In your opinion !! Back in the real world...Good grief. Anyone who lacks the wherewithal to alter their journey when necessary shouldn’t be travelling unsupervised.
In your opinion !! Back in the real world...
I used to work with a person who had "learning difficulties" who was perfectly able to travel on their own. However, due to their condition the journey had to be structured (ie the first journey would be with a "minder" so they got accustomed to the station layout and route). On the second and subsequent journey's they would be fine on there own.
They would be f*ed though they got thrown off at an unfamiliar station on route they hadn't been to before.
Why should they be discriminated against living an independent life just in case the railway company chuck them off at a unfamiliar station ?
Edit: Although they had "learning difficulties" they were actually quite clever and probably know more than you regarding Spreadsheets (which they excelled at)! Pardon the pun.
Presumably everyone would be entitled to 100% Delay Repay anyway, given the extent of their delay? Presumably the 'single railwayman on the platform' (mentioned up thread) made this clear? At least if most people claimed the TOC will have their contact details to be more pro-active.Communicating with the affected customers, and offering some sort of goodwill gesture, as well as a full refund, would seem to be the right start. There is at least a chance of starting to turn the narrative in the favour of train travel then.
Assuming the help point gets answered by someone from the TOC control, rather than National Rail Enquires who can be as much use as a chocolate fireguard.
Reminds me of a case in 2019 time when passengers from a failed LNER service were dumped at Spalding station on a Sunday evening when the train broke down only to be forgotten about (after-all, once the delay goes over an hour, the TOCs don't care)
Indeed. Somewhat surprising that some posters on here seem to be suggesting that such a sub-optimal level of customer experience is quite acceptable.That is very different to this case where it appears people were set down by a train being turned around short and in normal circumstances they would be a priority to have picked back up again including if need be making additional calls. It appears for whatever reason someone dropped the ball and failed to take them into account in decision making/forgot about them.
What arrangements would you make from Hemel Hempstead at night?Depends what you're trying to get.
If it's a detailed reason as to why other trains weren't stopped etc, that's unlikely to be forthcoming as those are operational decisions which don't have to be made public.
If you're expecting an apology, you'll probably get that.
If you're looking for compensation, it would appear you'd get something under delay / repay and maybe a goodwill gesture on top. If you're expecting hundreds of pounds for "inconvenience" then you're going to be out of luck.
My question would be why people didn't just make their own arrangements after 30 mins or so. I would have.
I don't think anyone's saying it's acceptable, but in the real world things go wrong - that's what seems to have happened here. But what do you want? Public humiliation and scrutiny for those who made those decisions and possibly made a mistake by a panel of 'Railforums Armchair Experts' able to pass sanctions varying from a 10 year stint of bog cleaning at a major station to full scale dismissal without appeal?Indeed. Somewhat surprising that some posters on here seem to be suggesting that such a sub-optimal level of customer experience is quite acceptable.
Baffling why the railway has such an appalling reputation isn't it. . . .Exactly what “legal action” did you threaten?
This attitude is disappointing at best and because of that, your claimed experience is genuinely concerning. People who aren't able to re plan their journey must make up a significant number of rail passengers, many of which will be far more intelligent than you or I. Even those who can look through a time table and work out an alternative route, or work out that another station is only a 10 minute brisk walk away, or have the people skills to converse with staff are often significantly hindered in their attempt by rail staff turning the situation into a bigger farce than it was in the first place. The only people in this situation who "can't replan a journey" seems to be the Train Operating Company. Perhaps they shouldn't do their job unsupervised.I have plenty of experience of looking after those with learning difficulties. Someone who isn’t able to replan their journey shouldn’t be travelling unsupervised by public transport, end of.
Sadly it seems to be a lot of people's opinion.In your opinion !! Back in the real world...
I used to work with a person who had "learning difficulties" who was perfectly able to travel on their own. However, due to their condition the journey had to be structured (ie the first journey would be with a "minder" so they got accustomed to the station layout and route). On the second and subsequent journey's they would be fine on there own.
They would be f*ed though they got thrown off at an unfamiliar station on route they hadn't been to before.
Why should they be discriminated against living an independent life just in case the railway company chuck them off at a unfamiliar station ?
Edit: Although they had "learning difficulties" they were actually quite clever and probably know more than you regarding Spreadsheets (which they excelled at)! Pardon the pun.
There are some extraordinarily anti customer members on the forum, many (not all) of which are of course railway employees. It's little wonder that these things happen, and the customers are treated the way they are when you see the attitude some have. Thankfully, despite what some of the opposite 'extremists' will tell you, its incredibly rare and there is an obvious bias because we always get to hear of it, and we have a keen interest in it, from one side of the fence or another.There are some extraordinarily anti-customer comments in this thread. I expect that almost all of the affected people will each be telling many other people how awful train travel is. And those people will either be passing on the story to many more people, or not deciding not to travel by train when they might have done. Or both. And those people with first hand experience of this will, of course, be thinking twice about train travel.
