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Public perception of railways

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PeterC

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Just like there are "good" NHS hospitals, and "good" state schools, does good/helpful/kindly/professional behaviour by staff at a station create a "good" station for customer experience? Conversely, does bad/unhelpful/unkind/unprofessional behaviour promote a "bad" environment for customers?

I find Westbury staff, as an example, always engaging and professional in their customer care, which I imagine would rub onto any new recruits working there - so an upward spiral created by staff ethos.

I'm sure you can think of other stations where the opposite is true...
There is always a lot of variation between locations with dispersed organisations. Not helped by the best people being sent to the most prestigious locations. I have experienced it working for a bank in the 70s.

Not railway related but a good example of how this affects public perception was a letter in the Telegraph after the 1981 Brixton riot. The correspondent argued that there could be nothing wrong in the Metropolitan Police because they had a lovely village Bobby in Norfolk.
 
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GordonT

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Context: not a train buff or an industry person, just a commuter who takes an interest in their surroundings.

Like I said, I'm not privy to any sort of insider knowledge and there may be good reasons for why this seems to happen on a semi-regular basis. But the frustration in trying to get home after a day in work and getting conflicting or plain incorrect information is more responsible for making me wish I'd driven than any delay in and of itself. Speaking as an ordinary customer, if the train companies could sort this out then they'd have won a fair proportion of the battle.
I wonder if a significant amount of comms difficulties are caused by the dependency on the two-headed hydra of TOC and Network Rail each with their own priorities and chains of command. Would things work better under a vertically integrated regime or even a full scale "alliance" way of working?
 

BingMan

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Trains in general get a bad press in this country for reliability. A family friend does a lot of long distance travelling (with a van - not practical to do via public transport) and it is common for 3hour journeys to take double that. It is very rare to get delayed more than an hour or two on the train. I do cardiff london most weeks for nearly 2 years, with the GWML in its less than reliabile condition and even still I've only had 2 delay repays over 2hours - one for a fatality, one for infrastructure problems. If I drove this (which I would never do) I would expect 2hour+ delays most evenings.

When I am delayed an hour or so I think about those astronauts whose trip back from the ISS has been delayed by eight months. Even RRBs aren't that bad
 

Krokodil

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In the no blame culture this is the fault of the bearded one, and all of those in thrall to him.

In my view it is at the root of what's being discussed here.

Basically I travel on the bits of the railway that are run like a railway, and don't go near the bits that are run like an airline.
Branson hasn't been involved for years. It's those who are still meddling I'm annoyed about.

Having been a Controller for most of my railway career, I think that is rather unfair; When a major incident occurs Control have scores of issues, and trains, to manage.
The first example was of one train altered on a day with no more disruption than usual, certainly no major incidents. We employ Customer Support Controllers for this sort of thing.

The second example affects many trains but only needed a couple of calls to sort out blanket acceptance. This sort of thing is basic and should be one of the first things to be arranged by the Customer Support Controller.

Some controllers are more switched on than others. You get to know the voices on the other end and how useful they are or aren't in a crisis.
 

yorkie

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Presumably someone who had committed a ticketing offence of some sort?
People are being threatened with prosecution (or a penalty fare etc) even when they are holding valid tickets or where the correct remedy is an excess.

This almost certainly doesn't happen in any other industry, and certainly not on this scale.
That isn’t likely to affect the vast majority of passengers who manage to travel with valid tickets...
Sorry but that's not good enough.
Is there any evidence that revenue enforcement impacts negatively on the public perception of the railway?
Plenty; just look at newspaper comments, social media etc.
It could even be that people would like to see better enforcement and *more* prosecutions.
This excuse for maltreatment of passengers (which is happening in an industrial scale; we only get to see the tip of the iceberg) is given by some in the the rail industry; there is no evidence that this view is held by anything other than a very small minority of individuals.
 
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Broucek

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Upthread, someone said that there are big problems with other forms of transport too. That's correct. The motorways are shocking at the moment with lots of lengthy speed restrictions as they try to make "smart" motorways safer at glacial speed.

