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Stop the train i want to get off!

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Ianmel1969

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Pretty poor show from the guard in charge of the 1814 Winchester to Portsmouth Harbour train last night. Arriving 20 mins late from a problem near Waterloo i noticed on my phone the train was now due to miss out Portchester, Cosham and Hilsea to make up time. Trouble was at no point on the journey did the guard inform the passengers! So we had a few angry passengers making their way to find the guard when we got to Fratton. The display boards on the train still said we would be stopping at the above stations. Could the guard have not known about this? Obviously the driver knew.
 
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Bromley boy

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Pretty poor show from the guard in charge of the 1814 Winchester to Portsmouth Harbour train last night. Arriving 20 mins late from a problem near Waterloo i noticed on my phone the train was now due to miss out Portchester, Cosham and Hilsea to make up time. Trouble was at no point on the journey did the guard inform the passengers! So we had a few angry passengers making their way to find the guard when we got to Fratton. The display boards on the train still said we would be stopping at the above stations. Could the guard have not known about this? Obviously the driver knew.

Sounds like a break down in communications somewhere - there’s no way the guard would have known and not announced it. The driver may have assumed (or have been told in error) that the guard already knew.

But yes indeed. A poor showing by the TOC generally in not ensuring that information was passed on by somebody.
 

hounddog

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So what did the guard do after the first missed stop? Did he just assume the driver had made a mistake? How many stops does the train need to miss before the guard queries it?
 

tsr

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Sounds like a break down in communications somewhere - there’s no way the guard would have known and not announced it.

Most unlikely. It's usually painfully obvious to a guard that their train is to be amended in some way - whether via phone calls, emails from Control, PIS displaying something out of the ordinary, sheer late running meaning they're on the look-out for amendments, or as a last resort, by the actual issuing of the stop orders (which must normally be given by an appropriate authority before the train leaves the last booked stop before the amendment).

Certain TOCs also insist the driver and guard (where provided) agree their understanding of the calling pattern once they've been given stop orders. I can't comment in the case of SWR, but it wouldn't surprise me if that was their policy.

If the guard was completely uninformed then the train would be unlikely to get past 3 stations without the driver being asked if something was amiss - or the guard getting the train stopped.

A minority of guards around the country see no importance in passenger announcements, even if there is no functioning PIS system, for example, and will not make any attempt to tell passengers of changes. There are also problems with PA systems which may not be immediately evident, which could prevent information being relayed. One of these two reasons is probably present in this scenario. Neither are a good advertisement for the railway, but onboard staff on the whole do tend to do their best to announce changes, so I would never advocate any assumptions about random staff members.
 

Ianmel1969

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So what did the guard do after the first missed stop? Did he just assume the driver had made a mistake? How many stops does the train need to miss before the guard queries it?
The only time we heard the guard was just outside Fratton, when he just said we were waiting for a platform. I was near the front of the 12 car train and the guard was quite a long way back so i don't know what his reaction was as we sped past the scheduled stops! A few who wanted Portchester would have ended up an hour late when the eventually got there.
 

robbeech

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If the guard did know and didn't announce it then it is a serious failing on their part. To suggest this could never happen is in my opinion very short sighted. We sadly see many topics on here where a guard has failed to do something and whilst this represents a tiny tiny number of guards on a tiny tiny number of services and doesn't reflect the ability of a member of staff overall it does indicate that these mistakes do happen, at least in part due to the guard being human.

So the topic in general? If the guard knew the stops were to be missed out and didn't announce it, this is poor. If they DIDN'T know, then upon missing a stop they would surely make an announcement after contacting the driver urgently. If a second stop was missed without communicating with the driver one would assume that the guard would make a brake application (if a passenger hadn't already done this*).

Or pulled the cord etc dependent on its results on that stock.
 

swt_passenger

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I don't think it is that easy to edit a programmed calling pattern on an SWR Desiro, so in my experience if there are skip stops they almost always turn the automatic system off and do it all over the PA. What has happened here seems highly unusual to me...
 
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I am aware that sometimes the PA might be working in the part of the train where the guard is located but perhaps not in all parts of a 12 car train. No idea if this happened on this occasion but the guard may have not realised if the announcement was ok where he was located. Very inconvenient none the less especially on a cold evening.
 

Jimini

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This happened on a late running train I was on from Liverpool Street to Hertford East a couple of weeks ago (I got on at Tottenham Hale). I'd clocked from the National Rail app that the calls at Ponders End, Brimsdown, Enfield Lock and Waltham X had all been cancelled and it was running fast to Cheshunt. Obviously this is in DOO land, so the driver definitely knew! Plenty of angry folk at Cheshunt as a result.
 

