Great Western Coffee Shop

Not sure which board this suits as the problem was at reading but affected a good number of services to elsewhere

The 16xx service to Shalford was *intelligently* platformed at 5 due to who knows what.  Which was probably ok except that the guard erm - didnt show up.  Several tannoy announcements saying can the FGW guard working the 2O?? please make your way to platform 5.  Took about 20 minutes before he showed.

In the mean time the only up platform was 4 because there was a freight train on the line at 9 and 8 was in constant use with locals/other ups

So at least one Pad bound HST went through 4 delaying all the other down services.

My 1657 at least made up some time

Bet he won't be a popular person tomorrow

Service was going to be cancelled.  New set was found so had to start from platform 5.  Suspect the guard was told their train was cancelled so went to get something to eat and then had to be fouind when reinstated.

Thanks for that useful information, super tm.

Hopefully, contacting FGW staff in such cases will be easier, once they have all been issued with their company Blackberries.

CfN.  :)

Oooh....company Blackberries. Can they be issued with a product from Apple as well? Could make a nice pie then.  ;D

Hmm...I thought that guards were issued with pagers or company mobiles already, which assuming the controller had the relevant number should have solved the apparent problem. I'm not sure what additional purpose a Blackberry serves - maybe the controller can write a message on the staff member's facebook wall  :P

I suppose a less flippant answer is that they could be useful for staff to look up info off the interweb for passengers. It's often struck me as a bit ironic when waiting at an unstaffed station (Keynsham in particular, prior to new CIS) that someone sitting at a computer in Ulan Bator, or indeed anywhere else, could get more up-to-date information on the train I was waiting for than I could.

Thanks, inspector_blakey!

That is exactly why FGW are spending ^600,000 on providing their customer-facing staff with company-issue Blackberries.

Are they really.  I have not got one and dont know when I will get issued one.

Perhaps you've been naughty this year, so you won't be getting any Christmas presents, super tm?  :o :D ;D

No, seriously: Kevin Gale, FGW Operations Director, told us at the TravelWatch SouthWest meeting in Taunton on 9 October 2010, that FGW will be issuing Blackberries to their staff.

Chris.  :-X

Surely it's to late to be issuing blackberries this year. Their season tends to run from late August to mid October.

Although good on FGW management for doing their bit to promote the '5-a-day' by dishing out soft fruit to staff.

 ;D ;D ;D

(Shall I stop with the silly fruit/phone confusion?)

Can confirm no blackberries, (or apples or oranges) have been issued to staff at PAD.

Some TMs have got an O2 xda mantle, which acts as a phone and a pager. Others make do with a Nokia and a seperate pager.

I'd assume it will only be given to on train staff.

Thanks, Ollie!  :)

Yes - perhaps I should have made it even clearer - but I understood, from what Kevin Gale said, that FGW on-train customer-facing staff will be issued with a company Blackberry.

This is intended to resolve those situations where staff have previously had rather limited information to give out to passengers, in times of perturbation, and have then been challenged by passengers with access to the internet who have pointed out, "That's not what it says on your own website!", etc.  :o ::)

I hope this clarifies the point.

Chris.  ;)

So the Train Managers will now be able to say (and show), "Ahh, but this it what it says on our staff only website" (The Manual.)

So no real change in times of perturbation (nice word - had to look that one up  ;)) , unless and until, all systems, both public and private, start saying the same thing.

I look forward to the day of unambiguity.   ::)

So reading this thread, am I right in believing that once these Blackberries have been dished out to the train staff, us passangers can look forward to being kept in the loop regarding delays? When will this be? Train delayed (Reading - Basingstoke 0707) again today by 15 mins, do not know why! Getting to the point where I expect it now. Have warned my boss, and do not anticipate getting a full lunch hour in the forseeable future  :( becuase need to make time up! Thanks FGW................... >:(

Edited to fix quote. bnm

Blackberries have 'Blackberry messenger' which is a free service very similar to facebook chat or instant messenger for example. Assume would be useful to conveying information.

