Great Western Coffee Shop

I appear to have identified a problem during the course of my recent rail rover jaunts, and it has been confirmed (probably) on subsequent railway journeys. This is that the PA systems on some trains are either crap in the first place, or poorly maintained. Brief examples follow, the first involved a full and standing XC train running south from Brum. I was standing to Cheltenham, which didn't exactly help my mood at the time ;)

We were running exceptionally slowly between Bromsgrove and Ashchurch (not all the way - just between Spetchley and Abbotswood for those like me who know the route by the inch...) losing 13 minutes. When we got to Cheltenham I saw the guard and suggested that it would have been helpful if he'd made an announcement about it. He said he had - there was a level crossing failure. I told him that I didn't bloody hear it.... Hmmm...

A few days later I'm on another XC train from Reading to Brum and the guards announcements were barely audible. Then the train catering guy came on the PA and his voice was booming. As the guard came through checking tickets, it was clear that the bloke could project his voice very well. So I told him about this and, to cut a long story short, it turned out that one of the microphones on the train was crap. He stopped using it and used the other one(s) and his voice boomed merrily.

I was then on a Chippenham to Westbury 2-car class 165. The announcements were fine, and then at Melksham the family from hell got on -screaming kids, screaming parents screaming at screaming kids - you get the idea... I went to the next coach, and the announcements in there were virtually inaudible again. I did tell the guard outside Westbury station (he was there having a fag the same as I was) and he promised to make a note of it. Whether he did is a moot point because when I went back to the platform the DMU we came down on was just leaving with another crew, but that's a different matter.

Whilst I don't doubt that there are some lazy surly buggers around in the ranks of train crews who don't make announcements, these discoveries put a different light on the matter, where some staff may indeed be making the announcements but they aren't being heard by the passengers. It is also difficult to see how an indivudual guard or driver is going to know that there is fault on his particular PA system unless one of the passengers says something and, as most of 'em just get on and stay in the same seat until they get off, they aren't going to know anyway.

Whilst I appreciate that an effective PA system is a long way down the priorities list behind getting trains to turn wheels so that they can get out into revenue-earning service, I wonder what views and experiences there are out there, especially from people involved in the daily repair & maintenance functions?

Well, in the modern day rules, a train with a defective PA shouldn't enter service.  I always wondered how a DOO train driver was supposed to check it was working OK though!  ;)

Volume and clarity vary massively between types of train, and even trains of the same type.  Newer trains often generally have better speakers and PA systems, and generally you stand a better chance of hearing when it's an electric train which has air-conditioning for obvious reasons.

Audabilty often seems to have been a problem om 15x units ... not sure about 16x yet.

Also a problem with automated systems telling porkies ... announcing "Melksham" for Chippenham the other day, for example.   Problem also on IET "next stop Bath Spa" announcement as we left Didcot on a Paddington train, and "next stop Neath" as we left Cardiff on another ... at least the first two letters were right as Newport was next, and the train manager followed up with a joke telling us not to believe everything the train told us, and making a correct (and audible) announcement.

I remember on May 31st there was a weather warning and my 15:?? service to Cheltenham was cancelled, so I hung on an hour and waited for the next train. Boarded the 16:30 that was a ten car train however crammed due to the Cheltenham cancelled, Bristol and Swansea cancelled and next Swansea was five coaches. This was my only second time on an IET and the previous one was from Swindon to Didcot, so very short. 

This women was moaning all the time at from London to Swindon about the new trains; even her friend had enough it was like she was talking to herself. She mentions seats, short forms the lot; which I agreed with once until she mentioned it as many times as she could until I got annoyed. The very nice Train Manager (who I happened to have on my first 800 trip) announces over the PA about the 50mph speed restriction between Swindon and Temple Meads and because of our delay we would terminate at Temple Meads. No issue for me but she was going to Weston so I laughed when she moaned over the announcement. I politely asked her to stop talking so I can hear the PA and then she moans about the fact they never do anything useful.

Whether she is still on the 16:30 moaning, not realising that it terminated at Bristol or not, my point is to show some respect for passengers who need the information of the announcement.