The difference to the railway is flexibility. I can use the A1 instead of the M1 if the latter is congested. Or I can turn off the motorway and have a coffee, or decide to go somewhere else. And my car is waterproof and heated. In other words, although I'm not convinced that the railways are necessarily more unreliable than the roads, when the railway DOES go wrong there are fewer solutions and they are often not in your own hands for the most part.
 

trainophile

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On Friday I found out about a XC cancellation about 40 minutes before my journey on it was scheduled to depart (it was a fatality so nobody's fault). I grabbed my luggage and hot footed it to the station and sought out the guard for the GWR train that was due to depart imminently, and would enable me to keep my subsequent connections. Upon asking if I could get on the train he immediately said yes of course, and seemed genuinely surprised that I'd even asked. On departure he came and sat across the aisle and helped to sort out my onward plans.

I then managed to catch a very short (couple of minutes) XC connection, along with a lot of similarly affected people. One lady sitting near me had a ticket for the following Friday, having been bought for her by someone else, and she hadn't realised until it was checked. The guard was very understanding, the lady offered to pay but the guard said no worries this time. Common sense at its best.

Things like that give me a very warm glow about the railways. If only they were all like that.
 

dk1

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On Friday I found out about a XC cancellation about 40 minutes before my journey on it was scheduled to depart (it was a fatality so nobody's fault). I grabbed my luggage and hot footed it to the station and sought out the guard for the GWR train that was due to depart imminently, and would enable me to keep my subsequent connections. Upon asking if I could get on the train he immediately said yes of course, and seemed genuinely surprised that I'd even asked. On departure he came and sat across the aisle and helped to sort out my onward plans.

I then managed to catch a very short (couple of minutes) XC connection, along with a lot of similarly affected people. One lady sitting near me had a ticket for the following Friday, having been bought for her by someone else, and she hadn't realised until it was checked. The guard was very understanding, the lady offered to pay but the guard said no worries this time. Common sense at its best.

Things like that give me a very warm glow about the railways. If only they were all like that.

So pleased you posted this. It’s what I see and witness everyday. Just a shame it’s only the bad press that tends to get out there, but then us Brits do tend to enjoy knocking things.
 

yorkie

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On Friday I found out about a XC cancellation about 40 minutes before my journey on it was scheduled to depart (it was a fatality so nobody's fault). I grabbed my luggage and hot footed it to the station and sought out the guard for the GWR train that was due to depart imminently, and would enable me to keep my subsequent connections. Upon asking if I could get on the train he immediately said yes of course, and seemed genuinely surprised that I'd even asked. On departure he came and sat across the aisle and helped to sort out my onward plans.
Great to hear; many railway staff are like this!

However sadly a very noticeable and not insignificant minority are quite the opposite.

So I would always ask; the surprise at the member of staff that you asked is probably because it wouldn't occur to them how obstructive and awkward some staff can be; as a priv/pass holder they likely wouldn't experience that for themselves*.

* There are an extremely very tiny number of staff who are awkward with PRIV/pass holders , for example one noticeable LNER guard at Newcastle who is well known, but this is an absolutely miniscule proportion compared to those who are awkward with (full) fare paying cuatomers
I then managed to catch a very short (couple of minutes) XC connection, along with a lot of similarly affected people. One lady sitting near me had a ticket for the following Friday, having been bought for her by someone else, and she hadn't realised until it was checked. The guard was very understanding, the lady offered to pay but the guard said no worries this time. Common sense at its best.

Things like that give me a very warm glow about the railways. If only they were all like that.
If only indeed. It would certainly make rail travel a lot less stressful; part of the stress is not knowing what the attitude you are going to encounter is going to be.

Sadly train companies do not have sufficient safeguards in place to ensure staff behave appropriately and some train companies have policies in place that encourage the mistreatment of customers (e.g. Northern Rail are particularly bad at this; fortunately most Northern staff are actually sound).
 

scotraildriver

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We get alot of American and Canadian tourists on our routes in the summer and they, almost without exception, think our rail services are amazing. They can't believe the speeds and in particular the high frequency that our service provides. I suppose it comes from countries where freight rules the rails and the car is king.
 

