P'boro station at 0710 this morning, I noted that the 0720 wasn't down as cancelled. In fact, it wasn't on the departure boards at all, and were it not for the announcer doing a sterling job trying to keep folks updated, there'd've been no information at all. FCC conveyed me to KGX, on time, on the 0714.

Of course, since it's a "revised timetable", rather than cancelled trains? I'll bet you that, very conveniently, you can't be compensated for the non-running of half the morning commuter trains.

Methinks it's about time to use http://www.theyworkforyou.com/

From the NXEC 'website' (bold face is mine)

Update as of 20:50hrs
Updated: 3:50 PM on 12/03/2008

[...] Thursday 13th March 2008, National Express East Coast will be operating a revised timetable.

Services between London and Leeds will be operating to near normal timetable.

There will be no through services between the North East England / Scotland and London. A limited connecting service will operate between Doncaster and the North. Passengers making journeys on this section of the route are recommended to try and defer their journeys until Friday 14th March, when tickets will be valid.

According to National Rail:

12 Mar 20:05 Network Rail advise that the lines will remain closed between Doncaster and York until at least 16:00 Thursday 13 March. Details of tomorrow's amended train service plan will be published as soon as they become available.

...available from NXEC, we assume. Don't hold your breath.

According to me? "once more, NXEC can't find their arses in the dark with both hands, a flashlight, a roadmap and the aid of Julian Clary". I have the tags for this post on autocomplete, I've used them so often.

Let's try this again, NXEC: people who are catching the 6 and 7am trains from Peterborough have mostly already gone to bed. On past performance, the odds on a revised timetable making it up before 9am are the square root of fuck all. HOW is this 'Customer Service'.

By my reckoning, the following trains almost certainly won't run from Peterborough tomorrow morning: 0720, 0746, 0804, 0851. I wouldn't hold your /breath/ for any of the Leeds trains, and while the 0610 only has to come up from KX, God only knows if they'll be arsed to, and he's relying on a miracle. They certainly won't TELL us before 0900.

...is most accurately described as a COMPLETE BLOODY FIASCO.

"12:45pm: National Express East Coast is running a revised timetable with half the normal service operating due to services running at a reduced speed."

Ok. And you mean it took them till this lunchtime to realise that half the trains won't be in the right places to provide a service, if they run them at 50mph? I've been watching that unfold since 9am on the live departures board.

Check http://www.livedepartureboards.co.uk/ldb/sumdep.aspx?T=KGX for details before going anywhere. And don 't trust the NXEC site.

[EDIT: oh, forgive me. The NationalRail link in the previous post did actually include the fact that half the trains aren't running, just not mention it explicitly. That's not a 'revised timetable', that's wholesale butchery. And it finally made it up on the NXEC site. As an EXCEL SPREADSHEET. *waves flags, cheers derisively* ]

...was, apparently, another NXEC day of ... I'd say shame, but I'm starting to think they don't have any.

See http://www.theticketcollector.co.uk/wordpress/2008/03/11/very-bad-day-for-nxec/

Were you going to mention THIS to your customers any time today? Or just let them find out about timetable updates the hard way, as usual?

(Thanks to SB for pointing this out!)

While we're at it? If anyone from FCC is reading this? You can have my season ticket money come April, just as soon as you start running a P'boro service that leaves KGX after 1600 and gets me into Peterborough before 1730.

From NXEC's site, which, saints preserve us, appears to contain USEFUL INFORMATION:

At 1745, the Met office has issued a severe weather warning for 12 March affecting the East Coast route. Severe gales with gusts of up to 80mph have been forecast between 0900-1400, easing mid afternoon.

Journey times are expected to be doubled between the North East/Yorkshire and London Kings Cross due to services running at a maximum speed of 50 mph during this period.

It is advisable that unless your journey is essential, to defer your journey. Tickets will be valid for travel on Thursday 13 March.

