How NOT to do it !

[whole diary]

[moonrakerz]

My daughter was telling me this evening of her awful trip from Warminster to Trowbridge the other day.

She intended to catch the 1331 from Warminster. This train was cancelled, the next arrival was the 1401 to Cardiff; this train was absolutely packed ! By the time she got to Westbury she felt so unwell she decided to abandon the journey and go home. It was only with difficulty that she even managed to get off the train as even more people struggled to board.

She sat on the platform to recover somewhat, then was amazed to hear that the next departure from that platform in just a few minutes was a service to Bristol (SWT^▸ (South West Trains) ex Waterloo)  !!
She was amazed that no one at Westbury (or Salisbury presumably) had had the common sense to advise passengers on the grossly overcrowded Cardiff train of the, almost empty, SWT service following a few minutes behind !!

She's taking her car next time !

[Chris from Nailsea]

Indeed, moonrakerz: that is yet another example to FGW^▸ (First Great Western) of how not to do it. 

May I suggest that your daughter completes and sends in one of these - http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Documents/Custom/FGWYourViews.pdf 

As FGW say, at http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=443

We actively seek the views of our customers as regular feedback can help to plan improvements to our service.

[devon_metro]

Most of the Westvury staff are a credit to fgw. It wouldn't suprise me If it had been advertised that the following service might be quieter, however passengers being passengers will always join the first train that comes!

Also worth noting that staff on the ground are only informed of busy trains by control when they bother/know which are busy. If the traincrew request a notice at stations info can be passed on. With the lack if staff at Westbury, once the train has arrived it would be too late to put out an announcement as the member of staff is dispatching the train.

[Rogang]

Indeed - just to confirm that if Control are told by a Train Manager or Conductor that a service is full & standing, this is put out on the CIS^▸ (Customer Information System) immediately. I would also second Devon Metro's comments about Westbury staff - they are a credit to FGW^▸ (First Great Western)!

[Tim]

Indeed - just to confirm that if Control are told by a Train Manager or Conductor that a service is full & standing, this is put out on the CIS^▸ (Customer Information System) immediately. I would also second Devon Metro's comments about Westbury staff - they are a credit to FGW^▸ (First Great Western)!

I;ve been impressed with the guys at Westbury.  On one occasion they (together wuith a guard coming off duty) dealt manfully with a huge foul-up whereby loads od BTM^▸ (Bristol Temple Meads (strictly, it should be BRI)) meads trains terminated at Westbury withouyt much warning because of a mistake over the palnning of engerring works. 

They did there best to get everyone home eventually despite givingthe impression that they had been abandoned by control. 

[moonrakerz]

May I suggest that your daughter completes and sends in one of these - http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Documents/Custom/FGWYourViews.pdf 

As FGW^▸ (First Great Western) say, at http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=443

We actively seek the views of our customers as regular feedback can help to plan improvements to our service.

She did just that Chris, regret to say that the response appeared to be a machine generated one full of the usual platitudes, phrases written originally by a PR^▸ (Public Relations) man ! What I would call: "a bed bug letter".

It also arrived (e-mail) yesterday - do FGW really have people answering complaints over a Bank Holiday weekend ?

I have to say that this response was another:- "How NOT to do it " !

[smithy]

as said the staff at westbury are amongst the best FGW^▸ (First Great Western) have and i am sure they would have informed passengers wishing to travel sations to bristol.
but i have witnessed it myself when passengers must think the staff are lying and still choose to get on the busy service rather than waiting an extra 5 minutes and actually get a seat on a nice quiet train.

[moonrakerz]

as said the staff at westbury are amongst the best FGW^▸ (First Great Western) have and i am sure they would have informed passengers wishing to travel sations to bristol.
but i have witnessed it myself when passengers must think the staff are lying and still choose to get on the busy service rather than waiting an extra 5 minutes and actually get a seat on a nice quiet train.

I don't quite get your point here - my daughter said the platform staff were actually telling people to "move down inside the train" - which was nigh on impossible as the gangways and the vestibules were already packed with standing passengers.

