GWR Dec 19 timetable

Tim456 · 15 Dec 2019

Mag_seven said:
Looks like they are struggling even to operate that as on top of the planned cancellations there are (according to Journeycheck) 10 additional cancellations on the Padd to South Wales route. In particular once the 17.43 Paddington to Swansea has departed there will not be another service to South wales until the 20.43 departure - a gap of three hours!

Not only that the 1403 and 1603 PAD-PNZ have gone on an already badly affected timetable along with some of the Bristols. Great start to the new timetable. Thoughts with those trying to travel on the GW lines today.

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Mitchell Hurd · 15 Dec 2019

I do feel sorry for GWR to be honest as it must be embarrassing for them now having 17 cancellations on their JourneyCheck page on the first day of the new timetable!

Hopefully from this week it doesn't get worse.

Tim456 · 15 Dec 2019

Mag_seven said:
Looks like they are struggling even to operate that as on top of the planned cancellations there are (according to Journeycheck) 10 additional cancellations on the Padd to South Wales route. In particular once the 17.43 Paddington to Swansea has departed there will not be another service to South wales until the 20.43 departure - a gap of three hours!

Not only that the 1403 and 1603 PAD-PNZ have gone on an already badly affected timetable along with some of the Bristols. Great start to the new timetable. Thoughts with those trying to travel on the GW lines today.

Mitchell Hurd · 15 Dec 2019

I do feel sorry for GWR to be honest as it must be embarrassing for them now having 17 cancellations on their JourneyCheck page on the first day of the new timetable!

Hopefully from this week it doesn't get worse.

Tim456 · 15 Dec 2019

Mag_seven said:
Looks like they are struggling even to operate that as on top of the planned cancellations there are (according to Journeycheck) 10 additional cancellations on the Padd to South Wales route. In particular once the 17.43 Paddington to Swansea has departed there will not be another service to South wales until the 20.43 departure - a gap of three hours!

Not only that the 1403 and 1603 PAD-PNZ have gone on an already badly affected timetable along with some of the Bristols. Great start to the new timetable. Thoughts with those trying to travel on the GW lines today.

Tim456 · 15 Dec 2019

Mag_seven said:
Looks like they are struggling even to operate that as on top of the planned cancellations there are (according to Journeycheck) 10 additional cancellations on the Padd to South Wales route. In particular once the 17.43 Paddington to Swansea has departed there will not be another service to South wales until the 20.43 departure - a gap of three hours!

Not only that the 1403 and 1603 PAD-PNZ have gone on an already badly affected timetable along with some of the Bristols. Great start to the new timetable. Thoughts with those trying to travel on the GW lines today.

Tim456 · 15 Dec 2019

Mag_seven said:
Looks like they are struggling even to operate that as on top of the planned cancellations there are (according to Journeycheck) 10 additional cancellations on the Padd to South Wales route. In particular once the 17.43 Paddington to Swansea has departed there will not be another service to South wales until the 20.43 departure - a gap of three hours!

Not only that the 1403 and 1603 PAD-PNZ have gone on an already badly affected timetable along with some of the Bristols. Great start to the new timetable. Thoughts with those trying to travel on the GW lines today.

Weekender · 15 Dec 2019

The GWR website headline suggests “a good service on most of our network “, and is ignoring all the cancellations they announced a couple of days ago. Presumably this is to get around their delay repay obligations.
I do realise of course that the company are not to blame for the farcical situation they face today and presumably next Sunday as well.

vikingdriver · 15 Dec 2019

Weekender said:
The GWR website headline suggests “a good service on most of our network “, and is ignoring all the cancellations they announced a couple of days ago. Presumably this is to get around their delay repay obligations.
I do realise of course that the company are not to blame for the farcical situation they face today and presumably next Sunday as well.

I guess no one is to blame then, but I can see where this is about to go!

Weekender · 15 Dec 2019

Personally I think the DFT are largely to blame.
Drivers have previously posted on here that they would prefer 21st century contracts as would the train companies but the DFT have blocked them.

Wilts Wanderer · 15 Dec 2019

ASLEF and RMT say that they want Sundays in the working week, yet they don’t want any reduction in overtime opportunities. Go figure

jimm · 15 Dec 2019

This note has appeared on JourneyCheck

1 Significant Disruption
Service Disruption Sunday 15th December.

Please be advised that train services will be severely affected on Sunday 15th December due to a shortage of train crew.
Many services between London and South Wales, as well as London and Cornwall, will be amended. Trains will terminate short of their destination, with services also likely to be cancelled, with trains that do run to their intended destination expected to be extremely busy.
If you are planning to travel today you are advised to check travel plans before embarking on your journey, and if your journey is absolutely necessary you are urged to travel as early as you possibly can.
We apologies for the inconvenience that this will cause.
Last Updated:15/12/2019 10:05

Elsewhere the Oxford and Cotswold services seem to be operating as planned, with the extra fasts between London and Oxford now running to give a 2tph fast service seven days a week.

Weekender said:
Personally I think the DFT are largely to blame.
Drivers have previously posted on here that they would prefer 21st century contracts as would the train companies but the DFT have blocked them.

