Great Western Coffee Shop

Anyone know what was happening at Westbury??? Just come up from Plymouth on the 10.44 Paddington ( four stops only - Exeter St Davids, Bristol Temple Meads, Reading, Paddington). Didn't get into Reading until 14.45.

Crawled around Taunton with Train Manager advising no trains Taunton to Westbury (signaling fault). Further interest was the Cardiff and Old Oak cranes in the yard at Taunton with a wagon on it side minus bogies seemingly having split the yard throat.

A crane rescuing a derailed wagon in Fairwater managed to topple over and devestate the local signalling systems!

Must have caused some damage. I thought the two were unconnected. Thanks for info.

Just found pic on http://www.tauntontrains.co.uk/NEWS-INFO.htm

And on 1 April - you couldn't make it up, could you?  ::) ;D

You are correct Chris, it was a massive joke on Network Rail's part  :D

I for one did not find this funny whilst waiting for the 09:19 this morning to get to work! ;) :P

Said train was diverted via Bristol, got to Bristol and had to wait an additional hour for the next train, that journey took an hour... Was over 2 hours late for work >:(

Having said that the staff onboard the train were in very good humor despite the delays. There was also a travelling chef to which I decided to order a Vegetarian Breakfast Platter with complimentary cup of tea, which i must admit... Was very good indeed ;D

Yes - station staff went to great pains to blame NR for the long delays which got even worse as drivers ran out of hours and trains were stopped short to go home for tomorrows service.
As usual the PAs on the short stopped HSTs at Exeter were either very quite or not working properly - despite station staff shouting at them many passengers sat blissfully unaware that their train wasn't going anywhere and that local services were running fairly normally.
FGW seemed to turn around their HSTs at Exeter leaving XC to carry on into Cornwall - the TM did a great job of ensuring everyone knew where to get off and what transport had been arranged - he went around with a pen and paper and made sure everyone was OK rather than using the PA - top job.

 

Unlike Sunday where XC shafted FGW and terminated everything at Bristol - not for the first time.

Similar tactics adopted by train manager on the 0730 CMN-PAD this Monday - we got delayed by an ailing goods train between Port Talbot and Bridgend, and ended up 25 late CDF. Control then decided to run the service fast BPW - PAD to try and minimize the knock-on delays for its subsequent working. Train manager went through the whole train speaking to everyone making sure they understood that they'd have to change onto the following CDF-PAD service for intermediate stations (which was no great hardship because by this stage it was only 5 minutes behind and virtually empty!). Very impressed with his approach.

How sad.   I recall just a year ago being told be Andrew Haines and Dave Ward that the days of the "blame game" were over and it was the overall impression of the industry that mattered - that FGW and Network Rail would, henceforth, be working together in circumstances like this.

Andrew Haines is no longer with First. Dave Ward is no longer Network Rail's Route Director (West).

And it looks as if the new brooms have gone back to the policy that was in place (and so disliked by the passengers) of a previous age.

Not sure your're quite fair there Grahame the main problem seems to me to be the massive disconnect between track and train. It appears to me to be only natural that if you're having to run round rearranging services, getting passengers onto different trains etc it's only human  to blame someone else, especialy if they work for an entirely different orgnisation that appears to working against you.

With the connected railway the poor crane operators would have been taunted mercilessly by their colleauges in private but BR would have taken the blame.

I suppose it comes down to whether you believe the railways run best under a fat controller in charge of all they survey or lots of thin controllers in charge of their own tiny patch.

This is the important bit.  If passengers dislike it they should not be doing it regardless of whether or not it is fair.

Timmer, thank you. The really refreshing attitude taken by Andrew and Dave (and at meetings I attended in Taunton, too) was that it looked out for the passengers / customers, leaving the assignment of responsibility and financial layoffs until later. "spend the money to sort it now - we'll work out who pays later."

But - 8F - I may be being unfair to either the staff on the ground, or to the new management.  If the staff on the ground are no longer being given the strong 'customer service' lead, but instead being encouraged - perhaps by omission of direction - to look to minimise cost to FGW as a top priority over passengers, then they are not to 'blame' - it's a management issue.  Come to think of it ... if the management think they are putting the message through but it wasn't reaching even one customer facing person, then it's still a management issue  ;)

Not sure how blaming NR minimises cost to FGW.  Presumably FGW would pay compensation for delays which they could then claim back from NR.  It would be in FGW's financial interests to hand out as much compensation and lay on as many buses and taxis as possible in order to keep their customers happy.

