Lack of common sense!

[whole diary]

[Chugleigh]

On Thursday 24th Feb my family travelled on the delayed 1710 from Southampton to Salisbury (11 minutes late). When we arrived in Salisbury on platform 3, our connecting service to Exeter was waiting on platform 4 although it should have left 1 minute earlier. We (an around a dozen others) ran through the subway only to have station staff dispatch the Exeter train as we approached it. "We're not allowed to hold trains" ... but eventually I got SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) customer services to admits that they would have held it had the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) driver contacted his control room and told them he was late with connecting passengers on board. Then FGW would have to have contacted SWT^▸ (South West Trains) control room who would have had to contact Salisbury station. Give the station staff back their right to use common sense!!!  No response from FGW yet.

[IndustryInsider]

but eventually I got SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) customer services to admits that they would have held it had the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) driver contacted his control room and told them he was late with connecting passengers on board. Then FGW would have to have contacted SWT^▸ (South West Trains) control room who would have had to contact Salisbury station. Give the station staff back their right to use common sense!!!  No response from FGW yet.

In other words, as long as FGW carried the can for any delay minutes they'd have been happy to hold the train.  That may or may not have been the actual case - and some (including me) would say that despatch staff should be able to use their own initiative without risking a 'please explain' from their manager next day.  Sadly though, the obsession for a right-time departure gets worse and there's only one loser - the passenger!

How the driver (already running late) would have the opportunity to tell FGW control though I don't know - I assume they meant the Guard?

[grahame]

Chugleigh, welcome to the forum.

You're broadly correct, I'm afraid, in that station staff are not usually allowed to delay a train for a laterunning service that's supposed to connect into it, even if that laterunning service is pulling into another platform.   It's argued that in most cases, the delay to people already on the train would be more significant than the delay caused to those who miss it and have to wait for the next service.   The way franchises are awarded means that late services cost train operators a serious amount of money, whereas dropping passengers backby up to two hours does not.    There's also the issue on the Salisbury to Exeter line that the trains can only pass each other in certain places, so a late running westbound train can lead to a laterunning eastbound train and yet more penalties for the train operator. There is a general exception (as I understand it) in that the last train of the day WILL be held for connections, and (as Industry Insider says) 'control' can make decisions to override the standard. 

I rather suspect that in this case, SWT^▸ (South West Trains)'s control would have told the station to hold the train if FGW^▸ (First Great Western)'s control had asked them to, but FGW's control would have been reluctant to do so, as they would have had to pick up the penalty which would be much more than the value of the tickets, and there's another train an hour later so no passenger compensation would be due.

In the overall run of things, it's generally better to let a connections miss that to risk upsetting a regular (clockface) service pattern, frustrating though it is for the customer who's got the short end of the stick.  I can recall two cases only of having a connection held.   Both at Westbury, involving the Swindon train on a Sunday, where the 19:35 is the last train.   In one case, we had a group of about 40 of us headed up to Melksham after a day out in Weymouth, and the train was late up from Weymouth.  In the second case, I had a load of folks from a very well known broadcasting institution visiting us in Melksham and connecting into that 19:35, and the phoned me from the train.   Now - I'm just a member of the public, but a call to National Rail Enquiries got a whole series of people communicating most impressively, and the connection was made.   Looking back, I simply don't know if the people on the train hadn't been a group from such an organisation as to whether or not  the exception would have been made, and I feel slighly ashamed of myself quoting the organisation's name as I got the ball rolling.

[IndustryInsider]

Completely agree with Graham's comments. Except a distinction should be made between holding a connection for 5 minutes and holding a connection when there are a dozen people running down the platform for it.  That is something I observe all to often, and for the sake of a minutes delay it sickens me.

[grahame]

Completely agree with Graham's comments. Except a distinction should be made between holding a connection for 5 minutes and holding a connection when there are a dozen people running down the platform for it.  That is something I observe all to often, and for the sake of a minutes delay it sickens me.

