Wednesday 27 February 2008

Selective Door Opening - an Almighty Cock up - Health and Safety Paranoia

It is difficult to put words down to express how angry I am with FGW. Yesterday we have a successful day of virually on time trains - I got to work at the proper time, I got home at a decent hour.

But today.. No. Not a hope.

I arrived at the station to be told by Tall Man (aka Duncan) that the 7.18 would not be stopping at Kingham this morning due to problems with the sodding Selective Door Opening.

I went on to the platform in the vain hope that it might stop. Leon even put his head out of his hiding place and told us it might stop.... just as the train tooted at us and accelerated through 100mph as it passed through the station. I had to wait an hour for the next train and ended up arriving at the office for about 10am.

Honestly, how does this sodding company think that this is an acceptable way to run a business? It's a good job my boss is reasonably understanding as he does the same commute (albeit earlier).

I am literally at my wits end with this lot.

The problem was that the selective door opening wouldn't work and all they could do was unlock all the doors.... Which takes us straight back to just before Christmas when they would stop and tell everyone not to get out of certain carriages or risk a fall to a messy and painful death.

My question is then, what has changed? I have an idea that it's those Health & Safety people poking their noses in and making a difficult job almost impossible.

To add insult to serious delay, I couldn't get a seat until I persuaded the Train Manager (Rog I think) that there were actually no seats and that I should be allowed into 1st class where I was set upon my revenue inspection staff (what a great title).

They had been briefed as to my plight - and it's a good thing to for I was armed with the Times newspaper...

I have added below a picture of someone's "hotpants" that somehow had made their way on to the track. The thing that scared me (and should serve as a lesson to anyone who reads this) that after the train had gone by, there was absolutely no sign of the clothing anywhere -


I can only assume the aforementioned hotpants had been minced up and deposited somewhere a couple of miles up the track. As for the girl who was missing her hotpants..... well the mind boggles.....

TTF

6 comments:

NaiT said...

I don't get that... You can always find pants, trousers, skirts, shirts etc lying around. HOW would you not notice that you had left your trousers on the floor?? What possible cause could you have on a railway line, to remove your hot pants? Odd.

I feel your pain re: FGW. If they could even communicate it would help. Mumbling something about 'selective door opening' when you are now already late for work in not acceptable. Why do they not implement a text messaging service that could have told you pre-Kingham that the service was faulty? That is not rocket science in this modern age of technology. You could subscribe to your train online.

Anonymous said...

Lets face it FGW are U-S-E-L-E-S-S....

If they were an army and i was 1 guy then i'd fight them...because they wouldn't turn up or they wouldn't be able to get out heir tanks/planes/vehicles at the battlefield...they are the sort of people that would 'friendly fire' their comrades whilst mumbling something about franchises and leaves...

Rant over...

Hoggstar said...

I am so surprised when Mr Trainfellow returns home at certain times. The other night, I wondered which train he had got because he was home at a previously unexplored time. It was simply that the train was on time. This is SUCH A RARE OCCURRENCE that I am more used to lateness...grrrrrrrr
Mrs TF

Unknown said...

Such as TrainTracker or perhaps Journey Alert

More info on both on the FGW site.

Hoggstar said...

They actually look like men's boxers...or am I spoiling it?!!

Anonymous said...

Dearest Hogstar, do you know how dull our commuting is, a pair of hotmants on the line has all sorts of tales that might be associated with them, we are even close enough for Oxford for them to be a Morse code - but men's boxers, just far too dull, please allow us to help the hours and miles slip by, Visaman