Passenger "Mutiny" Due To Missed Stop At Swindon

[Trainmiles]

So what do bristol staff do with several hundred tired and grumpy passengers? That could degenerate into disorder quite quickly. Especially if some had been drinking.

I agree totally. I don't think there was a good outcome for this at all. To be honest, Bristol wasn't really the issue on the train, it is more Bath that the problems arose with the numbers trying to join the train.

 

[yorksrob]

No other industry in the UK gets away with producing so many regular customer service catastrophes.

Oh I don't know. There are plenty of industries that seem to be a constant customer service catastrophe. Utilities, banking etc.

 

[tommy2215]

If they had to cancel the additional stops because the train was severely crowded, then why did they add the additional stops in the first place? Given the mass cancellations at the time it was abundantly clear there would be hordes of people wanting the train and would make a probably already busy train severely severely overcrowded.

 

[Ken H]

So having read through the entire thread, I can conclude that absolutely no improvements will happen, and this sort of incident will recur in the future.

No other industry in the UK gets away with producing so many regular customer service catastrophes.

If we were to do root cause analysis, you would find a big resource problem that day. Why? Because it's a Sunday and it's resourced by overtime? Because there are not enough staff generally to operate the timetable? Why is there a staff shortage? Training disrupted by covid? Loads retiring at at the same time (all those baby boomers)?

One would hope the senior management at GWR, and at the DfT, are asking questions like these this week.

Oh I don't know. There are plenty of industries that seem to be a constant customer service catastrophe. Utilities, banking etc.

Do they really severely impact the lives of so many people in 1 go, like the railway managed on that day?

 

[yorksrob]

If we were to do root cause analysis, you would find a big resource problem that day. Why? Because it's a Sunday and it's resourced by overtime? Because there are not enough staff generally to operate the timetable? Why is there a staff shortage? Training disrupted by covid? Loads retiring at at the same time (all those baby boomers)?

One would hope the senior management at GWR, and at the DfT, are asking questions like these this week.


Do they really severely impact the lives of so many people in 1 go, like the railway managed on that day?

They seem to require constant regulation and intervention. I expect they've got as many serious complaints ongoing at any given time.

 

[MotCO]

If we were to do root cause analysis, you would find a big resource problem that day. Why? Because it's a Sunday and it's resourced by overtime? Because there are not enough staff generally to operate the timetable?

If nothing is done to fix it for this weekend, will even more train crew decide not to volunteer to work this Sunday (it's not worth all the hassle), which will mean this sort of overcrowding will recur and be even worse with fewer trains?

 

[Wolfie]

I know it would not have been ideal, but i think the Penzance to London train should have not stopped at Bristol for passengers to get on or off, as it was booked to do, as was already busy, so not really able to soak up lots more passengers, the TM could have made plenty of announcements before Taunton that train was now non stop Taunton to Reading, and not call Bristol, and would not be opening doors in Bristol even if stop for crew change, and state this over rides any other announcements made earlier in journey, and if need be have longer stop at Taunton for passengers to get off for Bristol, I realise its tough call to leave Bristol in the lurch but it would have avoided all the problems which later transpired, I think the TM needs to have authority, if he sees that his train is busy already and is likely to be swamped at Bristol, to over ride everyone and make call for train to run non stop Taunton to Reading, and stop start of platform, if need crew change, so that his train is not involved in severe over crowding etc.

I think too many people were involved in the decision making, which ended up confusing everyone and caused a meltdown in the end, when it simply could have been decided to run Taunton to reading non stop as booked. And in the big picture of things, it would have saved a heck of a lot of problems on the night.

Great for the railway, even more crap for passengers. Typical railway "they don't matter" attitude.

So having read through the entire thread, I can conclude that absolutely no improvements will happen, and this sort of incident will recur in the future.

No other industry in the UK gets away with producing so many regular customer service catastrophes.

Any other industry would rightly go bust and its staff on the dole. Frankly l start, when l read some postings from those in the industry, to think that would not be a bad thing.

So what do bristol staff do with several hundred tired and grumpy passengers? That could degenerate into disorder quite quickly. Especially if some had been drinking.

Agreed.

If we were to do root cause analysis, you would find a big resource problem that day. Why? Because it's a Sunday and it's resourced by overtime? Because there are not enough staff generally to operate the timetable? Why is there a staff shortage? Training disrupted by covid? Loads retiring at at the same time (all those baby boomers)?

One would hope the senior management at GWR, and at the DfT, are asking questions like these this week.


Do they really severely impact the lives of so many people in 1 go, like the railway managed on that day?

A useful and sensible analysis. As you say hopefully those who matter are considering those factors and will take the necessary action.

