Great Western Coffee Shop

Quotes from EK (link below) :
http://firstlatewestern.blogspot.com/2007/11/challenging-year-for-first-great.html

"Having recently been labelled a pr*ck and a first class w****ker in the pages of this blog for failing to understand the minutia of the relationship between First Great Western and Network Rail - and indeed why should I? I'm just a customer - I was having a bit of a wander through the FGW website when I came across former-MD Alison Forster's intro from the FGW franchise's first year review. Her message began with what struck me as a rather telling statement: "The past 12 months have been an enormous challenge for our customers and employees."

"Hang on a sec', I thought: why should it have been a challenging year for me? Did FGW mention to the Government and franchise authorities that, should they win the combined south west of England franchise, it was going to be a challenge for their customers? I think we can assume the answer to that was a big fat no."

your obsessed. you fail to realise that not all of the problems you face are within the control of FGW. I think what makes people think your a bit of a joke is the way you berate staff who are just as fed up as you. I dont agree with paying 95p a litre for petrol but I dont have a go at the poor sod working behind the counter.

Lee was quoting there, ilovetrains, so the person who you're suggesting to be obsessed is Klaus, right?

If you look at where we are, things could be far rosier if it weren't for certain things that have happened / have been done by Network Rail and their predecessors, by Frist Great Western, and by the DfT and their predecessors.  If you're into the finger pointing game, that gives you five and a sixth might be to point fingers at the underlying system ... and I would turn round and say that there are some people within the travel authority who aren't exactly blameless either.

Some of those seven name / players I have given you are not around to answer any more, and others (and here I include upper levels of most of them) will attempt to minimise - to zero if possible - the amount of their involvement in the negatives. 

It's been a challenging year, yes, for customers who have used the First Great Western train services. It has been an awful year for those of us who wish they could use the services but now have to rely on road alternatives - I took an hour from Swindon to Melksham yesterday in an uncomfortable coach with more passengers than seats, followed by a car drive, where last year I would have used a train - 25 minutes.

I have nothing but praise, though, for the staff we meet day to day who are doing their level best.  A small minority of them don't fall into this category, but it is a small minority; the rest are as fed up as we are.  "I wish we I didn't have to come to work on a Sunday and deal with all this hassle" said one of the staff to me yesterday, but with a friendly smile ... as he dealt with a load of bewildered people who had just had their travel plans mucked up.

sorry my mistake, i failed to notice that it wasnt EK who posted the previous post.

yes there are a small number of staff who the let the rest down, but equally there are a number of customers who do themselves no favours by being complete idiots.

i have seen people shouting and screaming at people who obviously have no clout to make a difference. all the staff on that train in question can do is try their best on that train for those customers on that train. they cant put the worlds to right or make the rail network all fine and dandy.

that is my grip with EK and people like him

I agree, my main gripe is with names like "I hate First Great Western", whatever I may think of the company I work for (FGW), names like that just cause contempt towards the company, and as the front line we get the abuse for it!

i think i know who he is anyways. there is a man who travels from chippenham to pad sometimes with his wife. notorious for giving staff a hard time when things went wrong on the network. i have to say he isnt as difficult as he used to be. i wont name him incase i am wrong, but when you read his rantings it just sounds SO like him.

he used to be quite active in a certain passanger group for the commuters of Chippenham.

As I say, I might be wrong - but I would put money on it

The sort of passenger that eggs everyone else on when things go wrong and then all the other passengers who were just sat there quietly join in with him! There's always one!

Yes I do regularly quote Economy Klaus (his blog has gained a cult following) and I Hate FGW (who have gained a surprising amount of respect at the top levels of FGW) but this is part of a forum policy to make readers aware of the wide range of views that there are out there. We aim to make this coverage as balanced as possible , which is why we give the views of pro - FGW commentators such as CJ Harrison and Insider equal exposure.

It also goes without saying that we are always interested (as are our readers) in the views of FGW staff.

 One thing we ought to remember...

Most of the people on this forum are enthuiasts or at least people with more than an average interest in and knowledge of the railway.  To us, it may seem that EK is wrong when he directs this moans at FGW when the real culprit is NR or DfT, but we all have to remember that there is absolutely no reason why an ordinary travelling member of the public should have to care about the internal structure of the rail industry.  EK has a ticket from FGW.  Something goes wrong and he complains to the nearest person with a FGW uniform on.  It might not be fair, but noone can say that it is unexpected.

Part of me agrees with folk like Vacman - what is the point in moaning to the guard?  He has a difficult job and it is not his fault, but I also think that it will take more people to get angry before things get better in this country.

I was in the pub last weekend with a friend who is an infant school teacher.  He had just had a parents evening and one parent moaned at him for 20 minutes about the homework that he had given their child.  The mother thought that it was ridiculous to give daily homework to a child so young.  My friends response was to agree with the mother (he did genuinely broadly share her views), tell her that he was only setting homework because of government policy (which is true) and that she was free to write to her MP to complain.  Would FGW staff be allowed to respond like this?
 