MarkWi72

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My thread about the problems with XC at Leeds, today, encapsulate these thoughts and fears. 4 car Voyager from Edinburgh to Birmingham NS. It was going on to Plymouth. Earlier cancelled service meant this train was packed to the rafters. People in the bike racks. For £40 plus?

Waiting for next service which got as much as 23 mins late. With standing from Leeds to Sheffield. Driver got it to 10 mins late at New Street.

Staff were fine of course and do their best. I did ask the guy why not another Voyager unit to make an 8 car train. He said there weren’t any available. Which says little for organisation and infrastructure investment. The guard agreed of course.

However, the situation around the service which I could not board was absolutely chaotic - dangerous crowding around the train on the platform, suitcases and bags clouting people and a bag from a disembarking customer ended up on the rails.

It was certainly not good for public image or perception. At a time when many want to bash the railways.
 
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Horizon22

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I sometimes think control try to do too much in times of disruption to get the service back on time, missing stops or cancelling trains where just maybe it's better to run them late until the end of the day.
Having said that, I'm an outsider looking in and have absolutely no idea the reifications of doing so

Let me tell you that would be a terrible idea and would have all sorts of implications on crew and would cause knock-on impact for not just other routes the TOC runs, but potentially around the whole region or even country. And this is not an exaggeration; where there has been a delay on a journey because a service has presented late at a key junction due to an incident which causes another service to depart late which then runs behind a stopping service which couldn’t be held too long etc etc. You’re in the metro London & SE network and you’ve got a delay because of something that happened at Leeds! It doesn’t normally ripple that far but it can and you get the principle. Signallers regulate where they can but they can only do so much.

And of course feeding back into the “public perception” of the railway there are even experienced station staff and crew who don’t appreciate all of this, so what hope does the general public have!
 

DJP78

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My sister recently travelled in Italy. It was her first time using the rail service there and she didn’t know about having to pre-validate her tickets before boarding.

She and two friends were asked for tickets by the guard who then spotted they hadn’t pre-validated their tickets.

Despite my sister being polite, the guard became objectionable, threatening them with removal and fine.

Eventually, they negotiated a cash fine in Euros and he validated the tickets on his machine.

They spoke with tourist information persons whom advised they’d been scammed by the guard in a widely known tactic to extort money from unsuspecting tourists.

Although expected of passengers to pre-validate their tickets (activating the ticket I believe), my sister was advised that the guards are able to validate them on their machines.

UK guards don’t pressurise passengers into handing over cash bungs! My sister fully appreciates uk train staff after that.

I work on the railways in the uk.

Complex ticketing pricing, overcrowding on certain services, lack of contingency planning and info made available to staff to pass on to passengers needs addressing.

Better quality rolling stock (Voyager refresh coming soon!) and increased capacity to resolve overcrowding.

Ticket pricing structures declutterred and made simpler for easy access to standard prices.

Full headcount among guard, retail and driver cohorts to alleviate short staffing and cancellations.

Passengers need to have realistic expectations. If you travelled York - Penzance by car and arrived within 15 mins of Google Maps estimate most would consider that an excellent journey. Yet by train, people seem to immediately criticise.

Passenger behaviour has also deteriorated markedly. I think train crew are now constantly apprehensive and wondering which passenger is going to berate them next for matters outside of their control. Not excusing the fact there will always be a minority of staff needing customer relations training.

I wonder if a significant amount of comms difficulties are caused by the dependency on the two-headed hydra of TOC and Network Rail each with their own priorities and chains of command. Would things work better under a vertically integrated regime or even a full scale "alliance" way of working?
I think this is one of the key objectives in setting up GBR. Renationalising of TOCs and aligning planning and operations under one roof.