Isn't that the point? How would a deficiency be discovered, or even a total failure? I guess that for oral announcements (not "manual" - that would mean using your hand, like by pressing a button, wouldn't it?) whoever is doing it will hear something from the nearest speaker, so know if it really doesn't work at all. Otherwise it's down to passenger (or other crew) feedback, for which they have to know there was something to hear.

Is any testing part of routine maintenance? And does that measure sound levels? I suspect being too quiet in one carriage may well be missed, even if testing is done.

This is very much the point. To oversimplify, a PA system has 3 basic components - a microphone at one end, a speaker at the other, and a cable linking the two. Whilst if, for example, you are doing a sound check on a PA system on stage it becomes immediately obvious if one component is under-performing or not working because all the speakers are surrounding you, this wouldn't be the case with, say, an 8 coach HST. The system might appear to be working normally when tested, but you might have a speaker 5 coaches away which is just giving out a crackle. In that circumstance, unless you had an observer in each coach or were recording what could be heard in each coach as you were testing it, there could be faults in the system that go un-noticed.

On the matter of inaccurate automated announcement, I initially found these amusing. The first one I heard, when we were just coming out of the western portal of Box Mill Lane tunnel, was: “Welcome to this Great Western Railway service to Bristol, calling at Reading, Didcot Parkway, Swindon, Chippenham, Bath and Bristol Temple Meads. The next stop will be Reading”

But then I started to think about it more deeply. Not everybody on that train is going to be as familiar with the inter-station surroundings as me, and I am fairly confident that that automated announcement put the fear of the Almighty into a few passengers on that train as they now thought they had got on the wrong one and were going the wrong way.

I totally agree.  And incorrect information from the PA can add insult to injury where the scrolling displays get it wrong too - our amusement is someone else's fear of the almighty.   And the knife can be turned int he wound where platform staff give wrong advise.    Any one of these things will / can happen occasionally - but the stories seem far, far too common.  My view - a relatively small investment in getting information and systems right would do so much good in helping new and nervous customers.  If you want a financial case, spend a little bit on getting the information right so that people do not feel that using the train is a worrisome experience, and they will come back and spend far far more money that you've put into getting systems right .. and they'll come back onto existing train you're already running - none of these pesky campaigner requirements to be paid for like re-opening a station at Christian Malford.

Last Thursday, I was travelling from Swindon to Melksham ... arrived at Swindon over an hour ahead of my connecting train.   A lady with an airline suitcase, and another bag piled perilously on top of it, enquired of the Station Staff about the train for Trowbridge.   "This platform - third train" said the display.  Staff told her this platform and it would be 15:18.    She seemed unsure, unwilling to trust them.

It turns out that she had started from Derby ... 10:50 (schedule), with Change at Bath Spa - 13:23 to 13:35 train to Trowbridge., due 13:53.    What actually happened?

11:10 rather that 10:50 from Derby, and the train arrived in Bath Spa at 13:40 - after the Portsmouth Harbour train had left.    Advise from platform staff was to catch the next train instead - so she got on the next train and that took her to Swindon ... I suspect she knew it was "two stops" which is why she got off at Swindon; I'm not sure if she realised she had got back to the same place she was at earlier.

Back at Swindon, the orange and green jacket staff were having some difficulty in convincing her to catch a train form the same platform (3) that she had just arrived at - I think she felt she should be .... well, I don't know what she felt, she was confused and untrusting.    Well - fools rush in, and I know the platform staff, and the conversation was not quiet or in private ... "I'm going on the train that goes to Trowbridge - I'll make sure you get on it.  I get off one stop before you".  With some relief, she believed me.   Turned out that "third train" advise was wrong, because a couple of train were out of sequence, but, yes, she and I joined the train.

And the of course the automated announcements were one out ... "next station is Melksham" as we approached Chippenham ...  I took care to find her just before I got off at the (real) Melksham ... "I'm getting off here - your station is next".  I didn't hear what the train's system said but - thank goodness - she didn't get off at Melksham based on a "next station is Trowbridge" automated lie.