With Fentykes warning of disruption I arrived at KX at 18.05 expecting the worse,and I was not dissapointed the concourse was packed. The only train on the board was the 16.50 Sunderland service which I instantly ignored as they never stop at Peterborough, but then I heared some poor sod with a megaphone telling people this was going to stop at Peterborough.(Why do they always get that megaphone out when there are problems, on a packed station surly the PA system would be better?).

Unlike most Peterborough commuters I chanced my arm and walked down the platform towards the Grand Central service expecting it to be packed, but no it was empty, I sat in the front coach and there were only 4 people in there. Its a refurbished 125, the seats were clean, there was twice as much leg room as NXEC, and it even had chess and Cluedo boards built into every table top. Sadly there was no one sitting near me to have a game with, and Prof Plum and his mates were not around, (prehaps you have to bring your own pieces?) The train left around 18.15, had the inevitable problems around Biggleswade and got into Peterborough around 19.45. Not only was this a pleasant train to sit in, it also seemed to have far more staff that NXEC, (2 ticket inspectors, 2 Trolly staff)and the staff did seem much friendlier. What a shame Grand Central don't stop at Peterborough normally.

The NXEC site at 11pm still had the 1.30 pm notice.

On FCC's site, which apparently CAN run a railway:

"21:30 Tuesday 4 March Great Northern route: Lines between Hitchin and Biggleswade will be closed between Midnight tonight and 06:00 tomorrow to allow overhead lines to be repaired. Some late night and early morning services will be cancelled and/or replaced with bus services. Please click 'further information' below for full details."

I was not in the least surprised when the 0610 was cancelled this morning.

Somehow, I suspect most of NXEC staff were.

Well.. the train I got on was apparently originally the 1310.

In an attempt, I assume, to improve their stats in some way, it became (just before I got on it) the 1610, and sometime later the 1635. At 1640, after nearly an hour of apologising profusely because York weren't telling him anything useful, the guard told us that all the departure boards at KX had been switched off, and we were unlikely to be going anywhere for an hour.

At 16.55, without ANY warning, we left KX, crawled from Stevenage to Sandy, and made it in around 1800.

In short, as usual, NXEC and National Rail between them couldn't run a railway with actual customers on it if their lives depended on it.

If anyone was on the 13.10 for all of the afternoon (you poor sods) can they confirm how many times it was re-timetabled?

If you want to get home tonight.

I've just taken a call to say the overhead lines are down in the Biggleswade area and it's a bad one. As yet I don't know how bad it is or how long it's going to take to fix but I have been told it's likely to be a long time.

I've got my lap top and plenty of things to do on it so personally I'm giving myself the best chance possible of getting home at a reasonable time and I'm leaving now. I'll post an update if and when I get any news or indeed a chance to get on-line.

And that's not a good thing either.

First complaint came when I got to the station to see how many tossers had parked their motorbikes & scooters without considering others. At least 3 people had parked thir bikes in such a position that there was one bike parked when 2 would have easily fit had the owners has the common sense to park more coniderately.

Second complaint came when queing for me paper. The newstand at P'boro station is always congested on a morning and there are always people squeezing through. But this morning, it seemed there were more people willing to push and barge their way through instead of saying 'excuse me'. It got so bad the last bloke to push me went arse over because my foot found a life of it's own and tripped him up. He gave me the meanies as he picked himself up but he didn't have the guts (or perhaps will) to make a scene and left with a huff.

Next came the usual lack of seat reservations on a very busy Monday morning service. What is it with that fricking printer that makes it fail every Sunday night? Why have NXEC and GNER before them, failed to invest in a new one? I mean, It's not as if they are expensive or anything and a new one would solve THE MOST COMMON gripe from us commuters overnight.

Finally I got pissed off by the shocking state of the toilet. It was so bad I preffered to wait until I got to the office and refused to go in there. I can't beleive that this toilet had been cleaned over the weekend. I know us passenegers can be real pigs but there is no way in hell that the number of people on that train before it reached P'boro could have caused such a stink and wholesale devestation.