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West Midlands Trains duty of care: LNR passengers abandoned on platform

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Bletchleyite

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Challenging a request to detrain isn’t a good idea and will potentially lead to an escalation, the police being called etc. making disruption exponentially worse.
To a point. The requirement AIUI is to make reasonable adjustments, and there is a level of impairment which cannot be catered for: we don’t allow unaccompanied minors

The railway does allow unaccompanied minors. They are however the parents' responsibility to determine if they are old enough to travel alone, so the duty of care applied is similar to an adult.

or those who are heavily intoxicated to travel around unaccompanied either.

I have been on trains while "heavily intoxicated" on quite a number of occasions.
 
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43066

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I'm not suggesting that that the railway instates a chaperone service. My point is in response to the suggestion that certain people probably shouldn't be allowed to travel on the basis of their level of independence.

Not that they shouldn’t be allowed to travel. More that if they cannot safely travel alone then clearly other arrangements need to be made.

The railway does allow unaccompanied minors. They are however the parents' responsibility to determine if they are old enough to travel alone.

Wrong choice of phrase - but you know what I mean. We don’t allow five year olds to travel alone. And the responsibility clearly isn’t the railway’s.

I have been on trains while "heavily intoxicated" on quite a number of occasions.

Ha. So have I (not while working I hasten to add!) But there’s intoxicated and there’s intoxicated. I’ve also refused to drive a train with someone on it who was so paralytic he didn’t know where he was, or even who he was(!) and there was a chance he’d pull an egress or similar.
 

Horizon22

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Checking the Nationarail website, HML is manned until 2000.

I would expect Help points to respond - helpfully, which means reference to control when appropriate - at all times trains are running - which for LNWR/WMT would seem to be round the clock. Perhaps someone in the know could confirm?

I don't recall the OP saying that anyone had (definitely) used the help point, or about anything being passed back from it.

And in reference to my SPT comment earlier, I fully accept it is not the best option: but in the absence of anything better (helpful help point?), it might have to do...

Finally, another quote I recall, by a senior BR manager, on receiving letter of complaint after a not dissimilar problem: "What sort of business does this to its customers?"

Whilst the Help Point does respond, they would probably just repeat what NRE (National Rail Enquiries) states, or in a more situation like this will get in contact with the "customer information" lead role for that route in Control. However, during an incident such as this, no doubt that person is absolutely slammed and probably will go somewhere around 17th of the 21 things they have to do during a fatality. The person on the Help Point may not even be able to get through on the phone as is common for other internal employees to other internal control employees, let alone external individuals. So the Help Point could have had nothing more additional to say if they couldn't get a response and are often nothing more than a glorified NRE with a voice.

I would hope that as soon as someone had noted these trains had failed to stop (which should be the train service controller but that person is undoubtedly snowed under, so may be forgotten) that alternative transport can be arranged. This could be with station staff - who appear to have left by then, or via the Help Point.
 
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WelshBluebird

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In terms of the help point, in the past when I've used one its just put me through to the offshore NRE helpline, who were as much use as a chocolate teapot, so I can absolutely understand if someone was reluctant to try using one in a situation like this.
 

Horizon22

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I'm complaining directly to LNWR.

Looking for a full and honest explanation and evidence that systems will be put in place to prevent recurrence so that the railway can learn from this incident.

I note that the railway doesn't lose track of it's trains and crew but seems to be able to lose a trainful of passengers. Are there no tracking systems in place at Control for detrained passengers ?

I'm very positive about the railway and benefit immensely from the service, including that from LNWR which is my preferred carrier from London to Crewe. So much better than driving everywhere. My cars stay at home and do very few miles. I take a full size folding bike with me and only fold it if a train is busy or I have to use an Avanti train.

Throughout the pandemic I've been able to continue travel for work while rail staff have been exposed to daily risk.

For all of that and the usual high standard of customer care I'm very grateful.

So I've no reason to complain in a way which will unnecessarily damage the railway.


There were certainly vulnerable passengers who didn't have the funds to rescue themselves from the situation. Those who could afford it gradually disappeared from the platform.