I suspect the blame-game was more motivated by staff loyality to FGW in the face of what they saw as unfair criticism (you only have to browse this forum to see that some of the railway(wo)men who contribute are tenaciously loyal to the company when it is wronged by NR, DfT or passengers with the wrong ticket - something which is usually a good thing of course).  Andrew Haines could see beyond that to the bigger picture and issued appropriate orders.  They have since been forgotten about which as you say is a (lack of) management issue. 

I enquired of the TM on my return trip last night as to "everything now running OK at Taunton", knowing the train was going that far. Quick as a flash he said it was NR's fault not FGWs. I wasn't criticising, or complaining, but the immediate reaction was to ensure that I knew it wasn't FGW's fault.

I wasn't very impressed at the time. Even less so now I've read this thread. 

Slightly off topic, But I travelled on a Bridgwater - Taunton Service which had arrived 25 minutes late from Cardiff Central. I politely enquired to the delay. My response was:

"Believe it or not, a 5 minute late start from Cardiff, and it was all Arriva's fault!"

A part of my feels I wished I hadn't asked as a bad workmen always blames his tools! No disrespect to the TM though as I only know FGW's side of the story!

Do First really think that they will enhance their corporate image by making it their first priority to blame another company whenever there is a problem? Such childish behaviour seems to me to be another excellent way of convincing their customers that the railways must be renationalised.

Meanwhile the poor guards having to implement this policy of blame on the frontline find that whatever they say, most passengers don't believe them. If they ever admitted when it is their company's fault they might have a little credibility, but of course all delays are caused by one of the following:
1) Something outside the railways control (eg passengers, trespassers, a bit of weather)
2) Network Rail
3) Another train company
4) "Operational difficulties"

Of course (4) is never FGW's fault, unlike other train companies they can't help it if one of their trains breaks down or there aren't enough crew.   >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(

Rivalry between different parts of the railway has existed since the Grand Trunk first connected with the Liverpool and Manchester. I remember going round the Sheffield area in the 60 s and there it wasn't even LMS and LNER it was still Midland and GC.

The Southern Railway/Region was and still is SW, Brighton/Central, and SE.

But if push came to shove rivalry was put aside and it was  BR against the world.


Bemmy has hit the nail on the head, in BR days there were only two excuses.

External
Internal

You can see why TOCs try for one of the first 3 rather than put their hands up to No 4 especialy as they get compensation if it's someone elses fault. Agreed that going for one of the first 3 excuses is a Management problem but it's also a systemic problem due to the current structure of the railway.

The systemic problem is that the "Railway" as an entity no longer exists, it was broken up into 100s of parts some of whom should co-operate TOCs and Networkrail and some of whom were set up to compete with each other, TOCS and open access operators.

The current system is set up to "Pass the Buck"  the problem is there is no one place for it to stop unless it's the Minister of Transport. 

Having met Mark Hopwood MD FGW he is not a buck passer he is  as hard on his own staff as on non FGW organisations, if they cause delays. Equally he is quick to praise staff who go out of way to get things moving and on time. 

Fair enough, but to my knowledge not many of the problems affecting the railways are the fault of the staff.

I've got a suggestion: why not get Digital Doris to record a single message for all late trains: "We are very sorry for the delay to this service, which has been caused by six decades of under-investment and a disastrous privatisation".  ;D

Excellent idea, it will place the blame where it truly lies.

Does it matter whose actual fault it is??..surely at the time of delay its the help and information you receive from staff that matters, are previous posts trying to suggest that if its not an FGW fault then the staff dont give a monkeys?

I don't get TOC or NR specific, but as has been pointed out previous, it doesn't matter what the cause is, it is what the staff do to get everyone on their way.

I'll admit though, it is hard not to get defensive of FGW when you know where the fault of the incident lies and yet you have members of the public F'ing at you that FGW cannot run a railway.  I've learnt to accept it and just get on with things, but some people take it personally, and is probably why there is an automatic "not FGW fault" response from some staff.