Platform misinformation - Alnmouth 29/12/23

[Horizon22]

But its funny because...

TOC staff, NR Control (local), Different TOC Managed station or TOC Managed/NR Operated, Service from TOC2, External Control from [rnd] place.

Consider where you used to work (I think) and the Terminal stations it worked. 'Disjointed' really does fit. Even with the joint control points, you still have people phoning in from their respective places and then the PED.. and the TS.. needing to communicate and (can't think of the NR person at that place) still needing to pass on information. Then add in the various departments this needs to filter down to. Pass Services/Ops. It's not got any better with "technology"

Seriously; if anyone could legitimately solve the communication issues on "The Railway". You would make billions and that isn't an over-exaggeration.

Probably! Partly I believe it fundamentally can never be 'solved'. Only 'improved'.

There will always be a lot of people involved in delivery railway service, privatised or nationalised the same broad positions will be around and will just be in different "departments" rather than companies. Lines will be drawn somewhere, especially on a railway that runs across the country (such as in this case). Communications are often key as you say, but are sometimes overlooked or see as "other" compared to more operational aspects.

Different parties have the "right" information until it suddenly isn't. As you know, railway disruption can be fast-moving, unexpected and can hinge on key moments of contradictory information from multiple sources until it is clear what is happening.

 

[ComUtoR]

When it comes to conflicting info I too believe the evidence of my own eyes above anything else. If a train advertising itself as the 1500 to Kings Cross arrived at a two platform station at the expected (delayed) time for such a train I would not immediately deny that it was the 1500 to Kings Cross because of information I previously had

Unless you know and accept the limitations of the technology involved.

As always, anecdotally. I have witnessed and have been on trains that the CIS/PIS is advertising as 'On Time' or simply as that service, yet, I know the CIS/PIS is completely wrong. I've lost count the number of times that I have had to speak to platform staff or the local co-ordinator to get the CIS/PIS to be updated to reflect what's happening on the ground. Staff really do have insights that isn't often publicly available. We had one on Christmas Eve where a service was clearly advertised but if you looked with your eyes, it wasn't gonna happen.

I know its a cop out and you have my sincere apologies for it but.. I wasn't there so I cannot judge what happened. I'd be guessing.
(and a little bias)

- obviously one cannot solely rely on a train display being correct but when, as in this case, other supporting evidence (type of train, expected arrival time etc) is available it seems rather perverse to deny the physical evidence in front of you.

This is a mismatch of information and what you are prioritising. Which are you assuming is correct ? The PIS/CIS or the information buried deep inside the staff members head ?

Personally, after all my years, CIS/PIS is the last thing I'd trust. Seriously, its junk when it comes to disruption. My local station generally asks for it to be turned off as it causes more hassle than its worth.

However, totally understand your point and its the skills of all involved to get the right resolution and correct information to the passenger.

 

[robbeech]

It’s increasingly common, at least in my experience to find incorrect information being pushed to passengers (and I guess staff) through a wide variety of methods.

Displays on platforms regularly have the next train booked on it rather than the next actual trains. So when there’s a 1205 and a 1215, at 1206 it shows the 1215 despite the 1205 not being there yet. This has gone on for years on fully automated systems but even when it’s possible to control them, it’s rare people bother.

Displays on trains. They aren’t always correct. It’s much better with digital ones of course but they can and have still been wrong. Afterall the next stop is probably Hendon.

“Does this train stop at Z?”
Nobody actually knows.

Auto announcements, a complete joke during any disruption. At Retford (another LNER station as it happens) last week they were announcing the delay minutes on the 1047 continuously for around 9 minutes with the delay minutes changing each time.

We are sorry that the 1047 will be delayed by 75 minutes.

We are sorry that the 1047 will be delayed by 83 minutes.

We are sorry that the 1047 will be delayed by 68 minutes.

All queued up and played one after the other for the longest time.
All of which simply could not have been possible as it was 5th in a queue behind a fallen tree over 15 minutes away and it was already 1150.

A couple we were waiting with were perplexed by how incompetent “the railway” came across.
Their itinerary was Sheffield Doncaster on TPE and then Doncaster York on …. Something.
A staff member at Sheffield had put them on the daily Northern Cleethorpes via Brigg from a bay platform rather than the tpe Cleethorpes that had come from Manchester/Liverpool.

