BBC Travel news re ATW currently showing "Disruption between Hereford and Abergavenny due to delays" Journey Check reports "Safety checks".
FGW (and others) say "Obstruction on line" They don't want to tell us it's a tree although NRES do. Incident near Tiverton Jn today involving XC hitting a fallen tree, but even quoted to the media as obstruction. Technically correct though.
you assume, as people often do, that all three parties have access to the same data and the same lines of communication. What often happens is that one runs with the initial story, a second gets a letter update while the third has the final edition so:
1) Driver reports an issue and signal man asks next train to run slowly to inspect the line ( safety checks)
2) Driver (perhaps going the other way) confirms "something" is on the line blocking it
3) NR men are dispatched to sort it out and confirm it is a tree on the line and then move it
Fortunately it's been a while since it happened but I hated it when a delay was ignored and no explanation forthcoming.
"A train late from the depot" is one of my least favourites because it doesn't say why it was delayed, i.e. lack of crew, train fault etc..
what does it matter if the delay was down to a broken signal, faulty train or the driver going sick. You are still late. I would much prefer the guard/staff spent time trying to help people with onward connection details rather than wasting time sorting out why we are late. The reason doesnt matter, the fact you are late is the important point
I was onc e working a train where I had a lady taken seriously ill. Luckly she was beside a PA, so I was able to inform everybody we were going to be waiting at the next station for an ambulance, on arrival repeat this, announce when the ambulance had arrived and tell everybody when she had been carried off the train and we were getting ready to get the road and depart. In twenty minutes I made four announcements.
As I'm walking through the train after we depart sorting out any missed connections, a chap stops me "Your announcements were rubbish!"
My first thought was that the PA hadn't been working properly, so I ask if he couldn't hear them.
"I could hear them OK, but if something is delaying me, I expect to be told what's wrong with the person, not just that somebody is sick"
While information is a good thing, some people do expect too much.
Self important nimrods :roll:
The best one I've ever heard must have been 'I am sorry for our late departure from XYZZY, unfortunately I am unsure as to why as the station staff at XYZ failed to inform me', said during the aftermath of a suspected person hit by a train, by a XC guard, who could've checked his blackberry to find out the reason...
Am I the only one that hates 'operating incident', and 'emergency services dealing with an incident', which often substitute for 'derailment' or 'person hit by a train' respectfully. I mean it's hardly difficult to work out when the first story on that nights news is a derailment in the area, or you see the air ambulance appear in the area...
lots of people dont really want to know the gory details.
The choice of words also conveys several possibilities. You, like many others, seem to be making the mistake of assuming everything is "cut and dried" immediately an incident occurs and that this certainty can be instantly communicated to passengers. Real time information doesnt work like that sadly.
at Belper. We were told that a person had been hit by a train and, as a result, our train would be diverted from Derby with an expected delay of around 15 mins into Chesterfield and Sheffield. A further announcement was made that the train would reverse at Derby and head back the same way as it had come in. 
