Many, many people will be used to me complaining about another Train Operating Company (TOC) namely, Abellio Greater Anglia. But now, it's the turn of London Midland. While London Midland's Class 350 trains (4 carriage electric multiple units (EMUs)) are generally clean and tidy, when I've used them, the Class 350 trains can't use the line I want to complain about, as the line in question hasn't been electrified yet. The train generally used for that line is a Class 153 single carriage diesel multiple unit (DMU), occasionally two of them together at weekends.
The line I'm talking about, if you haven't already guessed is the Coventry to Nuneaton line. With stations on it as follows:
Coventry -- Coventry Arena -- Bedworth -- Bermuda Park -- Nuneaton
Coventry is on one branch of the West Coast Mainline and Nuneaton is on another branch of it, both branches are electrified, but the bit of rail in the middle isn't. But I won't keep banging on about that, the reason I am writing this blog post is the fact that Coventry Arena station and Bermuda Park station have recently been opened and the reason Coventry Arena was opened, right between Ricoh Arena and Arena Park Retail Park was to serve those places. But, alas, London Midland turned around and said they couldn't reasonably serve Coventry City FC and Wasps RFC home matches as the single carriage Class 153 they use on the line could only hold around 75 people and they couldn't get their hands on any other trains that could reasonably accommodate the football or rugby fans, so Coventry Arena station would close before and after matches. Kinda defeating the object of opening the station before they've even started. They're excuse was that they didn't have any spare DMU's and if they swapped DMU's around with other services, they'd have to cancel or short form other services.
So after several months and people (mainly me) complaining, London Midland, with the help of Wasps managed to arrange a couple of trial charter services for two Wasps games at the end of February and beginning of March. Great, we thought, sat in wonderment as to how they managed it and where they'd got a train from. Low and behold they got a couple of diesel locos borrowed from a freight train company and a rack of 6 carriages, which looked as though they were Anglia's cast off's, quite possibly the carriages that Abellio Greater Anglia couldn't be bothered with and if Abellio don't want them, you've got to wonder how bad they are.
But not only did they use carriages that might fall apart at any minute, they didn't stop the train at Bedworth or Bermuda Park, so if you were using either of these stations, you had to use train with an inadequate number of seats to get there, or go to Nuneaton or Coventry and get the charter train from there. They also decided to only advertise the charter service on Twitter and on their website, and I'll point out now that not everyone uses Twitter and a lot of people wouldn't have thought to check their website, given this, you'd have thought the boffins at London Midland's head office would have thought to get posters done up to put at stations, telling people about the trial charter services, but no, this idea passed them by. And rather than charging the usual fares, London Midland decided to charge more and offer people a free drink, WHAT!?! Really!?! Do you think people going to and from rugby matches need a free drink?
Combine missing out two of the stations, not advertising the services properly and charging higher fares and giving people free drinks, they didn't get a lot of bums of seats and then decided that carrying on the service wasn't "commercially viable". Yeah, there's a reason for that London Midland, read this blog and you'll find out why. I will grant that Bedworth and Bermuda Park stations can only accommodate 3 or 4 carriages at their platforms, but if they informed passengers, the passengers wanting to use these stations could used which ever carriages were going to be at the platforms, passengers generally aren't stupid, they could figure it out. Guys, if Abellio can figure that one out on their Witham to Braintree line when using 12 carriage trains during rush hour, I'm sure you guys can too (FYI: train station platforms between Witham and Braintree can only accommodate 8 carriages).
And another thing, if you can put ticket machines at Coventry Arena and Bermuda Park, put them in at Bedworth too, not trusting the people of Bedworth to buy tickets before joining the train is mildly insulting. Thanks....
So after several months and people (mainly me) complaining, London Midland, with the help of Wasps managed to arrange a couple of trial charter services for two Wasps games at the end of February and beginning of March. Great, we thought, sat in wonderment as to how they managed it and where they'd got a train from. Low and behold they got a couple of diesel locos borrowed from a freight train company and a rack of 6 carriages, which looked as though they were Anglia's cast off's, quite possibly the carriages that Abellio Greater Anglia couldn't be bothered with and if Abellio don't want them, you've got to wonder how bad they are.
But not only did they use carriages that might fall apart at any minute, they didn't stop the train at Bedworth or Bermuda Park, so if you were using either of these stations, you had to use train with an inadequate number of seats to get there, or go to Nuneaton or Coventry and get the charter train from there. They also decided to only advertise the charter service on Twitter and on their website, and I'll point out now that not everyone uses Twitter and a lot of people wouldn't have thought to check their website, given this, you'd have thought the boffins at London Midland's head office would have thought to get posters done up to put at stations, telling people about the trial charter services, but no, this idea passed them by. And rather than charging the usual fares, London Midland decided to charge more and offer people a free drink, WHAT!?! Really!?! Do you think people going to and from rugby matches need a free drink?
Combine missing out two of the stations, not advertising the services properly and charging higher fares and giving people free drinks, they didn't get a lot of bums of seats and then decided that carrying on the service wasn't "commercially viable". Yeah, there's a reason for that London Midland, read this blog and you'll find out why. I will grant that Bedworth and Bermuda Park stations can only accommodate 3 or 4 carriages at their platforms, but if they informed passengers, the passengers wanting to use these stations could used which ever carriages were going to be at the platforms, passengers generally aren't stupid, they could figure it out. Guys, if Abellio can figure that one out on their Witham to Braintree line when using 12 carriage trains during rush hour, I'm sure you guys can too (FYI: train station platforms between Witham and Braintree can only accommodate 8 carriages).
And another thing, if you can put ticket machines at Coventry Arena and Bermuda Park, put them in at Bedworth too, not trusting the people of Bedworth to buy tickets before joining the train is mildly insulting. Thanks....
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