UPDATE - TRAVEL: London Bridge fire train disruption eases (From News Shopper)

"Please allow additional time for your journey" I know it isn't Southeastern fault and I am not having a rant at them, just a rant in general. My journey is usually 45 minutes, it took 4 hours this morning. Just hope I can get home ok.

pumpkinpie, if disruption persists just take a tube to Victoria, one of the innumerable trains from there to Lewisham and jump on one of the innumerable services that are running from Lewisham that are running to Dartford and beyond - I doubt your journey would be too greatly extended by this.

Thanks Bexleyman, I have to go back to Barnehurst tonight though as I drove there thinking it would be better "D'oh!" It just amazes me, I was quite calm and collected this morning but so many people just push and shove, doing that isn't going to get them there any quicker. When waiting for the DLR, the one on the platform was packed and one woman just kept pushing and pushing, she kept saying I want to get on the train. Took another woman to say to her " yes and so do we but this one is packed and you don't see us pushing do you!" I mean where does common sense go with people in situations like this?

They say taht Southe Eastern are running a 'limited service' and that delays of up to 25 minutes may occur, so how is it that in Welling station this morning there was NO service and I experienced a delay of 2.5 hours?? Also, the fire was at 3am, so why at midday are we still experiencing problems? We seem to get penalised in the south, the train service is appaling.

southeasterntrainhat
er wrote:
They say taht Southe Eastern are running a 'limited service' and that delays of up to 25 minutes may occur, so how is it that in Welling station this morning there was NO service and I experienced a delay of 2.5 hours?? Also, the fire was at 3am, so why at midday are we still experiencing problems? We seem to get penalised in the south, the train service is appaling.

There were gas cylinders involved so they had to do what they did. The didn't want to risk them exploding, being under a railway arch. The train I eventually go on did go through welling but it was packed before it had even left Barnehurst.

The SouthEastern website is now reporting a 'limited' service into/out of London, although no trains running from Cannon Street. I managed to get in to London via the DLR today. Still, in memory serves me, weren't the trains out for days the last time we had a similar incident?

Why is it always Cannon Street taht gets affected? When it snowed, no trains running into cannon street, and now this. They don't think it will be resolved until about 3pm.

Can anyone begin to imagine what it would be like if something like this happens during the Olympics in 2012. London will be the laughing stock of the world.

I did mention that to my OH this morning, he said "they'll be cancelling events because the runners etc can't get there on time".

We could always make commuters' walk race as an Olympic sport, at least we would have a chance of gold

People are such moaners!!! There were train cancellations this morning, big deal. Use your brains for once and find an alternative route or say to your boss that your going to have to take emergency annual leave and take the day off or that you are going to be in late. If you are normally on time then they shouldnt mind.

Clearly you don't commute everyday, as I have been for the past 35 years- at a considerable cost may I add

Make Life wrote:
People are such moaners!!! There were train cancellations this morning, big deal. Use your brains for once and find an alternative route or say to your boss that your going to have to take emergency annual leave and take the day off or that you are going to be in late. If you are normally on time then they shouldnt mind.

oh sorry did we upset you? If you read my comments correctly I did find alternative travel. My boss was very grateful that I made it in at all. Not everyone can take emergency leave, we already have two people off today. As I said in my first post I wasn't moaning at southeastern just couldn't believe that a journey that usually takes 45 minutes ending up taking 4 hours.

Think we should all count ourselves lucky this didnt happen when the trains and stations were packed...Quiet enjoyed the alternative route this morning, made a change i guess, change of scenery...

When I got into the office late today, the manager didn't thank me for my efforts. He just grumbled that I had arrived late.

Make Life wrote:
People are such moaners!!! There were train cancellations this morning, big deal. Use your brains for once and find an alternative route or say to your boss that your going to have to take emergency annual leave and take the day off or that you are going to be in late. If you are normally on time then they shouldnt mind.

I'll tell you why I'm moaning actually, because I'm a temp, so for every hour I'm not in the office I don't get paid. So add a 3 hour journey to work (which I don't get paid for) then probably a 3 hour journey home, take into consideration that I'll only get paid a fraction of what I should have earned today and then have me late home so I miss my baby before he's put to bed. That's why I'm moaning. Because everytime there's a sniff of something out of the norm South Eastern are the first to cancel trains. Not just that, but not even tell us when the next train is coming so I freeze outside the station for an hour wondering what to do and how I can get to work in time to earn enough money to feed my family. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

southeasterntrainhat
er wrote:

Make Life wrote: People are such moaners!!! There were train cancellations this morning, big deal. Use your brains for once and find an alternative route or say to your boss that your going to have to take emergency annual leave and take the day off or that you are going to be in late. If you are normally on time then they shouldnt mind.