The railway very much loses track of trains and crew during serious service disruption. People are all over the network nowhere near where you'd expect them to be, or stuck all on one side of an incident. As for tracking detrained passengers, not explicitly, but a controller should be aware in the back of their mind if a station hasn't had a service in some time. In fact special stop orders are often put in place when this happens. At the time it happened, it was probably a shift change too, so might have been lost in a rather hectic handover. So unfortunately it seems to me you've been caught in several consequential actions. Saying that some of these could easily have been resolved with better communication between colleagues during disruption. Something I've seen happen far too often; those who are meant to have cool heads often have anything but and get tunnel vision.
 

O L Leigh

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Not that they shouldn’t be allowed to travel. More that if they cannot safely travel alone then clearly other arrangements need to be made.

The issue here is that we're not talking about a stranded outing from the local Leonard Cheshire home*, but a group of sane, competent adults, as exemplified by the OP. They've been told that something will happen by a person in authority and they've believed it, so they are waiting patiently for that thing to happen. They have no need to be exploring the alternative options or seeking other means of transportation. And if they really felt that they had no alternative because, for example, they'd been tipped out onto the platform with no instruction or advice, then I'm sure they would have coped admirably. This incident is not down to a failing on the part of the passengers and nor does it question their abilities to deal with the situation, but rather a failure of the TOC to ensure that all their passengers were accounted for.

* I trust I have caused no offence with these comments, as none was intended.
 
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43066

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I'm not here raising this issue to get a refund :)

I travelled Llandudno Junction to Slade Green with split ticket at Crewe and Euston.

That’s quite some night-bus journey from Euston! You deserve a refund (and quite possibly a medal) for that.
 
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I’ve never been to Hemel Hempstead station in my life. It took all of five seconds to google map it and realise how close it is to St Albans, or to Chalfont and Latimer (I’ve never been there in my life either). The vast majority of people of all ages can read a station sign, use a help point, read a map, and work out how to get from A to B. Indeed most children are well able to do this.
I presume you got this map on your internet-connected smart phone? Or maybe on a computer as you were sitting at home. Where does that leave someone who doesn't have a smart phone? This might be for economic reasons, or it might be someone like my mother, who has an eye condition which means she can't cope with the touch screen interface. Physical maps are no problem, signs and displays at stations are no problem, but the internet in your pocket doesn't. Does that mean she shouldn't travel by train? In don't think carrying a collection of physical A-Z maps for every station your route takes you through is a reasonable precaution to have to take - or if it is, then it weighs heavily against choosing to travel by train.

In a similar vein, I have had to call a taxi on behalf of other stranded passengers because I had some battery left, and their phone was flat. If there were fewer people travelling?

My experience with Merseyrail help points (from unstaffed stations) is that they indeed connect to someone in a call center whose best effort is reading back what the departure board says. They certainly are not (in my experience) able to help with questions like "what is the number of a local taxi company" and "will I be able to claim the fare back", in the way that locally based railway staff are.
 

Horizon22

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Also, as to the Hemel Hempstead departures screen, I imagine the trains were never booked to stop / had been pre-cancelled, but the CIS operator in Control never got around to updating the backlog. Again, I don't know LNWR run their operations but I think they have a "London" desk that looks as far as Northampton which would be for the train controller, information controller, crew resources with various support roles (each TOC works slightly differently) and so I imagine there was a long list of customer information things that might have been missed as a backlog.

This is the classic conundrum of when all is running well, Control are doing a few minor bits and pieces but mostly, twiddling thumbs. However when disruption happens (a fatality basically "stopping the job") you ideally want 3x as many people to carry out tasks, the workload increases exponentially and the phone doesn't stop ringing. But for a fatality you don't know when and where this will happen and you can't run massively over-resourced all the time. That being said, there should be contingency plans for all areas so that a clear plan is in place so passengers aren't missed. It is clear to me that it was at some point "forgotten" a train had previous terminated at Hemel, otherwise a) special stops would have been put in or b) some sort of alternative transport laid on.
 

43096

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It is clear to me that it was at some point "forgotten" a train had previous terminated at Hemel, otherwise a) special stops would have been put in or b) some sort of alternative transport laid on.
Have a look at the station line-up I posted here: https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...ers-abandoned-on-platform.216890/post-5113943

There were services due to call but they were all cancelled or failed to call. It's rank incompetence to leave a station with no service for that length of time during service recovery.
 