Passenger as scheduled should have been in Trowbridge at 13:53.  When the Cross Country service was delayed, she should have changed at Swindon instead and used the TransWilts to get to Trowbridge at 14:04.  She actually for there (and I really hope she got off) at 15:54.  There is someone who's now dreading her next train trip, and wondering what alternatives there are. All to do with failures of information provision - 3 providing wrong information, and one of failing to provide information when it was needed.  All on a simple journey that should have involved a single intermediate change of trains!

I very much suspect the mindset was "I've come the wrong way. I need to go back. To go back I need to go to another platform because trains going in that direction won't go from this platform."

Some years ago my sister in law was over from South Africa and took a train from Bradford to Gillingham (Dorset) to go to see her brother. I explained to her that the train from Salisbury to Gillingham would leave Salisbury apparently going back in the direction she'd come in from, and that this was perfectly normal. She appreciated the advice!

The vast majority of passengers, understandably, know little of railway geography and probably care less. I was going from Paddington to Chippenham some years ago on a Swansea train diverted via the Berks & Hants (reversing st Swindon for onward travel). There was a woman on that train who simply couldn't get her head around the fact that this train stopped at Chippenham before Swindon, and was moaning to someone on the phone that it must go through Swindon first before going back which was "ridiculous." Yes it would have been - if that's what actually happened...

Finally, on faulty railway geography, when I was ASM's clerk at Temple Meads back in the 70s, an irate passenger once stormed up to the counter. "Your bloody train didn't stop at Bristol Parkway, and what are you going to do about getting me there?! It stopped at Swindon, it stopped at Chippenham, it stopped at Bath, then went straight through Bristol Pakway without stopping!" ;)

The comments about train announcements being out of sync with stations, worries me on North Downs services from Gatwick. If you have just arrived in the country you probably assume the announcements are correct.

A more general problem with announcements is audibility. Surely somebody can develop an affordable system that it responsive to ambient noise levels, noted when it is quiet almost to the point of inaudability, but the other extreme when you are almost felled by the volume (a specialty of the Tube, amongst others).

And this of course raises a point pertinent to the original point of this thread.

She would have been on an HST or an 800. Announcements would have been made; if an 800 there is a visual display at the end of each coach as well. Was none of this working or did she choose to ignore it? (Rhetorical question, of course :) )

Good question ... I only SUSPECT she came back on the London train - that's the one bit of the jigsaw I'm unsure of; she may have been on a Cross Country service that wouldn't have stopped at Chippenham.

In response to Grahame-


Sadly, as a Turbo veteran they are no better! The quality varies enormously. At one extreme, today's Guildford - Reading run was exemplary, clear audible automated announcements, backed up by clear relevant manual ones form the train staff. However at the other extreme sometimes there's an indistinct mumble somewhere in the background, and we all look at one another wondering if it was meant for us, and if so, what did they say?

I wonder if it's not only maintaining equipment and testing it, but also staff training? From my experience not using a microphone correctly can have a material impact - simply not having it at the right distance and direction. Do staff get training with feedback or testing?


Absolutely! I've been on FGW/GWR trains with stations in reverse order, from the wrong line, or out by one or more stations either way on the  walking writing/automated announcement system.

Although my experience of the Electrostars did not get off to a good start (it insisted the next station was Tilehurst throughout my journey from Reading to Goring), so far they seem far better and more reliable. The "worst" experience was last Friday when a late-running stopping train that had been shown as not calling at any station between Reading and Didcot on the Reading Station signs arrived with its external "walking writing" still showed it calling at all stations. It was up-dated as they turfed off the unfortunate passengers for the intermediate stations, though. Do they have a better system that can be retro-fitted to other stock?



 

GWR’s DOTE ( Defective on Train Equipment) states that the train can not enter service from a maintenance depot with a defective or isolated PA.  It can enter service if it has been outstabled and it can remain in service if the PA becomes defective during the day.  The Train Manager or Guard should patrol the defective coach and make announcements as necessary.  If the train is DOO then it’s out of service unless the passengers can all be moved to a non defective coach or a work around using the GSMR is successful.