The affected customers deserve at the very least, a good explanation of what happened, why it happened, and what’s being done to prevent it from happening again. I don’t mean the unfortunate suicide here; I mean the many opportunities that there were to help the customers afterwards.
Communicating with the affected customers, and offering some sort of goodwill gesture, as well as a full refund, would seem to be the right start. There is at least a chance of starting to turn the narrative in the favour of train travel then.
It's staggering that after a incident that in many cases would see more than one person clearing their lockers out the very same day, will already be firmly under the carpet on the railway.
It's exactly what some are implying.I don't think anyone's saying it's acceptable, but in the real world things go wrong - that's what seems to have happened here. But what do you want? Public humiliation and scrutiny for those who made those decisions and possibly made a mistake by a panel of 'Railforums Armchair Experts' able to pass sanctions varying from a 10 year stint of bog cleaning at a major station to full scale dismissal without appeal?
I maintain, a sensible adult should be capable of taking a sensible decision - if after an hour a train hasn't turned up, particularly when there has been a significant disruption, then take responsibility for your journey and get home, sort out the complaint and recompense later.
Absolutely not, i am showing the SIGNFICANT difference in response. I'm not suggesting anyone should be dismissed at all, i assume (unlikely some) that this is entirely down to incompetence. My point is that in some industries they would not be allowed a second chance but in this industry, it is unlikely it will even get discussed, there are several polite steps between doing sod all and dismissing someone, one of which i feel should be implemented here, preferably closer to doing sod all unless there are factors we don't know about. But of course, that isn't the main focus here, the main focus is the event itself.Brilliant - so on the basis of a post on Railforums and some info on RTT you can determine "somebody should be fired".
My god, I hope you're *never* called up to do jury service if that's your threshold for guilt, because the poor sod on trial might just as well be taken outside and shot on day 1 without wasting the time of a trial.
I assume you're fully experienced in rail operations and decision making when recovering from an incident?
I don't think anyone's saying it's acceptable, but in the real world things go wrong - that's what seems to have happened here. But what do you want? Public humiliation and scrutiny for those who made those decisions and possibly made a mistake by a panel of 'Railforums Armchair Experts' able to pass sanctions varying from a 10 year stint of bog cleaning at a major station to full scale dismissal without appeal?
I maintain, a sensible adult should be capable of taking a sensible decision - if after an hour a train hasn't turned up, particularly when there has been a significant disruption, then take responsibility for your journey and get home, sort out the complaint and recompense later.
Or more likely the guard assumed there would be additional stops, the guard or passengers misunderstood the plan or the guard took it upon themselves to misinform the passengers.It appears to me someone in control sanctioned lying to fare paying passengers
Unfortunately (IMO) you don't show it.. end of.I have plenty of real world experience of looking after those with learning difficulties. Enough to know that anyone who isn’t able to replan their journey shouldn’t be travelling unsupervised by public transport, end of.
I don't get the logic. Passengers tend to expect the railway to look after them to some degree. Boarding your train and then being kicked off it half way to your destination for operational reasons might be something that happens, but I would be going out of my way to ensure those passengers were recovered on to a train as soon as possible and these things are normally considered.
It would be something to be treated as a priority at my own TOC.
I have plenty of real world experience of looking after those with learning difficulties. Enough to know that anyone who isn’t able to replan their journey shouldn’t be travelling unsupervised by public transport, end of.
I always enjoy a challengeAnd by and large the TOC did look after passengers. RRBs were put in place between MK and Watford, many others were helped or diverted to get them home.
What happened here falls firmly into the cock up category, but every company makes mistakes.
I look forward to you getting your TOC up and running and watching you deal with such problems.
And almost all of them DO make the effort (and more) and whilst it isn't a service i require, i'm grateful for the effort they do put in, in as i mentioned before what appears to be an uphill battle for them.Not remotely true. Especially in the eyes of the law.
Any on train staff should make the effort to be aware of vulnerable passengers in situations like this, and any additional needs they may have.
I am inclined to agree on both counts.
If the information is requested of Network Rail then they must disclose it unless a relevant exemption applies - ‘speak to the TOC’ is not such an exemption.
I should clarify that I am not suggesting that a complaint be made to Network Rail: merely pointing out that it may hold information about who made what decisions and when.