I agree that there are currently too many organisations on the railways with competing agendas

Let me tell you that would be a terrible idea and would have all sorts of implications on crew and would cause knock-on impact for not just other routes the TOC runs, but potentially around the whole region or even country. And this is not an exaggeration; where there has been a delay on a journey because a service has presented late at a key junction due to an incident which causes another service to depart late which then runs behind a stopping service which couldn’t be held too long etc etc. You’re in the metro London & SE network and you’ve got a delay because of something that happened at Leeds! It doesn’t normally ripple that far but it can and you get the principle. Signallers regulate where they can but they can only do so much.

And of course feeding back into the “public perception” of the railway there are even experienced station staff and crew who don’t appreciate all of this, so what hope does the general public have!
Spot on. There’s a bigger and very complex picture for timetabling.

A late train acts like a punctuality wrecking ball, implicating other services that get caught behind it, can’t be platformed at stations or that then run on cautionary signals causing delays.

If there was a simple solution, one would have been found by now.
 
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yorkie

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My sister recently travelled in Italy. It was her first time using the rail service there and she didn’t know about having to pre-validate her tickets before boarding.

She and two friends were asked for tickets by the guard who then spotted they hadn’t pre-validated their tickets.

Despite my sister being polite, the guard became objectionable, ...
They changed the rules; it now pre-validates to the selected train, if you don't specify otherwise.

The old rule was ridiculous.

However, although the new rule is much better, it is very important that we retain our rights to travel flexibly and not allow the pro-"simplification" brigade to turn the UK into Italy or, worse, Spain or France!

But that's for a different thread..
 

Purple Train

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This excuse for maltreatment of passengers (which is happening in an industrial scale; we only get to see the tip of the iceberg) is given by some in the the rail industry; there is no evidence that this view is held by anything other than a very small minority of individuals.
What most people want is a competent enforcement system that proportionately deals with minor errors in the arcane small-print of ticketing regulations (£12 minimum fare before 10am with a 16-25 railcard for instance, or whatever it is, which is an excellent case of picking random times and numbers out of thin air). What most people also want is a system which capably deals with the genuine and determined serial dodgers and properly cracks down on deliberate fare evasion.

The trouble is that the current system doesn't seem to be either proportionate or capable - the need for better enforcement is, as you very rightly say, sometimes used as an excuse to maltreat passengers, and frustratingly little seems to be done about deliberate fare evasion.

And that, to me, is the key word - seems.

It is human nature to notice the negatives - the deliberate dodging that never seems to be remedied, the passengers hauled over the coals for a simple error - and not the times the system works properly, proportionately, capably. Especially on this Forum, with its dedicated section for disputes and prosecutions, the passengers who made a simple error and were maltreated for it are the passengers that post there: there could have been a hundred cases, of which ninety-nine were dealt with courtesy of a cheerful "just remember next time", but how many of those will shout their experience from the rooftops?

To be clear, I know that you are far more experienced in these matters than I, and are probably more likely to be correct in your assertion that it is "the tip of the iceberg" than I am with my hypothesis! However, if it is at all possible, I would be interested if you could clarify your point here, as this is a very interesting topic on which I would be very open to learn more.
 

AndrewP

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I travel based on what ever is easiest and find the UK railways are generally very good indeed although it always amuses me when people say no one travels because the trains are too expensive and too busy (make your mind up!). There are also a lot of truly great staff who do care about customers and I can't remember when I last had a bad one.

Positives - very reliable (compare with Germany!), mostly comfortable enough, good staff and service and clean (compare with the filthy trains in the Netherlands or the tube vs the New York subway)

Negatives: Cost and some trains too short (especially cross country)

I do think that people do have cliched views of the railway i.e. it's always late and it was always better in the past. Simple fact is that where I live the railways have never been better
 

MarkWi72

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My sister recently travelled in Italy. It was her first time using the rail service there and she didn’t know about having to pre-validate her tickets before boarding.

She and two friends were asked for tickets by the guard who then spotted they hadn’t pre-validated their tickets.

Despite my sister being polite, the guard became objectionable, threatening them with removal and fine.

Eventually, they negotiated a cash fine in Euros and he validated the tickets on his machine.

They spoke with tourist information persons whom advised they’d been scammed by the guard in a widely known tactic to extort money from unsuspecting tourists.

