Falcon1200
Established Member
I'd always encourage station management or similar staff to visit their local Control (and vice versa) to see what its like; unfortunately these visits always seem to happen when there's no disruption and people are broadly twiddling their thumbs!
Agree 100%, and in addition I would say that training for all railway staff should include at least a shift, or preferably several, in both NR and TOC Controls. However on a really bad day such as the Thameslink incident discussed here the Controllers won't have a lot of time to speak to visitors !
Making short, sharp, prompt decisions can reduced the overall disruption, as can implementing arranged contingency plans.
There were occasions when I advocated withdrawing the train service from stations which could otherwise have been served because it would make a big difference to the overall disruption to the greatest number of passengers - Which is not to say that nothing should have been done for those stations, however.