Horizon22

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Have a look at the station line-up I posted here: https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...ers-abandoned-on-platform.216890/post-5113943

There were services due to call but they were all cancelled or failed to call. It's rank incompetence to leave a station with no service for that length of time during service recovery.

In reference to the 2349 that was booked to pass and was shown to call, then someone has manually edited it, made that decision and it would be for the driver a "special stop". Clearly that message didn't get through to the crew, for whatever reason.

During service recovery and/or disruption some stations often don't have a service for hours and people go home / seek alternative routes or whatever. What makes this different is that all the passengers at Hemel were mid-journey and had been chucked of there and needed onward connections. This is where I gather the passengers were "forgotten" which is poor form, but I can think of several reasons as to why that might have happened (not that I'm saying its right).
 

43066

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but a group of sane, competent adults, as exemplified by the OP. You've been on the railways long enough to know that folk like this can be rendered stupid simply by entering railway premises*.

Agreed.

But the suggestion was made up thread that there might be people present amongst the passengers who cannot cope with replanning a journey. I would contend that people genuinely in this category shouldn’t be travelling unaccompanied in the first place.

This might be for economic reasons, or it might be someone like my mother, who has an eye condition which means she can't cope with the touch screen interface. Physical maps are no problem, signs and displays at stations are no problem, but the internet in your pocket doesn't. Does that mean she shouldn't travel by train?

Someone in your mother’s situation would be presumably be able to cope with reading signs, maps etc. (of which there are many at most stations) to ascertain where she was.

My experience with Merseyrail help points (from unstaffed stations) is that they indeed connect to someone in a call center whose best effort is reading back what the departure board says. They certainly are not (in my experience) able to help with questions like "what is the number of a local taxi company" and "will I be able to claim the fare back", in the way that locally based railway staff are.

Fair point - better local staffing levels would be more desirable than “help points”.

Also, as to the Hemel Hempstead departures screen, I imagine the trains were never booked to stop, but the CIS operator in Control never got around to updating the backlog. Again, I don't know LNWR run their operations but I think they have a "London" desk that looks as far as Northampton which would be for the train controller, information controller, crew resources with various support roles (each TOC works slightly differently) and so I imagine there was a long list of customer information things that might have been missed as a backlog.

The shift change comment above made me wonder. Shouldn’t happen of course, but I can see how that might have accounted for the problems amidst the chaos.
 

WelshBluebird

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But the suggestion was made up thread that there might be people present amongst the passengers who cannot cope with replanning a journey. I would contend that people genuinely in this category shouldn’t be travelling unaccompanied in the first place.
What I think you are missing is that would likely mean the majority of passengers shouldn't be travelling unaccompanied according to you. Now you may actually believe that, but I somehow doubt it.

Maybe you can argue people should be able to replan their journey in a potentially unknown location late in the evening without any help from railway staff, but a lot of people would struggle with that. And that isn't limited to people with mental or physical disabilities.
 
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AnyFile

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I’ve never been to Hemel Hempstead station in my life. It took all of five seconds to google map it and realise how close it is to St Albans, or to Chalfont and Latimer

If passengers had travel to one of this station (and it is not so clear how they could have, it should take more than 2 hours and half to walk), would they be able to take a train with the ticket they had?

And how could be sure that there were trains running from there? Consulting your phone you could have known that there were trains scheduled to stop there, but you could have not know what have actually happened there...
 

WelshBluebird

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If passengers had travel to one of this station (and it is not so clear how they could have, it should take more than 2 hours and half to walk), would they be able to take a train with the ticket they had?

And how could be sure that there were trains running from there? Consulting your phone you could have known that there were trains scheduled to stop there, but you could have not know what have actually happened there...
Indeed, you could have ended up in an even worse situation and not be eligible for delay repay or the like because you did something off your own back.
 

allotments

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That’s quite some night-bus journey from Euston! You deserve a refund (and quite possibly a medal) for that.
saved 30 minutes by cycling to the night bus at Charing Cross

folded the bike

after a 90 minute bus ride very fortunate that it stopped 100 yards from home too

never even contemplated that journey before

ready to sleep at 4am

actually it would have been faster to cycle the 17 miles from Euston but I was tired
 

43096

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In reference to the 2349 that was booked to pass and was shown to call, then someone has manually edited it, made that decision and it would be for the driver a "special stop". Clearly that message didn't get through to the crew, for whatever reason.

