I was caught up in this yesterday.
The point of the thread is not to discuss the cause - "track inspection between Totton and Brockenhurst", but how it was handled from a passenger point of view.
The information systems showed delays, but no hint of actual line closure. The only staff there were from a train that was sat in the platform, presumably the source of the small crowd outside. There were no pa announcements at the station except automated ones telling us nothing useful. Passengers had picked up info about taxis and refunds and possible buses, presumably from the train staff, who didn't/couldn't make announcements to new arrivals like me. I guess passengers arriving on the Lymington shuttle might have been told something. I don't know.
I only realised that I wasn't going anywhere when an eastbound train arrived and emptied of passengers. I asked one of them, who said it had been cancelled from there. So we all went outside, where the car park was beginning to fill with a lot of people. I looked on the SWR app for disruptions. It was there and it advised us to get taxis to Eastleigh and Basingstoke and claim the cost.
Some passengers were immediately successful in this, but the New Forest has a very limited number of taxis!
Then an SWR staff member arrived from somewhere at the same time as a regular stream of Southampton mini-cabs. He worked his way up and down ensuring each cab was filled, apparently giving priority to those with children and any frail looking passengers.
Meanwhile another eastbound train arrived, and unloaded! The previous eastbound trains in the platforms had gone back west by then.
After 40 minutes I got squeezed into a cab to Eastleigh as a single traveller to fill the last car seat.
As we left loud cheers greeted the arrival of a coach!
At Eastleigh, the only real option was the hourly train to Waterloo from Portsmouth. We got the 21.45. At least it was 12 carriages long, although the taxi trickle had only deposited about 1/4 of its potential passenger load. Anyone going to Waterloo had the further pain of it stopping at just about everywhere on the way.
I had experienced the uselessness of the automated PIS at Brockenhurst before, plus the inability of anyone to manually override it. Apart from the almost complete local information failure, the disruption seemed to be handled quite well. It is useful that there is a biggish city nearby to produce large numbers of taxis when required.
As Brockenhurst is not only quite busy but has facilities for turning trains around, and probably has to do that quite often, we'd hope that the public information arrangements could be upgraded from its current robotic state of misinformation in a crisis.
The point of the thread is not to discuss the cause - "track inspection between Totton and Brockenhurst", but how it was handled from a passenger point of view.
The information systems showed delays, but no hint of actual line closure. The only staff there were from a train that was sat in the platform, presumably the source of the small crowd outside. There were no pa announcements at the station except automated ones telling us nothing useful. Passengers had picked up info about taxis and refunds and possible buses, presumably from the train staff, who didn't/couldn't make announcements to new arrivals like me. I guess passengers arriving on the Lymington shuttle might have been told something. I don't know.
I only realised that I wasn't going anywhere when an eastbound train arrived and emptied of passengers. I asked one of them, who said it had been cancelled from there. So we all went outside, where the car park was beginning to fill with a lot of people. I looked on the SWR app for disruptions. It was there and it advised us to get taxis to Eastleigh and Basingstoke and claim the cost.
Some passengers were immediately successful in this, but the New Forest has a very limited number of taxis!
Then an SWR staff member arrived from somewhere at the same time as a regular stream of Southampton mini-cabs. He worked his way up and down ensuring each cab was filled, apparently giving priority to those with children and any frail looking passengers.
Meanwhile another eastbound train arrived, and unloaded! The previous eastbound trains in the platforms had gone back west by then.
After 40 minutes I got squeezed into a cab to Eastleigh as a single traveller to fill the last car seat.
As we left loud cheers greeted the arrival of a coach!
At Eastleigh, the only real option was the hourly train to Waterloo from Portsmouth. We got the 21.45. At least it was 12 carriages long, although the taxi trickle had only deposited about 1/4 of its potential passenger load. Anyone going to Waterloo had the further pain of it stopping at just about everywhere on the way.
I had experienced the uselessness of the automated PIS at Brockenhurst before, plus the inability of anyone to manually override it. Apart from the almost complete local information failure, the disruption seemed to be handled quite well. It is useful that there is a biggish city nearby to produce large numbers of taxis when required.
As Brockenhurst is not only quite busy but has facilities for turning trains around, and probably has to do that quite often, we'd hope that the public information arrangements could be upgraded from its current robotic state of misinformation in a crisis.