Apparently Plymouth men will be piloted next week by Exeter men. Quite ridiculous when I last drove the route in December anyway. Only signed it off at the companies insistence. As you say, extremely short sighted.
Exeter have little work west of Exeter anyway , so in practice this won't happen. It begs the question why Plymouth weren't given even one job on the Bristol Taunton route since December which is all we asked for. But computer said no.
You never worked PL400 - it was 99/100 suggest West. So it was a GWR Exeter driver vice pass almost every day of the week. The reason was simple, you don't have enough work that way to justify keeping it. Plenty of depots cover that section. There's life beyond Plymouth and the West Country. As you've been reminded in several threads.
How silly. With the longstanding pw issues across The Levels at Langport? Presumably they therefore don't do onward from Bristol to Reading either. And what about via Melksham, another useful diversion?
We still do bristol to reading and melksham , just not Taunton to bristol. Supposedly because there was no work for us. For the sake of one job on a 2+4 the company gains alot in my view . Last night for example , a simple diversion none stop via bristol may have caused little delay, however now it is not so simple. I have no doubt that we will gain work on the route in May as at that point we will only need to re sign it . Any later than may and we will all need to 're learn it!How silly. With the longstanding pw issues across The Levels at Langport? Presumably they therefore don't do onward from Bristol to Reading either. And what about via Melksham, another useful diversion?
Good job this didn't apply in City of Truro's day
Yes. Makes so much sense to have a Gloucester driver sign that route when he will never use it as a diversion yet a Plymouth man can't sign it anymore when he will drive past cogload almost daily.
Because the age of HSS is over. You refused to accept and move with the times, and you're being left behind by the company and the union.
Wow can you not understand the simple concept that if a train needs to be diverted coming back from London to the South West a driver should be able to get on and divert. Why is it desirable to instead have to make an unscheduled stop at somewhere like Bristol and then find a pilot driver. And if it's late at night chances are there won't be A driver knocking round to pilot the Plymouth man. So the train capes. Everyone's a winner. Not.
Have you not considered it to be a sign that your London work is slowly going to diminish....hope you like the branches
Why would that happen. The Plymouth GWR men will be learning B and H in due course and I of course will eventually be one of them. So who do you think should drive the b and h? It isn't going to be left solely to Exeter I can assure you. And we are signing off more branches in the coming future, so get your facts right. If anything we will be going London more!
Ultimately, from May, Bristol GWR will sign Taunton-Paddington, Eexter GWR will have Reading-Penzance. Paddington GWR will reach Bristol at least. So it's not "small sections" of the route, it's quite a substantial chunk of it
Agreed. Save HSS vs West for the messroom environment I think lol
No, but it is entertaining.
