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A Gold Star for First Great Western Customer Service

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2008-11-24 06:44:57 - Graham Ellis

Regular readers will know that I've been running something of a campaign for the return of an appropriate train service in Melksham, and that First Great Western (who took over a service of 5 each way per day on 1st April 2006 and reduced it to just 2 dreadfully timed trains the following December) are not exactly a company who's every action I could admire. However, the duty staff get a big bouquet for their actions last night in helping my customers get to Melksham when the London to Penzance express got delayed, and their connection into the second (and final) train of the day from Westbury - the 19:35 - missed.

An announcement on the express that anyone who wanted to catch the connection to Melksham and Chippenham should contact the Train Manager, and then when they arrived in Westbury they were expected and a large taxi (there were 7 people going on) had been arranged.

Read more about it here and about delayed connections here

And ... a Gold Star (or whatever one gives!) to Ben at First Great Western Customer support, who I phoned when I saw on the online departure board that there was going to be a problem, to ask when and where my customers would be arriving in the circumstances. Further Gold Stars to FGW Control in Swindon for co-ordinating, the train manager on the express for finding and keeping the customers informed, the station staff at Westbury for doing a grand job of organising the taxi, and tot he taxi driver for dropping the folks off at our door rather than insisting he drove right past to the station.

In fact ... I need to go out and buy a new supply of * * * * * Gold Stars!