Paddington Taxi Farce

[Z12XE]

I suspect many TOCs now use cabline.

Greater Anglia do, station staff have the authority to do orders direct to this, it can be a bit hit and miss as cabline rarely call back with details of the booked taxis and to then phone them back you always get a different operator. Generally they'll get you a taxi but as they get the cheapest it can sometimes take a while

 

[hwl]

I wonder if the East Coast franchise is just quite good with taxis?

I was once on a heavily delayed XC terminating at York and XC decided to pay for taxis for everyone to get to their destination (as various connections had been missed from York to various places). We arrived and everyone wandered over to the taxi rank where a couple of VTEC station staff were busy working out who was going where and then putting them into taxis. So on that occasion it was cross TOC and it still worked out well!

Another time I was delayed arriving into Darlington and missed the last train to Saltburn and VTEC staff quickly arranged taxis for everyone going to various stations along the line.

It's never been a problem for VTEC to sort out things like this in my experience!

When I got delayed on EC arriving back at Kings Cross in the early hours (winter 2010/11?), the guard had gone through the train enquiring about destinations and attempting to pair up longer distance onward travellers. EC control then put the word out with larger the black cab pre-booking "operators" with if I remember correctly 265 black cabs requested (The train was rammed and left York just after 1600)

 

[welshpax]

Many many years ago, must be around 20 I think, I was traveling from Peterbrough to Cardiff and the wires were down north of Newark.

Anyway there were huge delays going into KX which meant by the time I got into London I had missed the last train out of Paddington.

I was given the option of a hotel or a black cab all the way to London, ended up staying in a hotel with breakfast paid for me and ticket endorsed for next day travel.

Seem to rememeber everything was organised very quickly with the station staff even walking me to the hotel and making sure I was ok.

 

[WelshBluebird]

What was that though and could you have made your own arrangements and retrospectively claimed?

Good luck getting that back unless that is what they have specifically told you to do!

 

[blakey1152]

This reminds me of the worst journey I had ever been on....An incredibly slow and delayed journey from Birmingham New Street to Euston that took over 6 hours and arrived after 1am followed by a 4 hour wait for a taxi in queues that resembled the latest ride at Alton Towers and an hours taxi ride home...But Virgin apologised and refunded the ticket price and gave us complimentary 1st class tickets to use anywhere on their network.

There was one guy arriving at Euston who was going to Penzance!

 

[philthetube]

You may very well think it was nothing to do with cab drivers, but I have been told by a GWR employee who has to try to get hold of taxis on occasions that getting cab drivers to turn out is becoming increasingly difficult, as they certainly don't like having to wait a few weeks to get paid.

This isn't in central London, granted, but if cabbies elsewhere don't like doing the paperwork and waiting for their money, why should London be different?

If GWR are so bad at paying and operate a system which cab drivers do not think it is worth negotiating for the rewards it has everything to do with them.

Cab driver work for rewards as do most people, if a supermarket paid £ an hour it would be their fault they could not get staff, not the fault of staff who would not work for that rate.

 

[richw]

If GWR are so bad at paying and operate a system which cab drivers do not think it is worth negotiating for the rewards it has everything to do with them.

Cab driver work for rewards as do most people, if a supermarket paid £ an hour it would be their fault they could not get staff, not the fault of staff who would not work for that rate.

Gwr pay their contractor. It's their contractor who sub contracts the work that is slow paying. Slow payments are normal in any industry unfortunately

 

[Senex]

Gwr pay their contractor. It's their contractor who sub contracts the work that is slow paying. Slow payments are normal in any industry unfortunately

If the contractor is a slow payer (perhaps because GWR is slow to pay them), then the cab drivers are entirely free to decide they don't want to turn out for work offered by that contractor.

 

[trainophile]

How do TOCs manage to find hotel rooms in major cities in the middle of the night? Most rooms will be sold out days ahead (if booking.com is anything to go by). Many hotels don't have 24-hour check-in and will have locked up for the night.

Must be very hit-and-miss, and only to be attempted when absolutely necessary. Probably a little easier to source taxis whatever the cost, but if a hotel is a necessity due to onward distances I do wonder how their system for finding availability works.

 

[lejog]

Gwr pay their contractor. It's their contractor who sub contracts the work that is slow paying. Slow payments are normal in any industry unfortunately

Then its GWR's problem in managing their chosen contractor.