Mass cull of ticket offices

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

In the geopolitical sphere of Iran/Russia/Israel/US it would not surprise me in the least if the current disaster befalling the Middle East was not precipated on a conversation between one dictator suffering in his own war and another by asking for assistance way beyond the battefield to destabilise Western support for Ukraine by initiating another conflict.

Definitely

Hamas are controlled by Iran, as are Hezbollah, there's little doubt the attack by Hamas on the music festival and Kibbutz in Israel was facilitated by Iran.

 

Russia and Iran are best mates at the moment, along with that other pariah North Korea, both of whom Putin is relying apon for armanents.

Iran/Hezbollah/Hamas believe in total anhilation of Jews and their right to exist on this planet. Familiar?

We fought a war to get rid of a previous dictator that believed that.

[melmerby]

Quote

However, the decision to backtrack on the plans has caused anger among train bosses, a senior rail source told the BBC.

"They have been made to sell these plans, defend them and change them to try and get them over the line. All in the face of the inevitable onslaught of criticism.

"All of these plans were approved by officials and ministers at the DfT. To say they fell short of their expectations is totally disingenuous," the source said.

 

Excerpt from the BBC announcement, which quite clearly shows the government's involvement.

[Ian Hargrave]

33 minutes ago, melmerby said:

 

Excerpt from the BBC announcement, which quite clearly shows the government's involvement.

And Mark Harper’s handling of the situation is to say the least “unhelpful “.

[jjb1970]

9 hours ago, lmsforever said:

Finally, the DFT and the government  have been defeated  its about time they listened to the public  but what have they got planned for us with Aviva cutting services and Northern doing the same we are facing a bad time on the railways. I note that first class is being reduced on the WCML   a very bad move  and people will be very annoyed with this when the current people took over from Virgin things went downhill very quickly and the comments were increasingly downbeat. ,the food was downgraded plus the number of seats has decreased rapidly and the staff visibly less able. I can remember in Virgin days as the train left Glasgow the drinks trolley rattled into the coach pushed by a friendly happy member of staff .The food orders were taken with good humour and the food itself was very good  and as the train progressed south the coaches filled and the staff remained happy and ready  to help if required .My first trip on the new owners train and it was completely different staff did not care and were actually rude sometimes the DFT must have been very pleased for they had done everything to get rid of Virgin.Our railways are going through very bad times  and if things dont change when we have an election they are going to suffer big time .

 

I have never been a fan of either the bearded one, and if anything even less of the people who owned Stagecoach, but I always found Virgin Trains pretty good and thought they made the best of the cards they had to play on the WCML. In my brief experience of Avanti things nose dived and opinions from friends and family in Milton Keynes and Cumbria is overwhelmingly negative to the point of being hateful whereas they were generally positive in Virgin days.

[jjb1970]

9 hours ago, Mike_Walker said:

Mark told me once that when he arrived at FGW he found trains leaving Paddington late because drivers couldn't be bothered to drink up their tea and vacate the mess room on time.  He said you can't condone such practices but if you treat your staff like s**t don't be surprised if they take that attitude.  His approach is that every member of staff is there to perform a vital role in the company from deputy MD down to cleaners and you treat them all equally and with respect.  In his time morale has soared at GWR.  By contrast, after Adrian Shooter retired from Chiltern that morale their is on the floor.

 

I think it is the difference between a leader and a manager. Many managers have zero leadership skills (some have negative leadership in provoking obstructive and indolent behaviours), and in fairness not all leaders have managerial ability. However, if you have a good leader they can hire good managers and things will work, it doesn't work the other way around. It always amazes me just how many people don't get the simple reality that if you want people to give their best treat them well and with respect.

[BachelorBoy]

3 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

 

I think it is the difference between a leader and a manager. Many managers have zero leadership skills (some have negative leadership in provoking obstructive and indolent behaviours), and in fairness not all leaders have managerial ability. However, if you have a good leader they can hire good managers and things will work, it doesn't work the other way around. It always amazes me just how many people don't get the simple reality that if you want people to give their best treat them well and with respect.