Yes ... I would agree with that.  I just joined the 17:15 Melksham to Swindon service - a 3 car 158 ... and we waited while a lady in the rear carriage brought here luggage all the way forward to the front door, which was the one that opened (2 cases, one at a time).  Good call rather than carrying her on to Chippenham which would have happened had the train just stopped for 30 to 40 seconds.  Common sense can be done 

[dog box]

Entirely SWT^▸ (South West Trains) at fault here, the Guard on your late running train should have been aware of the number of passengers wanting to make the connection and contacted either SWT control or the duty manager to request a hold, i have done this on numerous occasions at Bristol and got XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) services held for a couple of minutes with no problem especially if it involves 12 or so passengers.
The result of his request should have been relayed to you, either your train will be waiting on platform XYZ or your next service will be at ABC.

[eightf48544]

This mix up over connections all started with John? Watts then MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) for Slough who was a junior transport minister who announced somehting like "Connections will no longer be held on the privatised railway".

One of the major problems is that the "Bean counters" have  never been able to satisfactorily cost a whole network with it's myriad connections. They can cost individual links but cannot quantify the value of the connections made on that route. The maths are too hard.

Also the current performance measurement  regime also completely distorts the whole picture and the operation of the railway. The old BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) delay minutes average is by far the best measure rather  than the number of trains over 5/10 minutes late. So why the penalty about holding a train for up to 5 minutes it's not going to count as late at it's destination. It's not consistent.

As somebody I think in Modern Railways pointed out, it doesn't help if an Up ECML^▸ (East Coast Main Line) is counted a running on time if it is 9 minutes 59 secs late passing Hitchen and delays a down Cambridge. Although on the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) it seems perfectly OK for an Up Heathrow express to delay an ontime FGW^▸ (First Great Western) HST^▸ (High Speed Train) at Airport Junction.

The utility of making guarenteed conections needs to be factored into a new Performance Monitoring Regime scheme based on overall delay minutes.

[broadgage]

I would agree that in most cases it is not justified to cause significant delay by awaiting a late running connection, the cost can be significant.
It does however seem rather mean not to wait for say 60 or 100 seconds when customers are running along the platform. Very bad PR^▸ (Public Relations), and also reinforces the widely held view that a connecting service is far inferior to a through service.
This is also a problem with rail replacement buses, all too often the train departs on time just as the bus arrives a few minutes late.

[XPT]

Not to go into too much detail. I remember on a Sunday evening back in 2006, getting a FGW^▸ (First Great Western) service from Bristol Temple Meads-Salisbury to connect with a SWT^▸ (South West Trains) service to London Waterloo.  The FGW service was several minutes late arriving into Salisbury. I could see that the SWT train to London Waterloo was in the platform as we approached.  It was on the adjacent platform(so no need to use the underpass).  However just as the doors were opened on the FGW train, the SWT train departed!!  I feel they should have held that train just a minute or so longer in order for the passengers from the FGW train intending to connect with that train to make a mad rush for it.  If it was any longer than about 4 or 5 minutes I could understand more, but c'mon only another 1 or 2 minutes and it could easily recover the time?!

  It could have EASILY made up the time by the time the train arrived at Basingstoke enroute to London Waterloo.  Especially it being a Sunday and with a slacker timetable than the rest of the week.

I along with numerous other passengers were furious about this.  Including one bloke who was intending to travel to Grateley, where the next service was another 2 hours!  The despatch staff came up with "not allowed to hold trains" excuse.  And he then advised any passengers travelling to London Waterloo to get the next train to Southampton and change there.  We got to Southampton and then the next scheduled train to London Waterloo was cancelled!  So then had a long wait at Southampton for the next train. Can't remember the exact details. So we ended up arriving in London even later still than if we waited at Salisbury for another hour.  I wrote to SWT to complain but got a nonsence reply back.  Noticed a few other people asking for complaint forms at Southampton as well.

