'8th July 2001 - Connex day of chaos'
Following the Railtrack report about the Connex incident the following points have been highlighted:
- Connex and Railtrack managers wasted hours arguing over who was
responsible for the train/incident and the best way to get the train
moved. (The report in fact condemns both Railtrack's and Connex's
management throughout).
- No escalation or contingency plan was in place and time was lost
as the point-of-contact for the mechanics was on holiday.
- The first mechanic to be sent to the scene was directed to the
wrong place (it also took 75 minutes of arguing by the above managers).
- Other mechanics were then caught in a traffic jam and took over
4 hours to reach the train.
- Not wishing to suffer loss of money and prestige, Eurostar is
accused of continuing to run services onto lines it knew to be blocked.
- The train was not cleared off the line for more than 11 hours.
- The train itself had major faults and this poses the basic question
of why was it allowed into passenger service (ANY service!!) in
the first place.
Oh yes, "...after the Connex train had been stranded in the
countryside for two hours, understandably, the customers were getting
restless." Ohhh, we remembered the passengers, well done!
I had a look on the Connex site a short while ago and they have a
poll saying, "Do you think Connex is getting better at listening
to its customers?". Up to now, 14% said yes, what do you think?
To view Connex's history click here.
