Twitter-the train driver's enemy

[455driver]

He was on an EC train so I answered accordingly, if he had been on a FCC or SE train I wouldnt have mentioned it! :roll:

The basic principle still stands though, inform (any) staff as soon as possible with as much detail as possible.

 

[TDK]

Trial by twitter is too common these days. Has to be stopped.

This is a management issue and unfortunately there are too many jobsworth managers who would relish on acting on any report about drivers as many managers outside the grade think drivers are overpaid and under worked. Deep down they would most likely want to drive but do not have the qualities required. You cannot blame twitter, tweets, passengers but the managers pulling in drivers without sufficient evidence. Drivers need to put in level one grievance procedures if they are wrongly accused and hopefully enough of these will stem the escalating problems.
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EC is different, but even where there is a guard on a commuter train (rather than DOO) if it's very busy, or a stock with no inter-unit gangways, it's perfectly possible that you'll never see the guard (unable to pass through).

If that is the case you will need to pull the emergency pass comm when at a station and then inform the driver if you feel the safety of the train is at risk.
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What, and you are saying train driver's don't use mobile phones, IPads while driving. Get into the real world. Driver's are doing it all the time.

Of course you have evidence to back this up? I don't know any driver that uses their mobile phone whilst the train is moving or an ipad, I really cannot see any sane person risking a £40k job. You may get the odd one or in the past did but this is in the past and not current as you quote.

And there are cases where people have passed signals at danger and lost their job because they were on their phone.

I can recall one occasion about 6 years ago where a driver had a SPAD and after investigation was allegedly to be texting on his mobile phone. This was an HST somewhere in the south west, so please let us have the evidence of other cases.

Unfortunately driver's take the p**s and can be unprofessional so why cannot companies use CCTV to ensure that they act in a professional. When it happens, driver's will only have themselves to blame.

So, you know enough train drivers to support this claim that drivers take the p**s? Where is your evidence of a driver being unprofessional? Sorry mate but you really do not have a clue on what you are talking about. I do not see the cost effectiveness of installing cameras in the cabs of trains to monitor what drivers are doing, more investment should be put into the consequences of drivers not being professional as you say and to ensure that all drivers are carrying out their duties as required. This would also be a waste of money as if there are drivers being unprofessional it is a minute proportion of the drivers currently in the role.

 

[swj99]

What I find disturbing is people appear to be content with the rapid expansion with this 'big brother' culture of everyone being monitored, where will it end?

It will probably end a bit like the scene in the original version of Total Recall, where Arnie rips the head off the Johnny Cabs robot driver.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JHfSL-PoJ4

 

[bezzer]

This is a management issue and unfortunately there are too many jobsworth managers who would relish on acting on any report about drivers as many managers outside the grade think drivers are overpaid and under worked. Deep down they would most likely want to drive but do not have the qualities required. You cannot blame twitter, tweets, passengers but the managers pulling in drivers without sufficient evidence. Drivers need to put in level one grievance procedures if they are wrongly accused and hopefully enough of these will stem the escalating problems.
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If that is the case you will need to pull the emergency pass comm when at a station and then inform the driver if you feel the safety of the train is at risk.
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Of course you have evidence to back this up? I don't know any driver that uses their mobile phone whilst the train is moving or an ipad, I really cannot see any sane person risking a £40k job. You may get the odd one or in the past did but this is in the past and not current as you quote.



I can recall one occasion about 6 years ago where a driver had a SPAD and after investigation was allegedly to be texting on his mobile phone. This was an HST somewhere in the south west, so please let us have the evidence of other cases.



So, you know enough train drivers to support this claim that drivers take the p**s? Where is your evidence of a driver being unprofessional? Sorry mate but you really do not have a clue on what you are talking about. I do not see the cost effectiveness of installing cameras in the cabs of trains to monitor what drivers are doing, more investment should be put into the consequences of drivers not being professional as you say and to ensure that all drivers are carrying out their duties as required. This would also be a waste of money as if there are drivers being unprofessional it is a minute proportion of the drivers currently in the role.