ComUtoR

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If the guard was completely uninformed then the train would be unlikely to get past 3 stations without the driver being asked if something was amiss - or the guard getting the train stopped.

How did it get past 3 stops without getting passcomed :/ Passengers would have been in uproar after the first missed stop surely ? Something seems odd with this story.
 

Harbouring

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Lack of announcements of Short platforms is also a regular occurrence in my experience, unless you miss them at your origin (and if that origin is London Waterloo it’s almost impossible to get that info out to every passenger via automated announcements)

More than once I’ve been on trains to Fratton towards the back of a ten car and see people running forward after the train platforms
 

Ianmel1969

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How did it get past 3 stops without getting passcomed :/ Passengers would have been in uproar after the first missed stop surely ? Something seems odd with this story.
Well, remember it was a long train (12 car) and dark outside so some passengers might not have been aware of where exactly the train was (or for that matter the guard). I saw one man waiting at the door for his Portchester stop as we sped past Cosham! I have no idea what was going on in other carriages, i only saw a few confused and angry passengers when they got off at Fratton. I can only think as somebody mentioned there was a problem with the PA in some carriages and the guard wasn't aware of it otherwise you would hope he would have gone up and down the train telling people of the change of stops.
 

Bromley boy

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A minority of guards around the country see no importance in passenger announcements, even if there is no functioning PIS system, for example, and will not make any attempt to tell passengers of changes. There are also problems with PA systems which may not be immediately evident, which could prevent information being relayed.

The PA scenario seems plausible.

I like to think no guard would deliberately fail to announce skip-stops. Even putting passenger convenience aside, it would be an incredibly stupid and self-defeating thing to do as it guarantees a group of (justifiably) angry passengers and gives a high likelihood of a passcom being pulled.
 

robbeech

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As someone who works in audio reproduction for live events and installation (although very little on transport but the concept is the same) it is something that is annoying me more than it should how poor quality the PA systems are on board trains. The mixture of staff not being trained properly to use the equipment efficiently, or just not being bothered, and equipment that is faulty and quite clearly not tested from day to week to month to year is causing alsorts of problems all over the country for what is likely the smallest of issues. Maybe i should branch out and contact the TOCs with a service plan for their stock.
I'm not sure what the line speed is through these stations, nor the track layout as it isn't somewhere i have been more than once (if at all, i can't remember), but a question for those that do know. Google maps shows this as 2 tracks with no fast lines up the middle so we can assume the train runs fast through the platform. One assumes that if passengers ON the train were unaware the train wasn't stopping and PIS at stations prior wasn't informing passengers boarding the train that it wasn't stopping that it is likely that passengers waiting at the stations that the train failed to call at may have been expecting it to stop too. This poses a considerable safety risk if they are perhaps closer to the platform edge than they would be if they expected the train to be stopping and were preparing to board. They are likely used to fast trains running through but if they are waiting for this train it could be quite dangerous.
 

PeterC

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Well, remember it was a long train (12 car) and dark outside so some passengers might not have been aware of where exactly the train was (or for that matter the guard). I saw one man waiting at the door for his Portchester stop as we sped past Cosham! I have no idea what was going on in other carriages, i only saw a few confused and angry passengers when they got off at Fratton. I can only think as somebody mentioned there was a problem with the PA in some carriages and the guard wasn't aware of it otherwise you would hope he would have gone up and down the train telling people of the change of stops.
Happened to SWMBO once. We were visiting friends on Norfolk (Lingwood I think) and she was coming straight from work. Her carriage stopped outside the station and she assumed that they were simply held at a signal and ended up in Yarmouth. (I assumed that she had missed the train and drove to Norwich to meet the next one). No on board PA in those days and no mobiles.
 

Bookd

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A slight diversion, although the issue of selective door opening was raised earlier.
As 10 car trains are more usual on Windsor line trains from Waterloo there are usually announcements that Feltham passengers must be on the front 7 coaches; when they were first introduced the carriages were lettered A - K and the announcements said which were invalid; as far as I know on Southern the screens show 'you are in carriage 8 of 12 or whatever.
While I think that I know what I am doing on late night trains from Waterloo I have to think twice about how long the train is and count back from the concourse to be in the right carriage.
On a recent journey (when I was originally in the wrong place) a wheelchair passenger with assisted boarding was placed in my carriage before the guard moved him to the correct one - as I had a seat I stayed put and moved forward (along with lots of others) after leaving Twickenham.
Unless you know which carriage you are in it would be easy to make a mistake.
 

the sniper

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Seems highly unlikely to me that the Guard deliberately wouldn't have announced it if they'd known they were skipping stops. If nothing else, even if they weren't 'customer focused', they'd know they'd have to put up with a load of grief either at the next stop or with passcoms going off. As such it wouldn't be a matter of just not bothering to announce it.

