Great Western Coffee Shop

It was a lovely morning at Liskeard, however Thunder Clouds rolled in for Passengers heading west with the News that the 09.48 Penzance service was CANCELLED, thanks Digital Doris.

However whilst some passengers went to give grief to the poor station staff, the staff could only state that TRUST was saying the train was 4 minutes late off Saltash, and YES the Train appeared, stopped picked up some passengers dropped off others, and carried on it's way.

However passengers who took the Cancelled message a  bit more lightly were re-appearing at Liskeard station around 11.00 for the Next train the 11.07.

It's bad enough to cancell a train bit it takes real idiots in control to perform like this.

BRING BACK WESSEX.

Looks like Dorris failed then, which was installed by Wessex!

Might have been installed by Wessex but the wrong infomation wasn't fed to it by Wessex

CIS sometimes goes wrong, it's fact of life.

I've been on the SWT network when the CIS displayed that the station must be evacuated. On speaking to the staff at the station was told that there CIS control said it's a fault and was showing at all stations they cover.

Wessex aint comming back!!!!!.............get over it

Bring back Wessex? NO THANKS!!! constant short formed trains (well, they were booked to be short!!), pricey "cheap" day returns, crap uniform, didn't care about revenue protection, spent thousands sponsoring the weather but couldn't spend a few quid doing up the train crew messrooms, the same people who slag off FGW now are the same ones who always moaned about Wessex.

Theres loads of odd problems being thrown up by the automated CIS. For example every train that runs off the Barny line into Exeter St Davids gets greeted with 'Please stand clear, the next train is not scheduled to call at this station' unless somebody rapidly overrides the system manually.

That reminds me of the time a few months back when I was getting a train back from Weston-super-Mare, the all stations service to Parkway. Suddenly the train PA system played a selection of old announcements, including a promise that there was a trolley service of light refreshments. It was nice to know that Wessex Trains' priority is still our safety, 18 months after they lost the franchise.  ;D

It shows how much attention the passengers pay to these things, that no-one else in the carriage smiled or batted an eyelid at these surreal announcements, or even asked the guard when the catering trolley would come.

last sunday on a swt from honiton to paignton automated message as we pull into torquay next stop paignton this is our final stop .... quite a few people got off in error was funny

The best one I ever saw was in the early days of the Thames Trains system about 10 years ago, which, to this day, is still confusing passengers and hindering the efforts of staff that it should be helping!

I forget the time, but early one morning at Oxford it was showing a train being CANCELLED. The train in question... an MGR to Didcot Power Station! The screens were apologising for the inconvienience, but as far as I know Thames Trains stopped short of providing any stranded lumps of coal with a replacement taxi! ;D

What causes it to go wrong?  Surely something triggers the wrong message to be played?

There are all sorts of interfaces with other systems where things can (and often do) go wrong. Problems can be cause by inaccuracies in TOPS/TRUST reports of the train, inaccuracies in headcodes entered by signalling staff, failure of other lineside equipment which reports a trains location, inaccuracies in the base data that is uploaded from the train service database (especially in the event of service alterations). And when major delays hit the network inaccuracies and the inability of the scant number of human beings controlling it to keep up with things can also mean lots of errors.

Though how the hell it managed to display that coal train really has me mystified!

Erm ... I'm asking this as a complete novice on this subject, but would the coal train have had a headcode - that was perhaps entered wrongly by someone?  :-[

Yes - when they used to run regularly from british coalfields they were class 7's when full and class 6's when returning empty. Though if the system only recognises class 1 and 2 passenger trains even if it was entered wrongly and happened to be another passenger trains headcode then it should have displayed that train rather than the freight train.

Like I say it was in the early days and I'm sure several patches have been applied to the software since, BUT it remains a fact that as soon as disruption hits a certain level, these automated systems really struggle to cope.

Thanks, IndustryInsider!  ;D

It does still happen, though!

At BTM one evening, a couple of weeks ago, there were various platform changes, and 'Digital Doris' cut in with a pre-recorded announcement at one stage.  As her 'words of wisdom' directly contradicted what the excellent male station announcer had just told us passengers waiting on platform 8, she was cut off in mid-announcement - we could almost hear our live announcer muttering 'oh-for-goodness-sake!' - as he reiterated his earlier (correct) announcement!

 ::) ;D

All Didcot powerstations are 6xxx Loaded and 4xxx empty

I guess eventually,a more modern system will be used to identify the actual trains which are arriving etc.

That's right - though they were class 7's when loaded back in the HAA hopper days - imagine the pathing problems you'd get now slotting all those 45mph coal trains in amongst the Chilterns and Voyagers between Leamington and Banbury!

Sorry Ollie, but I don't agree.   If we settle for second best that is what we are guaranteed to get. 

Find me something that is perfect.
CIS can go wrong for a variety of reasons whether it be down to human error or technical error.
The key would be to notice where things do go wrong, find a solution to stop it from happening again.

But it is my belief that nothing can be 100% perfect all the time.

Nothing is perfect, and I supose that it is unrealistic for the CIS to be working all of the time.  Computers fail, get vandalised, fuses blow etc, but when it is working I don't think it is unrealistic for the information to be 100% (or at least 99.999%) acurate.  No infomation is far preferable to teh wrong information.  The repeat failures (such as the ones at Exeter mentioned below) are particularly inexcusible. 

I can agree regarding the comment about trains from Barnstaple when they get to Exeter. But faults like that rely on it being reported. I wouldn't have anyway of knowing if it has been, maybe the staff at that particular station know, and if they have reported it then they may have been told if anything being done about it.

It all comes down to good management.  The staff at Exeter ought to know about the fault.  Either they havn't reported it because they are demotivated and don't belive that it would be put right if they did or they have reported it and nothing has happened which only serves to demotive them and discourage them from reporting problems in the future.

The travelling Doris can be a nightmare, particularly when some playful colleague broadcasts the "full ticket check" message...at Lawrence Hill on a rush hour, inbound, 3 car 158.