So to answer the original question directly, should you have been more stubborn in getting your point across? Absolutely not! It’s not your place to do so at all. By all means, when suitable, have a chat with them and express the view that the information they hold may no longer be up to date and offer a suggestion for them to check, but if they aren’t interested then that’s generally the point to leave it.

 

[HST43257]

Were the information screens working?

Information screens always showed P1 (southbound platform) for London and all other southbounds after mine. At no point did electrical information suggest that the train would be on P2. No announcements to suggest an alteration other than the staff member speaking.

The problem here is that nobody knows what information the staff member had. Personally, and anecdotally, I've been told very specifically that I will be going into platform X by the Signaller and then the signal clears to a completely different platform. I've seen apps tell me a train is about to arrive on platform X but as I watch the unit clear the points its obvious its on a totally different platform. I've even been sitting on a platform when a service is late out the sidings and I looked down at my diagram... I'm sure any Driver or Platform staff can attest to being given information that is 100% correct but is totally wrong or has changed in a blink of an eye.

I’ll give a short approximate timeline based on things I’ve learnt after the event.

1420-1425 - previous southbound service (Plymouth XC) calls on P2, single line working in operation
1450 - staff member walks onto platform to start advising passengers to move over to northbound platform
1450 - info relating to lines reopening and service resuming as usual is made available
1450 - first late LNER passes crossover prev being used for single line working, second then mine follow
1500 - first late LNER crawls through on P1, staff member speaks briefly to driver (I think)
1505 - second late LNER crawls through on P1, staff member attempts to but fails to speak to driver (I think)
1510 - my service now slightly delayed arrives on P1 and waits 6 mins I think to get going

All the 1450 timings are in no particular order, more or less happened simultaneously.

 

[ComUtoR]

Auto announcements, a complete joke during any disruption. At Retford (another LNER station as it happens) last week they were announcing the delay minutes on the 1047 continuously for around 9 minutes with the delay minutes changing each time.

We are sorry that the 1047 will be delayed by 75 minutes.

We are sorry that the 1047 will be delayed by 83 minutes.

We are sorry that the 1047 will be delayed by 68 minutes.

All queued up and played one after the other for the longest time.
All of which simply could not have been possible as it was 5th in a queue behind a fallen tree over 15 minutes away and it was already 1150.

Love it !


One of my favourites/weirdest is when your train is on time and the one in front is cancelled or running late to the exact time you are. You get passengers giving you the [expletives deleted] and the proverbial [gesture deleted] and you are running to time !

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Dec 2023 ==

Information screens always showed P1 (southbound platform) for London and all other southbounds after mine. At no point did electrical information suggest that the train would be on P2. No announcements to suggest an alteration other than the staff member speaking.

Always assume (yeah I said it) that staff are the last to know.


Solve that and I'll give you every penny in my account(s)

 

[WAB]

I don't blindly trust station staff, because whether it be poor communication from above, lack of training etc. they often don't seem to be able to interpret operational information very well. I've often had to ask guards of trains skipping stops to make additional announcements because station staff have insisted that a train is running as booked despite the alterations coming in over Tyrell and the PIS announcing the alteration. Had one where the station staff were telling passengers to disembark from a train as it had been cancelled due to a lack of crew, despite driver and guard being in place and the train having the road! Turns out they were supposed to do it for a train with a completely different departure time, platform, operator and destination - not quite sure how they managed that.

If I believe that station staff are giving out incorrect information, I generally discretely let them know what I know and let them make their own mind up. Plenty are grateful for the prompt to check their information sources, others don't do anything and that's their call. But given I have an understanding of rail operations, I don't want station colleagues digging themselves into a hole with potential consequences for them and others later.

 

[ComUtoR]

I've often had to ask guards of trains skipping stops to make additional announcements because station staff have insisted that a train is running as booked despite the alterations coming in over Tyrell and the PIS announcing the alteration.

Not sure the general public have access to Tyrell. I have access and even then its limited.

 

[HST43257]

Always assume (yeah I said it) that staff are the last to know.
Solve that and I'll give you every penny in my account(s)

I believe lots of companies use Arrakis? In my limited experience that is a good one for seeing targeted info as well as CSL2 board type of things. In the event that they use this in this situation then I find it rather inexcusable that they couldn’t have had the right info to hand.

 

[WAB]

Not sure the general public have access to Tyrell. I have access and even then its limited.

