Wonderfully offensive article in the Torygraph

[Z12XE]

suggesting he should perhaps do some voluntary work at a heritage railway before he writes something like that again.

Or perhaps some similar work on the National Railway network, I would suggest somewhere in the area he attacks on a day when there is massive distruption - lets see how much "better" he can do.

 

[scotsman]

Hope you don't mind me saying well done to you Scotsman for your comments on the article on the Telegraph website by the way.

Ta, there were a lot of arrogant people who needed taken down a notch...not going to Private School (not that I ever was!) is the best thing that ever happened to me! :P

 

[GB]

To be honest, while his writing is akin to an arroganant little twerp he does raise some interesting points.....assuming they are true.

I wouldn't be too chuffed to find my train sitting at a station for a long length of time without any announements from staff and then to find out all the staff including train crew are huddled together in a staff room.

 

[ralphchadkirk]

Ta, there were a lot of arrogant people who needed taken down a notch...not going to Private School (not that I ever was!) is the best thing that ever happened to me! :P

Where is this obsession that everyone who goes to private school is an arrogant twerp? It simply isn't true.

 

[Hydro]

Ta, there were a lot of arrogant people who needed taken down a notch...not going to Private School (not that I ever was!) is the best thing that ever happened to me! :P

You could just accept that there are w*nkers in the world and get on with it. You don't need to make it a mission to "take them down a notch".

Or promulgate this ridiculous link between a private education and arrogance. It only serves to weaken your own usually well thought out arguments by making it sound like you have quite a chip on your shoulder.

 

[Metroland]

Offensive attitutes all round I think.

The moral of the tale is not all people that go to private school look down on everyone and are well rounded human beings (I'd personally say Max was one of the most inoffensive people on this forum) and not all people on the railways are uneducated and lazy.

 

[scotsman]

You could just accept that there are w*nkers in the world and get on with it. You don't need to make it a mission to "take them down a notch".

Or promulgate this ridiculous link between a private education and arrogance. It only serves to weaken your own usually well thought out arguments by making it sound like you have quite a chip on your shoulder.

No, it's not a mission - there were just a few people who were being too brazenly offensive in public for my liking. There isn't a link, I never said there was, I'm just saying that while these places supposedly offer a better education it often leaves the students very much cut off from reality. My school is a comprehensive with a lot of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, my understanding of the world has been greatly enhanced from this. I am very lucky to have what I do, they should appreciate even more - I owe a fair bit to High Valleyfield.

Random fact: The Skids' track 'Into the Valley' was actually about the village of High Valleyfield, a former mining village in West Fife with unemployment and delinquency issues. Quite a few of the kids from there came to my schools and ones in Dunfermline, some were pretty hard and lead to a reputation. The YVB were not popular, hence the song.

 

[4SRKT]

I have some sympathy with the attitude of the feature writer here, and I'm hardly ignorant about railway operations. Many railway employees do have no idea about customer service and display attitudes of "like it or lump it". This is evidenced in some posters' views on these forums time and time again. The railway is a service, and its users (other than cranks) helpless when things go wrong.

Recently at Leeds when a 333 had broken down at Salatire there was total chaos with Aire Valley services all delayed with no end to the disruption in sight, the only railway employee in sight was a surly fellow in the customer service kiosk. His attitude was appalling, even though he was laughably sitting under a sign reading 'customer service'. He really radiated aggression towards anyone who came near him. Sure, I can see he may have been annoyed at being asked the same [justifiable] question over and over again, but TOUGH LUCK BUCKO, that's yer job! Any organisation that gave even a medium size damn about its customers, reputation or whatever, would have people on hand to explain the situation and how everything was being done blah blah. While not actually helping to resolve the situation it woule diffuse tension.

Another time recently at South Gyle several southbound trains flashed through in a row without stopping, without any explanation being given at all. It was a windy day, lashing with freezing rain, and the platform was wedged before train finally stopped 27 minutes after I arrived on the platform. The whole time 3 indolent and contemptuous RPIs had been standing on the northbound platform, doing nothing but shuffling about and chatting among themselves, except when a train pulled in when they inspected tickets in a bored and perfunctory manner. At no point did these lazy cretins try to find out what was causing the chaos on the other platform and inform passengers.

These are two experiences that happened to me within 6 weeks of each other. I am in general a defender of the railway, but even its staunchest defender cannot claim that customer service skills are present in (at best) a substantial minority of customer-facing employees.

 

[Fred26]

Where is this obsession that everyone who goes to private school is an arrogant twerp? It simply isn't true.