In contrast to that.  Last year on a Saturday morning I was boarding a train at Bristol Parkway to travel to London Paddington. Due to engineering works the trains were diverted via Lawrence Hill and Bath.  The train was just about to depart on time, when one French woman called to the despatch staff member "Is the train to London?" to which he replied yes.   And she then said she's got a group of (French) school children booked on that service.  Those children were down the other end of the platform in the waiting room.  She then shouted out to those kids to run up and get on the train.  The despatch staff then held the train for all those children to board.  This delayed the train by about 3 minutes.   Which then caused the train to be further delayed enroute, what with it travelling via busier lines.  By the time the train arrived at it's first caling point of Swindon, the train was 8 minutes late.  But if I recall, I think it had made up most of the time upon arrival in London Paddington.  But was that despatch staff member right to hold the train for those few minutes to allow all those school kids to get on it?(who were all down the other end of the platform).

[bobm]

I was on the 10:00 ex-Penzance on Tuesday last week when services were disrupted due to the broken rail near Exeter.  The service made extra calls at Dawlish and Dawlish Warren.

The train manager was excellent with information and got on to control to see if the XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) Service to the north could be held at Exeter St Davids as there were a number of people heading for Bristol Airport.  It was agreed they would which put everyone at their ease.

Unfortunately we sat outside Dawlish Warren for over 20 minutes waiting to cross to the down line to make the extra call.   I assume the line was reopened in that time because eventually we stayed on the up line and made the call at Dawlish Warren.

Unfortunately we were so late by then XC had to let their service go.   However there was talk of sorting taxis for the Airport - I don't know if that ever happened - but the Train Manager was excellent with updates every few minutes and apologies for the missed connections.

She even had the information about the bus replacements on the Barnstaple branch because of the sheep on the line.

Her information was in marked contrast to the details given to the platform staff at Dawlish who had very little to go on.  They even put a sign up outside the station saying replacement road transport is "allegedly" in operation!

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the Daily Mail:

German officials refuse to stop train after mother realises her daughter, 2, is still on board... in case express is late

German railways officials refused to stop an express train after a mother realised she had left her two-year-old daughter on board, in case it was late.
Marie Luise Krach, two was forced to sit alone as the train sped through the countryside near Berlin for an hour while a police car raced to catch it up.
Her mother, Ulrike Kracht, 19, had pleaded with Deutsche Bahn staff to somehow stop the train after its automatic doors closed at a station.
She was unloading her possessions and pushchair before returning for Marie Luise when her way was blocked and the train began pulling away.
Ms Kracht said she had spent the weekend with her daughter at her grandmother's near Berlin and was returning to Pritzwalk.
She said: 'I was getting my things out of the station at the stop when the doors suddenly closed with my daughter inside. It was the worst moment of my life. I heard Marie Luise shout "mama!" and she was gone.'
She said two male German railway employees banged frantically on the doors to try and get them to open, but without success.
But when she asked them to radio ahead to stop the train, she claims they said: 'We can't do that. It must run on schedule.'
A spokesman for Deutsche Bahn said: 'There was no train coming back in the other direction anyway because of a strike.'
The child was alone for an hour until the train stopped in Neurippin.
Unknown to the terrified little girl, her mother was in a police car racing through the countryside with its lights and sirens blaring to get to the station before the train left again.
Ms Kracht added: 'I was all right until I saw her and then the tears came and she started crying then too. I don't know if anyone was in the train looking after her - she was alone when we got there. I find it completely irresponsible that someone didn't stop the train for me.'
Deutsche Bahn has promised to hold an investigation.

[JayMac]

Her information was in marked contrast to the details given to the platform staff at Dawlish who had very little to go on.  They even put a sign up outside the station saying replacement road transport is "allegedly" in operation!

If a Train Manager is able to get up to date information from Control, then surely platform staff at Dawlish can do the same. Or do they not have telephones in that part of Devon?

[bobm]

Well you would have thought so.  There was over an hour's gap on east bound services until the 10.00 ex-Pnz made a special call.  Ten minutes earlier a coach had pulled up outside the station but I don't know if anyone got on it.

[inspector_blakey]

They even put a sign up outside the station saying replacement road transport is "allegedly" in operation!

A real touch of class there, which no doubt gave everyone reading the notice an impression of the utmost professionalism. I hope there's a manager somewhere reading this...