C2C Last night....

[Jay_Shrimper]

Forget the C2C service!

The 'one' rail line from Liverpool St. to Southend was 3 minutes late! :o

Nah, just kidding, that must have sucked.

 

[SARF]

I was on the train that stopped at Bromley by Bow. Saw two blokes run across the tube line to get to the East bound platform .. It was at this stage I realised the game was up and was lucky enough to find an open door and some platform, walked around and was even luckier in meeting a mate who had some smokes.. walked out of the tube station looking forward to seeing a big old pub called the Railway or something, and was confronted with a Motorway and some third world scenery.. Got a bus to Stratford. Then muddled home from there. Got in about 9.30 ish I think .. I think they will be able to handle the transport pressure from the Olympics no bother !!

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Should have used the underpass and gone over to the Tescos on the otherside of the road. They've got a decent selection of alcoholic tipples in there that would have made the home journey all the more bearable.

 

[MrB]

Caught the 5:30, chucked off the train at Plaistow at 7:15 and catch a bus to Stratford. Wait twenty minutes for a train to Southend Vic to come (while watching two half empty diverted C2C trains rumble past - could they not have stopped?). Hundreds spill out at Vic trying to find a cab so walk down to Southend Central to try to get back to Thorpe Bay, another 20 minute wait and eventually get home at 9:45. Great fun.

These things happen and I can accept that however as mentioned above, the total lack of communication while we sat on the train was unacceptable.

 

[Westcliff Shrimper]

Got to Fenchurch Street at ten past six, trains not running. Phoned Mrs CI-City Blue (who is already at home) and let her know the situation. Not a happy bunny. Decide to have a swift pint in the Fen, grab a freebie paper and settle down for 20 minutes. Finally get on a train at just gone 7.30pm, crawls all the way to Barking - finally get to Benfleet at 8.55pm - home just after 9. Not fun...

Where's the compensation form?

 

[canveyshrimper]

Where's the compensation form?

If you run the gauntlet of the demented Dalek queuing system at Benfleet you should get a complaint form from the ticket office staff. I did yesterday, but decided to send them a nice email instead.

 

[Shrimp_Stu]

From the Echo website a response by Mr Hopwood:

Thank you for your recent e-mail about the service disruption on c2c on Monday night.

My e-mail address has been cut and pasted onto a number of websites and, as a result, my inbox has a very large number of e-mails which I cannot provide a detailed personal response to in the time you would expect.

However, I have a number of thoughts about Monday night I wanted to share with you and thought I’d draft some comments and make the following points to everyone who has written to me:

• I recognise we let our passengers’ down on Monday night and, in particular, the quality of communications needs to be reviewed.
• A full review of Monday’s events has been initiated and I will lead that personally and ensure we learn the lessons as quickly as possible. I will engage some external involvement in that review to ensure it is objective and leaves no stone unturned in seeking answers. The results of our review in terms of how we manage disruption in the future will be shared with rail user groups and the new c2c Customer Panel. We may ask some customers to spare some time to assist that review understand your perspective on the incident.
• I spent all of Monday night at Fenchurch Street station handling customers’ issues and questions – I understand why you feel so frustrated. I, myself, felt frustrated with the quality of information available so I am clear what we have to tackle. We need to understand how we could have managed a more expeditious response to the incident and think about the way we worked with other agencies such as London Underground and Network Rail.
• The original cause of the incident was plastic sheeting blowing onto the overhead lines, entangling the pantograph of a c2c train and ripping it from the train, However, the communication issues subsequently seem more serious than the original trigger of the problem.
• We diverted a number of trains around the problem using a rarely used piece of track through Stratford. Not all my drivers are able to use this route and we need to think about the issues this raised on Monday night.
• I really do understand everyone’s frustrations but reluctantly feel I have to point out, as many customers have themselves in the mails to me, that the decision of a very small number of passengers to leave some trains and cross tracks with live electricity made the evacuation of further trains impossible. It also caused the Underground to stop running which formed the key component of our plan to move passengers to their way.
• My customer relations manager has spent some time reviewing the customer issues with me and each of you will receive a more detailed response in due course.
• While no consolation in many respects, c2c remains the most punctual operator in the South East and has customer satisfaction scores higher than most other rail businesses. If we let people down like we did on Monday those accolades are meaningless. Monday’s incident reminds us in very clear terms that our plans to deliver better quality information during disruption and improve our contingency planning and response to service disruption is work that is vitally important to our customers and the business and needs progressing with a high degree of priority.

So, in conclusion, you have my assurance I have seen your comments and understand the issues that have been raised with us. We are determined to use this awful incident as an opportunity to learn some lessons. Each of you, as c2c customers, quite rightly have very high expectations of our business and I recognise I now have a challenge to persuade each of you that c2c takes its commitment to customers seriously. Our efforts to do just that are already well under way.

Thank you for writing and apologies I have not been able to draft a personal response to the several hundred messages that have been sent to my e-mail account.

Mark Hopwood
Managing Director - c2c Rail Limited

 

[Mad Cyril]

• We diverted a number of trains around the problem using a rarely used piece of track through Stratford. Not all my drivers are able to use this route ....................

Why not?

Let's be honest, even if Mark Thatcher were driving it is very hard to get lost in a train.