North East Buses

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57036247

nothing running oneastcoast main line according to report

(08 May 2021, 8:51 am)Rob44 wrote [ -> ]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57036247

nothing running oneastcoast main line according to report

Not just Hitachi ones either.  Northern suffered the same with their CAF's recently too.

Once the trains are checked they are entering service I believe, so there are some LNER services running now.

According to a tweet
All LNER services are not running at all

(08 May 2021, 9:29 am)Micheal Aaron wrote [ -> ]According to a tweet
All LNER services are not running at all

That is false, there has been a limited service from 0700.

(08 May 2021, 9:29 am)Micheal Aaron wrote [ -> ]According to a tweet
All LNER services are not running at all

Real Time Trains are showing some services running through Newcastle....

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/...59?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt&toc=GR

Maybe those 43's won't be retired after all!

(08 May 2021, 9:08 am)citaro5284 wrote [ -> ]Not just Hitachi ones either.  Northern suffered the same with their CAF's recently too.

Once the trains are checked they are entering service I believe, so there are some LNER services running now.

My understanding is that the CAF unit problems are caused by cracks in the yaw dampers, whereas the current problem afflicting the Hitachi units is related to significant cracks being found in the jacking points.

Nice to know that LNER operate some of these Hitachi trains. Until yesterday I thought their fleet was entirely made up of some swanky "Azuma's". Oh, they're the same thing?

LNER communication hasn't been fantastic over this situation.

(09 May 2021, 12:55 pm)mb134 wrote [ -> ]Nice to know that LNER operate some of these Hitachi trains. Until yesterday I thought their fleet was entirely made up of some swanky "Azuma's". Oh, they're the same thing?

LNER communication hasn't been fantastic over this situation.

Can you blame them. I hate it when people blame LNER as they all think its there fault. Same problem with the metro. If a metro breaks down or fails. Its not the guy/girl who runs the twitter account. Give them a break. These things happen

(09 May 2021, 1:31 pm)Micheal Aaron wrote [ -> ]Can you blame them. I hate it when people blame LNER as they all think its there fault. Same problem with the metro. If a metro breaks down or fails. Its not the guy/girl who runs the twitter account. Give them a break. These things happen

Yes you can. It's the job of the communications department to inform (and reassure) passengers. 

Of course you can't blame them for the cracks being found, but you can hold them accountable for poor communication. They have continued with "Class 800 Hitachi", while numerous comments have been along the lines of "my service is ran with Azumas, so I'll be fine?".

But why blame LNER it isn't there fault. Its the company who made the trains. You can't blame a person running a twitter account. It's not there fault. The amount of shit they get put through

(09 May 2021, 1:55 pm)mb134 wrote [ -> ]Yes you can. It's the job of the communications department to inform (and reassure) passengers. 

Of course you can't blame them for the cracks being found, but you can hold them accountable for poor communication. They have continued with "Class 800 Hitachi", while numerous comments have been along the lines of "my service is ran with Azumas, so I'll be fine?".

Goes to show the power of a good brand, though!

(09 May 2021, 2:01 pm)Micheal Aaron wrote [ -> ]But why blame LNER it isn't there fault. Its the company who made the trains. You can't blame a person running a twitter account. It's not there fault. The amount of shit they get put through

Eh?! Nobody is blaming LNER for the cracks, nor is anyone blaming GWR or TPE. Nobody is blaming "a person running a twitter account". 

The overall communication from LNER was awful at the start, and continues to be confusing.

Nobody is blaming LNER for the cracks, nor is anyone blaming GWR or TPE. Nobody is blaming "a person running a twitter account

Have you seen the replies once it was announced yesterday. People don't understand it can't be helped

(09 May 2021, 2:01 pm)Micheal Aaron wrote [ -> ]But why blame LNER it isn't there fault. Its the company who made the trains. You can't blame a person running a twitter account. It's not there fault. The amount of shit they get put through

As a customer, why would I care less who manufactured the trains? My contract is with the operator, in the form of that I've purchased a ticket and in return they provide me with a journey from A to B. Its really no concern who provides the trains, who maintains the track, signals or even the coffee machine. 

LNER are responsible for keeping their customers informed - and them alone.

(09 May 2021, 4:07 pm)Adrian wrote [ -> ]As a customer, why would I care less who manufactured the trains? My contract is with the operator, in the form of that I've purchased a ticket and in return they provide me with a journey from A to B. Its really no concern who provides the trains, who maintains the track, signals or even the coffee machine. 

LNER are responsible for keeping their customers informed - and them alone.

Yea u try tell that to the people who were slating them yesterday. All they were doing was keeping people informed and they got slated for it

(09 May 2021, 5:04 pm)Micheal Aaron wrote [ -> ]Yea u try tell that to the people who were slating them yesterday. All they were doing was keeping people informed and they got slated for it

...but they weren't! The communication was extremely poor. 
Just telling people not to travel doesn't exactly help people that need to travel.

What response would you like them give

(09 May 2021, 10:00 pm)Micheal Aaron wrote [ -> ]What response would you like them give

A better response than that.

Would you be happy if you had a power cut, and your energy company's only response was to tell you to not use electricity this weekend? I think not.

If businesses don't review how they handle major disruption, then they'll never improve. Part of that process is customers telling them it isn't good enough, although you'll always get marks that think everything is perfect.

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

(09 May 2021, 10:00 pm)Micheal Aaron wrote [ -> ]What response would you like them give

As a short example: 

- An issue with our Azuma (Class 800 Hitachi) trains means that we're unable to run a service today. This issue is under investigation and further updates will be provided when we have them. 

- Plans (coaches, ticket acceptance through other TOCs etc) are being put in place for those who need to travel today. Further updates are imminent, please keep posted. If you need to get somewhere, we'll try our best to make sure you do. 