No, but working class snobs believe that it is. It's just as common for the working classes to 'look down' on the upper classes as it is the other way round. Both are completely unpalatable.

The bloke might be a dick, but so are a lot of people. He clearly doesn't know what he's talking about (staff shouldn't be sat inside at times like that though), but acts as if he knows the railway better than those running it (not those at the station...). This is very common.
Yesterday I was on an East Coast train which stopped somewhere between Retford and Grantham, on the up, with no power. This was because there were icicles in the tunnel which needed to be cleared so that they wouldn't cause damage to the overheads or trains. The pans were down, so we had only emergency power for forty minutes or so. During this time I heard four people having phone conversations, suggesting they know better and, in the process, getting the facts set out by the guard largely incorrect. I felt like standing up and correcting them and explaining why they're idiots... I didn't, of course.
It really irritates me when people think they know better than those actually doing the job/running the thing.

 

[scotsman]

Another time recently at South Gyle several southbound trains flashed through in a row without stopping, without any explanation being given at all. It was a windy day, lashing with freezing rain, and the platform was wedged before train finally stopped 27 minutes after I arrived on the platform. The whole time 3 indolent and contemptuous RPIs had been standing on the northbound platform, doing nothing but shuffling about and chatting among themselves, except when a train pulled in when they inspected tickets in a bored and perfunctory manner. At no point did these lazy cretins try to find out what was causing the chaos on the other platform and inform passengers.

Sorry, but this is the norm!

Aberdeens, Dundees and Inverness trains don't call at South Gyle. There's a help point, LDB screens and a tannoy system provided. The Ticket Examiners probably don't have any training on getting info and aren't paid to do so!

 

[4SRKT]

Sorry, but this is the norm!

Aberdeens, Dundees and Inverness trains don't call at South Gyle. There's a help point, LDB screens and a tannoy system provided. The Ticket Examiners probably don't have any training on getting info and aren't paid to do so!

Er, yes. I know :roll: You take this attitude with someone like me who knows what he's talking about? Heaven help the normals (you don't work for ScotRail do you ). The trains in question said 'Newcraighall' on the front and no train stopped for over half an hour between 17:15 and 17:46. Is this 'the norm'? No. The screen said nothing: each train disappeared from the screen exactly two minutes after it was due to call, as the system is programmed to do.

I don't care if these lazy RPIs were paid to do that or not. Here in a nutshell you have inadvertantly summed up the entire problem: it's more than my job's worth. They may have no training, but if any of them had an ounce of decency or common sense, they could make a call.

 

[Fred26]

The Ticket Examiners probably don't have any training on getting info and aren't paid to do so!

Rubbish. Everyone should know how to phone control or the on-call manager.

 

[scotsman]

Er, yes. I know :roll: You take this attitude with someone like me who knows what he's talking about? Heaven help the normals (you don't work for ScotRail do you ). The trains in question said 'Newcraighall' on the front and no train stopped for over half an hour between 17:15 and 17:46. Is this 'the norm'? No. The screen said nothing: each train disappeared from the screen exactly two minutes after it was due to call, as the system is programmed to do.

I don't care if these lazy RPIs were paid to do that or not. Here in a nutshell you have inadvertantly summed up the entire problem: it's more than my job's worth. They may have no training, but if any of them had an ounce of decency or common sense, they could make a call.

Sorry, come across badly! There wasn't enough info in that, so I had to work out what was going on and I got it wrong. TEs are there to check tickets, unfortunately, and only check tickets. You can't expect people to do jobs they aren't paid to do, despite the fact that many do (which we all appreciate).

I'd do it, but many won't. Or can't be bothered.

 

[Metroland]

The real problem on the railways, like in many other British companies, the top down control that doesn't allow people to think for themselves.

Railway staff are very good at obeying rules and regulations, and managers are very good at issuing them and punishing people for going the extra mile. IE do something that doesn't quite fit in with the rules and regulations but gets results.

Overall, this reveals a complex issue: there are many people with a chip on the shoulder about success and think it's always some sort of trick, there are others that do not understand lack of opportunity and funds, there are also those that do everything possible drag people's names through the mud espeically through the privledged position of the media and and those that think their job as managers is to 'tell people what to do' rather than get results.

The class war is alive and well.

 

[CosherB]

This has nothing to do with class or public schools. It's about the ethos of customer service - or absence of it. The post that started this thread displayed appalling lack of customer service which worryingly was mostly met by railwaymen on here with derision towards the complainer.