Although expected of passengers to pre-validate their tickets (activating the ticket I believe), my sister was advised that the guards are able to validate them on their machines.

UK guards don’t pressurise passengers into handing over cash bungs! My sister fully appreciates uk train staff after that.

I work on the railways in the uk.

Complex ticketing pricing, overcrowding on certain services, lack of contingency planning and info made available to staff to pass on to passengers needs addressing.

Better quality rolling stock (Voyager refresh coming soon!) and increased capacity to resolve overcrowding.

Ticket pricing structures declutterred and made simpler for easy access to standard prices.

Full headcount among guard, retail and driver cohorts to alleviate short staffing and cancellations.

Passengers need to have realistic expectations. If you travelled York - Penzance by car and arrived within 15 mins of Google Maps estimate most would consider that an excellent journey. Yet by train, people seem to immediately criticise.

Passenger behaviour has also deteriorated markedly. I think train crew are now constantly apprehensive and wondering which passenger is going to berate them next for matters outside of their control. Not excusing the fact there will always be a minority of staff needing customer relations training.


I think this is one of the key objectives in setting up GBR. Renationalising of TOCs and aligning planning and operations under one roof.

I agree that there are currently too many organisations on the railways with competing agendas


Spot on. There’s a bigger and very complex picture for timetabling.

A late train acts like a punctuality wrecking ball, implicating other services that get caught behind it, can’t be platformed at stations or that then run on cautionary signals causing delays.

If there was a simple solution, one would have been found by now.
Agree with this and it was (kind of) my argument. Much of the chaos was caused by passengers on the platform, who didn't have the capacity , patience or requirement to hang back for another train. But people without any railway education will see it and bash the railways 9 times out of 10.
 

Western Lord

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We get alot of American and Canadian tourists on our routes in the summer and they, almost without exception, think our rail services are amazing. They can't believe the speeds and in particular the high frequency that our service provides. I suppose it comes from countries where freight rules the rails and the car is king.
There's plenty of videos on YouTube with Americans in the UK telling potential visitors from the US that they don't need to bother hiring a car as the trains and buses are so great, even in rural areas (compared to the States).
 

LAX54

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So pleased you posted this. It’s what I see and witness everyday. Just a shame it’s only the bad press that tends to get out there, but then us Brits do tend to enjoy knocking things.
I wonder if the 'the rules say' staff are the younger ones, who are just there for a job, whereas the older staff members, joined because they wanted to, (certainly not for the salary at the time ! ) enjoy the job, and enjoy ensuring people get from A to B without too muich stress ?

There's plenty of videos on YouTube with Americans in the UK telling potential visitors from the US that they don't need to bother hiring a car as the trains and buses are so great, even in rural areas (compared to the States).
That also applies to European visitors too, maybe not as much from those that come from a very large city, but outside of that where their service is not a patch on the UK's
 

dk1

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I wonder if the 'the rules say' staff are the younger ones, who are just there for a job, whereas the older staff members, joined because they wanted to, (certainly not for the salary at the time ! ) enjoy the job, and enjoy ensuring people get from A to B without too muich stress ?

I think it varies greatly amongst all ages. You’ll always have some that are keener than others. On the whole most want to do a good job.

There's plenty of videos on YouTube with Americans in the UK telling potential visitors from the US that they don't need to bother hiring a car as the trains and buses are so great, even in rural areas (compared to the States).

Yes it’s often the case in countries like France though that many local routes are dire. Here in the UK we often excel with them.
 

MarkWi72

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I wonder if the 'the rules say' staff are the younger ones, who are just there for a job, whereas the older staff members, joined because they wanted to, (certainly not for the salary at the time ! ) enjoy the job, and enjoy ensuring people get from A to B without too muich stress ?


That also applies to European visitors too, maybe not as much from those that come from a very large city, but outside of that where their service is not a patch on the UK's
Me and my mate talked about this yesterday. We had an overnight stay and night out in Harrogate (from West Mids). One of our mates took a lift with his brother, as he said the trains were "a waste of time". We reminded him it was a better run system than Germany's (they have 63% punctuality against 66% of UK rail).
 