 

Managers strive for order.

Leaders are comfortable with necessary chaos.

 

[eatus-maximus]

18 hours ago, C126 said:

 

I ranted to a fellow commuter yester-day morning - a University sub-Professor - who still believed the railway companies were increasing profits by not hiring more trains to alleviate our peak-time crush loadings.  This is the third time I have lectured him, and still he jumps to the simplistic conclusion.  How many times can one use the phrases "direct management contracts", "Treasury's dead hand", and "government diktat", before despairing of the polity?  Sorry, rant over.

 

[Edit: Actually, I think the correct word is "electorate", not polity.]

 

Based on experience I'd say your first issue is "a University sub-Professor", which is a career path that doesn't hold as much weight for intellectual debate as it used to, though this is a rather large generalisation, I'm sure there are still some very good ones out there (other 'professions' to be wary of include "Lawyers" and "Customer Service Managers/Trainers", though again they are a generalisation).

 

17 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

....

 

Now they have invented 'BBC Verify' in order to reassure us that what they report in the news is not b*llocks! I thought that was what responsible news journalists did as a matter of course. All more jobs for the boys (and girls)!

 

....

 

Not wishing to get bogged down in this tangent but if I recall correctly, one of BBC Verify's first reports was littered with verifiably false and inaccurate statements of "fact". The bits that were accurately true seeming to be grossly outnumbered.

 

17 hours ago, darrel said:

How much money has been wasted on this farce?

 

Given the level of detail in Northern's proposal (which is the one I am most familiar with), I doubt it is as much as you think (detail is something they didn't really waste any time on from what I can see), though it is probably a fair chunk of money.

 

Transport Focus actually released the questions it asked of the TOCs and the responses given. In Northern's paperwork was the response to a question of how people could get tickets which were not available through the TVMs. The answer given was that they would try to make as many as possible available, but that it was 'not commercially efficient' to offer all of them by those channels. Someone actually signed off on that response.

[BachelorBoy]

35 minutes ago, eatus-maximus said:

 

Not wishing to get bogged down in this tangent but if I recall correctly, one of BBC Verify's first reports was littered with verifiably false and inaccurate statements of "fact". The bits that were accurately true seeming to be grossly outnumbered.

Shouldn't you provide means to verify that statement

Edited November 1, 2023 by BachelorBoy

[eatus-maximus]

29 minutes ago, BachelorBoy said:

Shouldn't you provide means to verify that statement

If you want a 22 page essay, yes. I figured this thread was about ticket office closures though, so like I say, not wanting to get bogged down in a tangent.

Edited November 1, 2023 by eatus-maximus

[ruggedpeak]

46 minutes ago, eatus-maximus said:

Not wishing to get bogged down in this tangent but if I recall correctly, one of BBC Verify's first reports was littered with verifiably false and inaccurate statements of "fact". The bits that were accurately true seeming to be grossly outnumbered.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12493713/BBCs-disinformation-correspondent-chief-fact-checker-Marianna-Spring-accused-lying-CV-falsely-claiming-worked-Beeb-journalist-applying-job-Moscow.html

 

[Wheatley]

2 hours ago, eatus-maximus said:

Given the level of detail in Northern's proposal (which is the one I am most familiar with), I doubt it is as much as you think (detail is something they didn't really waste any time on from what I can see), though it is probably a fair chunk of money.

Mostly done in house by people co-opted as required off their day jobs, but a change this big falls within ORR's Common Safety Method which can require risk assessment by an independant body. So there will have been a cost.

Edited November 1, 2023 by Wheatley

[Dagworth]

1 hour ago, ruggedpeak said:

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12493713/BBCs-disinformation-correspondent-chief-fact-checker-Marianna-Spring-accused-lying-CV-falsely-claiming-worked-Beeb-journalist-applying-job-Moscow.html

 

The daily mail. So biased that even Wikipedia refuses to use it as a source

[rodent279]

1 hour ago, Dagworth said:

The daily mail. So biased that even Wikipedia refuses to use it as a source

The D@!|¥ M@!|.