GWR and the DfT are still negotiating over another direct award agreement, so Sunday working arrangements may well form part of those discussions.

Mintona · 15 Dec 2019

That’s not true. The unions want a situation where overtime is for training purposes only.

vikingdriver · 15 Dec 2019

Our depot would need approximately 20 additional drivers to bring Sunday into the working week, so when you include all the other driver depots and conductors and train managers across the company then maybe you can see why from the perspective of the company, there hasn't been much movement over the years to replace a system that works pretty much ok the vast majority of the year.

Weekender · 15 Dec 2019

vikingdriver said:
Our depot would need approximately 20 additional drivers to bring Sunday into the working week, so when you include all the other driver depots and conductors and train managers across the company then maybe you can see why from the perspective of the company, there hasn't been much movement over the years to replace a system that works pretty much ok the vast majority of the year.

Obviously you are not on the Paddington to Cheltenham line where from April to October between 50 and 100% of Sunday services are cancelled most weeks due to lack of train crew

PartyOperator · 15 Dec 2019

Why do they even bother timetabling Paddington-Cheltenham trains on Sundays? The people of Gloucester, Stroud, Stonehouse and Kemble/Cirencester would be much better served by a reliable Gloucester-Swindon shuttle than the current mess, while Cheltenham-London is quicker via Bristol Parkway in any case. Running a nine car, high-speed diesel train on this route also seems pretty wasteful when a three-car turbo or similar is usually plenty.

Not helpful that some of the TFW and XC trains through Gloucester are also cancelled today due to crew shortages...

jimm · 15 Dec 2019

PartyOperator said:
Why do they even bother timetabling Paddington-Cheltenham trains on Sundays? The people of Gloucester, Stroud, Stonehouse and Kemble/Cirencester would be much better served by a reliable Gloucester-Swindon shuttle than the current mess, while Cheltenham-London is quicker via Bristol Parkway in any case. Running a nine car, high-speed diesel train on this route also seems pretty wasteful when a three-car turbo or similar is usually plenty.

Not helpful that some of the TFW and XC trains through Gloucester are also cancelled today due to crew shortages...

Which nine-car high-speed diesel units would these be? The overwhelming majority of the London-Cheltenham services in the new timetable are going to be operated by five-car IETs.

And plenty of the people in Cheltenham, Gloucester, Stroud, Stonehouse and Kemble/Cirencester would quite like to have a frequent through service to and from London - which is what they are supposed to get now - rather than being tipped out at Swindon half of the time.

The issues over staff availability today - and much of the rest of the time - appear to be concentrated on a limited number of traincrew depots.

In the Thames Valley they seem to have more volunteers than needed today, as there are hourly extras running each way between Paddington, Reading and Didcot, on top of the Cotswold Line services and the new extra London-Oxford fasts (which all call at Didcot on Sundays), and the remaining Paddington semi-fast services sharing the reliefs with TfL east of Reading.

Jimini · 15 Dec 2019

Just booked my travel for tomorrow (Paddington to Swindon return) and noticed that the first off-peak train is now at 0918 instead of the old 0900 and 0915 departures. There's a 0902 departure in the new timetable, but you can only buy peak tickets on that one for some reason :rolleyes:

PartyOperator · 15 Dec 2019

jimm said:
Which nine-car high-speed diesel units would these be? The overwhelming majority of the London-Cheltenham services in the new timetable are going to be operated by five-car IETs.

And plenty of the people in Cheltenham, Gloucester, Stroud, Stonehouse and Kemble/Cirencester would quite like to have a frequent through service to and from London - which is what they are supposed to get now - rather than being tipped out at Swindon half of the time.

The issues over staff availability today - and much of the rest of the time - appear to be concentrated on a limited number of traincrew depots.

In the Thames Valley they seem to have more volunteers than needed today, as there are hourly extras running each way between Paddington, Reading and Didcot, on top of the Cotswold Line services and the new extra London-Oxford fasts (which all call at Didcot on Sundays), and the remaining Paddington semi-fast services sharing the reliefs with TfL east of Reading.

There have been plenty of 9-car trains on this line recently. If they're switching to 5-cars on the new timetable, that sounds sensible. Still more than necessary, but fine.

The people of Gloucestershire certainly would like a frequent through service to and from London, but they know the Sunday timetable is a work of fiction. A reliable, imperfect service would be much better than a fantastic timetable that's impossible to deliver.

kentrailman · 15 Dec 2019

Jimini said:
Just booked my travel for tomorrow (Paddington to Swindon return) and noticed that the first off-peak train is now at 0918 instead of the old 0900 and 0915 departures. There's a 0902 departure in the new timetable, but you can only buy peak tickets on that one for some reason

I had been wondering a little about this issue. I have a few off peak return halves of tickets that when purchased stated times I could use them from and to that under the timetable change have become 'peak' when they were previously off peak.
Grumpy me thinks that as I bought the ticket and at time of purchase it said ' not valid until xxxx' it should still not be valid until xxxx rather than not be valid until xx+20 minutes.

