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News: the Great Western Coffee Shop ... keeping you up to date with travel around the South West
 
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Author Topic: Hope I'm Welcome on Board! the Station Manager.  (Read 3540 times)
Station Manager
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« on: January 20, 2008, 11:51:13 »

Good day, I've been reading the coffee shop for several weeks, my user name might give a good clue to my job.

Let me state I'm a career railwayman and did my first turn of duty in my teens back in the late 70's. I've spent most, but not all, of my railway life at one of the principal stations on the western region.

I won't as a rule post items into the melting pot unless an issue posted is missing some factual evidence,
I do not need to say how badly things are run these days, web sites like this one, farce great western, I hate great western, and other anti-fgw sites say it all.

There are things going on these days that concern me greatly and I may well start some topics for others to support me (or not), railwayman have great input in this site, input from the public would also back up my concerns.

I look forward to 2 major sensible things happening on the railway.

1, Network Rail bringing in single line working at most engineering sites, doing away with most, but not all rail replacement bus services.
If for that to happen NR» (Network Rail - home page) need to take relaying in house, then do it.

2, The Great Western franchise being run by somebody else, Anybody else! the sooner the better.
Whilst First run this franchise I can not see it ever getting better.
Far too much money is to be paid to the Government to run FGW (First Great Western)
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grahame
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« Reply #1 on: January 20, 2008, 12:42:33 »

Station Manager, you are VERY welcome indeed.

We say that we are a site run "by a customer for customers" in the tag line that's somewhere on every page ... but it is an enormous help to us customers to have a wide variety of knowledgable professional input to hand, informing us and letting us know how things are from - err "the other side".   Except it is not the other side at all; the railway has to be a symbiosis with the staff who run the service, the passengers who use it, and all the various managers who ensure that things are in place to that ... the staff can run it for ... the customers.

I started off - summer of 2005 - campaigning for a retention of what I considered to be an appropriate service on the Swindon to Southampton line, after I read in the paper that it was to be cut back to just two trains a day.  I asked some pretty dumb questions in those early days, and am forever grateful to the people who took, and continue to take, time to explain things to me. It's not that I scandellously uneducated prior to that point - it's just that I spend my time learning about other things, and I assumed (falsely, as it turned out) the whole structure that provided and operated the trains to our town - trains that were rapidly getting busier - was competent in providing them and had a duty of care to continue to provide an appropriate service for the passengers. I wish I had know some of the railway professionals we now know on here at an earlier date!

As many readers may have guessed, the moderators have good communications channels between them, and we were discussing the "by a customer, for customer" approach the other day, and how it relates to rail staff.  So my "you are very welcome" message goes out to you - and to others - from the whole team. But some of my fellow moderators did make the point that it's easy - all too easy - for professional staff to assume a level of knowledge in the "Joe Public" poster that's unlikely to be there.  So I'm suggesting there often a need to explain more than you might expect, and to accept views that are deep seated but you feel to be incorrect and illogical.  I know I'm at the stage now of knowing enough to have almost become "part of the establishment" as far as these things are concerned, to the extend that I get accused of being "antipassenger" from time to time ...

A long comment there - written to be read (please) in general by everyone - but you gave me an excellent opportunity to make some points.

And a very warm welcome to the forum.

--Graham
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Jim
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« Reply #2 on: January 20, 2008, 13:00:19 »

Nice to have another member of staff on here Cheesy
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Cheers
Jim Smiley
AG's most famous quote "It'll be better next week"
vacman
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« Reply #3 on: January 20, 2008, 18:29:42 »

Welcome fellow emplyee! Wink
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Ollie
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« Reply #4 on: January 20, 2008, 19:07:16 »

Oh no :O Management!

Aha welcome Smiley
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gaf71
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« Reply #5 on: January 20, 2008, 22:18:27 »

Oh no :O Management!

Aha welcome Smiley
LOL (laughing out loud) Grin Careful what you say now, boys and girls of FGW (First Great Western), a manager is on board!
Only joking station manager, welcome.
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Chris from Nailsea
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« Reply #6 on: January 20, 2008, 22:29:28 »

Actually, as a passenger, I'm very impressed: I haven't seen any FGW (First Great Western) manager putting their head above the parapet for months - until now!

Welcome to the forum!  Smiley
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William Huskisson MP (Member of Parliament) was the first person to be killed by a train while crossing the tracks, in 1830.  Many more have died in the same way since then.  Don't take a chance: stop, look, listen.

"Level crossings are safe, unless they are used in an unsafe manner."  Discuss.
Do you have something you would like to add to this thread, or would you like to raise a new question at the Coffee Shop? Please [register] (it is free) if you have not done so before, or login (at the top of this page) if you already have an account - we would love to read what you have to say!

You can find out more about how this forum works [here] - that will link you to a copy of the forum agreement that you can read before you join, and tell you very much more about how we operate. We are an independent forum, provided and run by customers of Great Western Railway, for customers of Great Western Railway and we welcome railway professionals as members too, in either a personal or official capacity. Views expressed in posts are not necessarily the views of the operators of the forum.

As well as posting messages onto existing threads, and starting new subjects, members can communicate with each other through personal messages if they wish. And once members have made a certain number of posts, they will automatically be admitted to the "frequent posters club", where subjects not-for-public-domain are discussed; anything from the occasional rant to meetups we may be having ...

 
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