 

[robbeech]

This was exactly what the driver threatened and then the train would be cancelled at Swindon. This is why other people were then angry that the people who had pulled the passcom were getting what they wanted - it was really a no win situation. Really the train should have not have picked up at Bristol - every seat was occupied arriving at Bristol so it was a problem that was going to arise, especially advertised stopping at Swindon as well.

So essentially they found a way to turn passengers against eachother to stay out of the spotlight themselves for making such a dog’s dinner of running a train service (for whatever reason that may be).

No other industry in the UK gets away with producing so many regular customer service catastrophes.

As YorksRob says, poor customer service can be found in many industries nowadays.

I agree totally. I don't think there was a good outcome for this at all. To be honest, Bristol wasn't really the issue on the train, it is more Bath that the problems arose with the numbers trying to join the train.

Stopping at Swindon would have been a start. The train carried less people after it finally stopped there

They seem to require constant regulation and intervention. I expect they've got as many serious complaints ongoing at any given time.

The difference is that sort of regulation doesn’t really exist with the railway. The operators call the shots, they tell the regulators the rule.

If nothing is done to fix it for this weekend, will even more train crew decide not to volunteer to work this Sunday (it's not worth all the hassle), which will mean this sort of overcrowding will recur and be even worse with fewer trains?

There’s a chance that passengers will be even quicker to ‘kick off’ too, especially if things start to go awry.
This sort of thing needs to be risk assessed dynamically.

Risk of passengers disrupting service due to unsurpassable incompetence by the railway will have a higher score this week than last week. As such, different or more severe mitigation should be put into place to minimise this risk. However, nothing will be done because that’s not how the railway operates. We see perfect examples of this everytime there is a major event and (most) operators don’t strengthen services despite there being pathing, rolling stock and staff to do so quite comfortably.

 

[seagull]

Any other industry would rightly go bust and its staff on the dole. Frankly l start, when l read some postings from those in the industry, to think that would not be a bad thing.

And that sort of anti-rail and anti its-staff attitude seen here is why many staff who may be perfectly decent human beings and want to do a good job while at work, won't post on this forum.

 

[Western Sunset]

Does GW ever have contingency plans when major city stations (such as Bristol) have a long gap in their services due to various reasons? Are Bristol passengers told to travel via Bristol Parkway, for example, and catch a South Wales service? Or are those too full as well?

 

[Horizon22]

If we were to do root cause analysis, you would find a big resource problem that day. Why? Because it's a Sunday and it's resourced by overtime? Because there are not enough staff generally to operate the timetable? Why is there a staff shortage? Training disrupted by covid? Loads retiring at at the same time (all those baby boomers)?

All of the above really for Sundays, plus the lack of a true 7-day working week (of which GWR are not the only affected TOC).

Does GW ever have contingency plans when major city stations (such as Bristol) have a long gap in their services due to various reasons? Are Bristol passengers told to travel via Bristol Parkway, for example, and catch a South Wales service? Or are those too full as well?

Yes that's normally the contingency, although those services were also disrupted & busy.

 

[Wolfie]

And that sort of anti-rail and anti its-staff attitude seen here is why many staff who may be perfectly decent human beings and want to do a good job while at work, won't post on this forum.

I actually believe that most rail staff are perfectly decent people who want to do a good job to the best of their ability. Unfortunately there are a minority who behave very differently. Even more unfortunately many others implicitly side with them even if they'd never behave that way themselves - "us against them". Given that getting rid of the bad eggs seems to be beyond the railway there will inevitably be a reaction.

 

[Horizon22]

Stopping at Swindon would have been a start. The train carried less people after it finally stopped there

Possibly. But the train might have been even more full (and unsafe to depart) if some people who wanted Swindon (and Chippenham of course) had remained on-board, instead of leaving the train at Bath. We don't know how many that was, but I imagine it was a non-zero number. It was evidently enough to allow the train to safely depart.

I think it's going around in circles now though. The what and the why have been exhaustively posted - its more the "how" that is open to interpretation and while that was not ideal, it was a unique set of difficult circumstances to get a desirable outcome for all involved from.

 

[matt_world2004]

It was a decidedly unwise idea to threaten to return to Swindon if the passcom kept getting pulled when that is what a significant amount of passengers wanted to happen

 

[BayPaul]

I actually believe that most rail staff are perfectly decent people who want to do a good job to the best of their ability. Unfortunately there are a minority who behave very differently. Even more unfortunately many others implicitly side with them even if they'd never behave that way themselves - "us against them". Given that getting rid of the bad eggs seems to be beyond the railway there will inevitably be a reaction.

There are times when you wonder if TUPE is such a great thing. It is a shame that it isn't possible for a new operator to come in and not employ that minority, but clearly that will never happen, and the same attitudes will continue to tar the industry. I do look forward to seeing if Lumo, starting from scratch, with the opportunity to develop a completely new culture, might manage to crack customer service. Given that it's First, I suspect it won't.

