Passenger "Mutiny" Due To Missed Stop At Swindon

[BayPaul]

I would say that not stopping at Swindon was a poor decision, so it is not just that. How do we provide decision makers with information to make those decisions better?

Agreed, but lets say it had been the only possible decision, it still would have been important to communicate properly.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Agreed, but lets say it had been the only possible decision, it still would have been important to communicate properly.

Yes, agreed.

 

[dingdinger]

Most of that post is hot air and waffle. Of course train crew should have an input. How else would control know what was happening on the ground?

Are you seriously suggesting a driver and guard should both lose their jobs over this incident?

Spot on. Complete knee jerk reaction from the original poster and in my own experience those on the ground have the better picture - they can relay to control who ultimately decide. I have seen many a time control make bizarre decisions about calling patterns leaving those on the ground to deal with it. Also if the driver has been informed not to stop at Swindon then it's not his/hers fault for the communication issues to the passengers. As for passcoms some are behind glass as they are emergency equipment-maybe all stock should be like this? I do agree that once a decision on amended calling patterns has been decided- they should stick with it. More recently communication does seem to be a big problem during disruption on the railway.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Spot on. Complete knee jerk reaction from the original poster and in my own experience those on the ground have the better picture - they can relay to control who ultimately decide. I have seen many a time control make bizarre decisions about calling patterns leaving those on the ground to deal with it. Also if the driver has been informed not to stop at Swindon then it's not his/hers fault for the communication issues to the passengers. As for passcoms some are behind glass as they are emergency equipment-maybe all stock should be like this? I do agree that once a decision on amended calling patterns has been decided- they should stick with it. More recently communication does seem to be a big problem during disruption on the railway.

Again a cultural problem. The interests of the passengers are everyone's problem.

Dare I say - see it, say it, sorted? No member of staff who sees something wrong should just ignore it because "it's not my job guv". If a driver gets a stop order and doesn't think it's been communicated, he needs to buzz his guard and say so.

 

[dingdinger]

Again a cultural problem. The interests of the passengers are everyone's problem.

Yes they are, but every role has different responsibilities. And in this case the driver is not responsible for making the PA so calling for them to be sacked is ridiculous. Shall we sack the cleaner too?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes they are, but every role has different responsibilities. And in this case the driver is not responsible for making the PA so calling for them to be sacked is ridiculous. Shall we sack the cleaner too?

I didn't call for anyone to be sacked. What I called for is that if a driver knew the PA had not been made he should speak up and ask for it to be made. Or maybe just a quick chat with the guard - buzz - "I've just had a "non-stop" order at Swindon, do the passengers know?" "First time I've heard that, I'll tell them".

It's all about being proactive with passengers at the heart of thinking.

 

[seagull]

Not only does each role has its own responsibilities but oftentimes it is actively discouraged for one role to interfere with another.
An example being bikes on Pendolinos: drivers are specifically told by management not to get involved with the loading or unloading of them, even though the driver is often the closest member of staff, as it may cause (and has caused) distraction at a time when the driver's mind ought to be on other things. This doesn't mean they never do, of course, but those who do run the risk of disciplinary action should an incident result.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Not only does each role has its own responsibilities but oftentimes it is actively discouraged for one role to interfere with another.

Then that is a huge, huge cultural problem which must be resolved.

"If you see something that doesn't look right..."

Nobody should ever be discouraged from calling out a problem; quite the opposite, any member of staff should feel empowered for raising a possible problem (be that an operational or a customer service one) and should never be looked down upon for doing so even if the response is to explain why it is in fact correct. The airline industry learnt this years ago with "cockpit resource management" concepts which came from situations where an inexperienced copilot didn't feel they should call out an experienced captain who had made a possibly fatal error.

An example being bikes on Pendolinos: drivers are specifically told by management not to get involved with the loading or unloading of them, even though the driver is often the closest member of staff, as it may cause (and has caused) distraction at a time when the driver's mind ought to be on other things. This doesn't mean they never do, of course, but those who do run the risk of disciplinary action should an incident result.

