SWR Poor Communication

[Nogoohwell]

I do miss the old SWT, they knew how to keep people informed by cancelling trains at times of disruption so you knew what would run. Now it seems SWR will never cancel a train and just leave you in limbo thinking that it will run.

Last night there was some issue at Wimbledon, the station staff at Vauxhall could not help, other to say that no trains were running and that we were not to enter the station. What about the Windsor lines?

Eventually, they saw sense and let us onto platform 3. But the station announcements and station staff knew nothing about what was going on. I'm trying to get back to Epsom and yes CLJ is an alternative, if I can get there.

After 10 minutes of no one offering any news, I start checking opentraintimes and see a service working out of Waterloo towards Vauxhall. Low and behold, its a Guildford via Epsom, so I peg it down to platform 8, over the barriers, because the staff are still adamant that this train is not running and that platform 8 is closed.

Train pulls in, no its not a ghost train and its heading to Epsom as advertised, I get on, the other 100 people waiting on platform 3 look on and start to rush over. Train waits a minute or two, yet no one makes it up to the platform, clearly the barriers and staff stopped them. The train carries on its merry way and at every stop, there is no one about, the screens dont show this train running and I dread to think how many people had a terrible journey home, all because of poor information.

I'm lucky, I know how the system works so can navigate my way around, but the lack of information to passengers is shocking. The staff should be ashamed of themselves, if a passenger can find out what trains are running, then why arn't they taking it upon themselves to help people get to where they want to be.

Yes SWR should do a lot better and cancel trains that are clearly not going to run (a Shepperton service delayed by 103 minutes clogging up the screens for example) but passengers rely on the staff for help, they know what to do in the event of an issue and should be doing better, we depend on it, otherwise, if they are not helping lone women and vulnerable people to get home safely, then what safety related role are they carrying out?

Sorry for this rant but this should not happen and makes our railways and their staff look incompetent, which for 95% of the time, they're not.

 

[Horizon22]

SWR have in the past 2-3 years hired a number of new Control staff after moving a lot of them to Basingstoke ROC from Waterloo - they've recently that losing a lot of experience wasn't great and are also bringing in a new "mini-ROC" at Waterloo again.

That being said, they're not the only company to run into a bit of a meltdown during disruption - if there's multiple incidents things get missed as the workload jumps from 1 to 100 in about 30 minutes, so every is assumed to be "as booked" by station staff who are none the wiser. As with many things it comes down to accurate communication.

Downstream communication & information to passengers isn't always accurate / fails to update in a timely manner during disruption hence you get some conflict / issues about the platforms and running. Sounds like that Epsom train may have been previously cancelled and hen reinstated - if it happens with short notice its often the case those sorts of trains run relatively empty unless its held and there's station broadcasts and announcements etc to ensure people move across.

 

[Lifelong]

I was at Waterloo last night. The only positive thing I'd say around the on the ground reaction and communications to another sad incident was that SWR staff didn't disappear, as has happened before. Must be the worst job on a night last night and fair play to them. However...if lessons are going to be learnt...1) at no point was a very loud message played - on repeat - stating that all lines were blocked and there was no clarity around when they would be reopened (stating clearly 'all lines were blocked' and possibly 'ignore online travel apps' would help immensely). 2) SWR twitter didn't help matters - opened up a whole can of worms about taxis and didn't feel responsive. 3) The most indefensible part of the whole scenario was advertising 2 platform 20+ trains as running, allowing them to fill to the brim and - at no stage - announcing to the passengers inside that there was no staff to get the trains running. One of the trains had a guard on it, (or somebody in the guard's compartment in SWR uniform) and not one message was given on train. As I say, to me that's indefensible given what was unfolding. Finally I've noticed recently that SWR have given up on the 'we are sorry/very sorry/very very sorry' messaging after the fact, I think the impact of that was limited but not doing it loses more friends. Kudos to all those who tried to help last night

 

[ivorytoast28]

opened up a whole can of worms about taxis

I saw this too, are they really willing to pay for hundreds of people's taxis over getting a replacement bus? Doesn't this cost the railway an absolute fortune if each customer is claiming £200+ . I've seen LNER saying it before as well, but usually for shorter connections if the long distance has had disruption which makes more sense. I know they have a duty to get people home but am surprised they're willing to pay out so much when there must be cheaper options and the trains started running later anyway

 

[gazr]

SWR on National Rail even put up a message saying they would reimburse hotel bookings!! I would not want to take advantage of a very bad situation, but when they don't stipulate any rules, I'd be booking at the most expensive hotel in London! Not seen a full line block like that for a long time outside of engineering.

 

[800001]

I saw this too, are they really willing to pay for hundreds of people's taxis over getting a replacement bus? Doesn't this cost the railway an absolute fortune if each customer is claiming £200+ . I've seen LNER saying it before as well, but usually for shorter connections if the long distance has had disruption which makes more sense. I know they have a duty to get people home but am surprised they're willing to pay out so much when there must be cheaper options and the trains started running later anyway

Where do they source the busses tppves thousands of people at extremely short notice?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Oct 2021 ==

SWR on National Rail even put up a message saying they would reimburse hotel bookings!! I would not want to take advantage of a very bad situation, but when they don't stipulate any rules, I'd be booking at the most expensive hotel in London! Not seen a full line block like that for a long time outside of engineering.

