Vandalism and Poor Customer Service - 16:39 WSM-TAU 23/02/2007

Interesting incident tonight on the heavily delayed 16:39 Weston-super-Mare to Taunton service. This had already turned into something of a shambles - being reported cancelled by National Rail Enquiries, then Delayed, then Cancelled again. Finally we coaxed a member of platform staff out of their box at Weston and pointed out that there was at least a coachload of passengers as it was half-term and a Friday afternoon. Soon the train returned to the departure board, and finally arrived about 32 minutes late.

About six youths with bikes boarded the single class 158 on this service. On the journey one of them attempted a 'chin-up' on the equipment panel above the internal doors to the vestibule. Unsurprisingly, the panel came away leaving a fairly hefty lump of metal for the youths to continue chucking around.

The guard passed through the train shortly afterwards, and we then reached Highbridge - my station. On waiting behind the youths to alight, I noticed they'd propped the panel against the doors which were about to open. Seconds later the panel went crashing onto the platform and one of them gave it a kick for good measure, sending it flying under the train and onto the nearside rail.

The guard looked fairly puzzled about the racket so I wandered back against the flow of people leaving and tried to explain what happened. I pointed out the panel under the train and tried to explain how it ended up there, and his first reaction was 'why did you bloody pull it off then?'. I actually felt for the guard at this point. He had a train full of disgruntled passengers, already 30+ minutes late, and now had another problem to deal with. I deal with transport for schools everyday, and I know what it's like to have to clear up after stupid acts of petty damage which cause nothing but cost and delay! I tried patiently to explain what happened, but he was clearly more interested in berating me for committing the vandalism. Quite why someone who had just casually vandalised a train - particularly someone uses the same route daily, had just flashed him an Annual Season Ticket and was well known to a number of the other passengers would bother to stick around to report the incident I don't know!

I left the scene to avoid further confrontation, knowing that the CCTV^▸ footage on the platform will tell the real tale! I last saw the guard trying to get under the train to rescue the panel.

I telephoned FGW^▸ at Swindon on getting home, and the customer services representative was actually fairly shocked I think. Certainly he was keen to point out that FGW does value the public's feedback and that perhaps the guard was 'having a bad day'. A bit patronising, but in fairness there probably isn't a standard script for this one! I'm still fairly unhappy about the attitude from the guard.

Anyway - a bit of a change from the usual story of delays and cancellations! There is a serious point though - when the guard announces that we should 'report anything suspicious' we see - what are we likely to be letting ourselves in for?