At a guess, it's adhesion problems - sounds like the leaf-fall situation has been a bit of a nightmare, with a mild autumn up to this point followed by a couple of heavy frosts that have caused trees to dump their leaves suddenly and in enormous quantity (see other threads, esp regarding the Exmouth branch, on the board). Things should settle down given a couple of weeks, once all the leaves are down. As you experienced yourself, in these sorts of conditions the only thing to do is for drivers to take things very gently, since braking too hard can make the wheels pick up and slide whilst accelerating too much just leads to the wheels spinning uselessly. That means that timekeeping tends to slip but it's the only safe thing to do in the circumstances - I don't envy drivers, especially on DMU stock that is fairly light on its wheels, their job right now!

The 07:07 to Basingstoke was late cos the inward was late - and that was late, etc..due to being late off of the depot..no reason for that given from what I can see.

The XDAs have specially built software on them which uses a windows mobile interface for pager messages. You also need to scan your fingerprint to 'wake them up' so they are useless if someone nicks it, or you loose it.
Also can access tyrellcheck externally.

Tyrellcheck is also being tested out with XC on blackberries as well.

I also think that there is a way that a mass SMS can be sent to all company mobiles if so be.

As always though it'll depend on how staff use the system.  Those that rarely bother to check their pagers, will probably rarely bother to check their TYRELL updates - small strides are being taken in providing information to front line staff however there's a long way to go.  On train staff have often commented to me that they are more than often inundated with messages telling them that the PERTIS machine at Thatcham isn't working (or something equally trivial), but that their pagers go quiet when there's serious disruption and they could really do with some information.

Disagree with it being trivial - these are the pagers messages that can stop an innocent person getting a penalty fare!

yeah but being sent the same message 10 times with the same status is annoying.

Hear, hear.

Point taken, but not of much use if you're working a train at Great Malvern heading for Hereford though.  It would be nice if there was a system in place that was intelligent enough to work out what should be sent out to who at what time, rather than the 'send it to everyone' approach.  That often applies now and leads to messages often being ignored as pagers are constantly going off with information that is only occasionally directly useful.

And if you suddenly get asked to cover a trip?....you might actually need that info...

That's what I mean by an intelligent system, i.e. it would filter the message so that you would receive a message about Thatcham PERTIS machine (as an example, I'm not even sure it has one!) if you were a Train Manager spare (stand-by) at Reading depot, but you wouldn't if you were a Train Manager spare at Worcester who doesn't sign the route.

Or, a blackberry device or similar could replace constantly beeping pagers by presenting the information on screen, so that a TM could find it if he/she needs to, but is not alerted to it unnecessarily.  From what I've seen of the TYRELL systems this is slowly being taken on board by Nexus Alpha, but there is still some way to go.

See these links for more details about the types of systems I'm referring to:
http://www.nexusalpha.com/index.php?location=3.3.1 (http://www.nexusalpha.com/index.php?location=3.3.1)
http://www.nexusalpha.com/index.php?location=3.3.3 (http://www.nexusalpha.com/index.php?location=3.3.3)
http://www.nexusalpha.com/index.php?location=3.3.10 (http://www.nexusalpha.com/index.php?location=3.3.10)

The XC blackberry I have filters messages regarding train running / station facilities etc by depot so you only receieve information regarding trains you could possibly work and the occasional network summary every hour. (Though I do feel sorry for some of my Birmingham colleagues who must get the whole lot).
Quite handy is having GENIUS which means you can find out what's in front of you and also look up running information for connections if you're running late yourself (or early in the case of Exeter connections at BSK).
Only problems seem to be some of the previous generation of staff not getting to grips with it, and those with hands like slabs of meat pressing five buttons instead of one!

Good to know we have someone on the forum who has actual experience with the Tyrellcheck system on Blackberries.  I'm guessing that when the FGW get issued with theirs it'll be exactly the same system that XC currently use - and by the sounds of it find useful too.

How is tyrellcheck on XC working? I know they are trialling it with yourselves.