Train GraphicClick on the map to explore geographics
 
I need help
FAQ
Emergency
About .
Travel & transport from BBC stories as at 11:35 28 Mar 2024
* Manhunt after stabbing in front of train passengers
- How do I renew my UK passport and what is the 10-year rule?
- Easter travel warning as millions set to hit roads
Read about the forum [here].
Register [here] - it's free.
What do I gain from registering? [here]
 02/06/24 - Summer Timetable starts
17/08/24 - Bus to Imber
27/09/25 - 200 years of passenger trains

On this day
28th Mar (1917)
Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore closed (link)

Train RunningCancelled
10:15 London Paddington to Cardiff Central
10:30 London Paddington to Weston-Super-Mare
10:41 Cardiff Central to London Paddington
11:00 Bristol Temple Meads to London Paddington
11:05 Swindon to Westbury
11:16 London Paddington to Cardiff Central
11:23 Weston-Super-Mare to London Paddington
11:30 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads
11:50 Cardiff Central to London Paddington
12:15 London Paddington to Cardiff Central
12:17 Westbury to Swindon
12:30 London Paddington to Weston-Super-Mare
13:00 Bristol Temple Meads to London Paddington
13:15 Swindon to Westbury
14:19 Westbury to Swindon
15:14 Swindon to Westbury
Short Run
06:00 London Paddington to Penzance
08:03 London Paddington to Penzance
09:50 Cardiff Central to London Paddington
10:35 London Paddington to Exeter St Davids
10:55 Paignton to London Paddington
11:12 Salisbury to Bristol Temple Meads
11:23 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff Central
12:03 London Paddington to Penzance
Delayed
07:10 Penzance to London Paddington
08:23 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff Central
08:35 Plymouth to London Paddington
08:48 London Paddington to Swansea
09:04 London Paddington to Plymouth
09:30 Weymouth to Gloucester
09:37 London Paddington to Paignton
09:51 Warminster to Gloucester
10:04 London Paddington to Penzance
13:03 London Paddington to Plymouth
PollsOpen and recent polls
Closed 2024-03-25 Easter Escape - to where?
Abbreviation pageAcronymns and abbreviations
Stn ComparatorStation Comparator
Rail newsNews Now - live rail news feed
Site Style 1 2 3 4
Next departures • Bristol Temple MeadsBath SpaChippenhamSwindonDidcot ParkwayReadingLondon PaddingtonMelksham
Exeter St DavidsTauntonWestburyTrowbridgeBristol ParkwayCardiff CentralOxfordCheltenham SpaBirmingham New Street
March 28, 2024, 11:52:51 *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Forgotten your username or password? - get a reminder
Most recently liked subjects
[161] West Wiltshire Bus Changes April 2024
[91] would you like your own LIVE train station departure board?
[62] Return of the BRUTE?
[53] If not HS2 to Manchester, how will traffic be carried?
[49] Infrastructure problems in Thames Valley causing disruption el...
[38] Reversing Beeching - bring heritage and freight lines into the...
 
News: the Great Western Coffee Shop ... keeping you up to date with travel around the South West
 
   Home   Help Search Calendar Login Register  
Pages: [1]
  Print  
Author Topic: I don't know  (Read 4244 times)
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 40690



View Profile WWW Email
« on: February 06, 2017, 07:18:30 »

Don't you sometimes wish that you would be told "I don't know" rather than incorrect information ... just yesterday two reports on the forum of significantly incorrect advise being given (admittedly one being an old story).  And I know that's just the tip of the iceberg - I could come up with a dozen personal incidents to add to the catalogue. Of course "I don't know but I'll find out" would be even better if a rail team member gets a question they cannot answer.

Now there lies a tale.  When I booked my berth the clerk tried to convince me I'd be turfed out at Plymouth.

Took a bit of explaining that wasn't the case.

... a new young lady tried to tell me I couldn't get from there to Coventry without going via Watford or Euston. She initially told me that the station wasn't served by Cross Country and was very surprised when I proved that there were two trains a day.
Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Acting Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, Option 24/7 Melksham Rep
LiskeardRich
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 3457

richardwarwicker@hotmail.co.uk
View Profile
« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2017, 09:10:52 »

Or when staff don't think what they've just sold.

One day last week I bought a 0900 time restricted ride cornwall ticket and a ticket from my home station to the first station after 0900. I bought the home station to 0912 station first then asked for ride cornwall. She initially refused to sell the ride cornwall at 0715, until I pointed out to her she was selling me a ticket to preceeed it that the earliest it will run out of validity was 0912. She then lectured me on the validity of ride cornwall. She has a lengthy queue and all this unnecessary rubbish took up around 2 mins when she could of served the queue.
Clearly I as a customer was aware of validity or I wouldn't be buying a single to get me until 0912.

