Im sorry to say Avanti put on a poor show today.
Firstly, the messages provided on board the service I was on from London were not particularly clear-essentially just telling customers the train was terminating at Crewe & to change for onward connections.
At Crewe, whilst there seemed to be a number of staff around, there was no coordinated effort made to assist customers. True, you could ask, but on arrival at P12, I would have expected some guidance (not for me, but those less familiar with the network). Instead, it was every man, woman & domestic animal to their own.
Although announcements were made, these were often contradictory, with passengers getting shunted between P11, P9 & P6 for an onward train to Chester. It didn’t help that the 11:10 Euston-Chester was itself delayed due to an earlier signalling issue, but the advice provided could & should have been much better.
To add to the heady mix, the automated announcements were left on, so whilst passengers were being (rightly) told about travelling via Chester to get to Liverpool, an automated announcement would then kick in to announce a non-existent train direct to Liverpool!
Now as someone who is well versed in how the rail system works, I can work things out for myself, but I felt really sorry for the majority of punters today, who will have been really messed around purely due to a seeming lack of decent management on the ground.
