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Why does the railway give passengers obvious lies?

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Falcon1200

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As an aside, rail info is much better than airports where all you get is "delayed - relax" which is a total oxymoron!

I very much agree. In January I went to Glasgow Airport to pick up people from a flight which was shown on time, both on line before leaving home and on the screens within the terminal; Until it disappeared from the screens! What had happened to it - Had it landed, crashed, or diverted via the Bermuda Triangle and been abducted by aliens? There was no information, no announcements and no staff to ask either, until I eventually found someone by wandering to a different part of the airport and asking them. It transpired that the landing at Glasgow had been aborted at the last minute (due to high winds) and diverted to Liverpool. I did complain to Glasgow Airport, but it was a waste of time and electricity.
 
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Howardh

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I very much agree. In January I went to Glasgow Airport to pick up people from a flight which was shown on time, both on line before leaving home and on the screens within the terminal; Until it disappeared from the screens! What had happened to it - Had it landed, crashed, or diverted via the Bermuda Triangle and been abducted by aliens? There was no information, no announcements and no staff to ask either, until I eventually found someone by wandering to a different part of the airport and asking them. It transpired that the landing at Glasgow had been aborted at the last minute (due to high winds) and diverted to Liverpool. I did complain to Glasgow Airport, but it was a waste of time and electricity.
The problem with airport screens is there simply isn't enough room to display what's happened to the flight. Even "go to desk" is pretty meaningless. Which desk? Where?? Whose? Airside? Landside?? Will there be anyone on it?? To me, a bit like Euston although Euston is nothing like as bad, yet, pax information has been sacrificed for more advertising space. I was once stuck on the Isle Of Man with flights trying to land, and then diverted. Not a sniff of info on the ground.

In the old days before screens, both the rail and airports had those "flip-round" screens, where the majority of eventualities was covered; I remember them well at Piccadilly station! But if there was something not covered there was always someone to ask, and if they didn't know they'd get on the phone and find out!

To be fair r/e rail, the amount of information we can find these days by ourselves is remarkable and I can imagine the day when pax information screens are discontinued (or, like Euston, replaced with ads, grrr...)
 

Harpo

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To me, a bit like Euston although Euston is nothing like as bad, yet, pax information has been sacrificed for more advertising space.
Euston’s a good example of misinformation. Avanti services often show ‘Being prepared’ long after all train prep is complete. The reality is usually ‘Waiting revenue team’ which hasn’t arrived from it’s last stampede to get in position for the next.
 

Adrian1980uk

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Euston’s a good example of misinformation. Avanti services often show ‘Being prepared’ long after all train prep is complete. The reality is usually ‘Waiting revenue team’ which hasn’t arrived from it’s last stampede to get in position for the next.
Having been on the other side (not rail) giving customer information on IT tracking systems, you wouldn't believe how many hours go into working out what to say and how to translate operational system status into something to that can be understood by the average person.
Prime example above, you would not want to tell the passengers you can't board the train because there's no one to check your ticket, or the engineer is just checking a fault with train.
 

benbristow

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Having been on the other side (not rail) giving customer information on IT tracking systems, you wouldn't believe how many hours go into working out what to say and how to translate operational system status into something to that can be understood by the average person.
Prime example above, you would not want to tell the passengers you can't board the train because there's no one to check your ticket, or the engineer is just checking a fault with train.
Sounds like the perfect job for ChatGPT
 

Harpo

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Having been on the other side (not rail) giving customer information on IT tracking systems, you wouldn't believe how many hours go into working out what to say and how to translate operational system status into something to that can be understood by the average person.
Prime example above, you would not want to tell the passengers you can't board the train because there's no one to check your ticket, or the engineer is just checking a fault with train.
Yes. It’s always been fraught. I remember a Padd-Newbury extended to Paignton one Friday evening. Reading was made pick-up only so Paddington announced ‘this train will not call at Reading’. Unfortunately the traincrew heard it, so it didn’t.

Back to Euston, ‘Not yet boarding’ would suffice.
 

sjm77

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BTW: Not everything that goes against you in life is a conspiracy. Most of the time it is not even a cock up! Usually it is just life.
Errr, this is not how I live my life.
To save the complaints , Network Rail should replace the departure board at Euston with Traksy for the WCML and let people make their own guesses for when each train will arrive.
It would save my phone battery that's for sure, nice idea!
Maybe to those 'in the know' who can access RTT etc., it might seem hysterical. For the ordinary customer buying a ticket, getting seriously delayed and then getting fed incorrect information with no industry insight on how to find 'the truth', I can see why they'd feel lied to.

