The Newsletter can be found below or you can download it in PDF format.
WEST SUSSEX RAIL USERS ASSOCIATION
64, Brampton Court, Stockbridge Road, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8PD
Tel: 01243 788028
E-mail: contact@wsrua.org.uk
Twitter: twitter.com/wsrua
Our membership year runs from 1 March and subscriptions for
2019-20 are now due. Many members have already paid their
subscription either directly or by standing order. If you have not
paid, a renewal form is enclosed. The subscription remains at £2 and
can be paid by cheque through the post, by direct bank credit or by
standing order, the renewal form gives details of all these options.
A few did not pay their subscription for last year and rather than
deleting them as members, we are asking them to pay for 2 years and
for those members the payment slip shows £4.
The main tasks of this Project which included
large scale work in Balcombe and Clayton tunnels and the Ouse Valley
Viaduct were completed successfully and on time over the 9 day
closure from 16-24 February. The remaining work will continue over
selected weekends up to May 2019 and the Saturday services for those
weekends will be similar to the off-peak services shown in the
timetable enclosed with our February Newsletter.
There are no changes to the current (December 2018)
timetable to Southern services in the new timetable starting on 19
May. On Thameslink, the current hourly service from Brighton to
Cambridge will become half-hourly. These Cambridge trains have a
good connection from Arun Valley services at Three Bridges.
Details of Easter services are not yet available on the
Southern website, but taking information from the National Rail
Enquiries site, it looks as though a Saturday service will operate
on Good Friday 19 April, Saturday 20 April and Easter Monday 22
April.
On Good Friday and Saturday, London trains will terminate
and start from London Bridge rather than Victoria.
On Easter Sunday there will be a normal Sunday service and,
on that day and Easter Monday, London trains will terminate at and
start from Victoria.
The Department for Transport has announced funding under
its Access for All scheme for Network Rail to upgrade the following
Southern stations by 2024: Crowborough, Leatherhead, Battersea Park
and Streatham.
Work is already under way on step-free schemes at Crawley,
Coulsdon South, Selhurst and Carshalton.
The following is extracted from a recent GTR communication
about new measures for improving and reporting their performance. We
thought members would like to see the detail especially as GTR has
now turned the corner and is no longer hovering near the foot of the
Train Operators punctuality league table.
Last month, the Rail Delivery Group announced that the rail
sector is changing the way train operating companies (TOCs) report
train punctuality and performance. GTR has now given details of what
it means for passengers, how they report data and how they are
performing.
From this month, GTR, along with all other TOCs England and
Wales, will publish a new primary performance metric, called ‘On
Time’. For a train service to be counted as ‘On Time’, it must call
at every single station scheduled on its route and its final
destination within 59 seconds of the time stated on the timetable.
By contrast, for a service to count under the older measure, the
Public Performance Measure (PPM), it must call at every single
scheduled station and arrive at its final destination within five
minutes of the timetable.
GTR say that ‘On Time’ is undoubtedly a tough measure,
especially for some of their services. 59 seconds is not a lot of
spare time for a service such as the Thameslink services connecting
the 109 miles between Brighton, Central London and Cambridge across
the busiest tracks in the UK, but this measure will provide clarity
to passengers.
As of March 2019, 72.5% of GTR’s 3,600+ daily services are
operating exactly on-time and 87.3% are at PPM. In ‘On Time’ terms,
this makes GTR the sixth best performing of the twenty-three
franchises in the UK, and they carry twice as many passengers as the
top five combined.
GTR say that it is testament to the sustained improvement
in punctuality and reliability across their services in recent
months, and it also shows the very positive role of some of the
changes in the timetable in supporting the railway to run more
efficiently for passengers. Yet, they admit, there is also clear
room for improvement. From an operational perspective, ‘On Time’
will help to drive a focus across the sector that every single
second counts. It will support them to pinpoint the tiny delays that
add up over an individual train service that starts and stops tens
of times on long journeys of several hours. And, it will reinforce
their efforts to get better information into the hands of
passengers. This includes upgrades to station screens, issuing
station staff with new smartphones loaded with real-time service
information, and volunteer teams from across the business to help
passengers during disruption.
Trevor Tupper
(Secretary/Treasurer)