DavidBrown
Member
I say 'interesting' - it was a standard Barnstaple to Plymouth return trip which I've done a thousand times before. But a few observations.
Started off with a really nice display of customer service on the Tarka Line from the FGW staff. Was sat near the front of the train just behind a family with kids, who AFAIK were returning home from a holiday. Not sure of the reasoning, but the guard offered to let the kids to have a brief moment in the drivers cab whilst we were sat at Crediton Station. They were really well behaved for the whole journey (when you would normally dread the thought of spening an hour next to a group of noisy kids), and were absolubely delighted to be allowed in the cab, and even to have a brief go on the horn, and the exprerience went down extremely well with everyone. But one thought I did have is that I understood that anyone other than the driver and guard going into the cab was an absolute no-no, especially from FGW's point of view (hence why there's no cab-ride DVD's since Wessex days). It does show though that the job of being a driver/guard is still much more than a job for many people, and it is a pleasure to see.
Right, that's the nice story out of the way, and now for the not so pleasing. Upon arriving at St Davids to catch the connection to Plymouth, we were informed of 'indefinate delays and cancellations' due to a suicide at Tiverton Parkway, with a HST on platform 5 waiting to head north. Another HST heading north was put into platform 6, and an announcement in the station said that the train in P5 would now terminate there then head back to Plymouth/Penzance, forming a schedueled service that was unable to make it south from TVP. The train in P6 would form the next train north, with an unknown departure time. Unfortunately it seems that someone forgot to tell anybody on the train, so they were still sat there whilst the Penzance bound passengers, including me, boarded. Seeing movement of people after a long wait, one slightly deaf lady asked me if I knew what the situation was. Obviously with her hearing difficulties, I spoke a bit louder and clearer than normal, informing her, and as it turns out the whole carriage, that the train was going no further and that they needed to board the one opposite.
Now it felt like I was the guard, with lots of other passengers asking me and one or two others who had just boarded what was going on. I passed the same information on to them, and then promply informed a guard on the platform that they ought to let the rest of the train know what was happening! By the time I reboarded, the train guard was on the tannoy, and everbody moved. But the 'best' part came just as the last few passengers squeezed their way onto the northward bound train. It too was now cancelled, and all passengers should use the South West Trains service with various information for those wanting Taunton and Bristol. Cue a lot of anger as everyone made their way off that train and towards platform 1. At this point, I think that the staff on the train returning to Penzance had decided just to get out as quickly as possible! A quick sweep of the train and platform to ensure everyone was in the right place, and we were on our way - leaving behind two HST's worth of passengers trying to get onto a 3-car 159, with another northward bound Voyager about to dump another load of passengers on them!
Overall, there seemed to be a distinct lack of communication between station and train staff, and this resulted in far more chaos and anger than there would otherwise have been.
The resulting disruption obviously delayed trains for a fair chunk of the day, and another communcation lapse at Plymouth resulted in more delays. Returning home, the next service back to Exeter was a delayed CrossCountry service. The delays had obviously resulted in a few platform alterations, though these were mostly for terminating trains so not much harm done. We waited for the northward bound Voyager to arrive, and it did arrive about 20 minutes late, exactly as was advertised for a good length of time beforehand. What wasn't advertised correctly was which platform it would arrive in or depart from until long after it arrive into Plymouth. The train was sat there, and seemingly nobody knew that it would form our train until an announcement over the tannoy some 10 minutes later. After everyone moved around and boarded we departed 35 minutes late, so another 15 minute delay was down to poor communication. What made it worse was that Plymouth Station was very quiet - only one train from Gunnislake arrived in the 40 minutes I was there, and so the multiple platform changes seemed utterly pointless to me.
Is communication between station, signalling and train staff always this bad? Like I say, a lot of delays and grief was caused by some very basic errors.
Started off with a really nice display of customer service on the Tarka Line from the FGW staff. Was sat near the front of the train just behind a family with kids, who AFAIK were returning home from a holiday. Not sure of the reasoning, but the guard offered to let the kids to have a brief moment in the drivers cab whilst we were sat at Crediton Station. They were really well behaved for the whole journey (when you would normally dread the thought of spening an hour next to a group of noisy kids), and were absolubely delighted to be allowed in the cab, and even to have a brief go on the horn, and the exprerience went down extremely well with everyone. But one thought I did have is that I understood that anyone other than the driver and guard going into the cab was an absolute no-no, especially from FGW's point of view (hence why there's no cab-ride DVD's since Wessex days). It does show though that the job of being a driver/guard is still much more than a job for many people, and it is a pleasure to see.
Right, that's the nice story out of the way, and now for the not so pleasing. Upon arriving at St Davids to catch the connection to Plymouth, we were informed of 'indefinate delays and cancellations' due to a suicide at Tiverton Parkway, with a HST on platform 5 waiting to head north. Another HST heading north was put into platform 6, and an announcement in the station said that the train in P5 would now terminate there then head back to Plymouth/Penzance, forming a schedueled service that was unable to make it south from TVP. The train in P6 would form the next train north, with an unknown departure time. Unfortunately it seems that someone forgot to tell anybody on the train, so they were still sat there whilst the Penzance bound passengers, including me, boarded. Seeing movement of people after a long wait, one slightly deaf lady asked me if I knew what the situation was. Obviously with her hearing difficulties, I spoke a bit louder and clearer than normal, informing her, and as it turns out the whole carriage, that the train was going no further and that they needed to board the one opposite.
Now it felt like I was the guard, with lots of other passengers asking me and one or two others who had just boarded what was going on. I passed the same information on to them, and then promply informed a guard on the platform that they ought to let the rest of the train know what was happening! By the time I reboarded, the train guard was on the tannoy, and everbody moved. But the 'best' part came just as the last few passengers squeezed their way onto the northward bound train. It too was now cancelled, and all passengers should use the South West Trains service with various information for those wanting Taunton and Bristol. Cue a lot of anger as everyone made their way off that train and towards platform 1. At this point, I think that the staff on the train returning to Penzance had decided just to get out as quickly as possible! A quick sweep of the train and platform to ensure everyone was in the right place, and we were on our way - leaving behind two HST's worth of passengers trying to get onto a 3-car 159, with another northward bound Voyager about to dump another load of passengers on them!
Overall, there seemed to be a distinct lack of communication between station and train staff, and this resulted in far more chaos and anger than there would otherwise have been.
The resulting disruption obviously delayed trains for a fair chunk of the day, and another communcation lapse at Plymouth resulted in more delays. Returning home, the next service back to Exeter was a delayed CrossCountry service. The delays had obviously resulted in a few platform alterations, though these were mostly for terminating trains so not much harm done. We waited for the northward bound Voyager to arrive, and it did arrive about 20 minutes late, exactly as was advertised for a good length of time beforehand. What wasn't advertised correctly was which platform it would arrive in or depart from until long after it arrive into Plymouth. The train was sat there, and seemingly nobody knew that it would form our train until an announcement over the tannoy some 10 minutes later. After everyone moved around and boarded we departed 35 minutes late, so another 15 minute delay was down to poor communication. What made it worse was that Plymouth Station was very quiet - only one train from Gunnislake arrived in the 40 minutes I was there, and so the multiple platform changes seemed utterly pointless to me.
Is communication between station, signalling and train staff always this bad? Like I say, a lot of delays and grief was caused by some very basic errors.
