Great Western Coffee Shop

Some big delays tonight due to person being hit by a train. This one caught my attention by how much it's delayed!!!

01:15 arrival in Exeter, not too bad then

Diverted via Yeovil. Appears to have free run down, crossing the up sleeper between Pinhoe and Exeter Central.

Lost 7 minutes (only) on the schedule between Castle Cary and Exeter despite the trundle down to Yeovil Pen Mill. Running time between Yeovil Junction and Exeter St Davids approx. 43 minutes.

All it needs for double track to be re-instated and then you have a fast line alternative from London to Exeter (and whisper it, perhaps to Plymouth via Okehampton)!! Wonder if the new Government will deliver on some of the proposed improvements...

I did hear that the person hit by the train has survived, but that's unconfirmed.

The person, a 54 year old man, was taken to hospital by air ambulance but, sadly, later died.

I was unfortunately caught up in this. Arrived at Paddington @8pm, finally got on a train @ 9:35pm. Had assumed that stopper to Oxford would be started from Reading (were all cancelled from Padd) but when I got there @ 10:30ish, was nothing scheduled until 23:48!

Eventually (with help of the duty police, who were very sympathetic to a group of passengers frustrated by total lack of announcements and asisstance from staff) we got put into taxis.

Purely in the interests of clarity and ease of future reference, I've amended the heading of this topic.

Another sad story from the railways: our thoughts are with the family and friends of the deceased.  :(

Forgive me for being somewhat dim  :-[  The OP refers to 1C98 delayed from 20:57 to 22:37 and I can understand the unfortunate reason for said delay. However, according to Real Time Trains, there was an additional service (1Z98) which departed PAD at 21:30 for Plymouth via Newbury, Westbury and Taunton which was only 15 late at Exeter, so was there another reason for the huge delay to 1C98?

I too was caught up in the disruption on the Sunday. I went to the station earlier today, only to find it's happened yet again. That's the same place twice in one week. What a tragedy, and thoughts go to all those involved :(

Yet again it would seem that the actions of one sad person have caused major havoc to thousands of people who at the end of the working week now face hours on the journey time before they can start the weekend my thoughts go out to all that are caught up in this mess and especially the BTP and the other services who have the task of clearing it up hope the driver will be ok.     WP.

It was my train that struck the person and I knew immediately what had happened - I won't elaborate.  I got up as we ground to a halt on the country side of Twyford and caught the initial conversation of the lady train manager with the driver.  Her face was was one of shock and after listening to the driver said "how are you?".  Nice concern from a team.  No mention on board of person-hit-by-train - standard operating procedure but I knew we were going to be there  for the next few hours.  BTP x 2 walked down from TWY with fitter and driver relief.  Carriage and wagon inspection, BTP walk-through and phoning ahead for an unaccompanied minor on the train and we set off under caution clear of Twyford West Junction and set back - bang road - to the up main to Twyford p2 where the train terminated. The passengers were picked up by a Bristol now running on the down relief. 

I have been delayed many times at Paddington as a consequence but never on the train involved.  Not nice.  Sympathies to all - not least the driver and the family of the person hit.

What was the train ?

14:45 London Paddington to Swansea

I was caught up in this trying to get from SWI to NLS in the early evening.

What struck me was the poor decision by control to run the 1630 PAD to TAU non stop from BRI to TAU. Yes, it was running 45 mins late, so needed to make up time if it were to have a prompt departure on the return trip, but just about everyone on the train would be travelling to the intermediate stations. 

Whilst they held the 1855 BRI to TAU for 15 mins to make sure people got the connection, the result was that the 2 car 150 was crushed to capacity and many people were not able to board.  A more sensible approach would have been to have retained a couple of stops on the 1630 to keep on board enough pax to enable the local unit to cope.   As it turned out the 1630 arrived in TAU only 8 mins late. A couple of intermediate stops would still have enabled an arrival within 15 mins of booked time, and probably removed over 100 people from the local.

Appreciate that control have a lot of things to manage under such difficult circumstances but it did appear that in this instance they put the priority of punctual timekeeping over the needs of passengers.   

Still having an impact this morning with the first PNZ-PAD cancelled.

"First Great Western apologises for 'shocking' death announcement"
From:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-32857408

Whilst not on the day in question. The 22:23 TAU - BRI on 20/05/2015 was amended due to the partial cancellation of 1A37 (21:29 TAU - PAD) 22:23 is booked as a Class 150 so 75mph top speed but runs non stop to BRI.

Despite the additional calls on a special stop order; we lost just 13 minutes. For an additional 6 stations thats an average of 2 minutes 10 seconds per station. So I'm not entirely convinced that removing all the stops was necessary in this particular case. It could well have arrived within 20 minutes of it's scheduled time.

However hindsight is a wonderful thing and I am sure that there was probably a reason this was done, however illogical it seems!

That is an absolute disgrace and if the person concerned is not dismissed immediately it will be a travesty.