However, if a driver is aware of a cyclist banging on the door or shouting about not being able to get their bike, they should not ignore it, but rather buzz the guard to let them know.

If that isn't the rule, the rule needs changing. No member of staff who has become aware of any problem they believe is not being dealt with should ever ignore that problem entirely.

 

[Meerkat]

if the train was overcrowded what did not stopping achieve, unless the crew knew that more people would get on at Swindon than got off?
Wouldnt it have been better to stop at Swindon and reassess. Make it set down only and make it clear to anyone looking like they might ignore this that if they get on the train won’t go anywhere.

 

[duncanp]

Agreed, but lets say it had been the only possible decision, it still would have been important to communicate properly.

I wonder whether there were more people who wanted to get off the train at Swindon than there were people waiting at Swindon to go towards Reading and Paddington.

If there was going to be a net outflow of passengers (more people getting off than on) at Swindon, it would have made sense to stop there, as the overcrowding would have been relieved.

If there was going to be a net inflow of passengers (more people getting on than off), then I can see why the Swindon stop was missed, as it would have exacerbated an already serious overcrowding problem.

Whatever the reasons, there is no excuse for not communicating the change of decision to the passengers, as seem to be the case from reports earlier in this thread.

 

[BrianW]

Will controllers, crews ever have the full picture in time to make the 'best' response in good time? Will we ever know the whole story?
No-one was killed or even injured; no accident to be investigated and reported on.
Any rebuttal/ response from GWR to or in the Daily Telegraph, or website?
Huge reputational damage- is no-one in charge of that- surely worth big bucks?
Maybe a job for a travelling journalist apprentice?
Big sympathy for crew and control.

 

[Tomnick]

if the train was overcrowded what did not stopping achieve, unless the crew knew that more people would get on at Swindon than got off?
Wouldnt it have been better to stop at Swindon and reassess. Make it set down only and make it clear to anyone looking like they might ignore this that if they get on the train won’t go anywhere.

The idea might have been to get Chippenham and Swindon passengers off the train at Bath to ease the overcrowding - presumably, if so, this was sufficiently successful to allow the train to continue, even if some passengers were (for whatever reason) blissfully unaware.

 

[redengine]

Really a broader view should be taken. If they are so short of IETs/IET drivers who know the Main Line between Wootton Bassett and Bristol, then these trains and drivers should not be wasted on running between Reading and Paddington, especially not when 387s are available to take up the slack. Management should be proactive on such occasions and split the service at Reading, so that a near-normal service can be provided on the main part of the route, with a shuttle on the extreme eastern end.

 

[Horizon22]

I would say that not stopping at Swindon was a poor decision, so it is not just that. How do we provide decision makers with information to make those decisions better?

I would too, but you seem to be missing some of the detail. The "decision makers" wanted it to call, but the people on the ground refused on the grounds of safety. There's always multiple considerations to take into account; although I will accept the railway sometimes does not do this.

Really a broader view should be taken. If they are so short of IETs/IET drivers who know the Main Line between Wootton Bassett and Bristol, then these trains and drivers should not be wasted on running between Reading and Paddington, especially not when 387s are available to take up the slack. Management should be proactive on such occasions and split the service at Reading, so that a near-normal service can be provided on the main part of the route, with a shuttle on the extreme eastern end.

Dumping a load of people at Reading isn't ideal - okay there are far worse places to do it, but you're still crowding up a through station platform. Plus this particular situation was rather exceptional.

 

[robbeech]

I'm sure that the rail staff on here will hate this but in those circumstances l'd pull the passcom every damned time. Treat passengers like crap and you will get a reaction. I sincerely hope that it cost GWR megabucks. Perhaps we need airline levels of compensation to sharpen some minds...

Id prefer them to just learn from the incident and apologise to passengers for getting it wrong. I suspect neither will be forthcoming though.

