Another paralympian delayed disembarking

Wolfie · 22 Aug 2019

Another epic fail in providing support to a Paralympian....

London Evening Standard "Paralympic gold medallist humiliated and in tears after being left stranded in wheelchair on train"

"An eight-time Paralympic gold medallist says she was reduced to tears after she was left stranded on train when the operator failed to provide her with ramps to get on and off.
Equestrian Sophie Christiansen was forced to rely on members of the public after her calls to South Western Railway for assistance went unanswered.
Video footage shows one member of the public preventing the train doors from closing with Ms Christiansen stuck on board, before a ramp was finally organised to help her disembark."

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/...stranded-in-wheelchair-on-train-a4219381.html

RailUK Forums

LordCreed · 22 Aug 2019

Whilst I do have a great deal of sympathy for those requiring assistance on trains, it seems to me that the guard didn't know she was on the train given that she was lifted on by members of the public.

Does Waterloo work in the same way to other NR stations, where passengers requiring help need to go to an assistance lounge?

paddington · 23 Aug 2019

She tried to call them but nobody answered.
She then tweeted them and the twitter team said they informed the guard.
This evidently did not happen as the guard did not arrange a ramp for her to board.
It looks like the guard only found out when she tried to disembark, after he had tried to close the doors but a passenger held them open.

JN114 · 23 Aug 2019

I wouldn’t exactly call it an epic fail. It would seem that once SWR were aware that Ms Christiansen was in need of assistance they did everything in their power to assist her and try and make good the situation as swiftly as possible.

It appears that the lines of communication broke down
1) preventing Ms Christiansen from informing SWR of her intent to travel in advance
and
2) preventing the social media team from informing the traincrew of the situation in a timely manner.

My question would be if other members of the public were so kind-spirited to help her on the train; why did they not seek out the guard to ensure they knew she was on board and preparations made in advance to assist her off. And perhaps query where the guard was in all of this to not notice this customer being on the train. But I fear it will all get lost in the oncoming outrage...

duncanp · 23 Aug 2019

why did they not seek out the guard to ensure they knew she was on board and preparations made in advance to assist her off.

That's what I thought.

If there was a guard on the train, it would be much better to inform him or her of the presence of a wheelchair user, which would have enabled the provision of assistance at Godalming at lot quicker.

The problem with her tweeting SWR once already on the train is that this is a lot less efficient means of arranging assistance, because the twitter team have to alert control, control have to inform the station staff or guard, and this can cause delays depending on how busy everyone is.

The other thing I am not clear about is that Waterloo is a Network Rail managed station, with an information desk, and all barriers are staffed.

Could the wheelchair user not have spoken to someone and made sure that assistance was arranged before getting on the train.

There is a reasonably frequent service to Godalming, so any delays involved would not have been too great.

I know the situation is not ideal for disabled people (I am disabled myself) but I do think that some of the suggestions in the article are impractical, such as all trains have automatic ramps as happens on London buses.

bionic · 23 Aug 2019

JN114 said:
And perhaps query where the guard was in all of this to not notice this customer being on the train

Not all SWR guards are commercial guards and it's my understanding that non-commercial guards remain in the back cab while commercial guards are meant to walk through doing tickets. If this was a case of a non-commercial guard then they wouldn't have known she was on the train unless a) they saw or b) they were told.

I've had wheelchairs on my train countless times and not been told about it. Its hardly "news".

Antman · 23 Aug 2019

Sadly for the young lady she is different. In that she needs a chair. Her life will always be different. And the railways do lots and lots to assist. SWR has presumably every train with disabled access and almost all with disabled toilets. It is inevitable that there will be times when the dots aren’t joined. Because that it life.

£3m has recently spent a fortune on new lifts for, inter alia, disabled access at Godalming. Lord knows how they cost that much, but this is railway contracting.... so the facilities are there.

Sometimes it just doesn’t all hang together. And yes, it looks like SWR didn’t join up dots, but if I needed assistance, I’d have been making damned sure I’d done everything at the Waterloo or wherever gates I entered. And even then, it can go wrong. At least she’s been extremely dignified about it. Unlike some other recent high profile incidents. She has my complete sympathy, and railways should do all they can, yet ultimately, for some human and logistical failings, it sometimes just won’t work....

OneOffDave · 23 Aug 2019

Justapunter said:
Sadly for the young lady she is different. In that she needs a chair. Her life will always be different. And the railways do lots and lots to assist. SWR has presumably every train with disabled access and almost all with disabled toilets. It is inevitable that there will be times when the dots aren’t joined. Because that it life.

