Thames Valley infrastructure problems causing disruption elsewhere - 2016

[whole diary]

[Tim]

The railway industry just collectively shrugs it shoulders and hopes for the best (and takes the money!)

That's the point really, if you want lots of extra staff then some one has to pay for it. People can rant about large profits of train operating companies but they are very small percentage margins. So in truth if there are to be more staff its either going to be paid by the Government (through reduced premiums paid to DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)) or higher fares. 

...or better efficiencies.  How much money is wasted on constant rebranding, putting together franchise bids, inefficient procurement, delay attribution, internal compensation, trying to do engineering jobs with unrealistic timescales and not a clue about the baseline state of the assets, ordering electric trains before the wires needed for them to run are up, booking possessions and not using them, going for grandiose and overambitious resignalling schemes ("digital railway") that will never work as well as promised, gold plating every job so that erecting a bus shelter on a railway platform costs many times one on a pavement, ordering DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) that are much more heavy (and therefore use more fuel and cause more track wear than their predecessors),  ordering trains that are too short and therefore have to run more frequently with increased staffing and pathing costs... etc etc.

You have to be running an industry spectacularly badly to fail to gain any efficiencies in productivity during a two decade period of customer growth and technological advances during which an unprecedented level of private sector investment and public money has been available.  But that is precisely what the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) passenger railway has managed to achieve.  Moving a single passenger a single mile is still more or less the same cost as it was under (supposedly inefficient) BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) whilst at the same time the rail freight industry has managed to halve the costs of moving a tonne of goods a mile, and great advances in cost efficiencies have been achieved in the airline industry and in the costs of motoring.

[Tim]

I'll ask again - Paddington being a Network Rail station - where are these people going to be employed when there's no disruption such that they are ready, at a drop of the hat (next fatality for example) to come bounding out on to the concourse with immediate answers?

Give it some thought, and you'll understand their problem.

Yes, it would be possible for TfL^» (Transport for London - about) to make announcements, but wouldn't they exprect the same of NR^» (Network Rail - home page) Paddington for them to do the same when the Bakerloo (plus the other lines there) is borked? So several more personnel required.

Anything's possible if you'll pay a high enough fare to produce the cash to pay for these staff!

It would be unreasonable to have staff on standby at an out of a way halt, but Paddington is FGW^▸ (First Great Western)'s busiest station and it sees Millions of people (spending Billions of pounds) pass through it every year.  Having someone able to deal with better passenger information at Paddington is not an unreasonable or unaffordable ask. And when there is no disruption they can be dealing with delay attribution, customer compensation claims and a million of other jobs that the modern railway demands but which can be put on hold for an few hours. 

And yes, FGW staff should make announcements about tube line disruption (as a few of the better Guards do at the moment)   

[ChrisB]

 Moving a single passenger a single mile is still more or less the same cost as it was under (supposedly inefficient) BR^▸ (British Rail(ways))

With the number of year's that have passed, for the costs not to have risen (at least in line with inflation) can only be efficiencies, surely? What else keeps the cost down to 20+} years ago?

NR^» (Network Rail - home page) run Paddington, Tim, not GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) (or even FGW^▸ (First Great Western) that died over a year ago). So what do NR staff do in the meantime that can be dropped at a hat drop? NR don't have an admin office there as far as I know

[IndustryInsider]

My thoughts with the friends, family and colleagues of the deceased and also with the rail and other professional staff who have to deal with the situation, including the operational staff who have to look after / inform the public. 

Indeed Graham.  Very sad and traumatic for the driver who has now had three such incidents in less than two years.

[Billhere]

Delay attribution requires a presence in the Control Offices at Swindon, passenger compensation is dealt with somewhere in Scotland, I think it might be Aberdeen, so neither are a lot of use in the situation you describe.

The Delay Clerks are one or two to cover the whole of the Western Zone so not a lot of resources available as you describe, but also when they get back later they have to pick up their work load. Believe it or not is requires relatively real time to keep on top of the delay attribution system. I have seen them at work and when you look at their screens and there are over a hundred delays waiting attribution you realize what a hiding to nothing they are on. Standing on a platform being shouted at by irate passengers must be quite relaxing by comparison.

Perhaps try writing in and asking for a visit to the Control at Swindon and go and see those who actually make the decisions on what runs or not in these circumstances. Years ago I borrowed the idea from the Ops Manager at Waterloo and invited the biggest complainer in the Thames Valley in to work a late turn with us. He did, and never complained again.

It is very easy to say "get some people in", but where from if they can't get to Padd because the line is closed.

[Sixty3Closure]

I've worked in Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery for some years. Not for a train company but I have learnt is that there's always a few core features that apply to most companies and detail and commitment varies wildly even within the same sector.

Top of the list is always staff (and customer) safety. Beyond that it often comes down to identifying your core business and the impact of any loss of service. For most companies this is lost revenue in one form or another for others reputational loss. I have no concerns about safety but beyond that I don't get a sense of a company trying very hard. I'm guessing (and feel free to chip in) that lost revenue generally isn't an issue due the way railways are funded and the whole Network Rail/TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) thing. Reputational loss? Can it get much worse or would it improve with a change of approach?

I don't know the details of staffing etc but small things like the website often not being updated outside office hours are frustrating. In other companies that's been addressed by on call rotas and remote access. Agreed communication channels such as someone mentioned earlier with London Transport. If you really want to make the effort then lists of staff who don't mind being called, their locations and some taxi firms. I've had a few incidents travelling on Virgin and they've taken a very different approach (or maybe I was lucky).