I'd say either they've accidentally forgotten about it between being told originally and getting to the station preceding this fast running, so didn't remember to announce it there, or they hadn't been told and only found out after calling the driver after they'd gone through the first station without stopping... The former would seem more likely, but the latter is possible, particularly if there's been a crew/Guard change somewhere along the train's journey?
 

Antman

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I witnessed something similar on a late running Southeastern service which ran fast from Maidstone East to Ashford without prior notification, the guard told angry passengers who wanted intermediate stations that nobody had told him about it. Would the driver be responsible for making an announcement in that situation?
 
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Bromley boy

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I witnessed something on a late running Southeastern service which ran fast from Maidstone East to Ashford without prior notification, the guard told angry passengers who wanted intermediate stations that nobody had told him about it. Would the driver be responsible for making an announcement in that situation?

If, say, the instruction came from the signaller to the driver that the stopping pattern was amended during the course of the journey then yes the driver would need to announce it, or more likely inform the guard so that he could (perhaps ny making an announcement "can the guard contact the driver").
 
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yorksrob

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I witnessed something on a late running Southeastern service which ran fast from Maidstone East to Ashford without prior notification, the guard told angry passengers who wanted intermediate stations that nobody had told him about it. Would the driver be responsible for making an announcement in that situation?

Why on earth would they run the Vic - Ashford stopper fast ? That service is primarily of use to intermediate passengers.
 

Antman

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Why on earth would they run the Vic - Ashford stopper fast ? That service is primarily of use to intermediate passengers.

Stations between Maidstone East and Ashford aren't that well used and there was another train not far behind, just a shame nobody informed passengers. They got back on board and the train served their intended station on the return journey to Victoria.
 

pompeyfan

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Does sound very odd. I have to ask did you (and others) have headphones in by any chance? Perhaps the alteration was mentioned in with the usual greeting/security message and so was ignored? Like others have said, no guard would intentionally not inform passengers.

The quality of the PA is poor but where no unit would normally spend more than a couple of days together it’s tricky to track down the issue.

In response to the comment about short platforms. The automated system announces passengers to move forward, the guard should be making principal announcements and you’ve also got Station CIS screens and audio...
 

robbeech

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The quality of the PA is poor but where no unit would normally spend more than a couple of days together it’s tricky to track down the issue.

I appreciate fast turn around times and lack of spare time for maintenance and one can argue that it is best to have the train running in service. It would be silly to expect every train with a non working PA system to be taken out of service until it was fixed, primarily because we would lose most of the stock. That said I thought that you couldn’t put one into service if it wasn’t working at all?
But there has to be some maintenance plan surely. I’m not convinced that they are even tested at any sensible frequency (excuse the pun). There are units that have had faulty speakers for months and months on VTEC. But then again, 91108 has had the right hand tail lamp inoperative for at least 2 weeks now and has been happily running in service so fixing a few speakers is likely not top of the list.
 

robbeech

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In response to the comment about short platforms. The automated system announces passengers to move forward, the guard should be making principal announcements and you’ve also got Station CIS screens and audio...

This is good, until the automated system thinks you’re at Hendon for the entire journey like a portion of 700s do. Or the guard doesn’t bother to make the principle announcements, or as discussed the pa has failed. Station announcements tend to be better overall than on train ones but you can still get fights between a manual announcement telling you a train will run fast and automated announcements listing all the stops due to them not altering it. It’s not uncommon for automated announcements to announce a platform alteration, a manual announcement quickly saying there is no alteration and the train will depart from its original platform and then the train to arrive on the altered one, set down passengers and then leave before anyone at the station knows what’s happening.
 

pompeyfan

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I appreciate fast turn around times and lack of spare time for maintenance and one can argue that it is best to have the train running in service. It would be silly to expect every train with a non working PA system to be taken out of service until it was fixed, primarily because we would lose most of the stock. That said I thought that you couldn’t put one into service if it wasn’t working at all?
But there has to be some maintenance plan surely. I’m not convinced that they are even tested at any sensible frequency (excuse the pun). There are units that have had faulty speakers for months and months on VTEC. But then again, 91108 has had the right hand tail lamp inoperative for at least 2 weeks now and has been happily running in service so fixing a few speakers is likely not top of the list.