And the incident that 4SRKT relates is another example of appalling service. Customer service isn't just about 'doing your job'; that's a given. It's about actually beleiving the customer is important, is paying your wages, and is therefore someone you'll look after. Absence of customer service was a hallmark of BR (with, of course, occasional exceptions) and is often met in the public sector.

An example? Drive up to any companie's office building and you'll find the visitor car park spaces right by the front door, because the customer is important and pays the bills including everyone's wages. Do the same at a public sector department or a police headquarters and the chances are there will be no visitor spaces, or if there are they'll be 200 yards away in a muddy unsurfaced car park extension (I know, I've seen it so often!). The spaces by the door will have the names of the chief exec and his staff on them! These people think they exist to serve themselves! That attitude comes over in spades in this thread from many rail contributors!

If you're in the office and the phone rings at someone else's desk and they are not there, do you pick it up because it might be a customer and you could take a message, or do you ignore because even if it is a cutomer it's 'not your job' to answer someone else's phone?

 

[Metroland]

You are right, but I think it's somewhat simplistic. How many times have you rung a call centre only to find the person on the other end of the phone is really reading from a sheet and is limited to what they can do, however frustrating this may be?

The railways can be rather like that, it's not for 'free spirits'.

On the flip side, very occasionally, is customers that think by becoming obusive they get results even though what they require is fairly impossible.

Obviously everyone in public service or selling goods and services *should* view the customer central to what they do, all I'm saying is rules and regulations designed to protect the company can get in the way at times.

I think it's a bit unfair to view that the railways are quite bad at customer service overall. Yes, they can be. But over the last few weeks my dealings with several companies, including ISPs, telecomms, water companies, estate agents reveal they are not alone. In the transport field, the airlines have hardly excelled of late recently as well.

 

[4SRKT]

You are right, but I think it's somewhat simplistic. How many times have you rung a call centre only to find the person on the other end of the phone is really reading from a sheet and is limited to what they can do, however frustrating this may be?

The railways can be rather like that, it's not for 'free spirits'.

On the flip side, very occasionally, is customers that think by becoming obusive they get results even though what they require is fairly impossible.

Obviously everyone in public service or selling goods and services *should* view the customer central to what they do, all I'm saying is rules and regulations designed to protect the company can get in the way at times.

I think it's a bit unfair to view that the railways are quite bad at customer service overall. Yes, they can be. But over the last few weeks my dealings with several companies, including ISPs, telecomms, water companies, estate agents reveal they are not alone. In the transport field, the airlines have hardly excelled of late recently as well.

I think that the railways are actually very good at customer service when things are going well, but this disappears almost completely once things start to go to pot.

 

[Metroland]

That would be down to lack of resources. Guard on every train, staff at every station, two drivers in the cabs and so on all long gone, and bad situations soon overwhelm any organisation set up to deliver only a certain amount of resilience.

Likewise, these cheap foreign call centres and companies run on the cheap perform equally badly, like alrines with fast turnarounds, or just in time deliveries in shops and so on.

Still we all want low taxes and cheap goods eh?

 

[4SRKT]

That would be down to lack of resources. Guard on every train, staff at every station, two drivers in the cabs and so on all long gone, and bad situations soon overwhelm any organisation set up to deliver only a certain amount of resilience.

Likewise, these cheap foreign call centres and companies run on the cheap perform equally badly, like alrines with fast turnarounds, or just in time deliveries in shops and so on.

Still we all want low taxes and cheap goods eh?

Well, I'm struggling with the notion of rail fares being cheap.....

Also, I'm not suggesting that railway staff at stations can be expected to find solutions to chaotic situations when they occur: by doing so they may directly contradict what Control is trying to do. It's the surliness and couldn't give a damn mentality that's the problem. A sympathetic staff member who at least appears to be trying to find out what's going on may not actually get anyone home earlier, but the difference is huge.

As a crank I have a huge advantage over normals when these situations occur. I'm not sure whether this makes me less cross because I may have some understanding of the underlying cause, or more cross because I see this cause not being explained properly to frustrated normals. In the unlikely event that I'm ever in charge of a TOC my first action will be to ban the words 'operational difficulties' from any public statement, verbal or written.

 

[Metroland]

They aren't cheap. But H&S laws, staff and other costs these days are not cheap as are trains sitting around doing nothing and so on.

Neverthless, like any other organisations, family or government they have limited resources and as I've said in other threads some of the expectations in poor weather are unrealistic.