I think most people accept incidents happen and would settle for regular and reliable flow of information. Several incidents ago staff were being sent to Ealing Broadway even though there were no trains. This shouldn't happen and I'd be curious to know if there's a separate communication process that kicks in for major incidents? Don't issue comms without an Operations Manager reviewing it who has the right hooks into Network Rail? Is the a Gold/Silver commander that takes control during an incident or do they rely on Business As Usual process?

[Electric train]

 Moving a single passenger a single mile is still more or less the same cost as it was under (supposedly inefficient) BR^▸ (British Rail(ways))

With the number of year's that have passed, for the costs not to have risen (at least in line with inflation) can only be efficiencies, surely? What else keeps the cost down to 20+} years ago?

NR^» (Network Rail - home page) run Paddington, Tim, not GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) (or even First Great Western (FGW^▸ (First Great Western)) that died over a year ago). So what do Network Rail (NR) staff do in the meantime that can be dropped at a hat drop? NR don't have an admin office there as far as I know

At all (Gatwick I think is the exception) major stations NR manage the station, NR act as the facilities manager.  NR have very little to do with customer (ie passenger) fronting although they do have a presence on the station most of their role is to do with security and safety but will assist passangers.

When an incident happens information can and often is very limited from the incident sharp end, because the guys and girls dealing with it are doing just that trying to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and plan ways to recover from it.   Where a person is struck by a train it becomes a crime scene and for the safety of the blue light services and possibly to allow for evidence gathering all trains are stopped in the area.  It is not until the Police release the site can NR and the TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) begin to run trains.   

The RIO^▸ (Rail Incident Officer) (Rail Incident Officer) will be liaising with the Police Incident Commander and or Fire , Ambulance incident command.  There is a structured command to incidents ranging from Bronze, Silver to Gold.  The RIO sits in this command team and communicates to the wider Railway Ops their updates can be limited due to the constant changing environment of and incident. 

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronyms

[broadgage]

Of course the outsourcing of customer services to India does not help !
Apart from the language barrier, it seems that the staff concerned have no real knowledge of UK^▸ (United Kingdom) railway practice. I suspect that they have an electronic version of the timetable, a list of standard excuses and not much else.
I recall a classic confusion between THORNTON HEATH a district in London, and TAUNTON HEATH , no such place AFAIK^▸ (as far as I know). The customer requiring the district in London had been advised to get a train to Taunton and then a bus !

Any enquiry about a particular train is generally met with either "you have just missed it, it was on time" or "it will be there soon"

Members may recall the case of the young family stranded at Berney arms, who eventually had to be rescued by boat, as an example of the uselessness of the overseas call center.

[bobm]

If my experiences calling GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) in recent weeks is anything to go by the calls are being answered in this country again.  Certainly when I have phoned up to make a sleeper berth booking they have been.  Admittedly on the first occasion the lady on the other end had a bit of a battle with the technology because it was "all a bit new" but we got there in the end.   

[Ollie]

At all (Gatwick I think is the exception) major stations NR^» (Network Rail - home page) manage the station, NR act as the facilities manager.  NR have very little to do with customer (ie passenger) fronting although they do have a presence on the station most of their role is to do with security and safety but will assist passangers.

NR at Paddington manage CIS^▸ (Customer Information System) and announcements. For CIS and announcements at Reading and Bristol Temple Meads (the other NR managed stations on the route) it is managed by GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway).

[NickB]

I fear that I have set the cat amongst the pigeons here somewhat with my original 'gripe'.
Whilst I take on board the comments about 'extra' staff having to be paid for and logistics arranged my comments were related to my expectations of staffing levels at the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) help points during a night of protracted disruption that had started 6hrs before I was at Paddington. It is still my expectation that GWR should be providing at least one staff member at its major terminus whilst delays are still occurring. If those delays last until midnight then there should be a staff member there, assisting passengers, until those delays have ceased. That is my expectation as a customer and I struggle to think of another company that would view that as unreasonable.

[The Tall Controller]

If my experiences calling GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) in recent weeks is anything to go by the calls are being answered in this country again.  Certainly when I have phoned up to make a sleeper berth booking they have been.  Admittedly on the first occasion the lady on the other end had a bit of a battle with the technology because it was "all a bit new" but we got there in the end.   

GWR call centre is now a UK^▸ (United Kingdom) based company as you've recently found out. No more calls to India, no language or understanding barriers e.t.c 

[Timmer]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) call centre is now a UK^▸ (United Kingdom) based company as you've recently found out. No more calls to India, no language or understanding barriers e.t.c 

That's good news.

It's interesting to note how many UK based companies are now waking up to the fact that it's better for their customers to have UK based call centres once again.

[grahame]

Signalling failure on North Downs Line (no trains Reading to Guildford today?) split off from this thread - see

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=17456.msg200909#msg200909

[Tim]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) call centre is now a UK^▸ (United Kingdom) based company as you've recently found out. No more calls to India, no language or understanding barriers e.t.c 

That's good news.

It's interesting to note how many UK based companies are now waking up to the fact that it's better for their customers to have UK based call centres once again.

Call me cynical but isn't it that the internet has made call centres smaller and less expensive to run.  For example, I don't imagine it matters very much to the bottom line if the NRE^‡(resolve) call centre is based in the UK or India because the number of calls must now be tiny.