An extremely sad fatality will result in a total blockage!

 

[theblackwatch]

Where do they source the busses tppves thousands of people at extremely short notice?

I guess First Travel Solutions or whoever SWR uses were unable to provide? Or maybe not all TOCs have Rail Service Support contracts in place?

 

[TEW]

Given that SWR have been struggling to even get buses for planned engineering work recently, it's probably not very likely they were able to get sufficient in an emergency.

 

[800001]

I guess First Travel Solutions or whoever SWR uses were unable to provide? Or maybe not all TOCs have Rail Service Support contracts in place?

They will have contracts in place, but that doesn't guarantee you a fleet of buses.
Drivers maybe out of hours, committed to jobs the following day, may not want to work.

 

[pompeyfan]

SWR twitter stated alternative transport was unavailable, partly down to the national PCV shortage, and further complicated by the fuel shortage. SWR were never going to come out smelling like roses after a 4 line blockage for 4+ hours.

 

[Lifelong]

A genuine question rather than having a pop - I don't think SWR ran one eg Surbiton - Guildford shuttle service last night, ie services stopping short to avoid the scene itself. This seems quite extreme in terms of not being able to anything at all - the trains were stranded south of eg Surbiton, and they do run shuttles at weekends etc sometimes?

 

[Horizon22]

Given that SWR have been struggling to even get buses for planned engineering work recently, it's probably not very likely they were able to get sufficient in an emergency.

Not solely related to SWR - this thread explains the current replacement bus shortages right now.

 

[Flange Squeal]

They will have contracts in place, but that doesn't guarantee you a fleet of buses.
Drivers maybe out of hours, committed to jobs the following day, may not want to work.

A lot of the quick response to "e-rail" work east of Woking seems to come from certain local independent operators whose work primarily consists of weekday schools and weekend rail. These sorts of firms are ideal as the vehicles are normally free for the majority of hours each weekday, and staff are very familiar with the rail network being what they do at weekends. These firms also tend to have a good bank of casual drivers they can phone, hence their normally very quick response times.

The downside is the nature of their work means they don't generally have full depot facilities such as their own fuel tanks, so use fuel stations like everyone else. Not normally an issue, but this week has seen some struggling to get enough fuel to keep their own school services running - they can't risk burning through a load doing a night of rail, then being unable to top up on the way back to depot late at night ready for the vehicle to go back out on schools hours later.

 

[[.n]]

Not solely related to SWR - this thread explains the current replacement bus shortages right now.

Its always amusing about lack of buses when it (partly) run by a bus company [I thought the same in the Stagecoach SWT days] when there were never bus replacement services

 

[pompeyfan]

Its always amusing about lack of buses when it (partly) run by a bus company [I thought the same in the Stagecoach SWT days] when there were never bus replacement services

The bus industry is a lot more streamlined towards efficiency, the employee T&Cs are a lot worse and there’s very few As required / As ordered / cover drivers available.

 

[[.n]]

The bus industry is a lot more streamlined towards efficiency, the employee T&Cs are a lot worse and there’s very few As required / As ordered / cover drivers available.

Oh yes, as someone vaguely interested in this sort of thing, I've informed myself of the reason(s).

Its just to the average person (on the Clapham omnibus presumably!) it sounds a bit nonsensical to say the train company is having some problems with getting trains to work and also its finding it hard to get buses to replace the trains, when you're thinking but they're the "same" company.

My particular favourite was that SWT had an SWT branded bus for Rail replacement - I did wonder how many they had!

 

[185143]

Oh yes, as someone vaguely interested in this sort of thing, I've informed myself of the reason(s).

Its just to the average person (on the Clapham omnibus presumably!) it sounds a bit nonsensical to say the train company is having some problems with getting trains to work and also its finding it hard to get buses to replace the trains, when you're thinking but they're the "same" company.

My particular favourite was that SWT had an SWT branded bus for Rail replacement - I did wonder how many they had!

If the average person HAD been on the Clapham omnibus, problem sorted!

(I'll get my coat)

 

[Flange Squeal]

My particular favourite was that SWT had an SWT branded bus for Rail replacement - I did wonder how many they had!

Just to clarify, SWT did not have their own back-up fleet of buses. Over the course of the franchise there were indeed 10 Olympian deckers, 3 Jonckheere coaches and 1 Alexander PS bus painted in SWT liveries (not including the various 'Rail Link' service buses), but these were all in fact just part of local bus/coach operator fleets (Stagecoach South and Mortons Travel), and when not doing rail work at the weekend could be seen on other special event, schools and even local stage carriage service work. Their aim was just to make them more obvious to rail passengers during planned weekend engineering work, rather than acting as any kind of 'hot' standby in times of disruption.

 

[[.n]]

Just to clarify, SWT did not have their own back-up fleet of buses. Over the course of the franchise there were indeed 10 Olympian deckers, 3 Jonckheere coaches and 1 Alexander PS bus painted in SWT liveries (not including the various 'Rail Link' service buses), but these were all in fact just part of local bus/coach operator fleets (Stagecoach South and Mortons Travel), and when not doing rail work at the weekend could be seen on other special event, schools and even local stage carriage service work. Their aim was just to make them more obvious to rail passengers during planned weekend engineering work, rather than acting as any kind of 'hot' standby in times of disruption.

Thanks - that makes much more sense to me now