CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
@ivangrozni correct - maybe about 5 or 10 past 8. I keep talking about doing Livingston - Edinburgh on the Brompton but have never actually done so and this morning's weather certainly wasn't encouraging me to try! I decided that trains would run sometime and I would just stay put until they did.
PS which is your usual train?
Was any use made of Platform 0 at Haymarket so that services could terminate and leave from there?
@Klaxon, So definitely on the more side of my 50% hypothesis then.
Was there a reason they couldn't turn trains around at Haymarket?
@kaputnik yes, the first train out of Haymarket (to Dunblane) left from Platform 0 - the Helensburgh Central train that I got left from platform 3 - which is effectively "turning trains round at Haymarket" as that is usually a platform from which trains go to Waverley.
"There's no useful blame to be assigned here."
Don't know how information was handled 'on the ground' but the people on the ScotRail Twitter a/c either didn't really know what was going on, or didn't understand the significance, or just failed to convey the facts satisfactorily.
Good explanation here, but it didn't go on Twitter until this afternoon.
It was pretty obvious at Haymarket that something had gone wrong in a big way... in a way that's all you need to know... the question you actually want answered is "when will the first train to X run?" which of course no one knows.
I might tweet a comment to ScotRail about turning off the automated announcements under similar circumstances and putting a real person on the tannoy; even if the only thing they can say is "We don't know" at least it is a real person saying it!
My automated alerts from ScotRail claim all is well between Livi North and Haymarket this evening...
Don't know how information was handled 'on the ground'
Yes, that's true. An incident like this is far less about what's happened and more about managing the information flow to customers.
"Don't know how information was handled 'on the ground"
Hopefully my account above gives some idea. Very little information, though I'm fairly sure the staff were as much in the dark as we were.
In defence of the train operators, this type of thing is pretty rare in my experience. Trains are pretty much on time, quick and efficient for the vast majority of journeys.
Lots of TRAFFIK KAOS this evening. Queensferry Road had a lane closure which meant everywhere else came to a standstill.
My commute home took exactly the same time as normal. /smug
"
Now the elected member for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley wants answers over the poor customer service, telling the Standard he had been talking to ScotRail’s managing director, Phil Verster.
Mr Coffey said he was “trying to get some detailed explanations and assurances from him,” and wanted better communication with passengers.
"
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/msp-demands-assurances-scotrail-over-9272448
Morrison Street had one lane closed last night. Everything going at it at odd angles - looked vaguely cubist. I mutated into a pedestrian and skipped or rather walked that bit.
@Rosie: same again tonight. Looks like the massive drills and pile drivers have started on the building site
So Fountainbridge is jammed, Morrison Street jammed. Grove Street-Melvin Way - Morrison Crescent-Dalry Road it is then.
Or, weather being as it is, the bus.
Humza Yousaf has been getting grief for this. Calls for his resignation. He has been making positive cycling noises so I hope not.
"Calls for his resignation"
That's what opposition politicians do.
I think it would be hard to pin 'lack of progress by ScotRail' on him.
Whether or not the Minister who 'failed to grit the M8' deserved sacking is questionable, but a lot of drivers were inconvenienced.
Was at Waverley this morning - I'm surprised at the people who got out of there earlier than 8.45, which was the point at which I managed a train to Linlithgow, an hour later than my usual. A colleague got on at Haymarket, so there can't have been a Dunblane train before that point either unless they did their level best to hide it from people who needed it.
I wish they wouldn't leave trains on the board marked as Delayed until the last second, then change them to Cancelled. It suggests the boards are updated by someone in the crow's nest waiting for it to appear on the horizon which surely (hopefully) isn't true.
On that same point, the 8.33 was marked as On Time from about 8am until 8.32 - while in Haymarket it had already been cancelled!
Mutter mutter cold toes mutter.
"
ScotRail (@ScotRail)
17/11/2016, 17:41
@cheffy87 Every available train is used daily, especially at peak time, we have no idle equipment I can assure you. ^A
"
Which is of course part of the problem.
playing catch up on this thread!