£3m has recently spent a fortune on new lifts for, inter alia, disabled access at Godalming. Lord knows how they cost that much, but this is railway contracting.... so the facilities are there.

Sometimes it just doesn’t all hang together. And yes, it looks like SWR didn’t join up dots, but if I needed assistance, I’d have been making damned sure I’d done everything at the Waterloo or wherever gates I entered. And even then, it can go wrong. At least she’s been extremely dignified about it. Unlike some other recent high profile incidents. She has my complete sympathy, and railways should do all they can, yet ultimately, for some human and logistical failings, it sometimes just won’t work....

I commute into Waterloo in my chair every day and experience an assistance fail on about 10% of journeys. The DDA has been on place since 1995 and yet still 24 years later TOCs can't get their act together enough to make the network accessible for disabled people. Waterloo doesn't have a 'lounge' where disabled people can go to sort the assistance having to go to the information desk (if open) or station reception. Station reception is too far from the gates to get the to platform in time given how late the trains are announced at Waterloo. During disruption, the concourse becomes unsafe for wheelchair users. I've had a number of people fall over me due to the overcrowding. There's no point telling the staff at the gates as they say it's not their job and don't pass on the message. Now my approach is to prevent the train leaving if I can't get on or off.

Non-disabled people always seek to downplay how often this happens and tone-police disabled people. They should try having 10% of all their train journeys disrupted and never knowing on each journey if this is going to be one of them. This is on top of the disruption and delays that affect everyone else travelling. If your system fails this often, then it's obviously not fit for purpose.

SWR is also having significant lift issues as well with the ones from platform 1&2 at Surbiton failing every couple of days for the last month or so. Earlsfield lost it's lift for over a month in June too.

duncanp · 23 Aug 2019

I commute into Waterloo in my chair every day and experience an assistance fail on about 10% of journeys.

Out of interest, how do things work for the 90% of your journeys where there the system works?

Do you arrive at Waterloo, go straight through the barriers and ask the guard to deploy the ramp?

If not, do you have to arrange things in advance, and if so how do you do this?

What, in your opinion, is the reason why the system fails 10% of the time (eg staff shortage, communication failure etc.)

vikingdriver · 23 Aug 2019

bionic said:
Not all SWR guards are commercial guards and it's my understanding that non-commercial guards remain in the back cab while commercial guards are meant to walk through doing tickets. If this was a case of a non-commercial guard then they wouldn't have known she was on the train unless a) they saw or b) they were told.

I've had wheelchairs on my train countless times and not been told about it. Its hardly "news".

Even non commercial guards are meant to patrol their train.

hwl · 23 Aug 2019

OneOffDave said:
I commute into Waterloo in my chair every day and experience an assistance fail on about 10% of journeys. The DDA has been on place since 1995 and yet still 24 years later TOCs can't get their act together enough to make the network accessible for disabled people. Waterloo doesn't have a 'lounge' where disabled people can go to sort the assistance having to go to the information desk (if open) or station reception. Station reception is too far from the gates to get the to platform in time given how late the trains are announced at Waterloo. During disruption, the concourse becomes unsafe for wheelchair users. I've had a number of people fall over me due to the overcrowding. There's no point telling the staff at the gates as they say it's not their job and don't pass on the message. Now my approach is to prevent the train leaving if I can't get on or off.

Non-disabled people always seek to downplay how often this happens and tone-police disabled people. They should try having 10% of all their train journeys disrupted and never knowing on each journey if this is going to be one of them. This is on top of the disruption and delays that affect everyone else travelling. If your system fails this often, then it's obviously not fit for purpose.

SWR is also having significant lift issues as well with the ones from platform 1&2 at Surbiton failing every couple of days for the last month or so. Earlsfield lost it's lift for over a month in June too.

I've certainly witnessed quite a bit of assistance fail at Waterloo so 10% is probably a conservative number.
Railway lift in general don't appear to be that reliable compared to TfL.
There is one semi-regular chair user on the SWML stopping side who just propels themselves on to the platform from the train and appears to have given up on the assistance /ramp concept for exit.

OneOffDave · 23 Aug 2019

duncanp said:
Out of interest, how do things work for the 90% of your journeys where there the system works?

Do you arrive at Waterloo, go straight through the barriers and ask the guard to deploy the ramp?

If not, do you have to arrange things in advance, and if so how do you do this?

What, in your opinion, is the reason why the system fails 10% of the time (eg staff shortage, communication failure etc.)

