Disabled passenger claims Northern guard's behaviour gave her panic attack.

[Darandio]

I thought it was official policy?

It is, provided you can fold it before you board.

 

[pt_mad]

Best course of action for staff is to carry the website's scooter policy with you as backup, quote only that in polite manner, show it, apologise and offer taxis. If customer starts filming you ask could they kindly stop please as you object to being published, if they refuse walk away until they stop.
If this lead to delaying the train due to a camera pointed in your face then maybe something will be done about this intimidation to staff when they don't consent to themselves being published.

Don't forget that it's a legal requirement with CCTV that a sign is displayed in the premises which says CCTV is in operation, the purpose, such as for safety and security, and who controls the system, e.g. the system is controlled by northern Tel no... To film staff for any unknown purpose and to be able to publish footage of faces with a one sided story and without consent is outrageous especially if the reason is to slander staff. If a camera phone was pointed in the face of an assisted travel passenger, the member of staff could expect to be suspended pretty quick.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Cant understand why it's a no scooter policy anyway across all stock when a 158 should take a scooter providing it meets the reference wheelchair dimensions of length 1.2m or less as far as I can see. The ORR and DFT now consider that there is no clear way of differentiating between a scooter and an electric wheelchair now anyway and this is written in the RSSB document 'guide for wheelchair and scooter users' 2018.

If it wasn't for the Northern random unit generator they could have a more consistent policy, but Northern do not appear to have enough units/have the competence to (delete as applicable) ensure there is consistent allocation on any given route.

 

[pt_mad]

If it wasn't for the Northern random unit generator they could have a more consistent policy, but Northern do not appear to have enough units/have the competence to (delete as applicable) ensure there is consistent allocation on any given route.

Perhaps they should say scooters are only allowed on our Sprinter trains .Unfortunately due to operational limitations, we are unable to guarantee which type of train will be allocated to which route on a given day. On occasions where a non scooter compliant train is allocated to your journey, a replacement taxi will be offered, to transport you to your destination station or next connecting station.

 

[plymothian]

It seems to me, (and I may be wrong) that Northern management, have put in place a no folding scooter policy, but do not back up their staff, when they enforce that policy!

Correct from my understanding but my point was that if the senior manager has been quoted in the media as introducing this 'new' policy that it shall be allowed, then this needs to be followed up on immediately internally and the policies updated to reflect such. Clearly this never happened. It would be ludacris to suggest that he was implying only this woman specifically was allowed to travel with her scooter - therefore he announced a new policy publicly.

You find this happens all the time. A company has a policy, staff enforce it, customer gets upset and goes public, a senior manager issues some face-saving statement that goes against the staff and their policies, the old policy is still publicised and the "new policy" causes problems.

GWR's "new, face-saving policy" is that scooters cannot be forced to vacate a wheelchair space. Their publicly available policy is still 'they must be folded and stored as luggage'.

 

[IanD]

We do not know what was said. We only know that she claims to have been told "this would not happen again". The thing that would not happen again may be scooters being boarded when they shouldn't be. Clearly in the latest case that did not happen - she was not allowed to board as per the originally stated policy.

 

[bramling]

If it wasn't for the Northern random unit generator they could have a more consistent policy, but Northern do not appear to have enough units/have the competence to (delete as applicable) ensure there is consistent allocation on any given route.

My understanding with Northern, as it used to be at any rate, is the issue is more that different classes are diagrammed to form individual services, which can vary from one service to the next on a given route. The objective being to provide adequate seating capacity particularly on peak services.

Of course it doesn’t help that different units within the same class can have different seat numbers too - for example there’s quite a difference between a Northern Spirit interior pacer and one with original bus seats.

Having said all that there is certainly some real-world variability from one day to the next - on some routes at least.

 

[muz379]

My understanding with Northern, as it used to be at any rate, is the issue is more that different classes are diagrammed to form individual services, which can vary from one service to the next on a given route. The objective being to provide adequate seating capacity particularly on peak services.

Of course it doesn’t help that different units within the same class can have different seat numbers too - for example there’s quite a difference between a Northern Spirit interior pacer and one with original bus seats.

Having said all that there is certainly some real-world variability from one day to the next - on some routes at least.

It is kind of a combination of that and the random unit generator

You have that fact that for many lines a morning peak service could be diagrammed 2X150 but then a lightly loaded afternoon service diagrammed a single 142 all on the same line .

But then you also have the random unit generator at play as well . So the peak time 2X150 formation could actually turn up as a single 142 , a single 150 , two 142's , a 156 or any other random combination . The only exceptions to the random unit generator being traction knowledge restrictions so for example a 158 would have never found itself on a hazel grove - picadilly because drivers who sign this route dont sign 158's .And route clearance issues/restrictions for example Hazel grove to Buxton has a prohibition on 142's because of gradients .