No one said the staff were "lying" - that was the point - they said nothing. All they had to do was to say there was another (almost empty) train to Bristol 5 minutes later from the same platform. It would have been nice if someone had told the passengers that there was a choice, instead of cramming them in like cattle - having said that, the RSPCA would have been there like a shot, had it been cattle   

PS. The toilets weren't working either - not that anyone could get to them !

[Ollie]

Are you just assuming that the staff at Westbury had been told the following train was "almost empty"?

[moonrakerz]

Are you just assuming that the staff at Westbury had been told the following train was "almost empty"?

I am assuming that the staff at Westbury would KNOW that the SWT^▸ (South West Trains) trains are never busy because of where they are slotted into the timetable.  Cardiff train, as mentioned 1401, SWT train 1412 ! Not very likely to collect many passengers that close behind - wonder who did the timetabling ? FGW^▸ (First Great Western) or SWT ?

[paul7575]

The SWT^▸ (South West Trains) services wouldn't have had too many possibilities for timing them because they are portion worked off/on existing services from/to Waterloo.

Paul

[moonrakerz]

I must confess to being more than a little surprised by most of the responses to my OP^▸ (Original Poster / topic starter).

Apart from one, all of them have seemed to comment how good the staff at Westbury are - have I stirred up the "staff room" at Westbury, I ask myself ? 

I did, myself, comment favourably about the staff at Westbury (in a post a couple of weeks back) who were trying to organise things a little more efficiently - but in my daughter's case the system, for whatever reason, failed miserably. Not only for my daughter, but all the others who were either on the train, or couldn't get on it further down the line.
The complaints system from FGW^▸ (First Great Western) also failed, producing the usual "management" speak and totally ignoring the original problem.

When things work well, fine; when they don't work, that is when action needs to be taken. In this case the action taken was zero and no one here seems to be in the slightest bit perturbed.  I don't know how the revenue sharing works on this line, perhaps someone actually counts the bodies per train, that's why so many were being shoehorned into the FGW train - don't let the paying punter get on SWT^▸ (South West Trains) ?

Does anyone in FGW read this forum ? and is willing to make a meaningful comment .....................they say you get the service you deserve..................

[XPT]

I agree, the staff at Westbury were NOT very helpful in failing to mention to passengers that there was another service to Bristol just several minutes behind.   Why they failed to make that announcement, I too would be interested to know the reason behind this.   Not very helpful atall.   

Paul7755's comment above has me baffled.

I have been on those severely overcrowded services between Bristol and Salisbury a number of times, in particular on Sunday evenings.  Just a 2-car DMU^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) and crammed in like cattle.  Not nice atall.  And made me feel very sick too. 

[Graz]

Unfortunately this kind of stupidness happens sometimes at Bath Spa too. If a high speed train is running just a few minutes late ahead of the local Great Malvern train, the heaving crowds all jam into the local train without the staff at Bath Spa giving a hoot. They take bikes and all, and of course standing room only, the people at Oldfield Park and Keynsham don't stand much chance.

What should happen is on health and safety grounds, the staff should stop everyone going to Bristol Temple Meads from boarding, by checking tickets on entry, with only those going to Oldfield Park, Keynsham, and stations towards Great Malvern. At the very least, they could make an announcement asking passengers to only board if traveling to Oldfield Park and Keynsham. To my amazement this actually happened once, and unsurprisingly seats were free for Oldfield park and Keynsham passengers.

In your case moonrakerz I'm afraid it's another example of staff not being bothered. It would not have been much effort to prevent anyone from boarding on health and safety grounds if the SWT^▸ (South West Trains) was a few minutes behind. The delayed FGW^▸ (First Great Western) could also have left much quicker, and people would have had a much more comfortable ride being only a few minutes more late.

I'm afraid it seems you always have to assume passengers have NO common sense whatsoever- I'm surprised some of them even manage to get onto the right platform!

[paul7575]

Paul7755's comment above has me baffled.

Just noticed this.

A previous poster had wondered why the SWT^▸ (South West Trains) service ran just behind the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) service. I was just pointing out that there wouldn't have been any flexibility to retime it  because you'd have to retime the Waterloo or Exeter departures (which they split from and join) as well - which will be locked by SWT's overall timetable.

(Ideally you'd want trains equally spaced on the clockface - eg if 2 trains run 30 mins apart the pax should theroetically be shared 50/50)

Paul