"Brimstone" wrote in message
...

The only time
that someone is likely to be upset about anything is if something they've
bought is defective in some way, but even then most people realise thet
you
didn't do it deliberately and are happy to accept your efforts to put
things
right.

Does such a situation prevail between railway passengers and station
staff?

Such a situation does indeed prevail. If one expects a decent system to
function in the way that you paid for it to do so, but it doesn't, then
understandably, some people are going to get a bit upset about it.

But a large part depends on the individuals involved, and not just the
organisation itself.

Take for example the journey we had last night from Newbury to Ealing. The
2239 had turned into a service that terminated at Reading West due to
planned engineering. Not a problem. Except the replacement bus was nowhere
to be seen initially, and the next local bus service was approx 10+ minutes
away according to the realtime info at the bus stop at Reading West.
Replacement bus eventually turns up to take us as far as Reading. Arrive
Reading 2330. Told at Reading that (as advertised) only one line open
beyond Slough, but delays, and we'd have to detrain at Maidenhead for a bus
onwards.

Arrive Maidenhead. No bus; driver tells us the HST across on the UF will be
going all the way through to London, they're trying to sort out what's
happening with the bus, and best bet is to take the train as a replacement
bus will definately be running from Slough. Everyone crosses over bar a few
who hope for a bus. About twenty minutes later, they've given up hope for a
bus and come over and board the train.

'Train Manager' on the HST advises via PA that pilotman working in
operation. Another ten minutes and a Westbound HST arrives next to us.
Departs. TM advises via PA that pilotman was not on train and we have to
wait for a second Westbound service to come through. Eventually does, and we
slowly get on the move.

Arrive at Slough. Lots of people detrain. FGWL chap on platform says
there'll be all-stops train onwards from P5. No sign of any other trains
and platform indicators fail to support his claim! Cue several people
politely pointing this out to the platform chap and TM, with everyone
realising even if the last train from Paddington was miraculously running;
we'd all miss it. And no answer on whether the original suggestion of a bus
from Slough was happening. Wonder how many hours we'd have been stood on P5
if we'd listed to the first chap?

"Not my problem" the stunningly helpful TM advised. "Go to Paddington,
they -might- be able to help you there".

Half-full train of bewildered tired passengers arrive 35mins later into
Paddington. No announcements on how to get anywhere or any taxi provision
etc., from the TM. Pathetic.

No sign of any staff.

Walk towards P1/taxi rank.

Suddenly the most helpful and apologetic gentlemen from FGW appears, and in
a very efficient and orderly fashion helpfully and calmly tells everyone
individually that taxis are being organised, and despatches us in groups of
3/4 into taxis onwards.

With the exception of the gentlemen at Paddington, and the driver of the
Maidenhead bound FGWL train, it's hardly surprising that some people have a
perception of customer-facing staff in the rail industry as often having a
very crappy, unhelpful attitude [1].

Arrived into Ealing at 0220.


[1] And I do think that perhaps some of that wouldn't happen if they
actually had the correct information themselves. I don't understand how
they can tell people things that are just blatently wrong though - bizzare!

Ian Harper wrote:

[1] And I do think that perhaps some of that wouldn't happen if they
actually had the correct information themselves. I don't understand
how they can tell people things that are just blatently wrong though
- bizzare!

I quite agree. I used to deliver cars for a living visiting strange towns
and villages on a daily basis and had to find my way to an address. On one
memorable occasion I was given an incomplete address simply because the
client's employee - a major softdrinks compamy IIRC - had failed to pass it
on. That cost me some two hurs wasted time since I was supposed to be six
miles from where I actually was and the only means of getting there was to
hitchhike. The worst part was that I'd already passed the place.

On some occasions I was delivering the car and so was driving, on others I
was there to collect it and so was walking. More than once I was given
deliberately wrong information by people who had never clapped eyes on me
before and who would gain no benefit. Some I'm quite sure did it as some
form of amusement.

In the specific context that you describe I suspect that you were told
untruths because the people telling you believed what they were saying.
Other may simply have been ignorant of the real situation but were trying to
get you forward on your journey. Others still may have simply been trying to
get rid of you, akthough quite why someone takes on the job of traincrew
when incapable of dealing with problems I don't know.

On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 12:28:14 +0100, "Ian Harper"
wrote:

With the exception of the gentlemen at Paddington, and the driver of the
Maidenhead bound FGWL train, it's hardly surprising that some people have a
perception of customer-facing staff in the rail industry as often having a
very crappy, unhelpful attitude [1].

Arrived into Ealing at 0220.


[1] And I do think that perhaps some of that wouldn't happen if they
actually had the correct information themselves. I don't understand how
they can tell people things that are just blatently wrong though - bizzare!

It possible that each of the staff, bar the FGW TM, were passing the
information they have been told in good faith. Often I feel that the
chain of communication lets down the front line staff. For example the
platform bloke at Slough might well have been informed by his control
that there was to be a stopping train forward. The subsequent lack of
appear of this service was probably due to a change by control, rather
then the platform staff setting out to lie to customers. What would he
have gained from this, since the passengers would only come back and
complain at him?

There needs to be a balance between keeping passengers informed as
they agree plans which subsequently might be changed, or not telling
them anything until the plans have been confirmed as to speak. This
being a planned blockage the timetables should have been agreed in
advance and distributed to the front line staff, but once something
had gone wrong FGWL control would have been working on the fly to put
into place an alterative plan to get passengers home. How well and
accurately this is communicated to the front staff could be
questionable. Certainly the printed replacement timetables for this
weekend at Reading and Swindon weren't available until Friday, and
this isn't uncommon.

Lack of timely accurate information to the front line staff will
eventually led to de-motivation, as they bear the brunt of the
passenger frustration, while having little control over the situation.

Of course the travelling public should not need to understand this
behind the scenes politics.

Duncan