What happened last night ?

[whole diary]

[gpn01]

Arrived at Paddington around 21:20 last night only to see the departure board showing all trains as cancelled or delayed.  There were only a couple of muffled announcements (which couldn't be heard) and eventually a much harangued duty manager tried to say something to a few people in the crowd (which was becoming increasingly agitated).  It does make me wonder why they don't improve the P.A. system and why, if they're not going to have customer information staff on duty, they can't have an electronic noticeboard giving details.  For many passengers it's not the delay that's irritating it's the lack of information.  Grrrr!

[Shazz]

It makes me wounder why people still work for FGW^▸ (First Great Western)!

[Ollie]

As I was telling customers who spoke to me, there was a points failure at Acton Main Line which trapped a Virgin Trains service.

It did only affect the local services from Paddington.

That's a big problem with announcements at Paddington, sometimes they can be too clear, sometimes just totally muffled, there does not seem to be any consistency and this would be an issue for Network Rail to address.

[gpn01]

Thanks for the info.

Problem with station announcements at Paddington appears to be twofold - (1) poor acoustics (and positioning of loadspeakers); (2) Intonation of the announcer.  There's one person who comes through crystal clear and another one who mumbles!

If Network Rail is responsible for the announcements (and presumably the electronic arrival/departure boards) maybe they could see their way to a whiteboard and a marker pen ?

[Ollie]

One of the passengers brought up the issue with the "Special Notices" screen.

He had a very valid point, as this usually does get updated to show if there is a line problem, be interesting to know why it didn't on this occasion.