Dwlay Repay on a packed train that was over 2 hours late will be a lot.

30% will claim, half of those will be rejected by the automated system, half of the rejected ones will give up I could probably pay it out of the little coin tray in my car.

The crew I believe reported a fault with the PA in some coaches.

I would love to see the fault report and subsequent documentation for the PA on that train. I suspect NFF will be order of the day.

Having waited over two hours for your train at Temple Meads and seeing the obvious chaos around you on a train wedged to the rafters, would you really trust GWR enough to quietly assume they could get you up to Reading and back before the end of service on a Sunday?

A passenger travelling Bristol to Swindon would have probably been subject to a pretty intense situation for nigh on three hours. Not surprised some tempers started to fray...

I wouldn’t trust them to do it without an argument but it seems in this instances they did manage that.

My son and his young lady were on this train
He says that no one made any announcement that the train was not going to stop at Swindon which is obviously why the reason the message did not get through
( unless the PA was faulty and the crew were unaware of this although no one has confirmed that announcements were actually made)

There was one claim here that announcements were made, but they were claims by someone working for the operator who wasn’t on the train, so, with the upmost respect to them, someone with a keen interest in keeping the eyes off of the railway.

I have known staff say "we're not announcing that stop X is being missed/that we are terminating early because it means we don't have to deal with angry passengers".

Indeed this sort of thing happens frequently. Infact we cannot rule out (there is of course no evidence either way) the possibility that this is exactly what has happened here. I’ve known a guard (different operator) receive information that a train is terminating early, but as it has been the stop they were due to leave at they didn’t bother to announce it, packed their bags and made a dash for it to save the arguments as we were already 70L and a few hundred passengers sat patiently on the train at Newcastle after it terminated waiting to continue North, subsequently missing the organised ticket accepted replacement from another operator. Hands wiped, sometime else’s problem.
It’s the same hand wiping as the “you’ll get a letter through and be asked to pay the full fare” which turns out to be £800 and a criminal record, or “yeah, you can just get the Edinburgh train because we are running late, don’t forget to claim delay repay” and actually you can’t, as there isn’t ticket acceptance and it’s £800 and a criminal record but the staff that said you can is long gone. Or “yes mate, you can buy your ticket at the Waterloo gateline” but it’s actually a penalty fare and they deny all knowledge. Or “we can’t get you a taxi from here you’ll have to speak to staff at your next connection (unstaffed station) and they’ll arrange a taxi from the cold platform in the middle of nowhere” when actually the help point hasn’t worked in 7 years. All these are just staff passing on any form of responsibility so they can do less. It makes a mockery of the entire thing and it is how the general public perceives the railway nowadays. This is why they pull passcoms, this is why they egress when they have stood on a 45 degree train for 3 hours without a peep from the guard / driver. This is SOMETIMES why the guard (completely unjustifiably and unacceptably) ends up with a thick ear when they turn around and say no.

 

[Western Sunset]

Just wondering if Bristol passengers were allowed to get on 1A57 1510 Ply - Padd at its unadvertised BTM stop, knowing that the following London service (1730 BTM - Padd) was partially cancelled and started from Swindon?

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Daily Mail quotes GWR spokesperson

Great Western Railway say the stops were removed due to overcrowding and that passengers onboard were informed.

A spokesman for Great Western Railway told MailOnline: 'We're really sorry for those inconvenienced yesterday and those who were delayed will be able to get their money back by claiming a refund.

'The 1418 Penzance to Paddington service was diverted via Chippenham and Swindon to assist passengers affected by an earlier cancelled train.

'The service was however too busy to carry more passengers safely, so the extra stops were removed.

'While those on board were informed of the decision, having passed Swindon the emergency 'passcomms' was pulled and the train stopped - further delaying the service by well over an hour. The train was returned to Swindon before continuing on its journey towards Reading.'