I'd also suggest that she apologises to the family face to face, although I doubt she'd have the courage or decency.

Another person hit by a train today.......seems to be coming ever more frequent, thoughts with all concerned;

Cancellations to services at St Austell
Due to a person hit by a train at St Austell all lines are blocked.
Impact:
Train services running through this station may be cancelled, delayed by up to 60 mins or revised. Disruption is expected until 15:00 23/05.

I feel that to demand the dismissal of the employee making the offending announcement is going a bit too far.
The wording was clearly not suitable, and some re-training seems a good idea.

Unfortunately, suicides on the railway seem to be increasing and no matter how tragic each case is for the bereaved, some staff and some customers are becoming a bit used to these now frequent tragedies.

"Re-training" - is there not an expectation when staff are recruited that they come equipped with basic human decency?

We do not know the full facts of the case - For example -  Was the person concerned receiving abuse or threats from delayed passengers?  How many times had they had to deal with this type of incident before recently? We do not know. 

If there were an endless supply of people prepared to do every job an employer could indeed take the sort of hire an fire approach you advocate. Though they would have to demonstrate that this announcement amounted to "Gross misconduct" or they could be challenged in an employment tribunal. I am no expert but I think this would be difficult to justify. What you are advocating is that staff can never make a mistake - even in the heat of the moment. 

However please remember three things:

1) It costs FGW a lot of money to train staff in the first place;
2) I am not sure it is that easy to recruit staff to these sorts of roles (unsocial hours, abuse from customers);
3) How an employer treats their staff determines their behaviour - So if an employer a hire and fire no mistakes policy, the result would be that their staff would never be prepared to take any risks or do anything out of the ordinary (including going out of their way to help customers) in case they got into trouble. Perhaps train companies have already gone too near to this approach Could this be why so many people on this board complain about jobsworth attitudes. 

I and I think most people would prefer to work for employer who was prepared to give its employees more than one chance, so retraining - yes and a verbal or written warning perhaps, but not dismissal at the first occurrence.   

My train was the one involved in the Twyford incident that caused all of the delay to subsequent services.  I am sorry, but these incidents are extremely stressful to all involved - I saw first hand the stress involved in resolving just one of these: suicide - 1, Rest of train 700+. Mine was at the start of the incident - by definition.  After my train, it only gets worse, and stress levels amongst the passengers, some of whose bank holiday weekend is now trashed - take it out on that representative of British Railways - the train manager. Please do not judge lest you be there ...

My crew behaved impeccably and with great professionalism. I saw the stress and equally saw how the team shared out the communication to passengers trapped by circumstances. As well as the usual Train Manager and Steward, two other First GW staff on the train (back office I think - sorry if I am wrong) , badges worn, entered the frey making sure that passengers were comfortable while senior steward managed the comms.

Meanwhile, a young woman who cannot be much older than my daughter, grabbed her HiVi to inspect her train with her driver and God knows what she would find. Afterwards, she came back on the tannoy to keep us all informed as to our delay and likely out come. I am only a weekend railwayman but this team had my respect.

With all the chaos and delay, I ended up separated from my station-parked car - my wife picked me up from a different station. This morning, she dropped me off on her way to work and I caught the Local for the one stop to pick up my car left overnight. It was only a four minute journey, but Providence placed me with a very senior person within FGW who was travelling in my carriage, and I passed on my appreciation and respect for a professional team that deliverd first class service.  Thank-you to you all. I hope you are keeping well.

It would be a travesty if the person concerned WAS dismissed immediately. There will be an investigation into the complaints first, and due process must be followed. If dismissal is the ultimate outcome, then so be it, but let us not stoop to summary justice.

That said, if what was reported is accurate, then there is a clear need for some intervention. I could imagine that being said as callous banter by a certain type of passenger, but a train manager must be aware of the effect this would have had on her own colleagues, who left the train that had hit the person to walk back with the driver in case first aid may have been needed. No training can prepare you for that.

Absolutely.  We don't have to walk back following an incident like this but many of us realise its a human life and a life that could potentially be saved.  It's a shame that a certain PA announcement detracts from some of the great work I've known colleagues to do following an incident like this, and in some cases, found themselves in unimaginable situations and carried out incredible acts of compassion.

A massive amount of respect to the train manager though, she did not have to do that but we work as a team and we look out of each other wherever possible, you would never let anyone go and do that on their own.  Talking from experience, to walk back along with a colleague makes one hell of a difference. 

Fair comment and due process must of course be followed.....I note that the crass and offensive announcement was made not once, but twice which removes any "heat of the moment/moment of madness" excuse.....FGW have already apologised and with hundreds of witnesses I doubt that the investigation will need to take very long.........it's a shame that the character and courageous actions of the TM and other colleagues on the train which struck the person are let down by others within the same company who lack any sense of common decency or respect.