The station staff should, though... if Tyrell and the PIS are saying that a service has been altered and you haven't been advised differently by control, it means that the service is perhaps altered.

 

[Killingworth]

Information screens always showed P1 (southbound platform) for London and all other southbounds after mine. At no point did electrical information suggest that the train would be on P2. No announcements to suggest an alteration other than the staff member speaking.


I’ll give a short approximate timeline based on things I’ve learnt after the event.

1420-1425 - previous southbound service (Plymouth XC) calls on P2, single line working in operation
1450 - staff member walks onto platform to start advising passengers to move over to northbound platform
1450 - info relating to lines reopening and service resuming as usual is made available
1450 - first late LNER passes crossover prev being used for single line working, second then mine follow
1500 - first late LNER crawls through on P1, staff member speaks briefly to driver (I think)
1505 - second late LNER crawls through on P1, staff member attempts to but fails to speak to driver (I think)
1510 - my service now slightly delayed arrives on P1 and waits 6 mins I think to get going

All the 1450 timings are in no particular order, more or less happened simultaneously.

Knowing the station I can well picture the scene and understand the length of the platform and position of the footbridge and lifts. It's quite bleak on the northbound platform and a fair hike to get back to go south if you haven't been made aware of another change.

For parts of the day the station may be unmanned and quite often there seems to be only one person in sight, locking the ticket office to attend to trains..The lady I've spoken to has always seemed to be doing her conscientious best when trains have been delayed. That happens quite often as most have long routes to traverse. We've experienced southbound trains picking up delays after being on time leaving Berwick. Yesterday's situation was clearly challenging for all concerned.

Curiously, although a Northern managed station only 4 of their trains stop there each day, none of which load or unload well. LNER, XC and TPE all stop many more and provide the most used trains.

I can vouch for the poor CIS information at Almouth.. It seems to show what should happen and has difficulty keeping up. Trivial maybe but in October my wife's train from Sheffield was showing as 8 or 9 coaches with catering, but turned up with 4 - as it had been all the jam packed way without catering.

 

[The exile]

I've known signallers make calls to the (designated) station telephone before, but this is a) not overly common and b) not during a mass diversionary incident.

Platform changes are probably one of the most annoying things, especially as they can happen so last minute, and even if the route is set up, you would need someone with a hawk-eye view on a) a signal map and b) the power and time to change the CIS (it will change automatically but probably only 30 seconds out once the train hits the TD berth). Even control rooms can't do this all the time. A thread like this comes up every month.

Anyway, at least they allowed people to walk over to the platform and held the train briefly.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 29 Dec 2023 ==



If you could design such a system that can continuously calculate all routes and platforms accurately and in a timely manner, you'd be very wealthy!

What is so difficult about having a PIS system that “knows” that Train B is ahead of Train A on plain line and that train A cannot under any circumstances arrive first alters the public information immediately that situation arises rather than waiting 5 - 10 minutes till the “wrong” train is arriving in the platform

 

[Horizon22]

What is so difficult about having a PIS system that “knows” that Train B is ahead of Train A on plain line and that train A cannot under any circumstances arrive first alters the public information immediately that situation arises rather than waiting 5 - 10 minutes till the “wrong” train is arriving in the platform

It will often do that, if both trains are running. However if one is showing “Delayed” because it hasn’t moved in X number of minutes (or moved at all because it no longer exists and hasn’t been cancelled by the operator) the system can’t distinguish how delayed it is (again unless there is an input).

 

[londonbridge]

Why have some platform alteration announcements been changed or re-recorded? Heard at Doncaster this morning:

“There has been a platform change to the 12:04 Grand Central service to London Kings Cross. It will now leave from platform 3A”

What was wrong with the old style?

“This is a platform alteration. The 12;04 Grand Central service to London Kings Cross will now depart from platform 3A”

I know which style I prefer…..

 

[HST43257]

Why have some platform alteration announcements been changed or re-recorded? Heard at Doncaster this morning:

“There has been a platform change to the 12:04 Grand Central service to London Kings Cross. It will now leave from platform 3A”

What was wrong with the old style?

“This is a platform alteration. The 12;04 Grand Central service to London Kings Cross will now depart from platform 3A”

I know which style I prefer…..

I prefer the latter for its somewhat amusing feeling of urgency in the recording but the former is better for being informative and giving a better introduction to the announcement I feel

 

[londonbridge]

I’ll agree to disagree then as to me the new style just sounds too long winded. (For the record, yes I was travelling on the train I mentioned).