As I have written in other posts I have given you an incident that occurred. It would not be appropriate to give specific dates/names etc. any further details you want could I guess be achieved by making FOI requests to TOC's.

When you have worked in every TOC, on every section of the railway, in every depot I will then accept that you are the authority on this and and concede that you are right.

As I have said before, we all have different experiences and opinions. But it always seems that when people perceive their profession to be under attack the stock response is 'you don't know what you are a talking about mate'. Which is hardly debate is it?

I have never questioned the professionalism of all drivers nationally, just my experiences on my part of the network where I drive. And I think they do give the professionalism of driver's a bad name. If you have never experienced it then great, then hats of to all your drivers for their professionalism.

But even 1 driver using the mobile phone, reading a newspaper is 1 to many as far as I am concerned.

And yes I am all for managers being more pro-active. Managers doing random checks, being at stations as trains pull I. A doing spot checks. But at present what is happening is that managers are being re-active.

 

[A-driver]

Actually at 20 mph it is not difficult to see what someone is doing in the other cab, especially as you are looking that way when you acknowledge them.

Just talking from experience mate. You say no, I say yes. The wonders of having different views/experiences and disagreeing. In today's world.

And it may be one incident but shows how easy it is to pass a signal at danger close to protecting a junction with an express travelling at 80 mph.
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It don't bother me. I am simply offering up a reason why TOC's might go down the line of installing cameras in cabs.

As I have written in other posts I have given you an incident that occurred. It would not be appropriate to give specific dates/names etc. any further details you want could I guess be achieved by making FOI requests to TOC's.

When you have worked in every TOC, on every section of the railway, in every depot I will then accept that you are the authority on this and and concede that you are right.

As I have said before, we all have different experiences and opinions. But it always seems that when people perceive their profession to be under attack the stock response is 'you don't know what you are a talking about mate'. Which is hardly debate is it?

I have never questioned the professionalism of all drivers nationally, just my experiences on my part of the network where I drive. And I think they do give the professionalism of driver's a bad name. If you have never experienced it then great, then hats of to all your drivers for their professionalism.

But even 1 driver using the mobile phone, reading a newspaper is 1 to many as far as I am concerned.

And yes I am all for managers being more pro-active. Managers doing random checks, being at stations as trains pull I. A doing spot checks. But at present what is happening is that managers are being re-active.

You seem to be making little sense and I can't see how you can see this ever working?

First of all, any drivers using phones/newspapers etc really are in a minority and are unlikely to do it all the time. I'm not saying it never happens but certainly isn't as big an issue as you suggest. As TDK says, no driver is stupid enough to risk their 45k a year job for a 4 day week with overtime on tap just to send a text message. If it's that desperate then at least wait until stopped at the next station/signal and move to the other side of the cab to send it but to do it on the move is almost unheard of.

You say that an 80mph spad approaching a junction shows how easy spads are-it's true. But it has little to do with using a phone. I could list dozens of spads, some at junctions, along with over speeds, fails to call, stop shorts etc etc which had nothing whatsoever to do with mobiles or newspapers and which CCTV would do nothing to prevent or help investigate. If mobile use is suspected as being an issue during a spad then the company has the right to ask for access to your phone records and that is enough evidence.

As for '1 driver using a phone is 1 too many' it's a silly response. Do you honestly think that people will be employed to watch CCTV constantly of every train, empty or in service, 24/7 as that is the only way you will catch the odd 'offender'. If anyone is stupid enough to take the chance of using their phone on a moving train then they are likely to be willing to risk it on the chance that only a tiny number of trains will have their CCTV checked each day and even that will be a brief skim through.

Sorry but I really disagree with the points you are making. Phone use isn't anywhere near as bad as you make out and installing CCTV isn't something that will stop the 1 or 2 drivers who do risk it. Plus, as has been said, installing, maintaining and monitoring CCTV is so expensive compared to the safety, performance or financial benefit it would provide. The driver you say was sacked for phone use was sacked without the need for CCTV evidence. Therefore I fail to see what benefit it would provide at all.

