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SASTA - what an absolute shower



Beach Hut

Brighton Bhuna Boy
Jul 5, 2003
72,030
Living In a Box
Double bollox now have to get off at Hove as fast to Worthing then Littlehampton, bunch of ***** the lot of them
 










yxee

Well-known member
Oct 24, 2011
2,521
Manchester
Delay Repay should start from 1 minute late and scale up proportionally to the full ticket fare.

This half an hour nonsense just gives them skewed incentives.
 






KneeOn

Well-known member
Jun 4, 2009
4,695
It's not just the Southern 'brand'. Sister brand 'Great Northern' has staff issues.

I'm possibly one of the corperate kids who have grown up with buzz words and the like. I've been in customer service for 5 years, over 2 of which have been on the railway.

They've opened up the Moorgate branch on weekends and early evenings/late nights.

This adds between 5-12 diagrams on to at least three if not 4 depots along the route. However the company didn't agree the new shift times with staff. They knew they couldn't run the service in advance allegedly but opened it anyway as it is a committed obligation in this franchise and if they didn't do it by December 13th it'd likely have to wait until the new timetable in May.

So now they have drivers booking on on the old shift patterns and the work has to fit around this. As such, you have these 10 or so diagrams uncovered, relying further on rest day work to cover. And it's not just train crew. One revenue/gateline depot is 2 short, one on long term sick doing light duties until next month and one who has been sick over a year save for a single week. So that's another committed obligation where the company rely on the others to come in on days off to avoid fines etc and this is on top of the leave quota. Nearly 25% of the staff can be or are off right now and this means it can be as much 50% on a given day can be away.

They've been working 2 down during major disurption with the company's lack of consultation about how adding 10 jobs to each depot would be handled on top of the usual issues the industry faces. And it's not just Southern.

Ironically one of the worst TOCs for sending "CSL2" (major disruption) messages on the industry system has the best brand image - Virgin Trains on the West Coast Mainline. I considered it odd during the autumn and early parts of the winter to NOT see them having problems. Greater Anglia are also absolute gash.
 


KneeOn

Well-known member
Jun 4, 2009
4,695
I sure this will make all you chaps laugh, or perhaps not

http://newsthump.com/2015/12/23/man-resolves-train-delay-by-shouting/

Amazingly, people genuinely think this helps. I frequently get told that I specifically am a disgrace because the regularly commuter has had their train cancelled. I really hope one day soon all the shouting will sink in and I will become a manager, signal man, fitter, driver, dispatcher, signal fixing and track replacing person I am employed to be.
 




sydney

tinky ****in winky
Jul 11, 2003
17,777
town full of eejits
I think we all know that "Southern Are Sorry To Announce" are undoubtedly the worst company in the country. They are utterly utterly terrible. Words cannot describe just how terrible they are. My 7:23 Redhill to Vic, for example, has been cancelled five times in five weeks. In that same time frame, it has also had fewer carriages than the designated 12 on 3 occasions (it once turned up with just four carriages) and today was ten minutes late. Ten minutes? It only actually started 7 miles down the line FFS.

But oddly enough, this isn't a rant about the dreadful train service they provide. It's about customer service. I just felt this snippet from the local Facebook rail group about something that happened last night and I think deserves a wider audience:



I thought improved customer service was one of the benefits of privatisation? I guess that's put that one to bed.

jobsworths...no other excuse for it , or they just lack the basic brain power to see the sense of issuing the ticket there .... i found the service provided extremely hot and cold.......some guys are excellent , some are diabolical...!!
 




pasty

A different kind of pasty
Jul 5, 2003
30,387
West, West, West Sussex
Amazingly, people genuinely think this helps. I frequently get told that I specifically am a disgrace because the regularly commuter has had their train cancelled. I really hope one day soon all the shouting will sink in and I will become a manager, signal man, fitter, driver, dispatcher, signal fixing and track replacing person I am employed to be.