Basically they work because I am on the same train most of the time and I know the station staff at FNB who are very good at letting Waterloo know. When I can get to the Information desk at Waterloo I get them to arrange ramp assistance but often by the time I get to the train, the guard will see me and get me on the train. Staff at FNB are looking out for me in the evening again as I've been doing the journey for nearly three years. Failure modes include the new system for platform allocation at Waterloo which makes it very difficult for the assistance staff to know which platform you will arrive on as this is often determined only 100 yards outside of the station. Staff being taken from FNB to cover other stations is a common cause for failure too. The staffing at Waterloo has changed recently and the back office are really poor at passing on accurate information to the destination station. Most of the guards on my route are pretty good at walking the train and are familiar with me too so will be looking out at Waterloo or FNB. I stopped pre-booking assistance as I found it made no difference. It's also difficult to book assistance for my journey home as I could catch a range of trains depending on when I can get away from the office. On the whole, I've found the on-board and station staff (excluding gate staff) helpful and most of the issues are communications and staffing level related

OneOffDave · 23 Aug 2019

hwl said:
I've certainly witnessed quite a bit of assistance fail at Waterloo so 10% is probably a conservative number.
Railway lift in general don't appear to be that reliable compared to TfL.
There is one semi-regular chair user on the SWML stopping side who just propels themselves on to the platform from the train and appears to have given up on the assistance /ramp concept for exit.

That might have been me on a few occasions! The response to lift failures doesn't seem as responsive as TfL

GodAtum · 23 Aug 2019

LordCreed said:
Whilst I do have a great deal of sympathy for those requiring assistance on trains, it seems to me that the guard didn't know she was on the train given that she was lifted on by members of the public.

Does Waterloo work in the same way to other NR stations, where passengers requiring help need to go to an assistance lounge?

I dont understand, she got off the train at her stop according to the news report, even though she had to wait?

3141 · 23 Aug 2019

JN114 said:
My question would be if other members of the public were so kind-spirited to help her on the train; why did they not seek out the guard to ensure they knew she was on board and preparations made in advance to assist her off. And perhaps query where the guard was in all of this to not notice this customer being on the train. But I fear it will all get lost in the oncoming outrage...

I don't think it would occur to me to tell the guard, if I'd helped a person in a wheelchair get on board or seen others helping.

I wonder if she asked anyone to let the guard know they'd helped her on board. I suspect it's the kind of detail that easily gets overlooked at the time. The focus of those involved, including the passenger, is getting her onto the train, and she apparently expected to sort out how to get off by tweeting SWR.

OneOffDave · 23 Aug 2019

GodAtum said:
I dont understand, she got off the train at her stop according to the news report, even though she had to wait?

But without the intervention of other passengers, the doors would have closed and she would have been over carried. Also what's an acceptable wait? 5 minutes, 10, 20?

David M · 23 Aug 2019

I fail to see the relevance of her being a paralympian other than gaining publicity.

Antman · 23 Aug 2019

Thanks for the informed reply.... 10% is far too much. I would have expected say once a month (so 1 in say 40). So that is a lot worse than I feared. I suppose part of it is that I am usually first to step forward and lift prams, help get wheelchairs, and little old dears on and off (lucky enough to be big enough and strong enough to control a sixteen stone man in a wheelchair off a train down to a platform (had to do it regularly with a sadly now deceased relative whose mobility had gone with strokes)) - so I don’t see when it’s a problem, because I can usually help to fix it... so I’ll hold my hands up and defer to someone who actually knows what they’re in about...

Sounds like the issue is systems. Am surprised by the platforms. RTT is pretty reliable and tends to be way ahead of the screens. I know I use it to plan which entrance I go in to Waterloo..... and it’s rarely wrong. If you’re FNB there is as you say often a range of platforms they leave from. As ever, looks like coalface staff do their best. And are usually pretty good, even under pressure of WAT at rush hour. But the system doesn’t work well enough to minimise failures.

If the railways could get to say one cockup a month, would you, as a necessary user, see that as fair enough? Or should it be a lower failure rate ?

Antman · 23 Aug 2019

David M said:
I fail to see the relevance of her being a paralympian other than gaining publicity.

And to be fair, if that’s what it takes, then OK. There’s been a slew of paralympians and media types who have publicised issues - from folding wheelchairs, mobility scooters and no disabled toilets amongst other things. Some of them have come across as utterly genuine and others have come across as wagons looking for a band....

PeterC · 23 Aug 2019

3141 said:
I don't think it would occur to me to tell the guard, if I'd helped a person in a wheelchair get on board or seen others helping.

I wonder if she asked anyone to let the guard know they'd helped her on board. I suspect it's the kind of detail that easily gets overlooked at the time. The focus of those involved, including the passenger, is getting her onto the train, and she apparently expected to sort out how to get off by tweeting SWR.

