Southeastern failed to give any message about how long the “safety checks” could last
Passengers clearly wanted an estimate of how long the disruption would last – so that they could plan alternative journeys or (in at least one case) go to a central London pub until it was all over. It is a reasonable request.
@Se_Railway how long are the delays “through new cross” going to last and why are trains that don’t go through new cross affected? — James Fraser (@JrFraser83) November 18, 2014
@Se_Railway what are you checking? You must have a ball park figure? Will tickets be accepted on buses? — James Fraser (@JrFraser83) November 18, 2014
@Se_Railway just how long is this going on for it’s been hours!!! — kazcun (@kathyc1967) November 18, 2014
Despite the reasonableness of these requests Southeastern simply said “watch this space”.
@JrFraser83 We’ll be providing updates about services on our Twitter feed. Keep an eye out for them. — Southeastern (@Se_Railway) November 18, 2014
@JrFraser83 Hi James, we’ll be leaving updates on our Twitter feed as information comes in. — Southeastern (@Se_Railway) November 18, 2014
Unsurprisingly passengers kept up the pressure.
@Se_Railway so does that mean you can’t figure out when trains will be running from which platforms? — Sam Betts (@sampbetts) November 18, 2014
@Se_Railway any idea how long the disruption at LBG will go on for? — Elliott Reagan (@elliottreagan) November 18, 2014
Southeastern kept to the script.
@kathyc1967 We don’t have a time scale yet unfortunately. — Southeastern (@Se_Railway) November 18, 2014
As the evening wore on, people started to worry about the services the next morning.
@Se_Railway are the problems at new cross likely to continue in to tomorrow please — hoek (@jeanmarron) November 18, 2014
@jeanmarron We dont have any updates about this yet unfortunately. — Southeastern (@Se_Railway) November 18, 2014
@Se_Railway yeah I’m going to stay up all night!!!! So guess my morning commute will be a nightmare can’t get to DLR or underground — kazcun (@kathyc1967) November 18, 2014
Southeastern handed over to their “night team” – not necessarily a good line to take when their customers were still struggling to get home.
@kathyc1967 Our night team will be able to provide information when they receive updates: 01732 378 751 — Southeastern (@Se_Railway) November 18, 2014
@shelleyj89 We don’t have a timescale yet but our night team will be able to provide info as they receive updates: 01732 378 751 — Southeastern (@Se_Railway) November 18, 2014
It may have been impossible for Southeastern to give a precise estimate of how long the disruption would last in total: that would have depended on what the checks found. However the failure to give any sort of estimate left passengers in the dark. We cannot see why Southeastern could not have said things like:
- based on previous experience and what we know now, the checks may take X hours to do
- Network Rail are doing them as fast as they can
- the time will depend on what, if anything, the checks, find
- we will give updates at least every XX minutes, and immediately if we get any more information
- we now expect services to be disrupted for most of the evening.
Next page: Some staff were good at giving information, others were not
Wow. Just, wow. Excellent article. I trust David Statham has circulated this to all staff to assist in their learning….
15 minutes ago our lights went out, along with all neighbours. We have had two texts from the power company telling us what the problem is and when it will be fixed.
Latest info is below. Why can’t SER do that?
Update at 23:35 – Our engineers are on their way. We believe the issue to be due to an underground cable fault. We can usually fix a power cut within 2 hours, so we hope to have you back on by 01:00. We’re often able to re-route power remotely around problems of this nature so you may be back on sooner, or your power may go on and off. We’ll better understand the cause and update you when engineers are on site investigating.