First (not-so-) Great Western delay fiasco

devondiver

My dear sweet wifey made the error last week of travelling on the FGW Penzance to Paddington train which broke down just 20 minutes outside of Reading (where I was waiting to meet her) and was stationary for over five and a half hours!!! See here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23571002 for full report.

During this time confusion reigned (both on the train and at Reading station), the toilets quickly blocked, there was no ventilation, food and drink soon ran out - and all on a train overcrowded with 500 plus people static in summer heat for 5 hours and 40 minutes.

Now I know poopoo happens, but in 21st century UK this, as FGW readily admit, is unacceptable and they promise a "full investigation" (wowee!). At best it represents a serious lack of contingency planning - undoubtedly due to cost considerations - plus serious management failings on the day.

So what to do?

FGW offer only refund of ticket price (paid in vouchers - which is useless to me and wifey as we haven't used a train in years and probably never will again). But what about the loss of time - mine and hers - stress and inconvenience (no pun intended).

All views welcomed (including, of course, lovers of FGW) before I compile my first salvo to MD Mark Hopwood. Any other victims reading this interested in a group action?

Pemberton01

It must have been a terrible experience. You say FGW only offer refund of ticket price, paid in vouchers? At the time I read in addition to that refund, there would also be an 'appropriate level of compensation' which I thought I heard was an additional free journney anywhere on the FGW network e.g. could be used London Paddington to Penzance for a holiday. Surely, there was additional compensation to the refund?

agrinnall

From the BBC story you linked to:

He added that all the affected customers would receive a refund and "appropriate compensation". (Not my quotes, but I don't know if they are GWR's or the BBC's).

devondiver

Thanks for the comments. An additional free journey would be a good start but I have yet to check this out. "Appropriate compensation"? Now there's a question.

Perhaps I would just like to be assured that they implement reliable contingency systems which put passengers above profits. 500 people for 6 hours is 3000 man-hours lost, plus all the knock-ons, just for a leaking air pipe! Crazy! And it seems they only realised eventually that the train was quite able to continue to Paddington using just the front engine, after detaching the faulty rear one. Lost for words.

timbo58

I'd like to see some facts on this, I've heard of 500 people (under full), 600/700 etc not all can be correct.
Food and water onboard since they changed the buffets are always going to be finite, same goes for toilet flushing water: although I am at a loss as to why the train manager didn't request more food etc to be delivered by a passing train (in fact he probably did to be fair to him and it just wasn't thought necessary until management knew it had been xx hours and was likely to be more!)

The train has an air pipe running through every coach which can be isolated coach by coach in the event of brake failure (i.e. 'on') hence this particular brake failure was pretty plainly catastrophic as I've never heard of a similar delay caused in this way, I've never heard of a total brake failure on a power car but it obviously happened if that's what they say?

'Appropriate compensation' sounds to me like they have some idea of what they want to offer and are batting the idea around: it's almost certainly not going to be a wodge of cash, more likely 2 or 3 free journeys in a 1 year period or some such FGW only naturally.

They of course don't legally have to offer anymore than the law/their own charter stipulates which is a full refund for both parts of the ticket held.
Since most were presumably on cheap off peak tickets this won't be a lot.

Contingency plans are usually made for either regular events or those that can be envisaged to be fair, although brake failure like this is fairly common, I've never heard of it lasting such a long time and would dearly like to know why it was so.

WestonDave

From what I've read elsewhere there are some things that could perhaps have been done better but not necessarily anything significant.

The first factor which made it harder was being on a Sunday when trains and staff were less available - so getting a fitter to the train, and getting anything else to the train would have been harder than on a weekday.

Secondly the location was pretty remote - nearest station nearly 2 miles away which meant that closing the other line, getting everyone off and walking them back along the line wasn't an option neither was walking across fields to get away. If you've ever tried walking any distance on track ballast its really not an option for more than a few hundred yards. One report I've seen suggested the driver turned his ankle over whilst trying to establish where the leak was. Same difficulties obviously applied with getting fitters and/or food etc to the train.

Mobile reception at the location was bad which meant that in order to talk to control the crew had to keep getting back to the engines to use the system there - again this slowed fault finding. As I understand it even having checked all the normal brake faults it still wasn't clear what the problem was hence the ultimate solution of dragging the errant loco away.

The nearest fitter was already dealing with a fault on a train at Reading which meant he missed the first available train to the site (albeit this only meant a 15 minute extra delay).

In the end as stated the rear engine was isolated and taken away by a spare rescue engine. Up to this point the train couldn't be moved as regs prohibit a "swinger" (an unbraked vehicle on either end of the train) for safety reasons (i.e. if it broke away with no workable brakes it could cause mayhem). The last I saw the fault was within this engine and beyond normal pipe leaks which can be isolated or fixed - in the end it was dragged back to Westbury and fixed on shed there. Neither could it be left unbraked in the middle of the track until the rescue loco arrived - being a Sunday finding a spare loco with crew wouldn't have been easy - not made easier by a fragmented railway system whereby First don't have the right engines to rescue and have to get one of the freight companies to do it for them!

I should hope First know they've got to do more than statutory minimum on this one - they've copped a lot of flak over it albeit as above the combination of circumstances were something of a perfect storm and hopefully realise its a nasty one off that sometimes happens but is worth pushing the boat out for as a one off gesture.

timbo58

Yes, my experience also tells me the mobile reception is pi$$ poor around the bedwyns/pewsey so as you say 'perfect storm'.

I also saw pictures of the TM on various sites/the news so the reports he was nowhere to be seen were obviously over exaggerated although on a sunday is going to mean one TM and one buffet steward at best on the train and that's best case scenario as the TM could well have been called to work outside also to speed up checking/isolation.

Kite2010

You would have thought FGW would have sent out one of the thunderbird trains, even to offload the passengers onto a 165/166 train sent from the Reading depot if no HST were available, just to get the passengers away and to continue onwards.

devondiver

For 'perfect storm' read 'catalogue of errors' - due to inadequate crisis management planning and standby investment. Apparently it took 2 and 1/2 hours to get the one and only (task-overloaded) fitter on site from Reading - just 20 minutes away. And even longer before a manager was on site. They then spent further time trying to fix a problem to which there was obviously not going to be a quick-fix solution rather than focussing on passenger comfort and welfare. Beggars belief.

timbo58

I think 'detraining' is always looked on a simple solution: it isn't.
It's downright dangerous to be honest.

It's a 6 foot drop from the trains step to the ballast (these are loose stones with fouling from oil, water and toilet waste/rubbish) and then another 6 foot climb into the rescue train, not all passengers would be able to use this route by any means.

I'm pleasantly surprised 'a manager' came out to the train they usually leave the on train staff to handle it all, IME most 'managers' sent to assist trains for special occasions are rather inept, let's hope this one was better.

Have to agree there was clearly some lessons to be learnt here especially over 'fitter' provision (the engineers/technicians).

martindow

devondiver wrote: »

For 'perfect storm' read 'catalogue of errors' - due to inadequate crisis management planning and standby investment. Apparently it took 2 and 1/2 hours to get the one and only (task-overloaded) fitter on site from Reading - just 20 minutes away. And even longer before a manager was on site. They then spent further time trying to fix a problem to which there was obviously not going to be a quick-fix solution rather than focussing on passenger comfort and welfare. Beggars belief.

Reading to Pewsey is much more than 20 minutes unless the fitter travels by helicopter - it's around 50 miles!