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RTC Dartmouth Express - April 19th

Discussion in 'What's Going On' started by Big Al, Apr 11, 2014.

  1. free2grice

    free2grice Part of the furniture Friend

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    Ah, I see what you mean. No problem. At work it would be described as 'a breakdown in communications'. <BJ>
     
  2. SteamHawk216

    SteamHawk216 Member

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  3. Last edited by a moderator: Apr 21, 2014
  4. 5944

    5944 Resident of Nat Pres

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  5. Western Venturer

    Western Venturer Well-Known Member

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    Had a good day in the sun videoing No7.. screwed the first shot up so not the best day with the camera but I enjoyed it..

    Heres my efforts at Powderham, Cockwood and Oathe..

     
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  6. osprey

    osprey Resident of Nat Pres

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    Some superb shots and footage .............
     
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  7. spicer21

    spicer21 Guest

    Exactly, and such mission statements are rarely compiled by those who have to deliver the mission in my experience, : )
     
  8. spicer21

    spicer21 Guest

    You're absolutely right as ever Al, which begs the question why is the responsibility for the original planning not in the hands of such experienced hands in the first place, or at least signed off by somebody of appropriate knowledge and experience ?
     
  9. spicer21

    spicer21 Guest

    On the face of it that sounds fine, and should work for all. Unfortunately though, we still have examples of last minute changes to route, itinerary, steam mileage, loco allocation etc, and it is this in my view that must cause the most frustration for all passengers, whether it be the cranks or daytripper types, that David1984 commented on earlier in his post. I'm yet to understand the "last minute" nature of some of these changes. Obviously some are unavoidable, and we all understand these. Others are unexplained, and raise anxiety and doubt in the minds of those who've booked, might have booked, or are thinking of booking in the future. Despite all of that, many tours continue to run fully booked of course which to me suggests this is an activity that still has plenty of potential. Unfortunately, it also seems to work against many of those who keep booking, and give their support time and time again. They are often the most forgiving of the events with which we're all familiar, and keep coming back.

    Personally, I would like to see some kind of Passenger Charter, similar to that which protects passengers on the regular network. This would specify a certain standard of service / performance to which passengers on all charter trains, regardless of Operator and Promoter would be entitled. It would also guarantee a level of compensation where that standard wasn't met. This, you would think would help motivate all those involved in running these tours to deliver a specified standard, rather than risk a reduction in their income / revenue. At the moment, it is all too hit and miss, and we get statements like, "oh it's only a small part of our business", and "well that's the risk you take when you book on a steam charter", etc etc. This simply isn't acceptable in this day and age in my opinion, and needs addressing. I've no doubt this will divide opinion, but as we've said many times before on this forum, healthy, polite debate is what we're all here for so please don't hold back, : )
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 22, 2014
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  10. spicer21

    spicer21 Guest

  11. RalphW

    RalphW Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Administrator Friend

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    I believe things only got worse when the planning was centralised at Milton Keynes, I know a guy who was in the planning dept before the move, he said that things would only get worse as many of the senior and most experienced staff had no intention of uprooting families and moving to MK, so that resulted in the experienced hands taking early retirement... For some time he used to commute daily from the north west to MK, but as you can imagine he soon got fed up with this.....
     
  12. spicer21

    spicer21 Guest

    Interesting, thanks for that. I know many organisations have had to cope with skill shortages like this. Unfortunately, in the case of many of them, and possibly Network Rail, Railtrack and British Rail before them, they are reaping the unfortunate rewards of poor investment in training and staff development to the extent these experienced old hands were not developed and their skills passed on to younger hands coming into the organisation. When the a big change is made therefore, such as the move to MK it leaves the Org vulnerable when all that experience and skills elect to decamp. No doubt in the rail industry, being heavily unionised, there was a big incentive to people to bail out in the way described, rather than continue under the new regime. Again, you'd have thought that kind of thing would have been anticipated and planned for by the "Suits" making such decisions, but they never have to deal with the effects of course.

    Sadly familiar unfortunately, : (
     
  13. david1984

    david1984 Resident of Nat Pres

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    Why does planning need to be centralised at all in this day and age of high speed internet and video conferencing ?, a small group of people no longer need to be physically together to share idea's and data.