Absolutely. EK is just using the blog to get things off his chest - some of his posts are even quite humorous. And in some cases he highlights quite succinctly those cases where the industry still fails to see things from an end user (customer) perspective.

Ok, my money's worth

When I have a ticket, I do expect a good service, or for that matter - a service BUT I HAVE NOT and WILL NOT EVER shout/abuse/attack/threaten a staff member, because something has gone wrong, to be honest, if you travelling causes you to do that, then you should really take the car! I look at it from the guards viewpoint if on a full and standing train and say to myself "Do I really think he wants to be in this situation" to which the answer is no, so why blame/take it out on him.

Anyone who encourages people to blame the frontline staff should be shot!

Thankyou Jim! If you are om a bus in atraffic jam would you blame the bus driver? If you were on a boat trip and the weather turned bad would you shout at the Skipper? NO!

i dont find him belittleing staff and just taking the piss funny at all. take a look at his latest post - does he know that staff have to follow guidelines on what and what not to say. does he appreciate that staff are not empowered to make a huge difference. granted train managers have a wide sweeping remit on the train they are in charge of and can make any descision providing they can justify it in terms of safety or customer service. they dont have magic powers to create 100 extra seats when the train before theirs is cancelled etc etc. as for him not being an expert on the railway network - he strikes me as an inteligent bloke and if its who i think it is, has been travelling on our services for long enough to know more than most.

Ok.  i am one of the first to complain if there is something the staff can do about it.  But not if they cant.  I dont think I have ever complained or even questioned to staff why a train is late/short formed/ or orther wise crap.

I will however go nuts if, for example,:

1. First class dont get a full service trolley but the buffet then makes us queue with everyone else
2. Staff are rude
3. Staff are jobsworths applying the letter of the law not the spirit (I hate jobswoths in all qalks of life).  Two examples (which will probably give me away)
- I take a sami folding bike into first class and keep it in the disabled space in first class on the proviso that if a disabled passenger gets on, I will move it.  I had one TM on a train from Newport insist I take it to the rear guards va at BPW beause a bike is a bike if it doesnt fold like a brompton.  Technically right.  However it wasnt doing any harm.
- I once had an adelante journey where I had y laptop and all my papers strewn out.  A fellow passenger decided to sit at the same table (there were others free) and demand his share  of th space.  I pointd out te alternative and got aggressive when he insistged on sitting where he was.  I got annoyed to the point the TM called the transport police when he sided with the gentleman who was being a knob.  If there were no other tables free, fine.  But there were,  So why should I have to move when I was there first.

I agree there's never any need for unprovoked rudeness, but someone who does their job to the letter of the law is simply "doing their job".

Can anyone give me examples of when either I Hate FGW or Economy Klaus have called for attacks or threats to be made on FGW staff?

Extract from the latest I Hate FGW post (link below) :
http://ihatefirstgreatwestern.blogspot.com/2007/11/we-are-not-amused-but-not-so-angry.html

"2) Getting the full picture - My gratitude to those members of FGW staff who have made such an effort to explain to us why the trains are late, overcrowded and cancelled. Two have even set up their own blogs for the purpose, which is marvellous. It's so much easier to cope with delays if you understand why they happen, even if you don't have much sympathy at the time.

3) Having someone to talk to - Thanks to everyone who takes part in this blog on a regular basis. I find that it's very hard to explain to a non-commuter how awful things are sometimes - people either assume I'm a scary aggressive person, for wanting to give out badges with the word "hate" on them, or just switch off once I start relaying my morning commute to them, blow by blow. It's good to share, even if we're only sharing the need to have a good whinge."

Where did I say EK did so?

You didnt. I was addressing a general view raised in this topic that these particular blogs encourage people to be abusive to FGW staff.

I disagree , and used your highlighted quote to point out that I dont think that was the intention on their part.

Would love to set up my own blog to express my views on the moaning/arrogant/obnoxious idiots that travel by train, but I'd probably get the sack!! I am not saying everyone that uses the train is one of the previously mentioned (before I get shot), but there are a fair few around.......

If you did set up such a blog , oooooo , then you can rest assured that we would post links from that as well....

Ithink it would make an interesting read as well. See things from the "local" prespective, asuming you are local anyway as opposed to High Speed

These blog sites don't directly encourage this kind of abuse, and I do believe that it's not their intention to do so, BUT like I said in a previous post, they create a contemptment towards FGW in general which is absorbed by us frontline staff!

I totally agree with you about frontline staff absorbing the contempt of customers (which is, of course, totally wrong), but I don't think the blogs are completely to blame for this.. If the trains ran on time and weren't crammed to overflowing, these blogs wouldn't exist.. The root cause of the problem is how bad FGW services are at the moment. The blogs are a result of this badness as are most of the problems you get from customers. This of course is my opinion and feel free to correct me. Also I would just like to say that I would never take anything out on a member of FGW staff as I know the majority of them are suffering as much as the customers. Also the staff I have had dealings with have never been any more than totally helpful!

I know the blogs aren't totally to blame but they certainly don't help!