Delays across the West, due to person hit by train at Twyford - 17 May 2015

[whole diary]

[Godfrey Tables]

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

[thetrout]

As it turned out the 1630 arrived in TAU^» (Taunton - next trains) 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.

Whilst not on the day in question. The 22:23 TAU - BRI^» (Bristol Temple Meads - next trains) on 20/05/2015 was amended due to the partial cancellation of 1A37 (21:29 TAU - PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains)) 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!

[TaplowGreen]

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

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.

[broadgage]

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.

[TaplowGreen]

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.

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

[ellendune]

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.

"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^▸ (First Great Western) 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.   

[Oxonhutch]

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^▸ (Great Western) 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^▸ (First Great Western) 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.

[TonyK]

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

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.

[a-driver]

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.

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^▸ (Public Address) 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. 

[TaplowGreen]

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

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.

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^▸ (First Great Western) 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^‡(resolve) 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.

[a-driver]

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.

[grahame]

Oops ...

The complainant (in the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) 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.

[a-driver]

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

[broadgage]

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.

[TonyK]

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