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Post by greenicing on Feb 10, 2009 11:51:46 GMT
The guard on my train this morning did very well passing on information to us and apologising for the delay. He did sound a little frustrated though at the detail being provided by the Service Centre.
The 'could the guard contact the driver' system is a bit odd too - information is seemingly given to the driver to pass onto the guard to pass onto passengers. Nothing wrong with this chinese whisper system as such but it does seem a little curious.
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Neil
Junior Member
Posts: 54
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Post by Neil on Feb 10, 2009 12:36:06 GMT
Our conductor was very good indeed
She had to put up with a delayed start from Ramsgate (overrunning engineering works), the land slip and taking a long time to get into Victoria. I did sense a touch of exasperation as she apologised for about the third time for standing outside Victoria
But like you I do wonder about the information to trains (one of my bugbears). Somebody got on at Faversham and told us about the problem which the station staff there apparently knew about (he also kept up to date on his lap top). It was only around Rainham that she came on and said "she'd heard the nasty rumours about Sole Street too" but she had not been given any info. She said she was trying to find out more
No blame attached to her at all. As I say I thought she handled it very well and kept us up to speed with what she knew
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Post by Richard Trevithick on Feb 11, 2009 0:42:48 GMT
Good evening,
The "Guard please contact the driver" isn't necessarily regarding an update of information. It could be anything from resetting a passcom alarm, checking a smoke detector or even to find out if the guard has any information!
Drivers quite bizzarely tend to be the last people told of any problems or changes to the schedule! Guards are issued with mobile phones, so getting and receiving information for them is relatively easy. Drivers are not issued with mobile phones, so their first source of information is either the guard, or the signaller (although signallers usually assume the driver is psychic and already knows so they rarely pass on information!).
Drivers who do a lot of driver-only work believe they should be issued with mobiles because, not having a guard onboard, the only potential source of information is from the signallers, who rarely pass on the necessary information.
Manned stations have computers with accurate information from "control" being sent to them on a regular basis, which is why people getting on at the next station are often more informed of what the problems are, especially if station staff are on the ball and check the updates regularly.
We can only hope that with the introduction of GSM-R within the next 5 years as a direct replacement for CSR, more information more often will be passed direct to trains. GSM-R is essentially a big mobile telephone in each cab on a train which allows not only direct communication between the signaller and the train, but will allow direct communication to internal Railway telephones. CSR is a poor quality "cheap 'n' cheerful" train-signaller-only form of communication (although you can request to be patched through to an internal number, but this will block the system from all but emergency calls for other trains in the area).
Assuming the text messaging function of the system is enabled, it should be fairly simple to alert train drivers directly of any problems. All routes are divided up into sections with route numbers. Assuming it's set up correctly, you could link route sections to train running numbers so only trains booked to run over that section would be alerted. But that's the common-sense approach, and as common sense is woefully thin on the Railway, it probably won't ever happen this way... :-(
Richard
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