Watford MP Richard Harrington launches petition against train operator, London Midland over its poor service

5:00pm Wednesday 9th January 2013 in News Photograph of the Author By Mike Wright, Chief Reporter

Watford MP Richard Harrington has launched a petition against London Midland trains over its poor service Watford MP Richard Harrington has launched a petition against London Midland trains over its poor service

Watford MP Richard Harrington has launched a petition against London Midland trains over the poor service it is providing the town.

The move comes after the Conservative backbencher said he had "had enough of their excuses" over the problems afflicting its services.

Mr Harrington said he wants passengers unhappy with London Midland to put their names to the petition, which will then be handed into the Department of Transport.

The MP said: "Problems with London Midland have been going on for too long. Again and again they have made promises that services would be improved but this is clearly not the case, as we saw over the Christmas periods with continuing delays and cancellations.

"These problems have occurred when London Midland have introduced another large fare rise.

"I am launching this petition to give people the chance to show their support for further action to be taken and to tell London Midland that their service just isn’t good enough.

The petition has been set up after passengers have suffered a series of problems on services to and from Watford.

Notably among the problem-hit lines is the Abbey Flyer service, between Watford Junction and St Albans Abbey which has frequently been cancelled due to a lack of staff, leaving passengers to get a replacement bus service.

Over the last months Mr Harrington has criticised the train operator for not solving its issues and met with London Midland bosses who promised improvement.

However he said over Christmas the promised improvements had failed to materialise.

"Train users in Watford deserve better and this petition will send a message to London Midland and the Government that London Midland are not performing well enough and action is needed to fix these ongoing problems," added Mr Harrington.

"London Midland have been given enough chances to make improvements and I have had enough of their excuses and promises, now is the time for action."

The petition can be found at http://www.richardharrington.org.uk/not-fare

Comments(13)

TRT says...
5:07pm Wed 9 Jan 13

Good God. The thought that those in power should be called to account for failing to deliver on their promises... *cough* Clegg *cough*

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Engineer1 says...
5:09pm Wed 9 Jan 13

The Government has the power to remove franchises from poor performing rail companies.

Why doesn't Mr H ask the Government to do that?

The main inefficiencies in the railways are that they are splintered into different companies to run either the stations, the rolling stock, the freight, the engineering, the track and the stations. All with expensive contracts with one another, lawyers, each with their own expensive board of directors, fat cats, marketing teamd and well paid spin doctors.

Now we know our Conservative MP won't bring a bill forward to renationalise the railways... but he could push for an amalgamation bill to ensure that we have 1 company to own and run the trains, infrastructure and stations in each region.

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Andrew1963 says...
5:15pm Wed 9 Jan 13

Presumably the shocking service is the reason the government recently announced in the run up to christmas a two year extension to London Midlands franchise?

http://www.londonmid
land.com/about-us/la
test-news/new-passen
ger-benefits-package
-marks-extension-of-
london-midland-franc
hise/

Can Harrington explain that? No of course not! If he really wants to tackle a public transport problem, what about the poor service local bus operators offer - with the exception of the TfL tendered 142 and 258 local bus services are woeful on all counts- quality - reliability - vfm - timetables.

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TRT says...
5:22pm Wed 9 Jan 13

Well, I couldn't even *find* the 258 or 142 the other day when I needed one. The damned rebuild of the front of Watford Junction has moved everything around and the signage is worse than missing, it's positively wrong! There are exit doors with Taxi written above them that take you away from the taxi rank, bus stops moving around without any indication where they are going to, short-term car parking has been reduced to about three spaces from thirty and even then you'll get screws in your tyres from where some careless idiot has dropped a box of them... That whole frontage redesign should have been vetoed as soon as it was proposed because it's unnecessary, badly designed and a shambles.

