NIR - again...

D.A.

After taking an hour to get from Central Station to Lambeg last night, I finally lost my rag and sent an email to their Chief Executive (although it will be interesting to see if they actually bother to send it to him). See below:

Dear Mr Moffett,


I have a very simple question for you. Please explain to me why I spent £300 for an annual commuter card in order to put up with the absolutely pathetic service which is NIR?

<LI class=MsoNormal style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3">

Trains which are at least 5 minutes late every single day (which, amusingly, you don’t even consider as being late) <LI class=MsoNormal style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3">Staff who don’t care and who have as little clue about what’s going on as the rest of us do <LI class=MsoNormal style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3">Staff who are actually downright rude to customers (I have seen the same conductor on your trains making cheeky comments to a customer on two separate occasions)
[*]Seemingly random timetables
For example, take this evening at Central Station. Every train was delayed by at least 10 minutes. The express to Lisburn was due to arrive on platform 2. It was then changed to platform 1. The platform signs were still showing it as arriving at platform 2. It eventually arrives at platform 1.

The next train to arrive at platform 1 is announced as the train to Newry (express to Lisburn). The next train at platform 2 is announced as all stops to Lisburn. The train which eventually arrives at platform 2 is the Newry train, but no passengers know this, as the announcement is made while the express Lisburn train is leaving platform 1, so no-one can hear the announcement! The sign at platform 2 is of course still showing as all stops to Lisburn. Most of the passengers for Lisburn get on the Newry train, when they eventually realise that they are on the wrong train.

Finally, the all stops train to Lisburn arrives at platform 1 (the sign for which is, of course, showing as Portadown – express to Lisburn). So at long last, everyone is finally on the correct train, albeit 15 minutes late.

The train arrives at Great Victoria Street, whereupon it’s announced that it will now run express to Lisburn, and we all have to change to platform 3. After 5 minutes, the next train to arrive at platform 3 is of course ALSO an express to Lisburn (note: that now makes 3 express trains to Lisburn from Central in a row, as opposed to NO stopping trains). The stopping train eventually arrives after another 5 minutes – by which stage it has taken us 30 minutes to travel from Central to GVS. I finally get to Lambeg station 1 hour after leaving Central.

Please note: this is NOT an isolated occurrence. You really should consider travelling on your own services for a month to see how utterly abysmal they are.

I await your response to this complaint. If the service doesn’t improve very soon, I will be writing to the General Consumer Council to complain.

Oh, and by the way, could you explain to my boss how he loses at least an hour’s productive time from every single working week of mine?

mcclim

DA,

I contacted the manager of the Portadown line about the delayed trains, I get the 17:17 Newry train everyday and it's NEVER been on time since thew new timetable started.

From what he said they are aware of several problems with the new timetable and there is supposed to be a new timetable comming out soon that will start from 1st September. Hopefully this will fix alot of the delays that have been happening.

What it won't fix is the unhelpful staff and bad service that translink provide.....

D.A.

The new timetable is actually up on their website now:

http://www.translink.co.uk/future/IndexOpSvc.asp#NIR

Although according to the posters on the trains, there's actually a temporary timetable from August 1st due to engineering work. I've yet to see it anywhere, so whether the work has been postponed until September, I have no idea.

The new September timetable is pretty idiotic too though - check out how some fool has decided that it's a good idea for the 1611 from Central to stop at GVS, Finaghy, Dunmurry, Derriaghy and Lisburn only. Surely it would've made more sense to drop Derriaghy and stop at Lambeg instead? As it stands now, there are no trains stopping at Lambeg between 1612 and 1658 - so much for their much vaunted "train every 20 minutes" claim.

Bunch of incompetents.

By the way - [email="keith.moffatt&#64;translink.co.uk"]keith.moffatt@translink.co.uk[/email] - seems to work, and a direct line to the Chief Executive. Whether he'll reply or not will be interesting. ;-)

mcclim

Why are they only doing this with one train ? that doesn't make sense ?

D.A. they know your from Lambeg so have removed a few services

pip32

D.A,

How do you get a travel commuter card, I have recently moved to Lisburn and I think it will work out cheaper than a monthly ticket.

I phoned translink call centre today, but hit a brick wall.

mcclim

Pip32 that was your first mistake contacting the call center best bet it to phone Central Station directly and ignore the call center.

D.A.

You can pick up the form at the ticket office at Central. This is one of the few forms which they actually have - they certainly don't have any for claiming for delays.

By the way: http://nirsucks.blogspot.com - I'm very new at this blogging lark, so forgive the rubbish layout. You should theoretically be able to add your own thoughts there.

mcclim

D.A. wrote:

certainly don't have any for claiming for delays.

Do you know how many of these forms translink use on a daily basis

D.A.

Psst - Stephen Nolan Show on Radio Ulster, around 9:30 tomorrow morning. ;-)