If it’s discovered that the entire PA system isn’t working the relevant MCBs will be tripped and reinstated to try and rectify the problem.

I’m almost certain the rule book states a train without a working cab to cab or PA can’t begin a journey, it also says to try to lock the coach out of use if the PA is defective in that area. The problem is the guard can’t feasible know if their PA is working correctly. It’s like trying to check your own brake lights without the use of a reflection.


This is good, until the automated system thinks you’re at Hendon for the entire journey like a portion of 700s do. Or the guard doesn’t bother to make the principle announcements, or as discussed the pa has failed. Station announcements tend to be better overall than on train ones but you can still get fights between a manual announcement telling you a train will run fast and automated announcements listing all the stops due to them not altering it. It’s not uncommon for automated announcements to announce a platform alteration, a manual announcement quickly saying there is no alteration and the train will depart from its original platform and then the train to arrive on the altered one, set down passengers and then leave before anyone at the station knows what’s happening.

I appreciate what you’re saying, but the Railway must be having a pretty bad day if all 3 safeguards against that fail. If the guard isn’t making principal announcements I very much doubt they’ll bother to mention individual short platforms. Maybe that’s a management/training need issue.

You also mention the fact that sometimes the automated system contradicts the manual information. This is true. The usual method around that would be to put the ‘SWR’ code in. You can only do that from the front guards office or from the leading cab. If the driver is following restrictive aspects they’re not going to appreciate being buzzed up for something which they may see as trivial.

The intention during the refurb is to get rid of the guards office which means only the driver will be able to put in codes, again, anything but greens and they’re not going to answer. That said, the plan for the refurb does include PIS that can be updated remotely, whether or not that includes in areas of poor mobile reception remains to be seen. Diesels and 455/456 and other stock are different too.
 

waynemorrell

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Does sound very odd. I have to ask did you (and others) have headphones in by any chance?

In response to the comment about short platforms. The automated system announces passengers to move forward, the guard should be making principal announcements and you’ve also got Station CIS screens and audio...

LOL reminds me of the time I was on an 8 car 350 en route to Crewe, the announcements were made and were crystal clear about short platforms at Atherstone, we pulled into the station and a bloke with headphones appeared at a set of doors in the rear set and therefore couldn’t allight, I remember him pelting through the train towards the front set, don’t know if he made it in time though.

I do agreee that one some trains the tannoy is poor though, in another incident I was on a EMT dmu in the summer, Liverpool to Manchester,I think it was the Norwich train possibly a 156 or 158. 4 car.

We stopped in the platform at Hunts Cross, obviously knew something was wrong as we weren't booked to call there, an announcement was made but was inaudible.

In the end the TM walked through the train advising everyone that there was a bridge strike near Widnes so she obviously knew about the tannoy, unless a fellow pax reported it.

Moved slowly forward to Widnes were we sat for a while, called at Warrington. Train was FAS from there. 29 late into Piccadilly.
 
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swt_passenger

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A slight diversion, although the issue of selective door opening was raised earlier.
As 10 car trains are more usual on Windsor line trains from Waterloo there are usually announcements that Feltham passengers must be on the front 7 coaches; when they were first introduced the carriages were lettered A - K and the announcements said which were invalid; as far as I know on Southern the screens show 'you are in carriage 8 of 12 or whatever.
The 458/5 system is a bit of a lash up, the only way to internally display the position information is the cardboard 'letter' signs on the bulkheads. Each carriage deals with its own auto door opening, on the basis of 'open the doors having passed a balise', rather than controlling the whole train from the leading cab.
However the 450 and 444 ASDO displays are very similar to what happens on Southern, telling you exactly which numbered coach you are in. Their auto PA can announce "passengers for <station> must move forwards from this part of the train".
 

waynemorrell

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Pretty poor show from the guard in charge of the 1814 Winchester to Portsmouth Harbour train last night. Arriving 20 mins late from a problem near Waterloo i noticed on my phone the train was now due to miss out Portchester, Cosham and Hilsea to make up time. Trouble was at no point on the journey did the guard inform the passengers! So we had a few angry passengers making their way to find the guard when we got to Fratton. The display boards on the train still said we would be stopping at the above stations. Could the guard have not known about this? Obviously the driver knew.


I wonder if pax would be entitled to use the passcom in such a situation ?
 
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