During service recovery and/or disruption some stations often don't have a service for hours and people go home / seek alternative routes or whatever. What makes this different is that all the passengers at Hemel were mid-journey and had been chucked of there and needed onward connections. This is where I gather the passengers were "forgotten" which is poor form, but I can think of several reasons as to why that might have happened (not that I'm saying its right).
So from 9pm to end of service providing no service to some stations is acceptable, is it? Passengers turfed off who get forgotten. I’m getting a picture here and it isn’t good. It is a basic failing: are West Mids control incapable or incompetent, because it is one of the two (or both).
 

43066

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What I think you are missing is that would likely mean the majority of passengers shouldn't be travelling unaccompanied according to you. Now you may actually believe that, but I somehow doubt it.

It doesn’t mean anything of the sort. Perhaps I just have a little more faith in humanity than most on this thread.

Unless you’re seriously suggesting that the majority of compos mentis adults you know couldn’t cope with being turfed out of a train at Hemel Hempstead of an evening?

Maybe you can argue people should be able to replan their journey in a potentially unknown location late in the evening without any help from railway staff, but a lot of people would struggle with that. And that isn't limited to people with mental or physical disabilities.

Sometimes bad things happen. For the vast majority of people the events described above would be a minor inconvenience. Not a reason for a lynch mob, threats of legal action over a twenty quid ticket and a call to MI5. It’s a tenner in a taxi for goodness sake.

It’s not rocket science, and we aren’t splitting the atom here. As a thick, overpaid, train driver, I even managed it itself the other week :).

saved 30 minutes by cycling to the night bus at Charing Cross

folded the bike

after a 90 minute bus ride very fortunate that it stopped 100 yards from home too

never even contemplated that journey before

ready to sleep at 4am

actually it would have been faster to cycle the 17 miles from Euston but I was tired

Excellent work! And for the record your postings on this thread have been very reasonable and you were right to ask the question. If nothing else it has prompted an interesting discussion.

Clearly you were the victim of a bad mistake by the railway and greatly inconvenienced. I hope you get the recompense you are owed.
 

Dr Hoo

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At the risk of stating the obvious, 'late in the evening' is the worst time of day to be dealing with an incident.

Many staff are going off duty (or are at least probably tired); service frequencies are low; engineering works may be about to start; its dark and cold (or getting so); taxis are hard to come by as they are snapped up for local pub and entertainment trips; station staffing is at minimal levels; buses are likely to be unavailable; people's phone batteries are likely to be getting flat; folk will have already eaten any refreshments that they had with them and the shops are closed; many fellow passengers might be the worse for wear and needing the toilet; etc., etc.

I don't think that there is anything special about the individual TOC in this case. Frankly similar circumstances could arise almost anywhere. (I have already posted about a comparable lash-up in BR's day for which I was partially responsible and in the thick of.)

I have always been very wary of getting late trains since getting into some uncomfortable scrapes as a passenger many years ago. It is extremely difficult for the rail industry to gear up to deal with this sort of thing.

I suspect that many passengers (and potential passengers) appreciate this, even if only subconsciously, and rarely choose to travel by train at these times.

I know that not everybody has the luxury of such choice.
 

Horizon22

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So from 9pm to end of service providing no service to some stations is acceptable, is it? Passengers turfed off who get forgotten. I’m getting a picture here and it isn’t good. It is a basic failing: are West Mids control incapable or incompetent, because it is one of the two (or both).

Not necessarily, but sometimes serious incidents happen. Hemel was not the only station to be in the same position looking at RTT. I gather 2Y18 & 2Y20 were the last train was booked to call but it looks like the former might have run non-stop from Northampton judging by RTT. Again another bad call and as to why, I don't know. Last trains are normally preseved by Control for the fact that there's no alternative, even if its running majorly late. It seems other TOCs (and even LNWR longer distance) were running trains northbound and southbound (albeit heavily delayed), so it appears the service was just suspended on a particular line of route.

As I said I distinguish between a) no service available for passenger starting journey and b) passengers mid-journey requiring a service. It is more acceptable for a) to happen than b) (although clearly neither is great) obviously and passengers need to be move on. I am merely speculating what could have happened from my experience and never said it was acceptable, but I can understand how it could have happened. Nobody other than who was in the control room at the time will be able to ascertain how it was missed off and I imagine sadly it will be chalked off as "one of those things", if those on duty can even remember all the intricacies.
 
