On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 12:28:14 +0100, "Ian Harper"
wrote:

With the exception of the gentlemen at Paddington, and the driver of the
Maidenhead bound FGWL train, it's hardly surprising that some people have a
perception of customer-facing staff in the rail industry as often having a
very crappy, unhelpful attitude [1].

Arrived into Ealing at 0220.


[1] And I do think that perhaps some of that wouldn't happen if they
actually had the correct information themselves. I don't understand how
they can tell people things that are just blatently wrong though - bizzare!

It possible that each of the staff, bar the FGW TM, were passing the
information they have been told in good faith. Often I feel that the
chain of communication lets down the front line staff. For example the
platform bloke at Slough might well have been informed by his control
that there was to be a stopping train forward. The subsequent lack of
appear of this service was probably due to a change by control, rather
then the platform staff setting out to lie to customers. What would he
have gained from this, since the passengers would only come back and
complain at him?

There needs to be a balance between keeping passengers informed as
they agree plans which subsequently might be changed, or not telling
them anything until the plans have been confirmed as to speak. This
being a planned blockage the timetables should have been agreed in
advance and distributed to the front line staff, but once something
had gone wrong FGWL control would have been working on the fly to put
into place an alterative plan to get passengers home. How well and
accurately this is communicated to the front staff could be
questionable. Certainly the printed replacement timetables for this
weekend at Reading and Swindon weren't available until Friday, and
this isn't uncommon.

Lack of timely accurate information to the front line staff will
eventually led to de-motivation, as they bear the brunt of the
passenger frustration, while having little control over the situation.

Of course the travelling public should not need to understand this
behind the scenes politics.

Duncan