 

[matt_world2004]

There are times when you wonder if TUPE is such a great thing. It is a shame that it isn't possible for a new operator to come in and not employ that minority, but clearly that will never happen, and the same attitudes will continue to tar the industry. I do look forward to seeing if Lumo, starting from scratch, with the opportunity to develop a completely new culture, might manage to crack customer service. Given that it's First, I suspect it won't.

I imagine the stress of the risk of unemployment every five years would cause a decline in morale that would be worse than trying to remove the few bad eggs at the end of the franchise and staff can be fired for giving bad customer service

 

[BayPaul]

I imagine the stress of the risk of unemployment every five years would cause a decline in morale that would be worse than trying to remove the few bad eggs at the end of the franchise and staff can be fired for giving bad customer service

True. But staff can't be fired for giving mediocre customer service, which is perhaps more the issue. I'm not seriously suggesting that removing TUPE would be the way to go, only that it prevents a new operator coming in and shaking things up.

 

[matt_world2004]

True. But staff can't be fired for giving mediocre customer service, which is perhaps more the issue. I'm not seriously suggesting that removing TUPE would be the way to go, only that it prevents a new operator coming in and shaking things up.

They can if the employer deems it to be a disqualifying part of their job.

 

[robbeech]

Possibly. But the train might have been even more full (and unsafe to depart) if some people who wanted Swindon (and Chippenham of course) had remained on-board, instead of leaving the train at Bath. We don't know how many that was, but I imagine it was a non-zero number. It was evidently enough to allow the train to safely depart.

It was my vague understanding that people boarding at Bath were told to wait for the next service to Chippenham and Swindon. This is absolutely NOT the same as saying this train will not call at those stations and doesn’t help anyone who was already on board.

I haven’t seen any non railway member confirm an announcement about not calling was made.
The only time I’ve heard about an announcement was by the GWR spokesperson and someone on here who works for you the operator. Both of these (with respect) have an interest in saying an announcement was made and they are safe that there’s no way to prove otherwise.
Of course I’m happy to be directed to something I have missed.

Additionally, as most passengers were NOT for Swindon we would maybe expect them to pipe up to say that there WERE announcements given their annoyance at the Swindon passengers, but I haven’t seen that either.

As such, I am leaning heavily towards there simply not being an announcement, at least before passengers had an opportunity to alight at Bath. Therefore a set down only* stop at Swindon would have been more efficient, safer, we wouldn’t be talking about it here and the passenger temper risk factor would not have increased for next weekend.

*One passenger confirms notably lighter loading AFTER Swindon.

either way the only ones to suffer are the passengers, and of course the tax payer, as they’ve already wiped their hands of it with their clever statement.

 

[BayPaul]

They can if the employer deems it to be a disqualifying part of their job.

Ok, but has it ever happened? I can just imagine what the union's attitude would be! Take this example (to bring it back closer to topic). Clearly a lot of people were let down by the system somewhere. The root cause of not enough staff is one thing, but the on the ground issues - adding extra stops into a train that clearly had no capacity to take them, then removing them without giving adequate notice to passengers, and apparently not realising that everything had been mucked up until the passcomm had been pulled - caused a lot of inconvenience to a lot of passengers. No one did anything deliberate, but good customer service clearly did not occur. In my industry, disciplinary action would have been taken against several people in a similar situation, probably not dismissal, but enough to make sure that the staff knew that their part in what had happened was unacceptable and they should take more care in the future. And as a result in my industry situations like this happen much more rarely, and are taken much more seriously when they do occur.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It was a decidedly unwise idea to threaten to return to Swindon if the passcom kept getting pulled when that is what a significant amount of passengers wanted to happen

Agreed. If they were going to threaten anything it would have made sense to threaten terminating the train there, which nobody on board wanted.

 

[74A]

So really it all comes down to the issue of at what point do the train crew refuse to take a train because it is too busy.

Personally living and commuting in London if you can shut the doors a train is OK to go.

The traincrew in this situation felt differently.

 

[Horizon22]

It was my vague understanding that people boarding at Bath were told to wait for the next service to Chippenham and Swindon. This is absolutely NOT the same as saying this train will not call at those stations and doesn’t help anyone who was already on board.

I haven’t seen any non railway member confirm an announcement about not calling was made.
The only time I’ve heard about an announcement was by the GWR spokesperson and someone on here who works for you the operator. Both of these (with respect) have an interest in saying an announcement was made and they are safe that there’s no way to prove otherwise.
Of course I’m happy to be directed to something I have missed.

Additionally, as most passengers were NOT for Swindon we would maybe expect them to pipe up to say that there WERE announcements given their annoyance at the Swindon passengers, but I haven’t seen that either.