Granted this is an extreme example and only being discussed because it found its way into media but there are daily occurrences of short notice alterations for whatever reason and really RDG should take a look at whether the industry manages the communications in these situations effectively. My view is despite the advances in mobile communications, public address and the vast sources of data readily available to staff and joe public now there's still plenty of room for improvement.

 

[43096]

Big sympathy for crew and control.

Why the sympathy for crew and control? Between them they screwed up.

I've still yet to understand what the justification is for not calling at Swindon. Phrases like "dangerously over crowded" are being bandied around. What does that mean? If no-one else is able to physically get on, then the train should close its doors and go. Is that dangerous? No. It's not like this trains being completely full has been a rare event on that line in the past. I'm not even sure why the crew are that bothered, the driver is in the cab on their own, the guard can likewise work the train from the middle/rear cab.

 

[Horizon22]

Daily Mail quotes GWR spokesperson



Granted this is an extreme example and only being discussed because it found its way into media but there are daily occurrences of short notice alterations for whatever reason and really RDG should take a look at whether the industry manages the communications in these situations effectively. My view is despite the advances in mobile communications, public address and the vast sources of data readily available to staff and joe public now there's still plenty of room for improvement.

This is effectively what has been said. It's really tricky though for those on-board who weren't expecting Swindon, then were told the train was going to call at Swindon, then finding out its not calling at Swindon. You really don't altered already altered calling patterns unless there's an extreme scenario - and this would be one of them. Unfortunate set of circumstances, but clearly there are lessons in terms of communication although I think when its hectic like this its always hard to manage.

That being said as we've already established, the "informed of the decision" is patchy.

Alterations to services will always be required and the vast majority of the time are perfectly well advertised and communicated to both staff and passengers. Unfortunately some crew / stations / staff aren't as good as others at broadcasting this in a clear, prompt and regular manner.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

This is effectively what has been said. It's really tricky though for those on-board who weren't expecting Swindon, then were told the train was going to call at Swindon, then finding out its not calling at Swindon. You really don't altered already altered calling patterns unless there's an extreme scenario - and this would be one of them. Unfortunate set of circumstances, but clearly there are lessons in terms of communication although I think when its hectic like this its always hard to manage.

That being said as we've already established, the "informed of the decision" is patchy.

I commuted to Victoria/London Bridge for 38 years and suffered and alteration to plan already altered without adequate communication on several occasions and remonstrated with guards on several occasions about lack of info but just accepted it which is what commuters just did. That said I would also say that in majority of occasions guards and increasingly drivers have conveyed good information even if it is what you want to hear. Oh and for over 20 years ive been one of those with earphones on albeit ive always used ones that don't completely cut yourself from the outside world so you have half a chance to hear announcements.

The root cause of this situation appears to be a lack of train crew causing earlier cancellations and be interesting to know what's causing that and what GWR are doing about it.

 

[redengine]

Dumping a load of people at Reading isn't ideal - okay there are far worse places to do it, but you're still crowding up a through station platform. Plus this particular situation was rather exceptional.

But we're already quite some distance from ideal when three up departures from Bristol in a row have been cancelled and everyone expected to squeeze onto an already full train from Penzance. Getting the (in relative terms) small proportion of the people at Reading not changing for the Relief Lines or the South Western or the bus to Heathrow to change trains is a much smaller problem.

I also doubt that the situation is that exceptional. As I understand it, there is a contractual issue with properly resourcing the Intercity part of GWR on Sunday afternoons, which in the strange times we live in have become the busiest time of all. It should be a normal resourcing discussion to focus GWR's Intercity resources on the sections of line where it provides a unique service, rather than those with multiple alternative options.

 

[Horizon22]

Then that is a huge, huge cultural problem which must be resolved.

"If you see something that doesn't look right..."

Nobody should ever be discouraged from calling out a problem; quite the opposite, any member of staff should feel empowered for raising a possible problem (be that an operational or a customer service one) and should never be looked down upon for doing so even if the response is to explain why it is in fact correct. The airline industry learnt this years ago with "cockpit resource management" concepts which came from situations where an inexperienced copilot didn't feel they should call out an experienced captain who had made a possibly fatal error.

