This is NOT the official MerseyRail website!

Yet again, the point of using the Merseyrail ‘Twitter’ feed to keep people updated of problems on the trains proves pointless.

There were issues with the signals at Hamilton Square this evening, apparently, and this caused problems for all Wirral line trains. I was lucky, I got home only a few minutes late, but my other-half got stuck in the resulting chaos, poor lass.

There was an announcement on Twitter at about 16:40 ish that a West Kirby train was cancelled, but nothing more ’til the announcement that services were running normally again, at 18:53. It would not be apparent to a traveller that there was a problem likely to affect all services (although those familiar with the service might have put two and two together), so why not make a clear announcement?

And, while  I’m on the subject of tonights delays, why tell all West Kirby-bound passengers to ’board the next New Brighton train’, and then tip them off at an overcrowded Birkenhead North? Where you stand waiting for your train, which is invariably going to be horribly crowded when its three carraiges do turn up, surely isn’t an issue. Why crowd everyone onto the outdoor platform at Birkenhead?

I don’t know, the logic of the system defeats me sometimes.