Meet The Manager events at stations.

[stadler]

Whatever happened to those Meet The Manager events at stations that TOCs used to have?

They used to be common all throughout the year. On a few days every year they would set up at one of the TOCs major stations in the morning peak and evening peak and allow you to meet the senior management team in person and address your concerns and issues. It was always very useful to speak to members of the senior management directly in person as customer service are useless.

But it seems like since covid happened it has just completely dissapeared and never restarted. I am not aware of any Meet The Manager events at any stations with any TOCs in recent years. It seems like covid was just an easy way to get rid of such events.

Does anyone know if any Meet The Manager events will ever happen again in the future?

 

[chuffed465]

Southeastern still do them.

 

[greatkingrat]

Whatever happened to those Meet The Manager events at stations that TOCs used to have?

They used to be common all throughout the year. On a few days every year they would set up at one of the TOCs major stations in the morning peak and evening peak and allow you to meet the senior management team in person and address your concerns and issues. It was always very useful to speak to members of the senior management directly in person as customer service are useless.

But it seems like since covid happened it has just completely dissapeared and never restarted. I am not aware of any Meet The Manager events at any stations with any TOCs in recent years. It seems like covid was just an easy way to get rid of such events.

Does anyone know if any Meet The Manager events will ever happen again in the future?

A quick google shows SWR, Southeastern, Chiltern and London Overground at least have held events in the last few months.

 

[stadler]

Southeastern still do them.

A quick google shows SWR, Southeastern, Chiltern and London Overground at least have held events in the last few months.

Ah good to hear that they are indeed still happening! I had not heard of any for ages! Any idea whether or not Southern have had any recently? I used to often attend the Southern events but i have not seen any advertised for years?

 

[David57]

London NorthWestern advertised one at Northampton recently (November?), but after a service failure on the line from Euston, it was quickly cancelled.

 

[saismee]

GA still do them. One at Liverpool Street and one at Norwich recently if I recall correctly.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

The GWR website says:

Meet The Manager | Great Western Railway

Find out about our latest Meet the Manager sessions where you can tell us what you think and hear our latest news and updates.

www.gwr.com

"We hold regular Meet the Manager events across our Network. They are a great chance to ask GWR managers questions about any aspect of our service, suggest improvements, or just to have a chat if you’re passing through the station."

Sadly, though, there are no dates shown for these.

There's no mention on the TfW website of specific event(s) of this kind.

 

[Torfaen]

I've not seen any GWR "Meet the Manager" events advertised since before Covid. In the last few years they set up something called First Digital Rail Community - which I hoped was going to be a forum where passengers could raise issues about train services. Instead it just seems to be for marketing surveys, and I have found it of no interest whatsoever.

 

[Parallel]

GWR have a ‘customer panel’ which on their website shows is currently recruiting members. They do occasionally have local meetings regarding specific matters. A meeting was advertised at my station earlier this year regarding integrated transport.

 

[tumbledown]

I'd advise everyone not to take part in research that isn't guaranteed to be published - because that's bad research.

 

[Djgr]

I wonder whether some TOC managers might find it useful to meet some others face to face?

 

[Sakuradori]

LNER had a couple in places like Stevenage, Berwick and Kings Cross in the run up to the new timetable

 

[Brickz]

On Southeasterns website

Meet the manager | Southeastern

Our monthly Meet the Manager sessions give you the chance to speak directly to senior Southeastern managers about our services and how they affect you.

www.southeasternrailway.co.uk

.Thursday 19th February 2026 Waterloo East 10am - 11.30am

.Wednesday 8th April 2026 London Victoria 10am - 11.30am

 

[Bald Rick]

Ah good to hear that they are indeed still happening! I had not heard of any for ages! Any idea whether or not Southern have had any recently? I used to often attend the Southern events but i have not seen any advertised for years?

I don’t know about Southern, but GTRs management did some on the Thameslink route last month.

 

[blabberhaus]

On Southeasterns website

Meet the manager | Southeastern

Our monthly Meet the Manager sessions give you the chance to speak directly to senior Southeastern managers about our services and how they affect you.

www.southeasternrailway.co.uk

G'aargh, the one in Feb seems to have been cancelled! I was going to go as part of my prep for my DMI.

 

[riceuten]

I don’t know about Southern, but GTRs management did some on the Thameslink route last month.

I must have missed these. I attended one a few years back at London Bridge and managed to get a manager to address issues I had been having with the ticket gates at Stevenage, and hey presto, for six months at least, they were addressed (and then reappeared with a software upgrade). The point was that I had been attempting to address this via Customer Services for some time, and we had hit a brick wall - I suspect because a named officer thought it wasn't worth contacting Cubic about it. The manager did contact them and, as I said, the issue was (temporarily) addressed.

 

[AF91]

Back in a previous role, I used to really enjoy meet the manager sessions. I always wanted to be doing the best I could so it was always really useful to get some insight into particular issues that the customers had picked up on. Hope that they continue.

 

[riceuten]

I think it also depends on what the subject is and the purpose of the meeting. The LNER one at Stevenage recently concerning the abolition of being able to board and alight there was a bit of a farce because none of the people who actually made the decision were there, and the attendees from the company just spun the company lines about why, not particularly convincingly.

As outlined above, I attended a Thameslink one at London Bridge a few years ago that was really useful and managed to get a long standing issue with the ticket gates addressed - which was, of course, destroyed by the next software upgrade but that’s a different issue.

 

[NSE]

There are some Southern ones coming up in March at Victoria. May even be this week.

 

[Jan Mayen]

I think there was one at Victoria last week, which I couldn't attend. I did have a couple of questions, one of which I've forgotten, the other was 'Is it true Gatwuck Express is going back to 4tph?'
Really wish I could remember the other question....