The PA will not be checked on overnight checks or on minor exams, so unless the defect is reported by train crew to Control or by passengers to train crew, who then report the fault to Control, it wouldn’t get picked up.

On major exams, the PA would be tested in every vehicle and from every handset point, something that generates a tone is played down the handset and the maintenance staff would walk through the set or unit checking the volume and clarity.

If you could let us know which day it was we can soon find out what options were available at that time of day.

I'm ahead of you Robin ... Thursday of last week, and it depnds on how quickly she got under the subway at Bath Spa as to whether she was on opposite platform in time for the London train or not.  I don't think knowing which is really material to the fact that the data she got there put her on a service that wend straight ahead at Bathampton rather than turning right.

As somebody who spent 30 years digging into details of things that go wrong (albeit not within the railway industry), this statement poses as many questions as it answers.

Firstly, if the PA system is only fully checked on a major exam, it begs the question of how long between major exams? Presumably on this basis a PA system could partially fail (le. specifically a dodgy handset, or speaker(s) within individual coaches) on the first day back in service. It could then run like that until the next major exam, unless the defect is reported. And such defects aren't likely to be reported by the train crew's observation of a fault if, for example, a speaker isn't working properly in coach E of an 8 car HST and the train crew are nowhere near that coach when they're making announcements.

So that then begs the next question of who is going to report the defect? Other train crew/ railway staff travelling on the train? The general public? I would suggest that whilst some members of the public might report a crackle from a speaker rather than an announcement, I wouldn't have thought that many are likely to report a problem about a message that they haven't heard that they wouldn't necessarily be expecting anyway! (eg. my experience further up the thread with a LC failure near Abbotswood where the guard told me he made an announcement and I didn't hear it). I might just add about that incident that I just happened to see the guard on Lansdown station platform and I had the miseries anyway because I'd been standing from Brum. If I'd have had a seat on that journey I probably wouldn't have sought out the guard to remonstrate! In fact even then I didn't "seek him out" - he was standing just outside the vestibule I was standing in so he was a sitting target!  :)

I suppose if I had sent a letter or email to XC's Customer Service saying a variation on "your guard didn't make announcement about out-of-course delays" then this may eventually have led to his Supervisor having a word. Then, after the resultant "No You didn't! Yes I did!" style conversation, the fact may eventually dawn that there was a problem with the PA on that unit and a defect report would go in. In the meantime of course, that Voyager unit would have cracked up a fair few miles, each time shunting around a coachload of passengers who would have been in blissful ignorance that everybody else on the train was being kept informed, but they weren't!

This is the point that I would normally say in one of my reports "So here are my recommendations to resolve the problem." I'm afraid I am a bit short of solutions here other than to increase the frequency of checks on PA systems to include them on at least minor exams, and preferably daily.

I agree with you about the information she was given was incorrect and shouldn't have been. But what was interesting me in relation to the theme of the thread was whether she was then given on-train information, either via announcements or the visual display in an 800, that she either didn't see, wasn't listening  or chose to ignore.

In a way it's easier for us because we have prior knowledge. If I was standing on Bath Spa station and an HST turned up, I would not be expecting it to be going to Trowbridge (summer Saturdays at certain time of day excepted) so I wouldn't get on it without checking either the departure board, or with a staff member, or both, that this was indeed "my" train.

Leaving Bath there would (should) have been an announcement: Welcome to GWR... Paddington train... list of stops...next stop Chippenham." Trowbridge would not have been mentioned. If it had been me that lack of the word "Trowbridge"  would have been a concern. OK it would be too late for her to get out now, as the train is picking up speed through Sidney Gardens, and I would be out of there at the next stop. Perhaps that's what happened of course - we shall never know for sure.

Had one last week or the week before that caused a passenger to get a bit flustered. At Keynsham heading towards Bath and the guard was having problems with closing the doors. Took about 8 mins or so in total, so not really much of a delay. The problem was each time the guard had thought the doors were closed and gave the all clear to the driver, the automated announcements would kick in thinking we were the next station down the line. This happened several times so by the time we actually left the system thought the next station was Avoncliff! In this case it was fairly obvious the system was wrong (as we had not moved!) but that still worried at least one passenger who had to be reassured by the person sitting next to them (who I don't think they knew beforehand) that it was ok.