It appears that this particular announcement is a work of fiction. Apparently the company has not yet received any written complaints regarding this issue but, since the story made the news, it has received communications from other regular passengers on board who state that the announcement was never made or it wasn't heard.

The power of social media and one of the reasons that complaints are never dealt with over Twitter. It is alleged the passenger who tweeted the comment had earlier had an exchange of words about the level of overcrowding on the train and had demanded that the train manager finds her a seat or issues compensation.

Oops ...

The complainant (in the BBC report) is named and has an unusual name, and there's a public twitter feed in that name. Could be a co-incidence though?

There's a second but much more common name briefly mentioned that backed up the original report to the media.

That Twitter feed is now set to 'private' and out of a train full of appx 600 passengers, only 2 people have complained.

In that case I consider it possible that a passenger said out aloud the rather callous remark as reported, and that other passengers who heard this either directly or "second hand" found it offensive and believed it to be an announcement by staff.

Now that journalism has been reduced to monitoring Twitter feeds, we can expect more like this.

Sad but true.

Woops. I'm going to think twice before posting anything written by the BBC again :-[

If the 'made up' allegations prove to be true, I hope the Sunday Telegraph finds space on next Sunday's front page to report the story in its proper context, along with an article examining the twitter/facebook quote quick-and-easy journalism that seems to be so endemic within the industry that even the broadsheets are resorting to it.

If it's true that it was "made up" I couldn't agree more, I take it that this revelation has been uncovered by FGW's own investigation?  They were quite swift to offer a fulsome apology at the time?

If it is true that this was made up why haven't FGW issued a press release?

Also none of the news outlets who reported it - BBC, ITV, SKY, Telegraph, Metro, Mirror, Mail, Independent, Plymouth Herald, Bath Chronicle, and many more - have issued clarifications or retractions.

And the news reports aren't just from the tweets. The detailed email sent to FGW has also been referenced and media outlets have spoken to the complainant before publishing.

Good question, BNM.  Perhaps they're just waiting for all of the facts to be established?  In other words, what the newspapers may not have done.

...............maybe a-driver can enlighten us as to his source suggesting that the announcement was a "work of fiction"?

No need to be ashamed - you were merely passing on something reported by the BBC. Who should have known better.

Agree, no harm in passing on something already reported by main stream news media, even if the reports are later found to be inaccurate.
I suspect that the BBC are a BIT better than the more excitable tabloid newspapers.

 ;D  <- Wry smile, and a handful of points

a) It is very difficult for any news gathering organisation to know what's accurate and what isn't at the time something's going on / breaking news, so stuff that's wrong is probably reported rather more often than we think.   In just the same way that it can be difficult for TOC staff to know what's going to happen and how long passengers will have to wait when there's an incident.

b) There have been occasions on this forum where we have been asked to withdraw our quotes from mainstream media sources by the people actually involved - not [just] a request to withdraw comment, but to withdraw the original articles which have been quoted by members in good faith.   On one occasion, the original article was incorrect and highly damaging to the person named, and we withdrew the article with a friendly exchange of messages both ways; on the second occasion, I felt the article should have remained but with threats made against us which could have been backed up by someone putting in a lot of time and legal aid to support those threats, the thread was moved from public view.

c) Images and information provided to us by the police, with requests to publicise it ("we are interested in speaking to") have changed since we started so that their permission is withdrawn after 30 days, and indeed if someone comes forward and is eliminated from enquiries quickly, we can get quite short notice requests to withdraw things.  And if we don't, the police can get pretty upset about us failing to follow their new instruction where we had been doing our best to help them with their requests ... this explains why you don't see anything like the amount of help being provided here any more.

d) Dear members, please keep quoting mainstream media articles for review and criticism ... we can withstand the occasional incident like this, and we shouldn't let the fear of occasionally having to go back and review put us off keeping up with the news!

Folks forgive me if I've missed something.........where has it been demonstrated that the original BBC story was inaccurate or a "work of fiction"?

I know that a few posters on here have alleged/implied this but I haven't seen a retraction from the BBC or anyone else (as BNM pointed out), nor have FGW rebutted it from what I can see?

It has been suggested but not demonstrated, and the suggestion is plausible.  This one is a definite "don't know".

Maybe.

Ah OK so the BBC/newspapers articles and the FGW apology stand unretracted but others have speculated that it's a "work of fiction" or that the "announcement" may actually have been made by a passenger, but both of these suggestions are unsubstantiated?

Yes I think that's where we currently stand, and why my two posts on the subject have been worded in an 'if' and 'maybe' context.

Ah I see....so really there's very little, if anything, other than unsubstantiated speculation to suggest that the BBC/Newspaper story was inaccurate, or FGW's apology inappropriate? The fact that they are both still in place is interesting if there is indeed any doubt.

a-driver does seem to have some information however, would be interesting to hear what the source of the allegations he alludes to are, and how FGW have acted upon them?

Yes indeed, it'll be interesting to see if anything else develops or if a-driver can offer any more details.