    Privatisation didn't help in old experience being retained either, one TOC in particular almost made it it's mission to dispose of the tired old BR guard as they saw it and bring in a load of inexperienced middle management and retail type people who knew the right spin and buzzwords, no prizes for guessing which TOC :rolleyes:
     
  14. Big Al

    Big Al Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Moderator

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    As a postscript to the Dartmouth trip, if you look at RTT you can see what a close call it was over sending SNG out of EXD ahead of the Paddington service. On balance it shouldn't have happened as it depended entirely on the charter keeping time, which it did. With the London service about five late at Exeter it was held briefly at Norton Fitzwarren while we parked up for water and therefore lost a few more minutes. So as I said, a local decision made in favour of steam, as happened to me the previous week on the CCE.

    And that, I think, illustrates the point we have strayed into over MK. We know, for example, that were it not for a planner in DBS making several visits to MK last year to help them find a decent path for the Bittern Streaks then we might not have had what transpired especially that near impossible path from Newcastle to York on which we gained a minute! When you are only putting baseline data into a piece of software without the understanding of how that might be tweaked for the motive power you are working with, then it's not surprising what they generate.

    But sorry, steam is just a small piece of the charter world...and it's a charter.....so the playing field is sloping against us.
     
  15. Bean-counter

    Bean-counter Part of the furniture

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    Is it skills shortages or experience shortages? I know from my experience that operational planning is something that some people can do in their heads almost without thinking whilst others need a quiet office and a few bits of paper to reach the same plan!

    Steven
     
  16. RalphW

    RalphW Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Administrator Friend

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    I don't really think it can all be laid at the door of poor investment, just the senior management not realising that planning, even when there is a computer, needs the human touch to fine tune. Centralising meant that the old hands who were passing on their skills were suddenly give the option of move or retire. Unsurprisingly most immediately said 'sod it' and retired...
     
  17. spicer21

    spicer21 Guest

    Indeed, you make a good point, and I think it echoes those of the others above, i.e. new blood arrived at the time of privatisation that showed zero respect for the many good aspects of British Rail, i.e. time honoured processes, practices, procedures etc, all of which had been fine tuned over many years of learning. With a broad brush, some might suggest by stealth, all that was swept away by clever Managers, Accountants, Money Men, who recognised the easy way to start again was to pay people off. In other words apply the principle that everyone has their price, you just have to find out what it is, and then beat them down a few pounds. In the rail industry it would have been a little more difficult owing to the union presence, but done it was none the less as people accepted it. What they didn't consider, because they weren't railwaymen were the effects it would have on the running of trains, some of which were felt pretty immediately, leading a certain TOC run by a "Plastic Carrier Bag carrying Scotsman" with experience only of running buses, if I remember rightly having to re employ people on higher wages to sort the mess out !

    Some of the other effects have taken longer to make their effects felt. Obviously in our hobby, the loss of time honured experience of routes, infrastructure, gauging etc has taken it's toll, as the computer models simply can't replace YET, the immediacy of the recall of contents from someone's brain, who knows and has possibly seen and felt the area involved !

    To answer Bean Counter's question on whether it's skills or experience shortages that are causing the problems we've been discussing, I guess it's both, with the skills required being dependent on experience, with the experience we had needing to be built up all over again. I worry though that this may not happen in the way it did previously owing to commerical pressures, the blame and compensation culture, and all the other bad stuff that in my opinion, privatisation has brought. By the way, I'm conscious of some good stuff as well, it's just I can usually think of more bad than good, especially when I read the accounts from some on here, as well as those of friends of mine in the industry dating back before privatisation, which suggests an awful lot of good stuff was undone by an insatiable desire to change things and grab control. In the early days of Railtrack and the first round of franchises it was almost "liberty hall" with no regulation in place whatsoever to protect staff or passengers alike. I would suggest that those who argue against excessive regulation today, consider what can happen when you go too far down this road. Human beings simply cannot be trusted to police themselves, especially those with £££ in their eyes, : )
     
  18. SteamHawk216

    SteamHawk216 Member

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    Thank you spicer21, for your kind comments.
    I was very pleased with that particular photo and your more than welcome to use it for your own PC wallpaper if you so wish.
    Just to prove how personally pleased I was with that particular photo, a framed print of it was hanging in my hallway by 09:00hrs on Sunday morning.
    To everyone just enjoy your hobby/pastime, I say. Just that mine has to involve rails and traction at the moment :).
     
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  19. spicer21

    spicer21 Guest

    No problem, it's one of those shots that stand out as something special, and where all the various elements that make up a good photo "glued together" so to speak. I am not at all surprised there's a framed print version hanging in your hallway. It should provide a fitting momento to a great day, loco and location for yourself and generations of descendants to come I guess ?

    All the best




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