East Coast Documentary

[sarahj]

On the topic of Southern, why do their CIS Systems make an apology if a train is 1 minute late? 1 minute. 60 whole seconds. It's happened many times when I have been stood with my Gatwick waiting to go. Are the passengers of Southern-land really that bad that an apology must be made if a train is 1 minute late? I have never come across it anywhere else!

I dont know, but sometimes you also hear a 'very sorry' when it gets more than 5 mins late.

 

[jon0844]

What do you get for 10 minutes? Tears dripping out of the screens?

 

[Evvy73]

What do you get for 10 minutes? Tears dripping out of the screens?

Big laughs - that is one of the funniest things I have read on here for ages! Next time I am waiting at London Bridge, East Croydon,Three Bridges, Haywards Heath, etc for a delayed service I'll peer at the screens to look for tears!

 

[sarahj]

What do you get for 10 minutes? Tears dripping out of the screens?

Chris Burtchell, our MD, comes and says sorry to everyone on the platform and hands out free drinks.

 

[SWT_USER]

I'm also sure I saw a destination on one of the information screens at York or Newcastle that didn't belong there, but can't remember where it was!

Possibly the Guildford XC service on the board at Newcastle?

Agree with the general consensus on here, not a great first episode but will give it another go next week.

 

[MisterWhippy]

I'm also sure I saw a destination on one of the information screens at York or Newcastle that didn't belong there, but can't remember where it was!

I thought I saw Basingstoke or something around that area.

 

[Muzer]

I spent the hour I should have spent watching it trying to get bloody Silverlight working in Linux. I've done it now, but still haven't had chance to watch it.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
From the comments, looks like East Coast is the unlucky TOC for making interesting, good documentaries (see the BBC documentary's first episode)...

 

[tsr]

Chris Burtchell, our MD, comes and says sorry to everyone on the platform and hands out free drinks.

Not Gatwick. He'd probably end up doing Meet the Manager at Faygate or something.

 

[Lrd]

I thought I saw Basingstoke or something around that area.

Possibly Eastleigh as XC run a service to there once a day I believe as there are no paths to Southampton.

Or there may have been engineering works with all XC services finishing at Basingstoke with buses further south.

I have seen the episode but don't recall seeing this on the boards.

 

[sarahj]

Not Gatwick. He'd probably end up doing Meet the Manager at Faygate or something.

Free drinks from the MD at Pevensey Bay

 

[causton]

Free drinks from the MD at Pevensey Bay

They'll start a Rainbow Day promotion in South West Trains style... from Newhaven Marine!

 

[maniacmartin]

I just watched this on youtube. It's very focussed on staff personalities and banter, silly songs, retirement parties etc and hardly touches on anything to do with the operational railway. Wholly unrecommended!

 

[jon0844]

I guess that's all they can do when picking a route like East Coast - a fairly self contained service that doesn't have the variety of FGW or many other operators.

An Intercity service has the on-board staff, so that ticks one box... while following FCC would have drivers and angry passengers but little else.

FGW had a good mix, and some very scenic locations.

I'm sure we'll see more stations served by EC in the series, but will they venture further outside to specific events or stay within the station buildings and surrounding land? I mean, how many more stags and hens will we need to see at Newcastle?!

Even doing Virgin Trains would have probably been much the same, ending up being little more than a look at the personalities because the service itself is not something you could still make sexy for 10 episodes. In this case, Sky has failed in just one episode!

 

[muttynut]

maybe its not aimed at the train spotter ( or rail enthusiast ) audience and more for the general public

 

[bb21]

They could always follow the Highland Chieftain, or the once-daily Glasgow service on East Coast.

With Virgin, they could touch on the subject of people bashing rare tracks by getting on the Saturday morning 1M21 which uses the Newton East curve.

 

[jon0844]

maybe its not aimed at the train spotter ( or rail enthusiast ) audience and more for the general public

I fully expect that to be the case. But I don't think anything that has happened so far has been particularly interesting for the general public either.

I'm not sure you could ever make a programme for a train spotter, but I'd have thought there are plenty of rail enthusiasts and people that work in the industry in some way (directly or indirectly), or are generally interested in travel (so would watch a TV series about the railway, air travel, sea travel etc), to give you quite a decent sized audience.

Throw in some more on the places served by East Coast, and how the industry prepares for such things, and you've got some more interest.

I came away from the FGW documentary really wanting to go to some of the places covered and see the beautiful scenery.

So far, I'd only want to go to Newcastle to get p**sed! [For the record, I've been here many times, including when my wife ran the Great North Run, so straight away I could show it's good for more than just boozing!]

 

[matchmaker]

They could always follow the Highland Chieftain, or the once-daily Glasgow service on East Coast.

I'm sure the Chieftain is featured - the titles show what looks like the HML.

