Neil
Junior Member
Posts: 54
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Post by Neil on Feb 28, 2009 9:34:51 GMT
Okay - I know I know. It's my big bugbear with South Eastern but please do bear with me
So - waiting on Birchington station on Thursday for the 15.03 from Victoria. The board says delayed - and says delayed - and says delayed. Finally, after a fair old time the train disappears from the board and the next one is shown.
Looking at the website the next day it shows that there was a train fault and it was terminated at Faversham. Fair enough - I fully understand that these things happen. However, for all the time at Birchington there were no announcements about the train (a couple of the recorded ones about security), no station staff available (or that I could see anyway) and there were no announcements on the subsequent train (a brief apology and explanation would have been nice)
Perhaps it's not a big deal (I was perhaps 40 minutes late) but these sort of things don't help SE's public face at all
This happened to me some six months ago in almost exactly the same fashion. Then I contacted customer services who, after a couple of exchanges, assured me that the local station manager was concerned and looking into it. So, have contacted them again and raised the same concerns and asked what the station manager was doing at the time of the cancellation and what steps s/he took to ensure customers were adequately kept up to date
Should be interesting, It's been sent direct to Head Office for reply this time
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Post by trainplanner on Mar 27, 2009 17:42:38 GMT
Neil,
Have you had any further replies from south eastern regarding your concerns about information at your local station??
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Neil
Junior Member
Posts: 54
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Post by Neil on Mar 28, 2009 8:16:20 GMT
Hiya
Yes I did
It wasn't hugely helpful
a) They knew there were no staff at Birchington but they have no plans to have more staff at stations
b) The indicator should have shown the train was cancelled - they were raising that as a fault
c) There was no mention of announcements on stations
d) Possibly the crew on the train behind didn't know
e) In response to my question about what the station manager was doing at the time I was told she has several stations to cocer.
I must admit I was a bit tempted to go for an FOI request about the station managers whereabouts and to go back to them about anouncements but, in the end, I thought what the heck!!
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Post by heofgreatwisdom on Mar 28, 2009 13:00:50 GMT
Yes of course, the "what the heck" attitude is just the attitude that SET hopes we will accept. That way they don't have to answer our questions. That saves them and their staff time and effort and hence money. It is a fact of life today that in order to achieve any satisfactory answer to ones question, one has to keep digging away, wearing the organisation down, until they realise that you are not just going to give up. It is standard customer relations ploy to send any complainant a standard "we are sorry" reply, even if they are not. Nine out of ten are happy and go away, for in their eyes they have vent their anger and got an answer. Neil, you really should be that number 10 and demand proper answers to your questions. You are not just fighting your corner but making a stand, albeit a small one, for many others who feel just like you. Why should SET, or any organisation for that matter, get away with a shoddy service just because we as customers can't take the time or effort to complain?
HOGW
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Post by greenicing on Mar 28, 2009 15:33:58 GMT
In my experience the indicator board are fine when the service is running to time - they are good for people without timetables. If however a train hasn't left the station by the scheduled time the expected time will go up by 1 minute. This continues for 3 minutes before 'delayed' is displayed. If a train is very late a far off expected time may be displayed - only for the train to come in way early. I'm no IT expert but I'm confident that vastly superior systems exist, although the railway companies demonstrate a remarkable reluctance any improvements in this field.
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Post by genehuntisking on Mar 28, 2009 15:47:52 GMT
I'm no IT expert but I'm confident that vastly superior systems exist, although the railway companies demonstrate a remarkable reluctance any improvements in this field. The people who work the system have complained about its inflexibility, but upgrades cost money and the companies that do the upgrades make Dick Turpin look like Lord Fauntleroy. I understand that St Pancras International is being announced in the South Eastern area as "St Pancras Midland Road" as the correct wording requires some computer geek to work for 30 seconds and charge several thousand pounds for the privilege. If information to customers was that important perhaps the trains wouldn't be running round with "00" on them instead of a head code to denote the route. But this has been abolished by some urchin who wouldn't understand the significance of a headcode. "Gillingham via Dartford" reveals very little about which of the four possible routes a train could take, while to those in the know 42, 52, 62, 72, or 82 tell them everything. If the company were to try and advertise route numbers more passengers might get to know their "route number". They manage it on buses after all. The Gene Genie
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Post by genehuntisking on Mar 28, 2009 15:49:53 GMT
By the way I didn't type "Thingy Turpin" it appears to have been auto corrected by some thingy who doesn't know it is an abbreviated version of Richard.
So thats "Richard Turpin". Or Dirk to his good friends.
The Gene Genie
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Neil
Junior Member
Posts: 54
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Post by Neil on Mar 28, 2009 17:24:25 GMT
Neil, you really should be that number 10 and demand proper answers to your questions. You are not just fighting your corner but making a stand, albeit a small one, for many others who feel just like you. Why should SET, or any organisation for that matter, get away with a shoddy service just because we as customers can't take the time or effort to complain? HOGW Okay fair enough then The thing that peed me off the most was that there are tannoys (is that the right word?) on the station and all they did was repeat safety information So, a question for the learned on this site, just how flexible are they in terms of being controlled from the centre? Cos I'd be happy to go back to them on that point
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Post by Richard Trevithick on Mar 31, 2009 23:02:03 GMT
Many thanks for bringing that to my attention, Gene. I have just asked my kindly medium to amend some of the default word filters on the message board. For those interested, I have also removed several other Railway orientated words, suuch as "cock" for those who wish to enter into detailed discussion about isolating air systems! The smokers among us will also be happy they can now abbreviate to having a "fag" instead of a cigarette! Neil: Tannoy is the trademarked name of the manufacturer of many of these systems. The modern politically correct name is P.A. (or Public Address). Either way, we all know what you're talking about! Kind regards, Dick(y) T (who doesn't smoke but is happy to talk about various [isolation!] cocks all night!)
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