I've often wondered - how easy is it for the driver (or conductor?) to get the automated PA back in sync when it's announcing the wrong stations?  Presumably they are just as aware as most of the regular passengers it's gone wrong?

Fairly easy to clear routes and re-set them up on most systems.  The staff don't necessarily notice straightaway though, especially on a DOO service where you might not be able to hear if you're the driver.

On my journey from Euston to Milton Keynes on Saturday (final stop Birmingham), it took until Bletchley for the automated PA and display to stop saying that the next stop was London Euston our final stop. It was then reset to announce the correct calling pattern. On SWT / SWR I have often heard announcements telling me that the next station is the one we had left 5 minutes earlier. Normally a manual announcement afterwards by the guard and throughout the journey to say the auto announcer is wrong, so I'm guessing some PA's are easier to reset mid journey than others.

From the responses that have come in so far it is clear that there is a problem that goes far wider than the technical PA problems that were the original subject of this thread, and also that it is not a problem confined to GWR stock. We have faulty PA systems and a whole host of inaccurate automatic announcements being foisted upon the customers.

Perhaps it would be good for all of us to remember that this is customer-facing stuff, and as such has an important PR function as well as information dissemination. Another point to bear in mind is that not every passenger is a regular traveller on a given line, and certainly not "railway orientated" as I suspect the majority of members are on this forum.

The tale about Avoncliff further up the page got me thinking. From personal observation from using the station myself, from being on trains calling at the station, and from simply looking over the bridge parapet, this station gets far more use that it would expect from the very few locals who actually live around there. It is quite "touristy;" pleasant scenery in the area, only a mile's walk along the canal towpath to Bradford on Avon, and has the Cross Guns, a pub/restaurant that brings in a fair amount of visiting trade. If someone who doesn't know the area or the railway geography is going to Avoncliff, and as in the example above, is told that Avoncliff is the next stop as they're leaving Saltford tunnel behind, they might well get out at the next stop as advertised. Whilst not wishing to disparage the suburb of Oldfield Park, I am sure that even the local residents will accept that it ain't no Avoncliff, and they certainly won't find the Cross Guns handy...

As I said, this is front-line customer-facing stuff and as such should be right at all times. If it can't be right at all times (eg with automated announcements) then the automated announcement should be shut off until they can report accurate information. And this of course doesn't just apply to GWR, it applies to all TOCs equally.

I am sure there will be some who would argue that on-train crew members have enough to do (safety critical roles, selling tickets, on DOO driving the train etc) without having to battle with a faulty PA or automated information system as well, but in one way this is beside the point. Management (of all TOCs) appear to be allowing a dog's breakfast of an information system loose on the public, and I would argue that that is seriously bad PR and also sets the TOCs up to public ridicule if the press happen to get hold of a particularly "juicy" example.

Completely agree.  The quality of PA (audibility and accuracy) is a very important part of the customer experience.

[u=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6WTiDr8yI4]This train is obsessed with toilets[/u]

Is working PA considered as a safety-critical feature by RSSB et.al? - perhaps just for DOO? (It wasn't clear from earlier in this thread whether or not the working PA requirement was a GW policy or mandated from above).

If it is, then to have a safety-critical system that is neither fail-safe nor testable (in normal day-to-day working) is, to put it politely, a dog's dinner.

Either I've misunderstood your post or perhaps you mine :)

I didn't say that the PA system was safety critical; I said that the train crew have got enough to do, including their safety-critical roles, without having to bother about faulty PA systems. As you say though it wasn't clear from the posts so far whether a non-working PA system is simply a GWR train failure item or if it is widespread throughout the industry.

Sorry Robin; I was being a bit too economical with the quoting. My post was in response to:

Most TOC’s DOTE’s will be similar, they are derived from the rule book, some years ago it was left up to TOC’s to manage some defects in their own way.  Some things in the DOTE will be rule book mandatory, some will be TOC decisions, maybe in conjunction with NR.   GWR will have ATP in theirs, whilst others won’t as it’s not relevant.