I'll tell you why I'm moaning actually, because I'm a temp, so for every hour I'm not in the office I don't get paid. So add a 3 hour journey to work (which I don't get paid for) then probably a 3 hour journey home, take into consideration that I'll only get paid a fraction of what I should have earned today and then have me late home so I miss my baby before he's put to bed. That's why I'm moaning. Because everytime there's a sniff of something out of the norm South Eastern are the first to cancel trains. Not just that, but not even tell us when the next train is coming so I freeze outside the station for an hour wondering what to do and how I can get to work in time to earn enough money to feed my family. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

Know how you feel my partner is a temp and thats all he was worried about this morning. Consequence being that he is having to stay late tonight just to make his hours up.

pumpkinpie wrote:

Make Life wrote: People are such moaners!!! There were train cancellations this morning, big deal. Use your brains for once and find an alternative route or say to your boss that your going to have to take emergency annual leave and take the day off or that you are going to be in late. If you are normally on time then they shouldnt mind.

oh sorry did we upset you? If you read my comments correctly I did find alternative travel. My boss was very grateful that I made it in at all. Not everyone can take emergency leave, we already have two people off today. As I said in my first post I wasn't moaning at southeastern just couldn't believe that a journey that usually takes 45 minutes ending up taking 4 hours.

I not upset and neither was I digging you out, I just made a general comment. While at the station this morning people were moaning about the trains being cancelled. If people just stepped back and thought for 5 minutes then the would realise that there is a bus that would take you to another station right outside that one that they were at. Even the notice boards said that the tickets would be valid on other routes.

For all their faults, can we really blame south eastern in any way? I mean, the line was closed by way of LFBs advice (personally, i'd listen to what they have to say) and their website gave a pretty clear picture of what was occuring...
I would rather walk than DLR it though - now that is a frustratingly slow service!

southeasterntrainhat
er wrote:

Make Life wrote: People are such moaners!!! There were train cancellations this morning, big deal. Use your brains for once and find an alternative route or say to your boss that your going to have to take emergency annual leave and take the day off or that you are going to be in late. If you are normally on time then they shouldnt mind.

I'll tell you why I'm moaning actually, because I'm a temp, so for every hour I'm not in the office I don't get paid. So add a 3 hour journey to work (which I don't get paid for) then probably a 3 hour journey home, take into consideration that I'll only get paid a fraction of what I should have earned today and then have me late home so I miss my baby before he's put to bed. That's why I'm moaning. Because everytime there's a sniff of something out of the norm South Eastern are the first to cancel trains. Not just that, but not even tell us when the next train is coming so I freeze outside the station for an hour wondering what to do and how I can get to work in time to earn enough money to feed my family. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

How can they tell you when the next train is coming if they have been cancelled? They dont have a crystal ball that they can look into. I do understand that missing putting your child to sleep isnt great, and i do mean that, but unfortunatly thats part of being a working parent, im one to. As for missing 3 hours pay, cant you make it up by working an hour extra each night or to 30min extra in the morning and then 30min extra in the evening for 3 days? Also, you really must be working hard to catch up on that work that you missed out doing by being on here.

I suppose I don't really mind the disruption to services - it's the complete breakdown of any kind of 'real time information' than annoys.

I had to leave the first Victoria train yesterday as it was too packed already (after the PA said that it wouldn't stop at all, then did!). The next Victoria train was due at 0749. Fine. 0800 came along and then we get an announcement that the 0749 was cancelled actually so the next train was another twenty mins or so.

That's the point when most gave up and took to the buses.

As I say, the lack of info is the poor bit - there's no way they didn't know that that 0749 didn't run by 0800 so announcing it after everyone's waited 20 mins for it is just incompetent.

Still, we've been quite luck if you ask me in recent times as SET have been quite reliable (famous last words). It's just when it goes wrong, it goes VERY wrong!

Indeed, a quick comparison with the Network SouthEast days and things are pretty good - even our recent friend Connex doesn't compare favourably!