As such, I am leaning heavily towards there simply not being an announcement, at least before passengers had an opportunity to alight at Bath. Therefore a set down only* stop at Swindon would have been more efficient, safer, we wouldn’t be talking about it here and the passenger temper risk factor would not have increased for next weekend.

*One passenger confirms notably lighter loading AFTER Swindon.

either way the only ones to suffer are the passengers, and of course the tax payer, as they’ve already wiped their hands of it with their clever statement.

Not making any statement on the announcements being made or not - as there's conflicting information (I would hope there was either on-board or at the station) - but the facts are that on arrival at Bath without any intervention it was deemed not safe to depart due to overcrowding. Then something changed - and the only thing that appears to have been is the not to call orders for Swindon & Chippenham (effectively special stop orders then rescinded) and then it was safe to depart. So evidently something changed. It has been reported the Train Manager was not happy to take the train without those stops being removed.

 

[matt_world2004]

I speculate that announcements were made however the quality of the PA for manual announcements probably meant that not everyone heard them . And the likelihood of hearing them was dependent on the position you were in the carriage , how loaded the carriage was and weather you were doing something to not pay attention to them (eg listening to.music or reading a book)

 

[island]

True. But staff can't be fired for giving mediocre customer service, which is perhaps more the issue.

They can if the employer deems it to be a disqualifying part of their job.

That doesn’t happen on the railway because of the strength of unions.

I renewed a Railcard a few weeks ago at the EMR booking office at St. Pancras. The shabby office was single staffed, by a lady who was not behind the counter but shambling around straightening pamphlets. When we entered the office she ignored us until I asked for assistance, and then walked at about 0.5 metres per second around the counter and logged in. After some mumbling, lots of typing, and eventually her relieving me of £30, I got the Railcard and realised it had been dated for the day of issue rather than the day after the old one expired. A correction was not forthcoming.

Suffice it to say, in any other customer service industry, staff who thought service like that was acceptable would be out of a job long, long ago.

 

[Fokx]

the guard can likewise work the train from the middle/rear cab.

No they can’t. The guard on an 800 series has to work from a local door

 

[Iskra]

So really it all comes down to the issue of at what point do the train crew refuse to take a train because it is too busy.

I suspect the answer is; at the point it starts to inconvenience them personally, which is probably the crux of the matter here, safety just being a convenient excuse. The train was already grossly overcrowded and many such overcrowded trains run perfectly fine when it coincides with the crews interests (getting home/signing off on time).

After such incidents, is there a GWR policy of internal investigation so that lessons can be shared and learnt? Or is it just a case of brushing it under the carpet and the same thing happening again and again?

 

[jon0844]

Not making any statement on the announcements being made or not - as there's conflicting information (I would hope there was either on-board or at the station) - but the facts are that on arrival at Bath without any intervention it was deemed not safe to depart due to overcrowding. Then something changed - and the only thing that appears to have been is the not to call orders for Swindon & Chippenham (effectively special stop orders then rescinded) and then it was safe to depart. So evidently something changed. It has been reported the Train Manager was not happy to take the train without those stops being removed.

Could this suggest an announcement about the train no longer calling at Swindon was made before the train departed from Bath, after a decision (and I assume announcements/revised info on the CIS) of the extra stops were made and conveyed to passengers and then withdrawn, and during the time people were boarding they were potentially not listening due to sound cancelling headphones, the noise of lots of people rushing on the train, talking to each other etc?

If the announcement was made only on the platform, it's possible people had already got on who would be oblivious.

 

[Horizon22]

Could this suggest an announcement about the train no longer calling at Swindon was made before the train departed from Bath, after a decision (and I assume announcements/revised info on the CIS) of the extra stops were made and conveyed to passengers and then withdrawn, and during the time people were boarding they were potentially not listening due to sound cancelling headphones, the noise of lots of people rushing on the train, talking to each other etc?

If the announcement was made only on the platform, it's possible people had already got on who would be oblivious.

I'm not sure at what exact point in the journey the decision was made to reverse the special stop orders for Chippenham & Swindon - it seems to be it was done at Bath whereby the crew weren't happy to take the train forward. But it may have been at some point before arriving at Bath that the TM noted how busy the service already was, estimated what would be happening at Bath, and confirmed with Control what would happen next.

 

[Ken H]

I'm not sure at what exact point in the journey the decision was made to reverse the special stop orders for Chippenham & Swindon - it seems to be it was done at Bath whereby the crew weren't happy to take the train forward. But it may have been at some point before arriving at Bath that the TM noted how busy the service already was, estimated what would be happening at Bath, and confirmed with Control what would happen next.

I am still trying to understand why a crush loaded train is unsafe.