@fimm: usual train is 08:13. Keep an eye out for a dishevelled looking Irishman in tights - it'll more than likely be me :-)
@crowriver: I'm already a seasoned tourer - randoneurring is really just a different side to the same coin. I'll take the freedom of touring to the constraints of audaxes any day!
chdot: In an alternate world ScotRail runs a fleet as under-utilised as Edinburgh trams with headlines SCOTRAIL WASTES PUBLIC MONEY ON IDLE FLEET and a drone photo of a full Haymarket depot on a Sunday morning
It's toooo easy to negatively report any aspect of the railways.
"It's toooo easy to negatively report any aspect of the railways."
Agreed.
Obviously any large organisation has to balance between efficiency and contingency planning. Probably none get it optimally right.
If ScotRail really runs every single item of rolling stock (apart from those in for scheduled maintenance) then it clearly doesn't have enough trains. (Of course not helped by the privatised system of ownership - I don't know if SR owns any trains.)
Yesterday's 'disaster' was mostly due to the unique place the train failed. But unless such problems get resolved quickly there will be many trains cancelled or having to run with fewer carriages.
If SR has some stock in reserve, then having its official Twitter account saying it doesn't isn't helpful.
Saying that replacement buses 'have been ordered' which then (apparently) don't turn up isn't much use either.
People (commuters or not, 'cyclists' too) expect instant solutions (it's part of the unrealistic 'instant' modern world!)
Any idea that an 'as soon as possible' change of management will solve all problems is naive (politicians like simple answers).
SR has many problems to deal with. Random things like yesterday don't help. The remarkable patience/goodwill shown by passengers over the closure of Queen Street Station, shows that (in general) people put up with things if they 'understand'.
Yesterday would appear to have been a communications disaster, which shouldn't have happened.
It can't really have been a case of 'unexpected incident overwhelmed well thought through communications strategy'.
I assume (perhaps wrongly) that a high proportion of SR train/station staff have company mobiles. If so, were they being updated regularly by text?
"
Nicola Sturgeon is facing calls to sack transport minister Humza Yousaf after a train breakdown in the “worst place” in the country led to travel mayhem yesterday with thousands of commuters left stranded.
"
Yeah yeah all his fault.
Must go NOW.
BRING BACK KEITH BROWN.
The ScotRail contract requires a small number of hot standbys (trains ready to go in case of breakdown/disruption) to be ready at various depots. Probably only one 158 unit at Haymarket, so not exactly a huge help in dealing with this sort of disruption.
there can't have been a Dunblane train before that point either unless they did their level best to hide it from people who needed it.
It left just after 8 from platform 0. I was announced but I don't know if it went on the boards (probably not. That's probably hard to do in a hurry). If one was not listening to the tannoy because one was listening to music/chatting to friends/had just tuned the damn thing out it is conceivable that one could have missed it.
"
While the broken down train has a lot of political weight resting it on, we should take a step back to get things in perspective.
Ms Sturgeon said the government accepts responsibility for what happened yesterday. But as we all know, trains will always break down – in common with all vehicles - and it is impossible to appoint an operator who can guarantee this will never happen. And when a train breaks down and blocks a line, there is very rarely a contingency available. Diversions are for the road network only.
Unless Aslef can provide precise information that the incident was due to deliberate negligence or incompetence on the part of Abellio, then its demand should be ignored as political opportunism, as a Labour-supporting union backs the Labour Party’s campaign against Abellio ScotRail. The M25 is at gridlock every day. Should the UK government’s transport secretary resign every day?
"
http://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/leader-comment-runaway-row-over-a-broken-down-train-1-4292751
"It left just after 8 from platform 0"
0817
This says platform 4, but the rest probably happened.
"Probably only one 158 unit at Haymarket, so not exactly a huge help in dealing with this sort of disruption."
Yes, but clearly SR is expected to have contingencies.
Such information is useful to public understanding/confidence (not necessarily told on the day of a 'problem').
Of course it may be that SR already uses such trains in 'normal' circumstances - which would be for whoever monitors the contract to look at.
They announced Dunblane train platform 0, Helensburgh Central train platform 3. I got on the latter and it left, so I don't know what happened to the Dunblane train!
Traffic 'havoc' is referenced in the caption to the image with the article about 'selfish excesses of van drivers'.
"They announced Dunblane train platform 0"
Wasn't trying to cast doubt on your report, just saying that it would appear that a train left Haymarket at 0817.
P0 more likely than P4, but obviously nothing was normal!
Yours left P4 at 0812
http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/G35390/2016/11/17/advanced
So P0 seems more credible
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