Been a lot of hot air in this thread. Clearly, this was a pretty poor experience - I’m wondering if you were forgotten about while the maelstrom of picking up the service swirled in Control. It seems the most likely explanation.Passengers' trust in the railway is inevitably damaged when a train full of passengers’ welfare is jeopardised by being set down on a cold night for operational reasons in the middle of nowhere mid-journey, promised following trains fail to materialise, communication is inaccurate and operational needs are seen to have been continuously put first.
Each of 10 passing southbound trains could have stopped to take us to Euston.
Along the lines of the attached document which discusses passenger behaviour on stranded trains, should passengers now refuse to disembark when requested mid-journey for fear of being abandoned?
The loss of trust can only be addressed by a full explanation of what went wrong and what has been done to prevent recurrence.
Three recent SWR examples of decisions which were both user-hostile and operationally counter-productive.
1. Trains to Kingston on adjacent platforms at Waterloo. "Control" decides to run one of them, which was scheduled to have left 20 minutes ago, fast to Strawberry Hill, leaving the other to serve intermediate stations. Not ideal, given this is the evening peak and the seco0nd train will consequently be heaving. But at least they announce that before the other train leaves (their usual trick - let one train go and then announce the other is skip stopping)
However, while the passengers are crossing over, the platform staff discover that they include a wheelchair user. Further delay whilst a ramp is found to disembark him from the first train and a different ramp is found (because, naturally 455s and 707s don't fit the same design of ramp) to embark him on the other. By the time this is all done both trains are delayed even further. Did it not occur to anyone to make the first train skip-stop all stations except the one the wheelchair user needed?
2. Problem somewhere on the Kingston Loop, so a train was diverted at New Malden, running instead to Surbiton. Fine, there are plenty of buses from Surbiton to Kingston, Teddington etc. Except we are all turfed off at New Malden, where alternative onward travel opportunities are hard to come by. Not only was this customer-hostile, but operationally crass as well because the train was held at New Malden for nearly ten minutes while the guard checked each of the ten carriages for stowaways, causing a long delay to following trains on the Down Slow. "Tipping Out" at Surbiton could have been done in the bay, without delaying any following train.
3. My wife, turfed off at Wimbledon for some operational reason, in vain sought assistance from station staff as to how to get home. When I later took this up at a "Meet the Manager" session the very senior person I was talking to seemed to think that it was unreasonable to expect staff to know about, let alone advise on, services provided by "a competitor". But the local buses are complementary to, not competing with, the rail network, and in any case the rail operator in this case was expecting the buses to bail them out by accepting their passengers.
(And connecting rail services are not run by the TOC's "competitors"- if I buy a ticket from company A and part of the journey has to be made by company B, company B is a subcontractor - and the main contractor is responsible to the customer for any failings of its subcontractors)
I'm so glad I don't have to commute by SWT/SWR any more. I had theirvictim support"customer service" line on speed dial.
Realtimetrains shows the 2349 as passing rather than stopping - which tallies with your experience: Realtime Trains - Departures from Hemel Hempsteadrecenttraintimes.co.uk shows the 23:49 HML-EUS stopped at HML but it didn't ~ I was there on the platform when a southbound LNWR train passed at about that time
At 00:14 the departure board showed a train for EUS due to stop but it ran through the station much to the surprise of the single railwayman on the platform and passengers
Yes it did. The RTT listing linked to above shows the 2349 skip stopped.Nothing skip stopped.
Fundamentally disagree - just remind yourself, who are they recovering the service for? In case it's not clear: it's the customers. Ultimately they pay the staff's wages. Typical railway attitude that sees the customer as an inconvenience.First and foremost, train control wants to recover the service, they don't care about passengers, nor are they paid to. It's the communication between control and the ToC staff at stations that must work to find a solution when these things happen. In this case, passengers normally call taxis after half an hour to an hour if the ToC hasn't done so (and they only need to do that when the last train has already been and gone).
@43096 thank you +++ for the realtimetrains dataRealtimetrains shows the 2349 as passing rather than stopping - which tallies with your experience: Realtime Trains - Departures from Hemel Hempstead
View attachment 95418
Yes it did. The RTT listing linked to above shows the 2349 skip stopped.
Fundamentally disagree - just remind yourself, who are they recovering the service for? In case it's not clear: it's the customers. Ultimately they pay the staff's wages. Typical railway attitude that sees the customer as an inconvenience.
And if we're talking about recovering the service, the above RTT extract shows just how bad a job they made of it. "Gave up and went home" would be a more apt description of the service recovery. Not the first time I've been aware of such incompetence with LNR, either.
Did you talk to the railwayman on the platform? Did he do anything to help?At 00:14 the departure board showed a train for EUS due to stop but it ran through the station much to the surprise of the single railwayman on the platform and passengers