The number of reasons why customers are still knowingly fed misinformation isn't going to help the ordinary punter feel that 'the truth' is an industry goal either.
Thankyou Harpo, this was exactly my point. I have been surprised by some replies but your's is right on point.
 
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1D54

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Currently on the 15:57 Glasgow - Euston service via Birmingham which has left Carlisle 55 late. It arrived at Glasgow on time at 15:17 then went ECS to i take it Polmadie.

No idea if the same pendo came back but we left Glasgow 15 down and although we were supposedly halted north of Motherwell due to a broken down service in front they are telling half truths.

Train will now not go to Birmingham but will go straight down WCML to Rugby from Stafford so as to arrive at Euston on time according to the train manager.
 

Dr Hoo

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Currently on the 15:57 Glasgow - Euston service via Birmingham which has left Carlisle 55 late. It arrived at Glasgow on time at 15:17 then went ECS to i take it Polmadie.

No idea if the same pendo came back but we left Glasgow 15 down and although we were supposedly halted north of Motherwell due to a broken down service in front they are telling half truths.

Train will now not go to Birmingham but will go straight down WCML to Rugby from Stafford so as to arrive at Euston on time according to the train manager.
Can you clarify which part of this tale is a ‘lie’ or ‘half truth ‘ by rail staff?
You are on a late train and have been told that it is going to be partly diverted/skip stopped further into its journey. Is this not the case (so far as anyone can predict the future)?
 
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1D54

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It's almost as if staff are making announcements to people that didn't board the train from the start and taking those that did for fools (I'm currently on it) very poor wording on my part and may be Avanti are the innocent party in this but it doesn't help me trying to get back.
 

Andyh82

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When there is open ended major disruption, I’m thinking all services for at least the next hour should say something like expected: ‘TBC’

There will be a signalling failure or ‘emergency services dealing with an incident’ and you get people turning up saying ‘the train in 10 mins is cancelled but the one in 40 mins is On Time’

In reality the service in 40 mins won’t be On Time, they just can’t say it’ll be cancelled or delayed until it is
 

Krokodil

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It's almost as if staff are making announcements to people that didn't board the train from the start and taking those that did for fools (I'm currently on it) very poor wording on my part and may be Avanti are the innocent party in this but it doesn't help me trying to get back.
What are they saying that isn't true?
 

vicbury

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A few weeks ago I was at Cardiff Central waiting for the (delayed, of course) TfW service to Cheltenham Spa.
It eventually arrived and we all got on, only to sit there for a further ten minutes. There was then an announcement to say that there was a fault with the train and we were awaiting a fitter to attend.
Fast forward another ten minutes and they shut down the train and announced that it was terminating due to a fault that could not be resolved.
Three minutes later they fired it up again, and turned into a service going the opposite direction, to Maesteg.
Meanwhile those heading for Cheltenham had to wait for the next service which was also delayed. Funny that...
 

Topological

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A few weeks ago I was at Cardiff Central waiting for the (delayed, of course) TfW service to Cheltenham Spa.
It eventually arrived and we all got on, only to sit there for a further ten minutes. There was then an announcement to say that there was a fault with the train and we were awaiting a fitter to attend.
Fast forward another ten minutes and they shut down the train and announced that it was terminating due to a fault that could not be resolved.
Three minutes later they fired it up again, and turned into a service going the opposite direction, to Maesteg.
Meanwhile those heading for Cheltenham had to wait for the next service which was also delayed. Funny that...
Might not have been a lie about the train not working.

TfW tried the right thing of "turn it off and back on again" but it did not work. The fitter came, said "Have you turned it off and then turned it back on again?", to which the crew said yes. However, on insisting the train was turned off and back on again, sods law meant the crew look silly and the train worked. I can think of countless times I have genuinely tried a solution, but as soon as the professional comes and looks and I do the same thing again it works.

All that said, it does look suspiciously like keeping trains in South Wales.
 

vicbury

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Might not have been a lie about the train not working.

TfW tried the right thing of "turn it off and back on again" but it did not work. The fitter came, said "Have you turned it off and then turned it back on again?", to which the crew said yes. However, on insisting the train was turned off and back on again, sods law meant the crew look silly and the train worked. I can think of countless times I have genuinely tried a solution, but as soon as the professional comes and looks and I do the same thing again it works.

All that said, it does look suspiciously like keeping trains in South Wales.
Given that the same service was cancelled twice at the last minute last week and the allocated unit transferred onto South Wales services, I know which way I'm betting. And unless the fitter attended remotely, there was no fitter!
 
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