Mess rooms from hell , places you like.

sw1ller said:

I don’t know what’s worse for us, Wrexham or Chester. Wrexham has just been “done up” with pale green walls and a red toilet floor!!! Can’t sit in there anymore! And Chester is a filthy sesspit that’s no longer big enough to cope with the numourous train crews.

Click to expand...

Chester is the only messroom I've ever been booked to have a break in that I've actively avoided. I usually just sit on one of the quiet benches on the top end of platform 2 instead! Don't mind Wrexham though, it's a comfortable little cupboard And at least when I walk in the inhabitants don't go quiet and then start speaking in Welsh.....

EvoIV said:

Virgin trains messroom in the dungeon at Birmingham international platform 1, with the barred windows coming down from the ceiling by all of about 6 inches, is one of the better ones, which says it all really. I'm surprised at messrooms that still have fruit machines. Didn't think that would be allowed these days.

Click to expand...

For such a "prestigious" TOC, my memory of working for Virgin was that all their messrooms were pretty grim. The massage chairs at Euston were a nice touch, and I thought the mouse in that same room was actually kind of cute, but it's a far cry from their other facilities like the state of the art training centre. Ascending the spiral staircase to access Preston's messroom was always a fun challenge to pass away a long PBB

Thedispatcher said:

Finally, one I love and hate: the old mess room at Hereford. Feels really eerie because just behind a locked door is the remains of the DB cargo BOP which is strangely frozen in time. Every time a train comes into the platform, the telly goes off. It’s currently blacked by H+S because the roof fell in.

Click to expand...

I too had mixed feelings about Hereford. On the one hand, it felt like a museum. The display of old railway photos on the wall was always fascinating to look at. On the other hand, who wants to spend their PNB on an unpadded wooden bench?! Until it got condemned my usual routine there was to pop in briefly to dump my kit and admire the photos, then spend most of my break in KFC or Morrisons.....

I’ll just shout for XC Plymouth Mess Room. Contrary to what’s been posted on here from other places, this one is clean, tidy and apart from the front table (for drivers) the other areas are free for anyone to use. Everyone is chatty and friendly - even to those not from Plymouth. I really can’t fault it.

It seems to be (from what I’ve seen on this thread) the exception to the rule.....

Eccles1983 said:

Leeds. Filled with the most backwards folk available who are like old fishwives when you sit on the wrong table - which is half the reason I used to do it.

Click to expand...

Yep, I've been told off for sitting on that table, and that nonsense was going on over fifteen years ago. Best solution we found was to actually remove their two tables and hide them, I think we put them in the stairwell at the back.

Monty said:

Eastleigh messroom for SWR is a truly dreadful place. A cramped horrid box room which is known as 'The Cell' by staff and for good reason.

I just noticed its been mentioned before, but it really is that bad it needs mentioning again!

Click to expand...

Can I vote a third time for Eastleigh?

Mind you Portsmouth harbour keeps having ongoing issues with flies and the toilet smell.

I like Bournemouth for the building but the atmosphere is very cliquey in there.

pompeyfan said:

Can I vote a third time for Eastleigh?

Mind you Portsmouth harbour keeps having ongoing issues with flies and the toilet smell.

I like Bournemouth for the building but the atmosphere is very cliquey in there.

Click to expand...

Yeah I agree about the PNB point at Portsmouth Harbour....

Wimbledon Park is a bit ropey with the sofas that been there since the start of time and the chained up remote!

But now I think about it SWR has a lot of disgusting and horrid PNB points/messrooms

Thedispatcher said:

Communal mess room at Birmingham New Street is so far underground it must be a designated nuclear shelter so obviously no phone signal.

Click to expand...

dmarshbcfc said:

Yep that one at New St behind platform 1 can be quite bleak no daylight, no phone signal, you can hear the clatter of feet walking through one of the main entrances situated directly above it, the TV tempremental but it's somewhere to get away from the bloody awful racket of them fans they've installed on the platforms, the little room at the back of it
is nice for a kip though some nice couches to lie on for a kip

Click to expand...

Someone always seems to leave the radiator on!
There's been a couple of times I've woken up from a nap on those sofas, got my stuff together and gone into the corridor to find the lights have auto shut off. Combine that with the shuffling feet overhead and it does take on an apocalyptic feel.

Paradise lost indeed...

When XC used the P1/P2 rooms it was pretty desperate, really noisy, dirty and overcrowded. The new facility, round the back near the carpark has all mod cons, proper nice.

Does no one in rail management see the need to treat their staff well? The money to refurbish rooms is trivial, the gain huge. I watch inductrial relations with gloom but treating staff well is cheap and easy and quick to do. The NHS is the same, I recall one loo in an international centre of excellence (we do have them) in London that was well beyond squalid. Same with other easy and cheap ways to be good to staff. We spend huge amounts on employing staff but miss out the cheap and easy and effective.

a_c_skinner said:

Does no one in rail management see the need to treat their staff well? The money to refurbish rooms is trivial, the gain huge. I watch inductrial relations with gloom but treating staff well is cheap and easy and quick to do. The NHS is the same, I recall one loo in an international centre of excellence (we do have them) in London that was well beyond squalid. Same with other easy and cheap ways to be good to staff. We spend huge amounts on employing staff but miss out the cheap and easy and effective.

Click to expand...

Look at how high staff retention rates are on the railway - and how many people apply when jobs do come up. There isn't much incentive for the TOCs to improve things.

That said, none of the messrooms I personally frequent are that bad. The mainline messroom at Cardiff is way too small for the amount of people who use it, but there are alternatives available there. The only messroom on my route card I'll actively try to avoid is Chester, and that's more down to the miserable people who inhabit it they're mostly a bit dated, but I find them comfortable and reasonably clean at least.

All of them are above the standard agreed between the LDC H&S and the TOC, if they weren’t, staff would rightly start refusing to PNB there and would have to be re-accommodated.

I’ve heard of engineering works meaning a depot was full to bursting point, with 15 crew members being released by 6am just to free up seats for incoming crew from other depots so they could take their break.

Read some of these comments with interest.Victoria mess room was the same in BR days central men one side south eastern the other and never the twain should meet.In my firing days always made me smile that we GC men(talking 1960s-70s)had our place to sit Midland men had theirs, and god forbid if GN men came in.

ValentaFan1974 said:

I’ll just shout for XC Plymouth Mess Room. Contrary to what’s been posted on here from other places, this one is clean, tidy and apart from the front table (for drivers) the other areas are free for anyone to use. Everyone is chatty and friendly - even to those not from Plymouth. I really can’t fault it.

It seems to be (from what I’ve seen on this thread) the exception to the rule.....

Click to expand...

I think Plymouth is my least favourite out of all the XC lot.

Bit surprised the TOCs don’t do a bit of divide and rule.
“Oh no...it’s a complete coincidence messrooms are getting refreshed at the least grumpy depots”

221129 said:

I think Plymouth is my least favourite out of all the XC lot.

Click to expand...

Why’s that?