I think the difference in your analogy is that applying your scenario to the railway it is driver and guard (pilot / co-pilot), whereas in this scenario its more driver/guard & signaller/control (pilot / air traffic control.) In terms of safety, the right call was arguably made. As I said right in my first post on the matter, it comes down to communication (or lack thereof).

There will be disagreements / initial confusion about why a decision was made because someone on the station, or someone on the train, on someone in Control can see things from different perspectives. Ultimately, the decision will go one way.

But we're already quite some distance from ideal when three up departures from Bristol in a row have been cancelled and everyone expected to squeeze onto an already full train from Penzance. Getting the (in relative terms) small proportion of the people at Reading not changing for the Relief Lines or the South Western or the bus to Heathrow to change trains is a much smaller problem.

I also doubt that the situation is that exceptional. As I understand it, there is a contractual issue with properly resourcing the Intercity part of GWR on Sunday afternoons, which in the strange times we live in have become the busiest time of all. It should be a normal resourcing discussion to focus GWR's Intercity resources on the sections of line where it provides a unique service, rather than those with multiple alternative options.

That was rather dramatic and unique. Yes the problem has been rumbling along for several months - and is unlikely to get vastly better - but Sunday was particularly severe. Probably also worsened due to the engineering works and the limited number of drivers signing Bristol - Taunton (Paddington doesn’t).

If it is suitably bad in future then maybe terminating trains at Reading is advisable. But it’s something you’d want planned in advance (at least 24h) so the station can be made aware and turnarounds effectively planned and the right platforms used without conflicting the other terminators and GWML services running.

 

[Mintona]

Again a cultural problem. The interests of the passengers are everyone's problem.

Dare I say - see it, say it, sorted? No member of staff who sees something wrong should just ignore it because "it's not my job guv". If a driver gets a stop order and doesn't think it's been communicated, he needs to buzz his guard and say so.

I’ve never known a change of calling pattern to not be confirmed between driver and guard.

In the driving cab of a Class 800 you can’t hear any PA announcements, they are switched off as they are a distraction.

 

[bramling]

And the answer to that is to look at ITIL type principles - if absolutely every possibly relevant piece of information about the incident is logged, then everyone has access to everything about it. Knowledge is power.

You can then feed multiple incidents into a root cause analysis problem to try to avoid things happening again.

The solution in this case was probably to have arranged road transport for the people at Bristol. We don’t know if this was attempted or not.

Why the sympathy for crew and control? Between them they screwed up.

I've still yet to understand what the justification is for not calling at Swindon. Phrases like "dangerously over crowded" are being bandied around. What does that mean? If no-one else is able to physically get on, then the train should close its doors and go. Is that dangerous? No. It's not like this trains being completely full has been a rare event on that line in the past. I'm not even sure why the crew are that bothered, the driver is in the cab on their own, the guard can likewise work the train from the middle/rear cab.

The train crew and control were presented with one train and four train’s worth of people, and this was hardly of their making. We all know crush-loaded trains happen, but it’s hardly ideal nor desirable, not least if something occurs and the train crew need to access equipment within the train.

 

[cambsy]

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.

 

[matt_world2004]

It was posted on reddit that the driver threatened to return to Swindon if the passcom kept being pulled. This was of course the desired outcome for those who wanted to get off at Swindon

 

[Horizon22]

The solution in this case was probably to have arranged road transport for the people at Bristol. We don’t know if this was attempted or not.

The only issue with this is that sourcing replacement road transport has been extremely difficult for the last 3+ months due to the ongoing HGV shortages / bus drivers moving across.

 

[Trainmiles]

It was posted on reddit that the driver threatened to return to Swindon if the passcom kept being pulled. This was of course the desired outcome for those who wanted to get off at Swindon

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.

 

[chris_in_salop]

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.

 

[Ken H]

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 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.