Scottychoo · 15 Dec 2019

jimm said:
In the Thames Valley they seem to have more volunteers than needed today, as there are hourly extras running each way between Paddington, Reading and Didcot, on top of the Cotswold Line services and the new extra London-Oxford fasts (which all call at Didcot on Sundays), and the remaining Paddington semi-fast services sharing the reliefs with TfL east of Reading.

Only because GWR are paying double bubble today, just wait until next Sunday!

Rich McLean · 15 Dec 2019

TOCs do not want to up the establishment level, and would rather bring in a close to 5 day working week, where as the unions want to keep a 4 day working week (or 5 day weeks plus a week of rest days to average a 4 day working week) with Sundays inside which means a larger establishment. So we are stuck with Sundays outside until either party budges.

Goldfish62 · 15 Dec 2019

Jimini said:
Just booked my travel for tomorrow (Paddington to Swindon return) and noticed that the first off-peak train is now at 0918 instead of the old 0900 and 0915 departures. There's a 0902 departure in the new timetable, but you can only buy peak tickets on that one for some reason

And I have a hunch that the 0902 will be half empty and the 0918 rammed.

jimm · 15 Dec 2019

PartyOperator said:
There have been plenty of 9-car trains on this line recently. If they're switching to 5-cars on the new timetable, that sounds sensible. Still more than necessary, but fine.

The people of Gloucestershire certainly would like a frequent through service to and from London, but they know the Sunday timetable is a work of fiction. A reliable, imperfect service would be much better than a fantastic timetable that's impossible to deliver.

New timetable and enhanced frequency equals new rolling stock diagrams. What has been running between London and Cheltenham until now was just IETs in use instead of HSTs every couple of hours.

Sundays are indeed a mess at the moment but that's down to whether staff needed to operate that route are going to turn out. You could lay on a shuttle dmu but if there's nothing to connect with at Swindon, or a long wait due to Bristol and South Wales route cancellations, then it isn't going to help much.

Martin1504 said:
Only because GWR are paying double bubble today, just wait until next Sunday!

If it's not Christmas party night again next Saturday - which we have been informed is a key factor this weekend - then maybe more people will turn out. Otherwise I assume more inducements will be offered.

A post on the GW Passengers' Forum suggests an issue on South Wales services has been not enough people volunteering who had route knowledge of the Vale of Glamorgan line for diversions in South Wales today.

PHILIPE · 15 Dec 2019

jimm said:
New timetable and enhanced frequency equals new rolling stock diagrams. What has been running between London and Cheltenham until now was just IETs in use instead of HSTs every couple of hours.

Sundays are indeed a mess at the moment but that's down to whether staff needed to operate that route are going to turn out. You could lay on a shuttle dmu but if there's nothing to connect with at Swindon, or a long wait due to Bristol and South Wales route cancellations, then it isn't going to help much.

If it's not Christmas party night again next Saturday - which we have been informed is a key factor this weekend - then maybe more people will turn out. Otherwise I assume more inducements will be offered.

A post on the GW Passengers' Forum suggests an issue on South Wales services has been not enough people volunteering who had route knowledge of the Vale of Glamorgan line for diversions in South Wales today.

The route knowledge is not normally a problem for Swansea drivers

Mag_seven · 15 Dec 2019

jimm said:
A post on the GW Passengers' Forum suggests an issue on South Wales services has been not enough people volunteering who had route knowledge of the Vale of Glamorgan line for diversions in South Wales today.

I've seen that and I think its quite astounding that not all Swansea based drivers sign the VOG as it is a very common diversionary route.

Class 33 · 15 Dec 2019

New Bristol-London express services start tomorrow then. Those of you making journeys on any of these services tomorrow, I am absolutely green with envy! I've been waiting nearly 20 years for services like this to be introduced/re-introduced! But as mentioned, circumstances have meant that I won't be able to travel as intended on these services tomorrow! Will have to wait till Friday 3rd January till I can get one of these services!

I will look on Realtimetrains tomorrow with interest to see how my intended services performed. The 0853 Bristol Temple Meads-London Paddington and the 1800 London Paddington-Bristol Temple Meads - running NON-STOP to Chippenham!

PHILIPE · 15 Dec 2019

Mag_seven said:
I've seen that and I think its quite astounding that not all Swansea based drivers sign the VOG as it is a very common diversionary route.

I don't think that info is quite right as I posted in Post #955

Mag_seven · 15 Dec 2019

PHILIPE said:
The route knowledge is not normally a problem for Swansea drivers

That's not what GWR are claiming:

Most of the short notice cancellations today relate to work at our Swansea depot which has historically not been a place we have recorded many issues. This is due to the availability of Swansea drivers with the relevant route knowledge to run services on the Vale of Glamorgan diversionary route.

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=18719.msg278211#msg278211

cactustwirly · 15 Dec 2019

Mag_seven said:
That's not what GWR are claiming:

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=18719.msg278211#msg278211

It's just Swansea drivers that sign that route, however some of the Swansea services are also driven by Bristol and London based crew

GWR Dec 19 timetable

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