What do you do?
After many years working for the BBC as a cameraman and sports producer, I’m now a part-time freelance TV producer and consultant. I now have more leisure time and make a variety of rail journeys, and indeed use other forms of public transport.
Why did you join the Passengers’ Panel?
Well, instead of standing on a cold, wet platform moaning about the delays and unreliability, I thought that I’d try to understand the overall picture and then hopefully be able to offer some constructive thoughts from a strictly passenger perspective. Hats off to South West Trains for providing a vehicle to hear our views first-hand instead of simply relying on “customer services” feedback as other companies apparently do.
What train journeys do you make?
I travel regularly between Chiswick and London Waterloo, on various days and at various times. So I’m particularly aware of the Hounslow Loop in West London, its perceived operating problems and glaring infrastructure failings. I’m also a regular passenger on the Feltham RailAir link to Heathrow, an occasional user of South West Trains’ longer-distance services, and a frequent traveller to Scotland where the Strathclyde-area services are frequent and, in my experience, pretty reliable for a busy suburban railway.
Which is your favourite rail journey?
The West Highland Line from Glasgow to Fort William is a journey that I can highly recommend (which can be taken direct from London Euston by overnight sleeper). Waking up in the glens of Scotland and rolling up the window blind to see Loch Lomond at sunrise can be breathtaking. The further extension from Fort William on to Mallaig, the so-called Road to the Isles, is unbeatable for scenery from a train window, and this section is sometimes even steam-hauled in summer—it is weather-dependent though and unfortunately nobody can predict that. I’ve been on the Blue Train in South Africa and journeyed through the Alps and the Rockies from Calgary to Vancouver by train, but our own West Highland Line beats even these famed journeys.
What other voluntary posts do you hold?
At present, only the captaincy of my golf club, but that’s pretty time consuming in its own way.
What do you like most about South West Trains?
Several points, believe it or not. The discernible change in passenger awareness and associated satisfaction criteria from the old British Rail Network South East days. Senior South West Trains managers I’ve met through the Passengers’ Panel, starting at the top with the charismatic Managing Director, Andrew Haines, really do care about us. I don’t believe this is purely a front—and most (but still, sadly, not all) frontline employees now smile and appear keen to assist. It may well be that this is the training school kicking in and deep down they actually don’t care, but I’m more than willing to give them the benefit of the doubt just now and time will tell. It’s refreshing after years of couldn’t-care-less attitudes, which we all remember only too well.
But I must also mention the new timetable. Doubling of service frequency is a big plus for Chiswick passengers, which should not go unacknowledged. Full marks for that and also for the Customer Information System screens showing actual running times of services—at unstaffed stations the “will it come or not?” question has hopefully gone for good and important meetings can now be scheduled with a degree of reassurance.
What do you like least about South West Trains?
Unstaffed stations is top of the list. It smacks of the bad old days and encourages fare-evasion and vandalism, which are both rife on the Hounslow Loop. My local station is staffed, in theory, only until 10:00, but is frequently not staffed at all. And I’ve never seen a South West Trains manager there—unless they’re in disguise.
Really pressing infrastructure improvements would take most of the pages of e-motion to list, including lifts and escalators to the platforms at Clapham Junction, but I do understand that most of these issues should be firmly placed on the doorstep of Network Rail, the Strategic Rail Authority or perhaps even the Department of Transport. As passengers we really don’t care about the politics—South West Trains runs our services and they must respond to our grumbles as well as accept any plaudits.
One other moan is the announcement on the public address system “Thank you for travelling with South West Trains”, which is often very irksome. Many morning passengers actually have no practical alternative to an often-frustrating journey and to hear this announcement upon arriving at London Waterloo is not always entirely welcome. Perhaps it should be limited to long-distance services.