You also seem to take a very dim view of your colleagues which is very sad. I can't imagine doing this job with such resentment for my colleagues and friends as you appear to have. I know driver managers with a more friendly attitude to drivers than you appear to have. I only hope you don't come over the way you do on here when at work as you will be setting yourself up for a big fall and little sympathy from anyone when your turn to have an incident comes along...

 

[GB]

But even 1 driver using the mobile phone, reading a newspaper is 1 to many as far as I am concerned.

And yes I am all for managers being more pro-active. Managers doing random checks, being at stations as trains pull I. A doing spot checks. But at present what is happening is that managers are being re-active.

So why haven't you reported what you have see yourself then?

As for FOI requests, your the one that has made the statement, it should be up to you to back it up.

 

[notadriver]

Anyone can claim to be a driver - even me. I could be making the whole thing up !

 

[carriageline]

Report it to the guard/ train Manager on the train straight away, he will check it and then report it immediately and arrange a travelling fitter to meet the train.

There is no point reporting things like that to Head Orifice, its the traincrew that need to know!

I did that, reported it too the buffet staff who then did an announcement for the guard to contact them. I got off 10 minutes later so don't know what happened after that.

The train home a few days later had exactly the same thing, with the same actions taken.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Deerfold]

As I have written in other posts I have given you an incident that occurred. It would not be appropriate to give specific dates/names etc. any further details you want could I guess be achieved by making FOI requests to TOC's.

As they're not public companies you'll get nothing from FOI requests to TOCs except for EC.

And I doubt they'd give you names anyway.

 

[455driver]

Anyone can claim to be a driver - even me. I could be making the whole thing up !

He is a driver, he was taken on by Greater Anglia as a trainee driver last year so if he is a Mainline driver he will be out and about by now, he certainly wont have been out for more than about 6 months though.

I thought GA only took on shed drivers who were then promoted to Mainline.

I will keep asking questions?

 

[notadriver]

He is a driver, he was taken on by Greater Anglia as a trainee driver last year so if he is a Mainline driver he will be out and about by now, he certainly wont have been out for more than about 6 months though.

I thought GA only took on shed drivers who were then promoted to Mainline.

I will keep asking questions?

If dave1987 is anything to go by, a 2 year wait seems to be normal for progression from shed to mainline at Anglia.

 

[87015]

If dave1987 is anything to go by, a 2 year wait seems to be normal for progression from shed to mainline at Anglia.

There are no 'shed' (or depot, shunt, MDD, whatever!) drivers on West Anglia, only one grade.

Going back to twitter, I'm sure if drivers volunteered to learn about it and sat with the twitter people they might find that beneficial to both sides rather than just sniping...

 

[455driver]

I am sure all the "I saw the driver on the 1020 to Waterloo pick his nose, he needs retraining" type tweets are treated with the contempt they deserve and any individual tweets will simple be ignored, now if quite a few people tweet the same thing then that is different.

 

[asylumxl]

I am sure all the "I saw the driver on the 1020 to Waterloo pick his nose, he needs retraining" type tweets are treated with the contempt they deserve and any individual tweets will simple be ignored, now if quite a few people tweet the same thing then that is different.

Could nose picking be counted as a distraction?

 

[455driver]

Could nose picking be counted as a distraction?

Only if you sneeze at the same time and poke yourself in the eye!

 

[asylumxl]

Only if you sneeze at the same time and poke yourself in the eye!

It's still a nasty habit though!

 

[Morden Via CHX]

Maybe it's just coincidence or maybe I don't travel often enough (only commute twice a week) but when I'm out and about I never see any of these things happen that people tweet about ranting and raving. Like I say, maybe it's just coincidence or maybe I've got better things to do than to actively look out for these things just so I can moan about them on twitter?

 

[cjmillsnun]

My view on a few things as a passenger.