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allotments

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What I think you are missing is that would likely mean the majority of passengers shouldn't be travelling unaccompanied according to you. Now you may actually believe that, but I somehow doubt it.

Maybe you can argue people should be able to replan their journey in a potentially unknown location late in the evening without any help from railway staff, but a lot of people would struggle with that. And that isn't limited to people with mental or physical disabilities.
Passengers needing guidance do stick together and look out for each other to some extent but that won't work for everyone. There's a good chance that vulnerable passengers will be cared for by others in the group. There's empathy and a collective desire to reach the destination.
 

43066

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Let's not forget that the author of most of the controversial comments on this thread is just one rail employee. I'm happy to say that the vast majority of rail staff have always appeared to be far more understanding and empathetic.
One rotten apple doesn't help their cause, but at least he's a minority.

Very true. I’m not just a bad apple, I’m an entire barrel of them :). That shouldn’t trouble you, because you rarely deign to use the railway, right?

How quickly would BTP turn up if you used the Help Point to say that you were a young female who had just been attacked on the station platform?

Not sure.

Can you try doing that and reporting back? Ta muchly for the inbound amusement.
 

O L Leigh

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Agreed.

But the suggestion was made up thread that there might be people present amongst the passengers who cannot cope with replanning a journey. I would contend that people genuinely in this category shouldn’t be travelling unaccompanied in the first place.

Which brings me back to my original point about the Equality Act.

I have to agree that the wheeling out of the asthmatic, diabetic, visually impaired, pregnant, intoxicated, inappropriately attired, confused, elderly, wheelchair-bound, deaf, developmentally delayed Railforums Patent Vulnerable Passenger (TM) at the mention of any sort of passenger inconvenience is intensely frustrating when there is no evidence that there was anyone present who even remotely fits the description. However, the railways do have to be mindful that there might just be such a person on the train that they're about to terminate short at an unstaffed location late at night such as, say, oh I don't know, perhaps Hemel Hempstead, and, as such, we ought to be giving some thought as to how we make sure that we don't leave them stranded for hours late at night on a freezing cold platform.

But your assertion also misses a rather pertinent point, which is that it is possible for even the most mature, savvy, clued-up adult to become vulnerable when stranded at a location that they are unfamiliar with. I've travelled widely across our great nation, but there are many areas that I am not adequately familiar with to be able to know where certain towns are in relation to each other nor how to travel between them late at night. Of course I could research them in the manner that you describe, but I think that if I'd been promised that a following train was going to stop and pick me up then I would be hanging on to wait for this. Rather like the OP, I see no reason why I should have to question this promise and would be loath to venture too far from the platform for fear that I would miss what could be my one and only chance to get away.

I will admit to having been on both ends of situations similar to this. I've been the railway staff who has reassured passengers that the train will definitely leave only to have the train finally cancelled and had to be the one to break the news to them, and I've been the passenger on the receiving end of what turned out to be empty platitudes from a TOC that ultimately left me high and dry. No-one comes out of this smelling of roses. I have no problem sympathising with the OP and with others who have faced similar situations. I don't consider myself to be especially needful in terms of my abilities and such, but I can see how a situation like this can be brought about and am therefore not comfortable making any judgements about others who get themselves on the wrong side of a TOC's mistake.

These are all only my own personal views based on my experiences as railstaff and as a rail user, and I respect that they may be at variance to the experiences of others. It is our experiences together with our views and beliefs that inform our view of the world around us, and I have no issue with you or anyone else holding a different view to my own. That said, I hope that you will forgive me when I say that I think you're being rather harsh in your assessment. That others (perhaps myself included) elect to take a different approach to a situation than the one you espouse shouldn't mark us out as lesser than others. I appreciate that you have been responding to a particular point raised earlier in the thread, and perhaps you have not been adequately clear about this in your responses so far, but some of the things you have said up to this point have been perhaps a tad inflammatory in the view of others. Frankly I'd like everyone to be clear about what they're saying so as to prevent needless misunderstandings and bickering over points of triviality so that we can move this discussion forward rather than being mired in recrimination.

