“We are well used to dealing with crowds at underground stations.”
This is from a Merseyrail spokesperson, Rudi Boersma, referring to the chaos at James Street yesterday. You can read about the incident here.
December 29, 2009
Quote of the week … if not of 2009, perhaps.
November 18, 2009
Whats the point …
… of a “Service Status” ticker, right on the top of your website, that isn’t reliable (ignoring for a moment the fact that you can’t even run a reliable rail service for the commuters of Merseyside)?
There are no trains running on the West Kirby line this morning, thanks to a track failure at Meols, yet the Merseyrail website ticker says “all services running normally” …
… yet they Tweeted earlier this morning that there was a problem …
Which kind of implies that someone at Merseyrail at least knows roughly how to use a computer, and indeed if you follow the Twitter link, you get to this message below …
For F**** sake chaps, it’s not that difficult. If you’re going to suggest that you’re website provides up to date travel information that passengers can use to plan a journey, then do so. Either that or just admit that you don’t know your arse from your elbow and leave us all in the dark.
It’s utterly pointless.
Now I have to work out how to get a suitcase and a large toolbox into work, in the pouring rain, with no trains running. Thanks Merseyrail/Network Rail, great timing boys.
Oh, and thanks to my girlfriend for the phone call about the problem - maybe she should start her own “Service Status” website, although it might be tricky to update standing in a freezing cold bus stop 
UPDATE: Jane just called again, and described Birkenhead North station as “Hell with extra Demons”, and said that a woman on the ‘rail replacement bus’ had waited over half an hour for it to turn up. I’m taking the car …
UPDATE: 9:20, I’ve just got into work and they’ve finally made sure their website reflects the current situation. Nice of them to bother …
November 17, 2009
West Kirby Line
7.10am this morning …
“Due to an incident in the meols area, services on the West Kirby line are suspended between West Kirby and Bidston. A rail replacement bus service should shortly be operating.”
UPDATE: Merseyrail can’t be blamed for this one, by the looks of things someone managed to not see the train coming when they were attempting to use the crossing near Manor Road station, between the station and Meols.
And thanks to Keith Lumley of Network Rail for his comment below, clarifying the cause of the disruption. A very unfortunate incident indeed.
November 10, 2009
Merseyrail service updates via Twitter …
… are not to be relied upon. Not if last night was anything to go by.
There was chaos on the Northern Line, and the Wirral line trains were running ten to fifteen minutes late, all of this during the evening peak period, and there wasn’t a Tweet to be heard.
I found out because my girlfriend phoned from Conway Park to warn me of the delays getting home, and then when I got to Moorfields the foyer was packed full of commuters with nowhere to go.
It makes the whole idea of Merseyrail using Twitter as a means of communicating with passengers pointless, totally pointless. Which is hardly a surprise, I suppose.
After their run of delays and cancallations recently, I’ll be interested to see their published performance figures, and how loudly ther crow about them.
November 9, 2009
It must be winter …
It must be winter again, because having made us sweat our way through a mild autumn, Merseyrail turned off the heating on the train this morning.
Thanks Merseyrail for a good start to my Monday morning, travelling to work on a freezing cold train.
Thank the Gods I’m away for the rest of the week, in my own car, without a yellow and black train in sight
November 6, 2009
Birdy bread-bomber’s shenanigans shut the LHC …
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/foxypar4/2533571894/
In an incident almost as bizarre as the recent adverse weather excuses used by Merseyrail …
A bird dropping a piece of bread onto outdoor machinery has been blamed for a technical fault at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) this week which saw significant overheating in sections of the mighty particle-punisher’s subterranean 27-km supercooled magnetic doughnut. (source)
Thanks to PopSci.com and El Reg for the story.
November 4, 2009
What exactly is a “viloent doger” I wonder …
Click Liverpools "viloent doger"
While violence against Merseyrail staff is not to be condoned, in any circumstances, I’m not sure that Click Liverpool’s violence against the English language isn’t worse!
The article is here, although they may hopefully edit the headline to save their embarrassment.
Joke of the day
A guy is sitting in the bar in departures at a busy airport. A beautiful woman walks in and sits down at the table next to him.
He decides that because she’s got a uniform on, she’s probably an off-duty flight attendant. So he decides to have a go at picking her up by identifying the airline she flies for, thereby impressing her greatly..
He leans across to her and says the Delta Airlines motto “We love to fly and it shows”.
The woman looks at him blankly. (more…)
October 31, 2009
October 30, 2009
10 ways to avoid penalty fares on trains
If, like me, you’re an honest passenger but are worried about landing a Penalty Fare because you were legitimately unable to buy your ticket, you should pop over to the ‘Penalty Fare Appeal Support’ website, and read their article on how to avoid potentially being bullied into paying a fine, over and above the cost of a standard single ticket.
I would like to print the details here, but the article is expressly stated as being the Copyright of the publishers, and I can’t find a way of contacting them at the moment, so you’ll need to follow the link below.
The article was written by Andrew Gilligan. Yes, THAT Andrew Gilligan - the one unlikely to be getting a Christmas card (ever!) from Alastair Campbell
I’ll continue to try and get in touch with them so I can at least print an extract from it here, if possible. I’m no legal-eagle, but it makes sense, and would seem a rational way of dealing with the situation should it arise.