I feel sorry for you. As a regular Brighton to London commuter I regularly get extremely angry and pissed off with the service provided, but never have I resorted to abusing the staff "on the ground" as it were. I just don't see the point. There is sod all that person can do about the situation, be it signals, staff shortages, faulty doors or whatever, so what is the point in shouting at them? I'm often quite amazed at the vitriol some of my fellow commuters come out with towards staff to the point where on more than one occasion I've actually had a go back at the person shouting.
 




dazzer6666

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Mar 27, 2013
52,892
Burgess Hill
I feel sorry for you. As a regular Brighton to London commuter I regularly get extremely angry and pissed off with the service provided, but never have I resorted to abusing the staff "on the ground" as it were. I just don't see the point. There is sod all that person can do about the situation, be it signals, staff shortages, faulty doors or whatever, so what is the point in shouting at them? I'm often quite amazed at the vitriol some of my fellow commuters come out with towards staff to the point where on more than one occasion I've actually had a go back at the person shouting.

Absolutely this. I just resign myself to (another) crappy journey home, no point having a go at anyone, particularly as the issue will be nothing to do with them, and not in their control anyway. Can be the same at airports too (worst example I saw was someone DEMANDING that the receptionist in the lounge gets a plane IMMEDIATELY arranged to replace the one with a technical fault that led to the cancellation. Was in a full-on spit-flecked rage at the poor girl. Knob. Me and another bloke pulled him away and got him turfed out the lounge)
 


Lower West Stander

Well-known member
Mar 25, 2012
4,753
Back in Sussex
Absolutely this. I just resign myself to (another) crappy journey home, no point having a go at anyone, particularly as the issue will be nothing to do with them, and not in their control anyway. Can be the same at airports too (worst example I saw was someone DEMANDING that the receptionist in the lounge gets a plane IMMEDIATELY arranged to replace the one with a technical fault that led to the cancellation. Was in a full-on spit-flecked rage at the poor girl. Knob. Me and another bloke pulled him away and got him turfed out the lounge)

Agree with this to a point and I have never shouted either but you can't say platform staff are always blame free.

During last night's carnage I was at East Croydon waiting for some undefined train to take me home when I witnessed a row between a dispatcher and three people whop wanted to get to Gatwick.

The dispatcher was so unhelpful it was ridiculous - all they asked for was which platform. There was actually a train on the platform actually going there and the dispatcher didn't tell them so they missed it. Unsurprisngly the "customers" were a little upset but the dispatcher just turned his back on them and walked off......
 






Weezle

Active member
Jul 7, 2003
712
Brighton
I'm taking my wife and 2 kids into my work place in Canary Wharf today and they too are getting to enjoy my regular commute.

So far, the first train from Brighton was cancelled, we then had 2 mins to run onto the train at the far end of the platform for the next train despite a 20 minute wait as they didn't anounce the platform. This has been followed by being turfed off the train at Gatwick as it has now been cancelled. We then jumped on a train to East Croydon from where we had one departure board tell us the next train to London Bridge was from platform 4, only for it to be changed last second to platform 2, giving me seconds to haul two toddlers up a flight of stairs and down the other side. We're now stuck on the train outside East Croydon.

From being 40 mins early, we're now running late for the party and I've still got the tube to negotiate!
 


Ernest

Stupid IDIOT
Nov 8, 2003
42,743
LOONEY BIN
In a way I'm surprised as when Charles Horton the MD ran the show before things were ok, there was always a rolling recruitment campaign of drivers and conductors so whilst you had vacancies there was nothing that caused major problems.

Even Connex for their bad reputation were not as bad as this lot and it wouldn't take much more before someone has to step in.
 




Beach Hut

Brighton Bhuna Boy
Jul 5, 2003
72,030
Living In a Box
The dispatcher was so unhelpful it was ridiculous - all they asked for was which platform. There was actually a train on the platform actually going there and the dispatcher didn't tell them so they missed it. Unsurprisngly the "customers" were a little upset but the dispatcher just turned his back on them and walked off......

I suspect that has everything to do with staff morale being rock bottom more than attitude.
 




Rugrat

Well-known member
Mar 13, 2011
10,215
Seaford
More chaos, son at Victoria on way down, seems there could be a jumper at East Croydon, nothing moving .... gutted
 


Carrot Cruncher

NHS Slave
Helpful Moderator
Jul 30, 2003
5,052
Southampton, United Kingdom
Looking at the live departures and it seems my Southampton to Brighton train is the only one vaguely on time at Shoreham (only 5 late...).
 


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