 

[Class 92]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f22ibyGifns
Episode 1 is available on Youtube and tbh it's not that bad. There were a couple of irritating times. BBC are still the best at making railway programs.

 

[northofthesand]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f22ibyGifns
Episode 1 is available on Youtube and tbh it's not that bad. There were a couple of irritating times. BBC are still the best at making railway programs.

I remember a BBC programme called 'Railwatch' when i was a kid i think it must of been on in about 1987,it only ran for a week a bit like the crimewatch roadshow they run from time to time now,I'm sure a few on here will remember more about it.

 

[Aictos]

I disagree with what the staff member did with the lost property on the track - I had to do this twice on a mainline ECML station, yes it involved contacting the signaller but rather then waste time walking down the platform ends and then to the lost property, why not just crouch down onto the platform and then carefully jump down then just jump up when finished?

 

[jon0844]

Or even use a litter picker. If that failed, then go down.

 

[Muzer]

Finally got a chance to watch it. I can see how it would appeal to some who like people watching, but even for that it was rather poor in comparison to The Railway: First Great Western and The Railway: Keeping Britain on Track. I don't think it was absolutely awful, but certainly a lot less content than either of the other two.

 

[Aictos]

Or even use a litter picker. If that failed, then go down.

IMHO I think they were instructed to work a specific way as in instructions from higher up that during filming they must be seen to be doing stuff in a particular way....

When I did it, I had to wait 10 to 15 minutes for permission to block both lines as had to wait for a few East Coast expresses to clear the area after which I simply either jumped down to get the property or used a litter picker from the platform, it only took about 5 mins if that to get the property but 10 to 15 mins for permission to be granted for a line blockade as both lines affected were 125mph lines.

Think I've had to do this least three times, once on a 75mph line and twice on a 125mph line

 

[jon0844]

I wonder if EC got any editorial control on this whole series?

I guess I'll know if there's anything negative that reflects badly on the company, as against circumstances outside of their control.

 

[jkkne]

It was fairly pedestrian viewing. The scene where JR retired was quite nice.

The editing was odd though. We're told how busy Newcastle is on payday Friday yet when they showed crowded platform shots to demonstrate it was full of people wearing football shirts ans scarves (of various colours) so it's obviously a Saturday when Newcastle have played.

 

[A-driver]

I disagree with what the staff member did with the lost property on the track - I had to do this twice on a mainline ECML station, yes it involved contacting the signaller but rather then waste time walking down the platform ends and then to the lost property, why not just crouch down onto the platform and then carefully jump down then just jump up when finished?

Let's face it we would normally all just jump down rather than bothering walking all that way but you know as well as I that if a manager with nothing better to do caught you they could certainly try to make life difficult for you and should you injure yourself jumping down the company would offer no support whatsoever as you havnt followed their policy. If you need 6 months off work with a broken ankle they won't be obliged to offer any compensation or pay like they would if you were injured whilst following procedure.

Jumping down off a platform infront of cameras which are going to broadcast your actions to millions of viewers, including senior management, and will almost certainly have managers milling about behind the cameras ensuring certain things are and are not filmed probably wouldn't be the wisest career move!

 

[jon0844]

The way they showed her walking, and the train that was opposite/to the left of her appeared, disappeared and reappeared, it gave the impression that it was either an extremely long walk, took an extremely long time to walk, or some of it was actually re-shot at a totally different time (even day?).

If the latter, I wonder how they'd get permission to stop trains just to do a short piece to camera when there probably was no bag that time.

I'm still wondering if the whole dropped bag wasn't set up anyway. Given my feeling that the episode was all about showing EC in the best light, the cynic in me says that some of these situations might be well prepared and planned in advance. Get a 'member of the public' (read: runner, mate of someone from the production company etc) to drop a bag, then prepare the closing of the line and the walking sequence etc.

I wonder if there's a whole list of things that EC wanted to convey as being things it has to deal with on a day-to-day basis, and it was easier to stage them than simply hope these things happened when filming took place.

If we can see they showed footage on different days to support the narrative, they can't have actually been filming that much and would have had little choice but to fiddle things.

That would make this series more akin to the faux reality shows that now adorn our screens, and seem to be perfectly acceptable forms of entertainment.

 

[ModernRailways]

Episode 2 is on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHjZX8qoTU8

 

[OLJR]

rather then waste time walking down the platform ends and then to the lost property, why not just crouch down onto the platform and then carefully jump down then just jump up when finished?

I am normally the most vocal critic of petty health and safety. But having had a stint in the safety conscious airline industry I am inclined to agree with the process as followed in this case. Not worth messing around anywhere near a set of rails!

 

[Manchester77]

Episode 2 is on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHjZX8qoTU8

Says its blocked in this country for me..?