Glen Merryman

Said the following about Phillip Linsdell and Darren Hamilton:

“Nominated for their excellent work carried out at Chichester and Barnham on 25th April this year. Darren and Phillip were quick to attend an ongoing major incident between Fishbourne and Chichester whereby a female had threatened to jump from a road over rail bridge resulting in the emergency services attending and blocking the lines in both directions. This caused serious delays in the area.

Chichester was badly affected with no services in or out resulting in many passengers unable to continue their journeys. For a long period of time replacement buses into the area were limited in both directions, and so both members of staff had to use initiative to work with what they had directing passengers to alternative methods of road transport, providing detailed updates, making station announcements and assisting them in a way they could enable them to proceed there journey. Both Darren and Phil kept the customers safety in mind at all times, and were always conscious about the risk of overcrowding should replacement busses not arrive.

Once the incident was resolved and they had cleared Chichester with trains slowly on the move again, they boarded a service which was subsequently terminated at Barnham due to residual disruption. This of course resulted in many upset customers, as a number of them had been waiting for a number of hours to continue their journey.

They immediately alighted and assisted dealing with passengers, again using initiative to ascertain exactly what was happening and made enquiries for another service to be put on in order to get the passengers moving. They also helped hand out water to passengers. Their communications were super keeping everyone up to date throughout, not once did they moan about the potential of being late home. Their main focus was to get all our passengers home and on the move again. Both members of staff undertook 14.30 hours with no break, a clearly demonstrates outstanding team work and commitment.“