To me common sense is missing in some people  these days not just on the railway,
Logged

All posts are my own personal believes, opinions and understandings!
Western Pathfinder
Global Moderator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 1528



View Profile
« Reply #2 on: February 06, 2017, 09:13:48 »

Common sense these days is becoming increasingly uncommon  Angry
Logged
Bmblbzzz
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 4256


View Profile
« Reply #3 on: February 06, 2017, 16:30:22 »

Yes. When you're asked a question and you don't know the answer, the answer is "I don't know". It's always less unhelpful than some false information and it's often helpful in its own right.

So why don't people admit to not knowing? I don't think it's just a railway issue. I reckon it's partly down to pressure on employees to be seen to be helpful; pressure from their bosses but also expectation from the public. And it's partly due to a general human tendency to dislike admissions of ignorance. But of course I'm just hypothesizing the reasons; I don't really know.
Logged

Waiting at Pilning for the midnight sleeper to Prague.
Western Pathfinder
Global Moderator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 1528



View Profile
« Reply #4 on: February 06, 2017, 17:08:36 »

Some of you may know that by way of earning my living I work in the garage busisnes
Customers expect me to have a christal ball sometimes 
So these days I've got a usefull tool in my reception area it's a ball of string which can be unraveled to any length as required
So next time you take your vehicle into your friendly local garage and wish to know what's wrong with it  and the man who's going to put it right for you says I don't know maybe you could give him chance to have a look at it first !  Grin Cheesy
Logged
bobm
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 9809



View Profile
« Reply #5 on: February 06, 2017, 18:25:27 »

My boiler packed up on Saturday with an E4 error flashing in the display.   As a result no heating and no hot water.

Engineer came round at 7pm on Saturday night and after tinkering with it then spent half an hour reading the manual I helpfully provided him with - I suspect that's as close as you are going to get along the lines of "I don't know".

I am out tomorrow - so hopefully it will get fixed on Wednesday.  The excuse of drinking Whisky Macs to keep warm can only last so long.....
Logged
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 40690



View Profile WWW Email
« Reply #6 on: February 06, 2017, 18:36:53 »

My boiler packed up on Saturday with an E4 error flashing in the display.   As a result no heating and no hot water.

Engineer came round at 7pm on Saturday night and after tinkering with it then spent half an hour reading the manual I helpfully provided him with - I suspect that's as close as you are going to get along the lines of "I don't know".

I am out tomorrow - so hopefully it will get fixed on Wednesday.  The excuse of drinking Whisky Macs to keep warm can only last so long.....

Chr*** - they're synchronising their withdrawal of labour.  We had boiler pack in over the weekend ... and we expect it to be back in service on Wednesday too.   Who's the third member with a boiler failure?



Another case today of where I wish I had been told "don't know" - not on the rails.  We're doing a print run of some 50 programs for tomorrow but have been having problems with the printer and rather that struggle, I took the into the local print shop who promise same day service.  "Yes, we can do full bleed, colour double sided"; either they got it wrong or lied, and when I went to collect at end of day I found they had indeed got print to the edge of the page by the rather brutal means of trimming to the print area after printing.   Didn't tell me, of course - handed me the job nicely wrapped up in the hope I wouldn't notice until I got home, and that's something they did get right - I didn't notice till I was home!
Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Acting Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, Option 24/7 Melksham Rep
Western Pathfinder
Global Moderator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 1528



View Profile
« Reply #7 on: February 06, 2017, 19:16:34 »

Best of luck for tomorrow Grahame hope all goes well for you and that is a fitting send off for your Father I will raise a glass of something too him .
Logged
trainer
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 1035


View Profile
« Reply #8 on: February 07, 2017, 09:06:53 »

I have to call a heating engineer as the hot water part of my combi-boiler is not living up to its description.  There you are Graham...the third one.   Cheesy... no, I mean  Cry
« Last Edit: February 07, 2017, 16:49:27 by trainer » Logged
bobm
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 9809



View Profile
« Reply #9 on: February 08, 2017, 21:13:50 »

My boiler packed up on Saturday with an E4 error flashing in the display.   As a result no heating and no hot water.

Engineer came round at 7pm on Saturday night and after tinkering with it then spent half an hour reading the manual I helpfully provided him with - I suspect that's as close as you are going to get along the lines of "I don't know".

I am out tomorrow - so hopefully it will get fixed on Wednesday.  The excuse of drinking Whisky Macs to keep warm can only last so long.....

Engineer arrived at 8.25 this evening and within 25 minutes I had heat!   Temperature in my office was 15.9C - it is now 16.6C and rising!   Hurrah!!!!
Logged
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 ...

 
Pages: [1]
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.2 | SMF © 2006-2007, Simple Machines LLC Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!
This forum is provided by customers of Great Western Railway (formerly First Great Western), and the views expressed are those of the individual posters concerned. Visit www.gwr.com for the official Great Western Railway website. Please contact the administrators of this site if you feel that the content provided by one of our posters contravenes our posting rules (email link to report). Forum hosted by Well House Consultants

Jump to top of pageJump to Forum Home Page