Not being a regular on that line I wouldn't know if there was even a guard to tell. Most my suburban travelling is on OPO services

OneOffDave · 23 Aug 2019

Justapunter said:
Thanks for the informed reply.... 10% is far too much. I would have expected say once a month (so 1 in say 40). So that is a lot worse than I feared. I suppose part of it is that I am usually first to step forward and lift prams, help get wheelchairs, and little old dears on and off (lucky enough to be big enough and strong enough to control a sixteen stone man in a wheelchair off a train down to a platform (had to do it regularly with a sadly now deceased relative whose mobility had gone with strokes)) - so I don’t see when it’s a problem, because I can usually help to fix it... so I’ll hold my hands up and defer to someone who actually knows what they’re in about...

Sounds like the issue is systems. Am surprised by the platforms. RTT is pretty reliable and tends to be way ahead of the screens. I know I use it to plan which entrance I go in to Waterloo..... and it’s rarely wrong. If you’re FNB there is as you say often a range of platforms they leave from. As ever, looks like coalface staff do their best. And are usually pretty good, even under pressure of WAT at rush hour. But the system doesn’t work well enough to minimise failures.

If the railways could get to say one cockup a month, would you, as a necessary user, see that as fair enough? Or should it be a lower failure rate ?

Passengers are generally brilliant either offering to help directly or going to track down the guard. I'm lucky that I'm active enough as a wheelchair user to be able to wheelie off the train like it's a high kerb but anyone in a power chair would be totally stranded without a ramp.
The recent change at Waterloo has been that arriving trains will go to the first available platform in peak times to minimise delays which is generally a sensible approach as the vast majority of passengers benefit. What should have been put in at the same time was some way of notifying the Waterloo assistance staff which platform the train has been routed to. In the two weeks of operation my train came in on 8, 9, 10, 13 and 15.

Given the current state, one failure a month would be brilliant.

scotlass · 23 Aug 2019

I'm not going to comment from the perspective of the issues she had using trains or the assistance she required, but from something I do know a lot about, I can truthfully say that Ms Christiansen needs no publicity from a paralympic point of view. She is not only a very decorated equestrienne with 8 Gold, 1 Silver and 1 Bronze spanning four Olympic Games, but has been very highly regarded as a superb horse rider in dressage circles too for many years. She is one of the most respected and well-liked riders GB has ever produced.

Bigfoot · 23 Aug 2019

hwl said:
There is one semi-regular chair user on the SWML stopping side who just propels themselves on to the platform from the train and appears to have given up on the assistance /ramp concept for exit.

This may well be the same guy that screamed abuse at me for offering him a ramp/assistance a few years ago. I was preventing him from living a normal life apparently. Sometimes staff can't win.

Bikeman78 · 23 Aug 2019

OneOffDave said:
I commute into Waterloo in my chair every day and experience an assistance fail on about 10% of journeys. The DDA has been on place since 1995 and yet still 24 years later TOCs can't get their act together enough to make the network accessible for disabled people. Waterloo doesn't have a 'lounge' where disabled people can go to sort the assistance having to go to the information desk (if open) or station reception. Station reception is too far from the gates to get the to platform in time given how late the trains are announced at Waterloo. During disruption, the concourse becomes unsafe for wheelchair users. I've had a number of people fall over me due to the overcrowding. There's no point telling the staff at the gates as they say it's not their job and don't pass on the message. Now my approach is to prevent the train leaving if I can't get on or off.

Non-disabled people always seek to downplay how often this happens and tone-police disabled people. They should try having 10% of all their train journeys disrupted and never knowing on each journey if this is going to be one of them. This is on top of the disruption and delays that affect everyone else travelling. If your system fails this often, then it's obviously not fit for purpose.

SWR is also having significant lift issues as well with the ones from platform 1&2 at Surbiton failing every couple of days for the last month or so. Earlsfield lost it's lift for over a month in June too.

I suspect it's rather worse in DOO areas. Supposedly GTR has a team of people that travel around to assist people on or off trains at unstaffed stations but I bet it goes wrong frequently. A few years ago I saw a lady in an electric wheelchair who couldn't get off at Huntingdon because the station was unstaffed. She had to go through to St Neots and then travel back. But what do you think the solution is? We're a long way off level access at every platform.

I agree about lifts. For example the lifts at Newport fail several times a month. They are relatively new. Which part of the lift stops working? Is it caused by vandalism? Years ago I worked in Brunel House. It was very rare for any of the lifts to fail.