You have a point about *some* staff attitudes though.

I also think the fragmentated nature of the railway doesn't help, TOC staff for example might view a NR problem as out of their control and 'not their fault', even though they are expected to deal with it.

 

[Fred26]

I think that the railways are actually very good at customer service when things are going well, but this disappears almost completely once things start to go to pot.

I agree.

It hurts to tell passengers, 'I'm sorry, but I have no idea where your train is, if it may be cancelled, short-formed, or missing stops/making extra stops.' I want to give everyone this information, but it's not always forthcoming from Control. Granted, they have more important things to do (like running a railway), but really, someone needs to be able to tell me what I need to know. Otherwise I look like a dick (to myself and passengers).
Most passengers are reasonable and I find the amount of abuse I get to be small and minor in offensiveness. However, it doesn't matter how many times I get told that I am 'clearly doing my best', if I have one passenger tell me 'you don't know what you're doing'... that ruins my day. I know exactly what I'm doing and so do Control. They might not be great at giving information, but they know how to run the railway.

 

[4SRKT]

They aren't cheap. But H&S laws, staff and other costs these days are not cheap as are trains sitting around doing nothing and so on.

Neverthless, like any other organisations, family or government they have limited resources and as I've said in other threads some of the expectations in poor weather are unrealistic.

You have a point about *some* staff attitudes though.

I also think the fragmentated nature of the railway doesn't help, TOC staff for example might view a NR problem as out of their control and 'not their fault', even though they are expected to deal with it.

The only expectation I've raised here is that *all* staff should be helpful and not lazy, ignorant or rude. This has nothing to do with H&S, weather or resources.

Let's face it, what we really want is an attractive blonde in a nice uniform to come out, flash us a smile and tell us everything's being done to sort it all out

 

[Fred26]

Also, I'm not suggesting that railway staff at stations can be expected to find solutions to chaotic situations when they occur: by doing so they may directly contradict what Control is trying to do. It's the surliness and couldn't give a damn mentality that's the problem. A sympathetic staff member who at least appears to be trying to find out what's going on may not actually get anyone home earlier, but the difference is huge.

Absolutely. I invite passengers into my office, while I check TRUST, or phone Control, or a Supervisor. I do empathise and I do care. However, someone else mentioned (may be a different thread) that some staff see the railway as 'just a job' and this is true. Many don't have a passion for it and even in those that do, some have the 'BR attitude' of, 'if I don't have to, I won't.' I could talk for a while about why I don't want BR back...

In the unlikely event that I'm ever in charge of a TOC my first action will be to ban the words 'operational difficulties' from any public statement, verbal or written.

Well said. I hate the automatic announcements. Apart from the lack of emotion and empathy (how often do you think 'they are sorry that the train is cancelled', when the auto announcement says 'sorry'? I for one hate hearing that bull****, whether as a passenger or a member of staff.), they use God-awful phrases; 'lack of train crew'. If the train hasn't got a driver, say so. Since our trains only need a driver, say so. I get quite aerated.
At work, I interrupt the automatic announcements as much as possible to make my own, even if I'm essentially saying the same thing, because people want to hear a human voice that CARES.

While I'm on the subject, if I were a passenger during disruption, the last thing I'd be in the mood to hear is, safety announcements ('stand behind the yellow line') or 'smoking is illegal' announcements. I interrupt these, in disruption, just because they're bound to wind people up.

I can make myself quite angry, sometimes...

 

[4SRKT]

One of the best examples I have of ignorance leading to poor service came a few years ago at Bradford Interchange. It was during the Leeds station remodelling and as was common at that time, chaos was reigning on the Calder Valley line, and things were being compounded by a points failure at Mill Lane. Basically there wasn't going to be a train from Interchange to Leeds for over an hour. I was standing in the queue (I was going to Hebden Bridge on a train that miraculously was on time!). Other people in the queue were getting irritated when told of the delays and asked what the alternatives were. The staff were unhelpful in the extreme, only able to suggest that passengers went into the adjoining bus part of the Interchange to see about getting a bus to Leeds, which "might be possible" (the bus to Leeds takes ages BTW). Only just able to suppress my irritation at this incompetence, I announced to the whole room that a five minute walk to Forster Square would see passengers able to take a direct service to Leeds that's as quick as the one from Interchange.

I imagine that some of the railway personnel on here would see me as having overstepped the mark here, but it beggars belief that booking office staff working for the same TOC in the same city would not have thought of this possibility.