Please understand that this is a post largely addressed to the forum as a whole and not to you personally. There is no question that, as I mentioned before, this incident should never have happened. But as it has, I feel that there is an interesting discussion to be had about how it could be avoided in the future, which includes how the railway deals with vulnerable passengers during times of disruption, including those who we all know ought not to be carried and yet who are as well as those who can be counted generally adept.
 

ashkeba

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I am unsure how this discussion can move on until we hear LNWR's reply.
 

ivorytoast28

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That’s quite some night-bus journey from Euston! You deserve a refund (and quite possibly a medal) for that.
At least it has a night bus... some of these passengers may well have been heading to destinations that did not as they were expecting to arrive into London far earlier, but I guess they we're all too mentally ill so shouldn't be on the railway for you to care they had to pay 100s for taxis to southampton
 

etr221

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Thinking more, I am wondering if, when the train was terminated at HML the intention was that they should get an RRB, but this - for some reason - was not communicated to the passengers.

So it was not so much a situation of them being forgotten, but thought to have been dealt with, at far as Control were comcerned.
 
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Robertj21a

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Very true. I’m not just a bad apple, I’m an entire barrel of them :). That shouldn’t trouble you, because you rarely deign to use the railway, right?



Not sure.

Can you try doing that and reporting back? Ta muchly for the inbound amusement.
I'm sure you realise, but it's this flippant approach from you, on a serious issue, that singles you out as one of the small minority of 'bad apple' rail staff.
No doubt you'll just keep digging that hole for yourself.
 

Western Sunset

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Sorry for my red herring re-staffing by misreading the times. D'oh.
But in a way that makes it worse by the TOC, knowing they were decanting all the passengers at an unstaffed station late in the evening.
 

jon0844

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Sounds to me that the plan was to run a bus and someone got duff information, which was then passed on.

I do hope we get a response from the TOC soon.
 

robbeech

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If passengers had travel to one of this station (and it is not so clear how they could have, it should take more than 2 hours and half to walk), would they be able to take a train with the ticket they had?

And how could be sure that there were trains running from there? Consulting your phone you could have known that there were trains scheduled to stop there, but you could have not know what have actually happened there...
They can’t be sure trains are running and their trust is already lost. They’re stood in the middle of nowhere (relatively speaking) being told by the railway that trains are calling, for them to go straight past, who in that position can trust the railway again that evening.
Indeed, you could have ended up in an even worse situation and not be eligible for delay repay or the like because you did something off your own back.
Let’s not beat about the bush, if you got a taxi from HH you could claim delay repay, receive it, and in 2 years time you could be handed a 6 months suspended sentence for fraud and lose your career and home. That is today’s railway.
It doesn’t mean anything of the sort. Perhaps I just have a little more faith in humanity than most on this thread.

Unless you’re seriously suggesting that the majority of compos mentis adults you know couldn’t cope with being turfed out of a train at Hemel Hempstead of an evening?



Sometimes bad things happen. For the vast majority of people the events described above would be a minor inconvenience. Not a reason for a lynch mob, threats of legal action over a twenty quid ticket and a call to MI5. It’s a tenner in a taxi for goodness sake.
That’s exactly what we are suggesting. The majority of “compos mentis adults” couldn’t cope with being turfed out of a train at an unfamiliar location.
The fact you are turning this around to make everyone else look bad deals speaks about where you stand on this.

There’s no “having a little more faith” because the result of that leaves people in a dangerous situation.

Your constant pushing of your views that when the railway makes a massive mistake passengers should just suck it up but when passengers make a mistake it’s only right they’re punished for it shows your attitude perfectly.

I would personally think that anyone reading this thread with an open mind, or anyone who really wanted to give the railway the benefit of the doubt will have been swayed heavily in the passenger’s favour by the attitude of some railway staff on here. People who really wanted to say “you know what, they really messed up here, I hope they learn from it” are more inclined to say, “well, if that’s the attitude the staff have then there’s no wonder everyone says how bad it is”.
It’s not rocket science, and we aren’t splitting the atom here. As a thick, overpaid, train driver, I even managed it itself the other week :).
Someone who works on the railway made a decision during the day time on their COMMUTE to get a taxi between places they know. I think Shania Twain has something to say about that.
 
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