Waterloo was completely screwed up on Friday - fatality at Surbiton.
No trains on the departure boards, no advice over the tannoy about
what people should do if they needed to get to Alton, Farnham, Fleet
etc, impossible to get to information desks. So I got on the first
(stopping) train to Woking. We stopped at Surbiton which had trains
announced on the other down platform, couldn't see where to, didn't
want to risk getting off the train to see, the guard (although she
apologised at every stop) didn't think to advise passengers if it
might be worth getting off and waiting for another train.

We sat outside Woking for about 15 minutes waiting for a platform,
then I waited over half an hour for a Basingstoke train which took
over half an hour to get to Fleet. So having got to Waterloo in time
for the 1811, I didn't get home until nearly nine.

I'm still not sure whether I did the right thing to get a slow train
from waterloo or whether I should have held out for a Basingstoke
service.

The staff of SWT made the best of a bad job, but it set me thinking
about whether it could be dealt with better.

(1) The announcers & people at Waterloo need a better "script" to work
from. Personally I would turn off the automated announcements and
just make human ones, continuously. Then the script needs to make
sure they deal with the needs of all passengers - on Friday they
adequately covered suburban stations, and long distance (past
Basingstoke) but forgot to mention the needs of people inbetween.

(2) Stop apologising. It's a pain in the arse, and takes up time when
you could be telling us something useful. Someone jumped under a
train, it's not your fault, you have nothing to apologise for.

(3) the guard could have communicated with station staff at Surbiton
to determine whether there were any connecting services expected, and
then let the passengers know.

(4) at Woking the customer information signs were completely screwed
up. At one point I thought I was waiting for a 1953 to Basingstoke -
it was only a while after it arrived I realised that actually it had
been an 1853, and was either running over an hour late or was not
going to run. However the information board said "on time" which is
why I mistook the time. If the signs are this misleading, turn them
off.

(5) From time to time, there were platform changes, leading to a
severe crush on the stairs and over bridge. No-one thought to advise
passengers that they could leave the station and use the underpass
(the up platforms were almost deserted... at that time of the evening
most up journeys will be recreational and hence people just wouldn't
have bothered... it would therefore have been reasonably easy to
access the centre platforms from the up side).

However, as I said, staff were making the best of a bad job - I'd be
interested to hear from anyone who has ever had to sort this sort of
thing out professionally.