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E.Coli says...
7:16pm Wed 9 Jan 13

TRT wrote:
Well, I couldn't even *find* the 258 or 142 the other day when I needed one. The damned rebuild of the front of Watford Junction has moved everything around and the signage is worse than missing, it's positively wrong! There are exit doors with Taxi written above them that take you away from the taxi rank, bus stops moving around without any indication where they are going to, short-term car parking has been reduced to about three spaces from thirty and even then you'll get screws in your tyres from where some careless idiot has dropped a box of them... That whole frontage redesign should have been vetoed as soon as it was proposed because it's unnecessary, badly designed and a shambles.
ahh the waste lands that was once bus stops and parking.

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Nascot says...
8:30pm Wed 9 Jan 13

As a regular user of London Midland for the past 4 years I would say that my disruptions to travel have been mairly minimal during this time. Most of those journeys that were disrupted have been due to;
- Weather
- Derailments
- people under trains
- comitting suicide by setting fire to
themselves in train toilets
- stolen cable
All of the above (and more) have been compensated under their Delay Repay scheme

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Andrew1963 says...
10:19pm Wed 9 Jan 13

TRT wrote:
Well, I couldn't even *find* the 258 or 142 the other day when I needed one. The damned rebuild of the front of Watford Junction has moved everything around and the signage is worse than missing, it's positively wrong! There are exit doors with Taxi written above them that take you away from the taxi rank, bus stops moving around without any indication where they are going to, short-term car parking has been reduced to about three spaces from thirty and even then you'll get screws in your tyres from where some careless idiot has dropped a box of them... That whole frontage redesign should have been vetoed as soon as it was proposed because it's unnecessary, badly designed and a shambles.
They are the big red doubledeckers in Woodford Road outside the new Trade Union Hall building. Most evenings they seem to park in threes and fours, so you were unlucky none were obvious. As the bus companies do diddly squat (they do not pay for the bus stations, bus priority measures, bus signage, passenger information or the bus shelters) i suppose we should blame the railway and the county council for that too. Mind you TfL in London would have done a better job of the design and implementation of the new forecourt. If only they could take over the Abbey branch aspart of London Overground -we would have better trains and oyster to St Albans.

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Mohandas says...
10:33pm Wed 9 Jan 13

My own experience supports TRT comments. This company has behaved like a bull in a china shop with fare rises to cover their breakages in service.

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TRT says...
11:17pm Wed 9 Jan 13

I saw them there the next time I got dumped at WFJ due to the BSH services being cut out by London Midland making up lost time. The first time, they must have been hidden behind the row of blue and grey buses queuing up along Woodford Road. I ended up walking back to the Arches that time.

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TRT says...
11:20pm Wed 9 Jan 13

And they must have known in advance where they were moving the stands to to put into the drivers bulletin so they know where to go. So why not even a piece of A4 on the old stand to say where they'd moved to? They'd managed to update the timetables at those stands.

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abbotshornet says...
3:24pm Thu 10 Jan 13

This government privatised the railways which created this mess in the first place (ditto buses).
In virtually every other country in the world the railways are run by a single entity controlled by and for the populace as a service to everyone that is non-profit making.
This is what Mr Harrington should be campaigning for if he really wants to help public transport users, all he is doing is trying to appear to do something.
The shambles ouside the Junction Station is also down to London Midland.

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TRT says...
3:50pm Thu 10 Jan 13

Quite right, abbotshornet etc. He should be petitioning for a de-privatisation of the railways, rather than perpetuating the current fiasco. His latest bout of fervour at London Midland is really just buck passing, denying the real root of the problem which he (or at least the party he allies himself with) created. "If you can't look after the train set properly, we'll take it away from you and give it to someone else who can!", he says, but that's exactly what they did with Silverlink, so who's to say that LM's successor will do any better? At least LM have the benefit of several years experience over this route; let's see if they can put that into practise.

I see Harrington as a self-serving, vote-chasing populist with right-wing tendencies. This latest video rant just reinforces that. My opinion, of course, which is why I won't be voting for him when the seat next comes up for election. That photo the WO trundles out, the one at the top of this article; it puts me a little in mind of my grandfather who was also more than a a bit precious about his Hornby set.

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Insanity 750 aka Smeagol says...
11:52pm Sat 12 Jan 13

RH looks 'hot'!

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