- Full refunds are available to passengers who no longer wish to travel. Tickets dated today (Sat 8th) and Sunday 9th will be valid for the next 7 days. This period may be extended should the problem continue into the week, so don't worry if you have travel booked for the coming days. 

This is easy to understand for customers, doesn't make them panic, allows for flexibility in travel to spread this weekends load through the week. Also means that customers aren't left in confusion as to why trains they've never heard of mean that no service is running. I'm aware they said some of those things, but it's more the actual tone/underlying message of DO NOT TRAVEL that folk have issue with. 

Its not perfect, and there may be problems with it, but it's better than what LNER served up yesterday.

People are generally very accepting and understanding of problems if they are properly explained with familiar language. Put it this way, I'd imagine folk would be a lot more understanding if Apple said "Sorry, you might need to wait a bit longer for your new iPhone as we're experiencing a shortage of screens. We'll keep you posted with new timeframes as soon as we can" than if they said "Foxconn have an issue with their supply chain and availability of product A2172/A2402/A2403/A2404 is delayed". Not a fantastic example but it's all I can think of at this time.

Equally, you seem keen to defend these social media staff to the hilt. Would you say responses such as "They aren't our services so I couldn't say.", or "That is not our route, Alan." are adequate? I wouldn't. In what is a stressful time for my customers, I'd be going out of my way to point them in the right direction or to copy in another TOCs Twitter - as they usually do when it's a light hearted conversation/LNER are getting praised. It would be like someone walking into McDonald's and asking for a Whopper and the response being "not from us", rather than "Sorry, Burger King do the Whopper. We can get you a Big Mac, or the Burger King is just across the road".

Could be worse, could be GWR's response which is even worse, don't have a clue what's going on with them today.

Both companies need to be honest here though as they're going on as if it's going to be gone in a few days so just defer your journey when in reality this could be going on for weeks. GWR has 3/94 trains on the tracks today supposedly it's not just a small 10 minute fix either. LNER are doing a bit better but believe they're planning to get some Class 91's + MK4's back into service asap to fill gaps, only to Doncaster though.

91110 has returned to service today on the ECML. It worked the 0630 Bradford to KGX this morning, and should spend the rest of the day on KGX-LDS runs.

91111 is apparently due to follow later this week, with several more still available to LNER according to this post on RailUK.

(10 May 2021, 10:16 am)Storx wrote [ -> ]Could be worse, could be GWR's response which is even worse, don't have a clue what's going on with them today.

Both companies need to be honest here though as they're going on as if it's going to be gone in a few days so just defer your journey when in reality this could be going on for weeks. GWR has 3/94 trains on the tracks today supposedly it's not just a small 10 minute fix either. LNER are doing a bit better but believe they're planning to get some Class 91's + MK4's back into service asap to fill gaps, only to Doncaster though.

Would have thought they'd priorities getting the 91s on their flagship Edinburgh to London Routes.

(11 May 2021, 3:59 pm)GNE6312 wrote [ -> ]Would have thought they'd priorities getting the 91s on their flagship Edinburgh to London Routes.

Surely they'd want their new trains on their 'flagship' route? 

Regardless, I'd imagine there'd be issues with crew competency and maintenance at Craigentinny and Heaton. From memory, and I could be wrong here, I don't believe there were any plans to have 91s serve Newcastle/Edinburgh again, with the plan being to use them on the Yorkshire runs.

(11 May 2021, 7:16 pm)mb134 wrote [ -> ]Surely they'd want their new trains on their 'flagship' route? 

Regardless, I'd imagine there'd be issues with crew competency and maintenance at Craigentinny and Heaton. From memory, and I could be wrong here, I don't believe there were any plans to have 91s serve Newcastle/Edinburgh again, with the plan being to use them on the Yorkshire runs.

That's correct, the majority of crew that sign north of Newcastle are only competent on Azumas.

https://www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/2021-...rous-tests

When is a crack not a problem crack?
When it's had rigorous tests over a couple of days apparently.

Trains with cracks to return to service.

(13 May 2021, 10:15 am)Andreos1 wrote [ -> ]https://www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/2021-...rous-tests

When is a crack not a problem crack?
When it's had rigorous tests over a couple of days apparently.

Trains with cracks to return to service.

They'll need to have worked out what causes the cracks, how fast they get bigger, and what might happen if the crack gets too big.  Once they've done all that - which is what's been happening over the last few days - they'll be able to look at each train individually and define a programme of checks for it based on what size the cracks are already.  (I've seen it stated that daily checks are likely).  Any train which already has cracks over a certain size won't be coming back until it's fixed.  Trains with smaller cracks can be used provided the crack doesn't reach that particular size, and when it does they'll have another unusable until fixed train on their hands.  And I've not seen anywhere yet that they actually have a long term fix plan, although the designers will be working hard to establish one if they don't yet have it!

(14 May 2021, 9:04 am)Ianthegoon wrote [ -> ]They'll need to have worked out what causes the cracks, how fast they get bigger, and what might happen if the crack gets too big.  Once they've done all that - which is what's been happening over the last few days - they'll be able to look at each train individually and define a programme of checks for it based on what size the cracks are already.  (I've seen it stated that daily checks are likely).  Any train which already has cracks over a certain size won't be coming back until it's fixed.  Trains with smaller cracks can be used provided the crack doesn't reach that particular size, and when it does they'll have another unusable until fixed train on their hands.  And I've not seen anywhere yet that they actually have a long term fix plan, although the designers will be working hard to establish one if they don't yet have it!

It's the same with houses, not every crack is bad, some are just the building settling, some have been there over 100 years and haven't changed.