What qualifications does it take to be a modern station guard? Silence is a good one; and ignorance – preferably with a good measure of pleading it.

Take this morning – usually the 07:45 Aldershot to London Waterloo train is on time (sometimes, by a quirk of South West Trains, it is early) – but this morning it was cancelled.

Us loyal commuters only found this out by the electronic information screens. Actual human staff present on the scene decided to keep quiet.

One reason for this lack of voice could have been ignorance. They didn’t seem to know why the train had been cancelled, or even when the next one was (despite this being displayed on the screens). Given a choice of two slow trains leaving ten minutes apart from different platforms, we surely could’ve been told which one would (all things being well) get us to the capital the quickest. No such luck. A process of guesswork determined that we should all wait for the 8-carriage (and therefore overcrowded) all-stops train.

Lack of apology is another qualification, seemingly.

It is fairly insulting to think that backroom staff have spent hours programming automatic responses into their computerised announcement services – with different levels of apology for increasing levels of delay – and yet they cannot spend time developing inter-personal skills for people on the front line – with us, the fare-paying populous.

To be told by a Texas Speal-n-Spell derivative that he/she/it is “extremely sorry for the delay caused� to my journey, is, at best, laughable. It would be contemptuous, except showing contempt to a machine is as pointless as pretending that a machine can be emotionally involved with your worsening journey.

Some better staff skills would be appreciated.

Update 12th August 2004:
See the following links for other experiences:

• Observations from a crowded train
• Etiquette
• Neanderthals on the Tube