 

[Parallel]

I find normally the station CIS/online sources tend to be more accurate than staff giving out information.

I was travelling to Worcester Foregate Street where the train was about 20 minutes late, and I saw online that my train was now terminating early at Shrub Hill, so I went and asked the guard who said he hadn’t heard anything and we were still running to Foregate Street. We terminated at Shrub Hill.

That said, CIS is occasionally inaccurate. Newport in South Wales when there is a platform alteration sometimes - I’ve been there where the system was announcing ‘the train now approaching platform 2 is the service to Cardiff Central’ when it was arriving into platform 3. Also at Bath Spa, where it was announcing the next train was for London Paddington, when a slightly delayed 2-car Turbo for Weymouth rolled in.

 

[TUC]

Its difficult as neither side know the full picture of what's happening. I was on a train the other week, on a night out, where it stopped randomly and nothing came over the PA. OTT was useless as it only showed all the trains in their berths and the only information I could glean from my internal email was that a train had failed. I would be loathe to second guess any regulation but using OTT I could watch the routes being set and then trains moving. It had no bearing on what actually happened and my internal voice was trying hard not to call out the Driver because I know 100% they had zero information to hand to pass on.



Thank you.



Hindsight is 20-20



My work phone is pretty much worthless. I'm limited to what's installed and to what's blocked or not. This is very much a red herring in that we see only what we want to. I never look for the person with their mobile or go to any ticket office window or single point customer service location. When I want information from Platform staff there is a way to find the person who will generally know what's happening or can find the information pretty quickly. At my TOC I know who the Supervisors are and where the local control points are; which is handy in a pinch.




If you have ever worked anywhere for a considerable length of time you will understand why this is meaningless. Not to knock you in any way and with all due respect considered.

If you saw things like this every day and knew that it changes rapidly or you had limited knowledge or just knew you needed to make a plan A, B, C, and the emergency OMG Plan sitting in the back of your head; it would be very different. Outside looking in is always easy and we are quick to judge. Inside looking out is very different. You are generally calculating all kinds of possibilities and if I was the Platform staff in question I would have had some kind of contingency in my pocket ready. Work with what you know and keep the back up plan ready. If I sent everyone over to P2 and then had a last minute change to P1 then I'd hold the train and let the Driver know. Hold the TRTS till I could confirm everyone was over and then leave the delay attribution to someone else. You may be seeing this for the first time thinking how crazy it is. The staff are probably thinking its just another day a the office. I think that disconnect doesn't always help with our differing perspectives.

As a Driver it took me a long while to suck it up when everything goes crazy and to some extent I still find it frustrating. My absolute worst is being CAPED when I was sitting in the cab all set up and ready to go and the announcement saying I was cancelled due to no Driver !

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 29 Dec 2023 ==





But its funny because...

TOC staff, NR Control (local), Different TOC Managed station or TOC Managed/NR Operated, Service from TOC2, External Control from [rnd] place.

Consider where you used to work (I think) and the Terminal stations it worked. 'Disjointed' really does fit. Even with the joint control points, you still have people phoning in from their respective places and then the PED.. and the TS.. needing to communicate and (can't think of the NR person at that place) still needing to pass on information. Then add in the various departments this needs to filter down to. Pass Services/Ops. It's not got any better with "technology"

Seriously; if anyone could legitimately solve the communication issues on "The Railway". You would make billions and that isn't an over-exaggeration.

Recognising those multiple communication routes, if sites like RTT are correct on more occasions than not, does that suggest that the sources they use are most likely to be the correct version of the truth and, if so, should TOCs be simplifying communications for staff by providing them with a link to the same source, to be used unless advised otherwise?

 

[bramling]

Recognising those multiple communication routes, if sites like RTT are correct on more occasions than not, does that suggest that the sources they use are most likely to be the correct version of the truth and, if so, should TOCs be simplifying communications for staff by providing them with a link to the same source, to be used unless advised otherwise?

I’d say the bigger issue isn’t the feeds of information, but staff not really being particularly adept at interpreting the information. Naturally there are going to be things that can’t be predicted, but a lot of the time it should be possible to look at something like OTT and be able to work out what’s happening. Some staff seem able to do that, others can but don’t seem to have the confidence to rely on their judgement, and some can’t at all. All a training and knowledge issue.