Broucek

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Me and my mate talked about this yesterday. We had an overnight stay and night out in Harrogate (from West Mids). One of our mates took a lift with his brother, as he said the trains were "a waste of time". We reminded him it was a better run system than Germany's (they have 63% punctuality against 66% of UK rail).
Germany may be worse but 66% is NOT a good number...
 

mrmartin

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Yes it’s often the case in countries like France though that many local routes are dire. Here in the UK we often excel with them.

Agreed - even fairly 'mainline' route frequencies can be absolutely dire on the mainland. France has been absolutely terrible, often with 3 or 4 hour gaps in the service!

Passengers need to have realistic expectations. If you travelled York - Penzance by car and arrived within 15 mins of Google Maps estimate most would consider that an excellent journey. Yet by train, people seem to immediately criticise.

This is exactly my point. It would actually be more interesting to see PPM data adjusted for route length (as a % of service length). A 30 minute delay on a 25 min local journey is a bad delay - its not that big on a Aberdeen to London service.
 

Horizon22

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Agreed - even fairly 'mainline' route frequencies can be absolutely dire on the mainland. France has been absolutely terrible, often with 3 or 4 hour gaps in the service!

Very odd timings too. There's a regional area I travel to regulalrly and whereas in the UK we would have a say 1/2tph evenly across the hour into the major city or capital, there's one service at say 1040, then 1120 then nothing to 1325. Even when it is somewhat hourly its not at xx20 (for example).

You do wonder though if demand is better catered for though - trains often seem well loaded. Going for the "lower frequency, but higher capacity" model seems to work OK there.
 

mrmartin

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Very odd timings too. There's a regional area I travel to regulalrly and whereas in the UK we would have a say 1/2tph evenly across the hour into the major city or capital, there's one service at say 1040, then 1120 then nothing to 1325. Even when it is somewhat hourly its not at xx20 (for example).

You do wonder though if demand is better catered for though - trains often seem well loaded. Going for the "lower frequency, but higher capacity" model seems to work OK there.
Yes I found the exact same. No services over lunchtime. Ended up getting a flixbus instead.
 

brooklynbound

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An excellent example of public perception yesterday. Occasional travellers being put off by short formations.

I had the misfortune to travel Putney - Waterloo mid morning yesterday and back early afternoon. It seemed with the exception of the Kingston loop services all trains were 4 coaches. Our Waterloo bound service arrived standing room only at Putney and we left would-be passengers behind. It was even worse coming home. Full at Waterloo, huge crowds at both Vauxhall and Clapham Junction with most failing to board and of course because the trains were so full, they were getting delayed as rammed 450's take an age to load/unload.

I was surprised how many people were saying this is why they usually drive.
 

Bikeman78

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In the situation described, what was the alternative? It seems that the set which operates the service, all day, with minimal turnrounds at each end, was unable to depart on or near time. If it had run, late, all subsequent workings would also have been delayed, affecting more passengers.
The Crewe to Chester shuttle has just under 15 minutes slack per round trip, assuming nothing else is going wrong.

One concerning trend is the frequency with which late running up trains are terminating at Reading. Unless the line was actually blocked, I'd not experienced that in 20 years. In the past year, I've been on the receiving end of it twice and heard various announcements about other trains starting at Reading whilst I am passing through Paddington. Most passengers travel to or from London on the Intercity trains so it seems a strange policy. I suspect that Network Rail is probably the driving force behind it.
 

uglymonkey

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"Most passengers travel to or from London on the Intercity trains so it seems a strange policy. I suspect that Network Rail is probably the driving force behind it."

Its more to do with the company avoiding a penalty payment of some sort rather than any feelings of helping the poor customers.
 

birchesgreen

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Passengers need to have realistic expectations. If you travelled York - Penzance by car and arrived within 15 mins of Google Maps estimate most would consider that an excellent journey. Yet by train, people seem to immediately criticise.
Well yes but if you have a 10 minute connection and your arriving train is 15 minutes late then i think its perfectly fair to criticise!
 
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