 

Nuff said.

[Clive Mortimore]

1 hour ago, Dagworth said:

The daily mail. So biased that even Wikipedia refuses to use it as a source

"Yes I read the daily mail , only the show biz section"

[BachelorBoy]

3 hours ago, eatus-maximus said:

If you want a 22 page essay, yes. I figured this thread was about ticket office closures though, so like I say, not wanting to get bogged down in a tangent.

 

Nice one. You make a claim, plant the seed of doubt, and then run away.

 

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, Dagworth said:

The daily mail. So biased that even Wikipedia refuses to use it as a source

C'mon you mean the Daily Heil, surely?😄

[Legend]

Meanwhile , back at the ticket offices , I'm glad common sense has prevailed . It seems to be completely lacking at the DfT or perhaps they are looking for savings at any cost !

 

[ColinK]

The Govt will still want to save money, they will just look at cutting something else.

[whart57]

I can't help but think though that the government thought this was too unpopular a decision to implement in the year before the next election/

[Dagworth]

11 minutes ago, whart57 said:

I can't help but think though that the government thought this was too unpopular a decision to implement in the year before the next election/

A large part of me thinks that it was so obviously an impossible idea that it was only ever a distraction to keep attention away from other policies, which could then later be abandoned in a fanfare of claims of listening. 
 

Andi 

[rodent279]

47 minutes ago, Dagworth said:

A large part of me thinks that it was so obviously an impossible idea that it was only ever a distraction to keep attention away from other policies, which could then later be abandoned in a fanfare of claims of listening. 
 

Andi 

What do they call it? Dead cat? The country is littered with dead cats currently.

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, Dagworth said:

A large part of me thinks that it was so obviously an impossible idea that it was only ever a distraction to keep attention away from other policies, which could then later be abandoned in a fanfare of claims of listening. 
 

Andi 

I was thinking a limited amount of closures as the Govt's original choice, which would've still brought about protests if floated as the original plan..

So they go for "close the lot"strategy, blame the TOCs for the policy, the government then gets a "climb down" to the desired number from the TOCs.

Government gets what it wants and the TOCs get thought of as villains.

 

However the level of public protest was so great that they had to withdraw all closure proposals and try to blame the TOCs for the idea, although I don't think all the public really believes that, especially as 4 of the TOCs that were all in favour are run by the government

Edited November 1, 2023 by melmerby

[DLT]

On 31/10/2023 at 16:27, phil-b259 said:

 

Its not rocket science - if your staff feel undervalued, bullied and generally treated like a leaf blower treats leaves then that is going to manifest itself in poor customer service.

 

All across the industry front line staff are feeling utterly demoralised in the face of DFT intransigence and bosses whose mission seems to be to brown nose the politicians or Whitehall mandarins for the sake of their own careers while the industry and its infrastructure continues to fall apart.

 

Good managers like Adrian Shooter, Criss Green and Mark Hopwood know this and its why if they are left to do their thing then you will find by and large the organisations they used to run treated their staff well

 

I used to work in an establishment that carried out research in this area, and results consistently showed this.  As you say its not rocket science.

But everywhere you look the opposite is happening.  Then employers complain there are staff-shortages, poor service, strikes etc!

Edited November 1, 2023 by DLT

[DLT]

"Only 12-percent of ticket sales"???  12 percent must represent a HUGE number of ticket sales!  If it was 1.2-percent then i could understand this.

The whole affair is looking more and more like a deliberate PR stunt, cooked up to try and make the Tories look good, look like "The Peoples Friend" when they are anything but!

[melmerby]

24 minutes ago, DLT said:

"Only 12-percent of ticket sales"???  12 percent must represent a HUGE number of ticket sales!  If it was 1.2-percent then i could understand this.

The whole affair is looking more and more like a deliberate PR stunt, cooked up to try and make the Tories look good, look like "The Peoples Friend" when they are anything but!

Some figures

43% of all stations (1007 out of 2576) do not currently have ticket offices, including my fairly busy nearest station, which has a large carpark.

It was an unstaffed halt in GWR days.