1. I follow my local TOC (SWT) on twitter. The information from the feed during incidents has been very useful to me, and the team at Waterloo are helpful, polite and very good at their job. I've seen some of the abuse they get sent. It's nasty, far worse than most of the people who do it would say face to face.

2. I'll tweet about good service and @ SWT in. IMO praise should be public. However I'll also thank the person for their help in person.

3. For a complaint, in the first instance I'll speak to a member of staff either on board or at the station and see if we can resolve the problem there and then. Normally this is the best way of dealing with it. If I can't resolve it that way, then I'll take a complaint form and sleep on it. If it's still bugging me in the morning, I will then fill in the form and send it off (I've only sent a form off once and taken about 10, sleeping on it is a very good way of getting rid of trivial complaints). I would never ever use social media to complain about someone. I think that's irresponsible.

On the whole I get damn good service from SWT. Their trains aren't always on time or the cleanest, but I've found the staff to be helpful and courteous. Perhaps because I try and treat them with respect. 99.99% of the time, it isn't their fault that something has gone wrong and they are just as frustrated as I am.

 

[ilkestonian]

...


It don't bother me. I am simply offering up a reason why TOC's might go down the line of installing cameras in cabs.

You are a driver, and a fellow driver allegedly risking his life, that of many others, and potentially, one day, yours, doesn't bother you?

That says all I need to know...

 

[455driver]

You are a driver, and a fellow driver allegedly risking his life, that of many others, and potentially, one day, yours, doesn't bother you?

That says all I need to know...

It doesnt bother him but he is quick enough to bitch about it on here!

 

[JGR]

Regardless of whether it's "the train driver's enemy" or not, it's not going to go away, so you might as well get used to it.
At the end of the day it's just another way of gauging customer perceptions, collecting feedback and supplying information, but with less overhead and cost than the likes of phone calls/letters/etc. Focusing on the relatively minute number of arguably slanderous/trolling tweets is missing the point.

 

[londiscape]

Regardless of whether it's "the train driver's enemy" or not, it's not going to go away, so you might as well get used to it.
At the end of the day it's just another way of gauging customer perceptions, collecting feedback and supplying information, but with less overhead and cost than the likes of phone calls/letters/etc. Focusing on the relatively minute number of arguably slanderous/trolling tweets is missing the point.

I would submit that the effect is entirely the opposite. I'm a non-participant in what is laughably called 'social media' (as if having 5000 odd contacts or followers counts as having real friends). But - if the end result is 95% of keyboard 'experts' bitching about things that are not in the TOC control - eg failed signalling, suicides etc, how can this be useful data to the TOC, and how can this inform any improvements in passenger service?

Surely the odd 5% of useful feedback would be 'drowned out' by the stream of weapons-grade bollocks (thanks to a previous poster for this phrase, love it ) whereas the traditional methods would be more inclined to elicit criticism from those who have felt themselves to be in a situation which warrants more *effort* to complain (rather than being 'late by 3 mins WtF OMG' or some such drivel) and therefore would be more likely to be worth listening to?

Just my 2p, &c, &c

 

[JGR]

I would submit that the effect is entirely the opposite. I'm a non-participant in what is laughably called 'social media' (as if having 5000 odd contacts or followers counts as having real friends). But - if the end result is 95% of keyboard 'experts' bitching about things that are not in the TOC control - eg failed signalling, suicides etc, how can this be useful data to the TOC, and how can this inform any improvements in passenger service?

Surely the odd 5% of useful feedback would be 'drowned out' by the stream of weapons-grade bollocks (thanks to a previous poster for this phrase, love it ) whereas the traditional methods would be more inclined to elicit criticism from those who have felt themselves to be in a situation which warrants more *effort* to complain (rather than being 'late by 3 mins WtF OMG' or some such drivel) and therefore would be more likely to be worth listening to?

