TimboM
Established Member
- Joined
- 12 Apr 2016
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Instructional video re northbound shunt operation courtesy of Cambria Junction/BRX:
Instructional video re northbound shunt operation courtesy of Cambria Junction/BRX:
Seems the MK5's have not left Euston yet - nearly an hour late. The inbound ECS ran nearly two hours late. Couple of complaints coming in on Twitter.
Yes, they do have staff dedicated to customer service at Euston, but not enough to look after the numbers of people involved waiting for the delayed boarding of a fully booked Lowlander.Do CS employ customer service staff at Euston, or have an arrangement with Virgin Trains or Network rail to cover this ?
In the short term at least, providing some face to face customer service on the station while people wait several hours would seem pretty sensible. Cup of tea while people wait? It’s worrying how heavily Joe public searching @CalSleeper would be greeted with a lot of really poor passenger experiences just now. Hope their lack of good fortune with the stock changes soon.
There are staff on the platform and they are perfectly nice but have no information and so you are just left there standing on a really horrible platform with no seats and no idea whether to go to the pub or not.Do CS employ customer service staff at Euston, or have an arrangement with Virgin Trains or Network rail to cover this ?
In the short term at least, providing some face to face customer service on the station while people wait several hours would seem pretty sensible. Cup of tea while people wait? It’s worrying how heavily Joe public searching @CalSleeper would be greeted with a lot of really poor passenger experiences just now. Hope their lack of good fortune with the stock changes soon.
Agreed, when you take people's sleep away from them after promising them hotel luxury and replace it with Euston at it's worst, don't be expecting anything other than extreme annoyance and very bad word of mouth about your product.It’s always the basics that let them down. If the lounge isn’t an option, some plastic chairs, a trolley and a flask of tea. A partial automatic same day refund as quite clearly the service promised hasn’t been provided.
Beyond delay repay, there is a more emotive human issue, which is the desire of most people to be heading to bed / winding down for the day at 10.30/11 ish. No wonder the people waiting an hour later are cranky.
I’ve said to so many people over the years, try out the sleeper it’s brilliant. I’d hate for anyone to have one of these experiences.
Perhaps CS should be investing in opening a lounge of their own at Euston. Perhaps they could relocate their brick outhouse from Leuchars..?
There used to be one - it was a Portakabin which was situated in that dead space (is it bike racks at the moment?) at the end of platform 17.
When did this exist and when did it stop getting used?
There used to be one - it was a Portakabin which was situated in that dead space (is it bike racks at the moment?) at the end of platform 17.
I wonder if anyone has any photos? I for one never saw it, but then I only came to use the sleeper regularly in about 2014, so it was probably long gone by then. Presumably it wasn't well used?
CS and their partners should (and are) putting their limited and finite resources (people and £££) fully into resolving the issues with the stock so it is coming in on time regularly as soon as possible, not diverting them away from that core objective by spending thousands on extra staff/facilities at Euston for the occasions when the stock may be late.
If there's to be a facility available at a moment's notice to accommodate tens/hundreds of passengers on the odd night a month the stock is late (once things settle down) it would need to be in place and staffed all nights the Sleeper is running. In the real world you cannot magic up staff, building, heat, light, provisions, security etc within a few minutes once or twice a month when needed at 10pm at night. More often than not when there's a delay it's also a dynamic and developing (or deteriorating!) situation at the depot - it's not as simple as knowing at (say) 20:00 the stock won't be in until 23:00 and that the 'alternative facilities' would definitely be needed.
Providing such a 'full-time' facility directs resource to the symptom, not the root cause - far better to spend the money on getting the root causes fixed ASAP so the stock comes in on time.
Well actually I am. Sharing the Virgin lounge at Euston is ok but it is not great when it’s busy and doesn’t really shout “great Scottish hotel on wheels” to me. CS have invested heavily in lounges with showers at Scottish stations - they spent an eye watering sum at Perth renovating the former offices on platform 4 - albeit these were part of the franchise specification. It just seems a bit surprising not to have gone one step futher to obtain and develop a space of their own at Euston especially given that it is probably the most intensely used of all the CS origin/destination stations, as the vast majority of passengers will pass through there one way or the other. The work that’s kicking off at Euston just now would be an ideal chance to find somewhere to slot in a CS lounge.nobody is talking about it being a permanent facility.
Seconded. And I'm far from a country bumpkin!The point I woud add is that Euston and the area immediately surrounding it can be a pretty intimidating place late at night if you’re just visiting London and you’re not used to the city, especially once everywhere starts closing and the concourse empties. Well this country bumpkin finds it a bit intimidating anyway.
Thirded. And I worked on the Euston Road for many years.Seconded. And I'm far from a country bumpkin!
Maybe they should have their own lounge at Euston but, for now, we have a luxury train advertised as boarding at 10pm which is hit and miss at making 11pm, and nowhere for anyone to go when it doesn't.
I use the sleeper a lot less now than I did in Scotrail days, my work travel patterns have changed a lot, but I got caught with a heavily delayed Highlander at Euston one night. It got cancelled and used as a hotel in the end. I wasn't that bothered myself, but what was upsetting was seeing people with small kids and dogs, confused foreign tourists and people on a trip of a lifetime, all milling around P15 baffled until there was a clear line on what would happen next to their night's sleep - and that was only at 9pm.
I take @TimboM's point that CS need to concentrate on getting the advertised service right but there is an immediate human and reputational cost that needs to be mitigated in the circumstances of serious delay to boarding at either end of the line.
Remembering what I saw on the Highlander, I suspect that a lot of the Twitter abuse they're taking is from newbies who have been persuaded to take the Lowlander because of the new trains. There's nothing new to boarding hold ups, but in the old days the majority of Lowlander users would've seen it all before and not spouted off on social media.
Agreed. It's really simple...for every single night you don't get the train in to the platform on time you need to have a plan for where you will host those passengers until it does arrive. Also agree it is a nonsense that Euston is station with the biggest concentration of sleeper passengers and the least provision for waiting in comfort.I suspect a lot of the abuse is because, the service is being advertised as a hotel on wheels, passengers paying anything up to £400 single passenger, the Lowland sleeper is advertised as boarding from 10pm at Euston[the train should be at the platforms around 9.30pm], quite often since the introduction of the new mk5 stock, it hasn't left Wembley depot until gone 11pm in some cases gone midnight, passengers wanting to turn in for the night, are being left on platforms/concourses with most of the station shops closed, wondering where there train is, & by the time the Lowlander train arrives in Euston, chances of getting a decent night sleep have gone, it's not good publicity for CS.