 

[Hydro]

I doubt internal communication from Control to staff would win any industry awards either. When things go tits up in my experience, there tends to be about half a dozen conflicting pieces of information trickling from any number of Controls down to the front line. I can only really speak from experience of internal information channels rather than information that must be passed onto a customer, but if they are all of the same standard then God help us. I've turned up to prep a train in knee deep snow and near blizzard conditions at a time I only thought existed in fiction only to be greeted by the driver departing the yard saying "What are you doing here? I'm off on snowploughs, didn't anyone tell you?" "When was this decided?" "Oh, last night! Your control and ours hammered out an emergency plan!" "Cheers(!)"

 

[Fred26]

I imagine that some of the railway personnel on here would see me as having overstepped the mark here, but it beggars belief that booking office staff working for the same TOC in the same city would not have thought of this possibility.

If I were the TOC staff, I'd be hugely humiliated by that. I don't think you overstepped anything. I don't know Bradford at all - I've been through it a few times, on that lovely route from Accrington to Leeds, but if I worked there, I'd surely know that.
That'd be like when I was in Southend Victoria Ticket Office during disruption. If I didn't say, 'well, try Southend Central instead', I'd feel a fool.

 

[Metroland]

The only expectation I've raised here is that *all* staff should be helpful and not lazy, ignorant or rude. This has nothing to do with H&S, weather or resources.

Let's face it, what we really want is an attractive blonde in a nice uniform to come out, flash us a smile and tell us everything's being done to sort it all out

In an ideal world all staff should be helpful and not lazy, but it's not an ideal world. When things go wrong and you have several thousand passengers to deal with each passenger sees their plight (rightly) as important. Part of the skill of operating a railway is to please as many as possible, but is impossible to please everyone 100%. For example, not holding a connecting train is a good example.

Yes, there are a minority of staff that probably should not be there, but it is a minority and that's why painting everyone with the same brush, as so many media pieces do, is unhelpful and demoralising.

Certainly when I was on the railways, if I'd delayed a train by a couple of minutes by dodgy regulating (there were 100s of trains per shift), I could wake up in the night worrying what would be said (more actually by my workmates), loss of pride and so on. I used to get equally frustrated by lazy managers, technicians and drivers walking at a snails pace to a late train and I wasn't unusual. It's a real team effort though, and real time operating is nothing like as easy as people think, which is why sometimes it doesn't go 100%.

 

[Fred26]

I've turned up to prep a train in knee deep snow and near blizzard conditions at a time I only thought existed in fiction only to be greeted by the driver departing the yard saying "What are you doing here? I'm off on snowploughs, didn't anyone tell you?" "When was this decided?" "Oh, last night! Your control and ours hammered out an emergency plan!" "Cheers(!)"

I had a mildly similar experience a short time ago with Hull Trains. They stopped somewhere they wouldn't normally to help us out and I knew nothing of what they were up to until I saw the Guard.
Hull Trains on-board staff, I find, from a staff's point-of-view, are great. Obviously the decision to stop extra is made by Control, but I have nothing but respect for their on-board staff, for other reasons.

 

[Aictos]

Without intending to offend anyone, there are some who will do everything possible to help passengers and some who would prefer to hide or disappear and not having to help passengers, I've known once for a member of staff to disappear then to ring the station where their help was needed complaining they were bored, needless to say I soon made my views known to the management!

I have no time for colleagues who refuse to help fellow colleagues or passengers in time of disruption however I have all the time in the world for colleagues who are prepared to help or passengers who don't bite my head off and who realise that I and colleagues are actually doing everything possible for them.

I got caught up on a heavily delayed East Coast this week and with another member of staff did everything possible to assist the guard.

 

[thefab444]

Well said. I hate the automatic announcements. Apart from the lack of emotion and empathy (how often do you think 'they are sorry that the train is cancelled', when the auto announcement says 'sorry'? I for one hate hearing that bull****, whether as a passenger or a member of staff.), they use God-awful phrases; 'lack of train crew'. If the train hasn't got a driver, say so. Since our trains only need a driver, say so. I get quite aerated.
At work, I interrupt the automatic announcements as much as possible to make my own, even if I'm essentially saying the same thing, because people want to hear a human voice that CARES.

While I'm on the subject, if I were a passenger during disruption, the last thing I'd be in the mood to hear is, safety announcements ('stand behind the yellow line') or 'smoking is illegal' announcements. I interrupt these, in disruption, just because they're bound to wind people up.

May I ask which station you work at and for which TOC?