Monty · 23 Aug 2019

bionic said:
Not all SWR guards are commercial guards and it's my understanding that non-commercial guards remain in the back cab while commercial guards are meant to walk through doing tickets. If this was a case of a non-commercial guard then they wouldn't have known she was on the train unless a) they saw or b) they were told.

I've had wheelchairs on my train countless times and not been told about it. Its hardly "news".

Both commercial and non commercial guards should be patrolling their trains where practical. However it's not always that simple, most the trains on the Portsmouth Direct Line are now 10 or 12 coaches long and during the peak they are often extremely busy so the guard has no real choice but locate himself in an intermediate driving cab, at Godalming the situation is made worse because of the severe 'S bend' profiled platform limits where the guard can dispatch the train from even with assistance from a platform dispatcher. So if the guard was unaware there was someone requiring assistance with alighting I can see why something like this could happen all too easily.

As others have said there really needs to be an improvement in the mechanism for booking for assistance and relaying information to both the train crew and the platform staff.

Tetchytyke · 23 Aug 2019

Bikeman78 said:
But what do you think the solution is? We're a long way off level access at every platform.

The solution is to not cut staffing to the bone. But as that's not the interests of government or the TOCs, the problem is only going to worsen.

I'm amazed 90% of @OneOffDave 's journeys are ok, given my experiences travelling with a chair user for business meetings.

Tetchytyke · 23 Aug 2019

Monty said:
As others have said there really needs to be an improvement in the mechanism for booking for assistance and relaying information to both the train crew and the platform staff.

My experience is that there are too few staff. Even at big staffed stations like York, the staff doing the assistance are also expected to be doing 10 other jobs at the same time. Passengers requiring assistance are less visible and so get overlooked in the rush.

DennisM · 24 Aug 2019

JN114 said:
My question would be if other members of the public were so kind-spirited to help her on the train; why did they not seek out the guard to ensure they knew she was on board and preparations made in advance to assist her off. And perhaps query where the guard was in all of this to not notice this customer being on the train. But I fear it will all get lost in the oncoming outrage...

People helping like this can be where the assistance goes wrong in the first place, the general public mean well but a passenger being lifted onto a train without any involvement of station staff or train crew obviously means that the subsequent steps to ensure it goes smoothly at the other end are far more likely to not happen.
I’ve witnessed groups of young men lifting wheelchairs onto trains, they inevitably get off before the passenger they helped, leaving staff unaware and sometimes the passenger with no one able to help them disembark. There’s also the issue of wheelchairs being lifted into non PRM areas without dedicated space, accessible toilet, and the ability for a ramp to be secured in the doorway. On arrival at the station there’s the potential for short platforms or parts of the platform being too narrow for the ramp and adequate space to manoeuvre.
It’s definitely best assistance is left to staff, if anything so the company can be held fully accountable when it doesn’t go right, and can hopefully then learn from it. The woman in this case did nothing wrong, but trying to get a time critical piece of information to a member of operational staff via Twitter or a remote call centre is a recipe for disaster.

AM9 · 24 Aug 2019

DennisM said:
... It’s definitely best assistance is left to staff, if anything so the company can be held fully accountable when it doesn’t go right, and can hopefully then learn from it. The woman in this case did nothing wrong, but trying to get a time critical piece of information to a member of operational staff via Twitter or a remote call centre is a recipe for disaster.

That sounds like she should have known her actions were a 'recipe for disaster' so it was her fault! The travelling public only have access to the services that the TOC advertise, and if the TOC staff can't (or don't) respond to them, they should accept responsibility for the consequences. Explaining here why these situations occur is pathetic, the fact that they do repeatedly occur reflects the (presumably profit driven) attitude of the overall organisation. Because of that, more passengers will hopefully try to help those being caught up. When the bad publicity and the cost of ppm gets embarrassing, maybe the whole issue will get some attention.

gimmea50anyday · 24 Aug 2019

In my experience, far too many times station staff have put assistance on to the train and not informed me. With everyone else boarding and alighting at the same time I haven't even seen the staff carry out their duties so therefore don't know anyone has been put on. If the train is busy and I am unable to get through the train I am reliant on the receiving station knowing there is an assist on board and that regularly fails to show up. And I have just 3 coaches to deal with. SWR have 8/9/10/12 car formations.

Another paralympian delayed disembarking

Established Member

RailUK Forums

Member

Member

Established Member

Established Member

Member

Established Member

Member

Established Member

Member

Established Member

Member

Member

On Moderation

Established Member

Member

Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Member

Member

Member

Established Member

Established Member

Veteran Member

Veteran Member

Member

Veteran Member

Established Member