Just my 2p, &c, &c

You don't have to actually get a human to read each tweet to extract some useful data. There are plenty of companies doing filtering, automated sentiment analysis, flagging interesting tweets based on key-words, etc.
In many cases you can effectively just plot a graph of "angry tweets" against time/location/whatever or pick out the key themes, and then send information accordingly, whether that be en-mass or to specific customers.
In any event, it's a lot cheaper than having an army of people manning the phone, and makes it easy to do mass real-time updates from the TOC to customers, which I'd hazard a guess is what people are really interested in.

I'm not privy to how individual TOCs manage their various social media accounts, but I would expect it to be somewhere along these lines.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The angry bitchy tweets are useful though, because they're generally occurring when something has gone drastically wrong and people don't know or understand why. To a large extent, better communication will deal with these situations, and the data can be used to understand where communication isn't working.

When First Capital Connect chuck a four car out on a peak service, and only warn you ten seconds before the train arrives, then people will bitch about it.

 

[Captain Chaos]

Perhaps if we spent less time concentrating on pandering to the usual idiots on Social Media and more time concentrating our efforts on getting this information to the staff on trains and stations instead there would be less complaints about a lack of information.

Facebook and Twitter responses should always come secondary to getting information to the staff who need it. Facebook and Twitter might only have a few people on there asking questions at any one time. The staff have hundreds to cater for. Get it out to them first! Facebook and Twitter is great but it shouldn't be considered a substitute to proper customer service. It should be an assisting platform and nothing more.

 

[jon0844]

There's something to be said for trains being updated (especially those that already have Wi-Fi and a modern PIS) to broadcast non safety critical information sent to it remotely. It wouldn't be dissimilar to sending a Tweet to announce problems, except people would receive it even if they're not checking Twitter or even carrying a phone at all.

On the Victoria Line, I've heard announcements about delays on London Overground that must be relayed to the train without the driver having to do anything.

This would allow the driver to just get on with driving, and only give information when it's specifically about a problem/situation affecting the train itself (like it's broken down!). If there's a general problem in the area, that could be done centrally.

I believe the new TL and Crossrail trains will have this, but it would be good to retrofit to other stock whenever being given a major overhaul. Now that every company has, or should have, a social media strategy - how difficult would it be for the same team to have a way to selectively pass on important messages to trains. There could be additional codes within the message to only have specific services told, based on location, direction or even headcode.

 

[Carlisle]

Didn't the DLR try something like that about 10 years or so ago with a few cars being fitted with a number of screens displaying a combination of adverts ,sports and general news and LU service updates

 

[Captain Chaos]

We have it now on Turbo's. The trouble is it doesn't announce it. Just displays it. It's also sometimes wrong. It stated that we were delayed once due to a problem at Dorking. We were at Chilworth and arrived perfectly on time with no delays. You end up getting bombarded with questions about delays that you have no knowledge of, then they point to the screen.

It is good that someone can do this though. All they need to do now is put cameras on the doors, introduce smart ticketing, get this system working and there will be no need for me ever again. Isn't progress wonderful? Who needs people when you can just send a few lines of text over the internet and hope people will just sit there nice and calm...

Sorry for being cynical...

 

[ushawk]

Freda Marsh ‏@Freda_marsh 6m
Thoughts go out to the train driver and the family of the person we hit. Hugs to our lovely train driver, making sure we're ok. #huntingdon

Judging from this tweet in relation to the incident at Huntingdon this evening - it isnt always the enemy of train crew. But of course the negatives are always louder than the positives.

 

[Captain Chaos]

Freda Marsh ‏@Freda_marsh 6m
Thoughts go out to the train driver and the family of the person we hit. Hugs to our lovely train driver, making sure we're ok. #huntingdon

Judging from this tweet in relation to the incident at Huntingdon this evening - it isnt always the enemy of train crew. But of course the negatives are always louder than the positives.

You see, it's things like that that do make it good. Yeah, she's delayed. But she recognised the gravity of the situation and took some time to spare a thought for someone else for a change. Sadly I can probably bet there might well be more people who simply don't really care. Just get them home. Society is too self-centered these days. Needs more people like this person.