Farce Great Western

[theblackwatch]

You pay for a journey, not for a seat on it - at least if you have to stand, it mean your train has run, so you're better off than some of the other passengers who have had to endure cancellations!

 

[compsci]

The price of my season ticket would make you weep. If I don't get a seat it's because I wasn't organised enough to get there early enough.

 

[g4mby]

I spent a nice day in South Wales and got back to Temple Meads at about 1520 today to find the 1544 to Great Malvern had been cancelled. I was told that my only travel option was to catch the 1644 so I wandered around the station for about 30 minutes after which I saw the the 1644 had also been cancelled.

I again sought advice from the kiosk on platform 3 and was told that a bus would leave for Worcester calling at all stations in a few minutes. Great! But why no announcements that due to a cancelled train a bus would replace it?

I now know of the existence of the secret tunnel that leads to the Bristol and Exeter House from under platform 3 where the road replacent vehicles leave! At the other end of the tunnel no-one really knew when the bus would depart, where it would call but at least we had a driver and a coach. The driver seemed to know more about what was going on than the rail staff and certainly gave us far more information. He even said that the 1744 was cancelled although the Live Departure Boards now show it as operating. May be they found a crew and/or unit to operate the service since then?

Ok, so I was only a little late home but the point of my post is that yet again there are few announcements made by the staff at Temple Meads when some local services are cancelled. If I has been reading my newspaper or book I would not have seen that the 1644 was cancelled before 1600, I would have missed the coach and I would have caught the 1744 which now appears to be running to time.

I use the train to get to work and I shall continue to do so but I shall think twice about where I go at weekends. With only an hourly service back to my local station the possible cancellation of two or three consecutive services is not something you want to be thinking about all day.

 

[Dennis]

After reporting about the severe overcrowding issues on the Trowbridge-Cardiff trains last Saturday, I think it is fair to include a more positive report from this week.

Set out to travel on the 10.18 service from Trowbridge to Cardiff; instead of a heaving platform there were probably only about 50 'customers' this week; about as many as a normal Saturday and certainly less than I would have expected in the run up to Christmas. All managed to board the 2-car 158, full and standing but certainly not crushed.

To First's credit, 3 coaches were on standby at Trowbridge ready for the anticipated crowds. Were they not there because of a weeks worth of adverse publicity?

What was surprising was the difficulty I had buying a ticket today; I was after a Bristol PlusBus as bashing some of the more interesting buses / routes to Cribbs Causeway out-of-town shopping centre seemed a good idea.

Trowbridge ticket office was not able to sell one (can't find it on the list) and the guard on the train did not put in an appearance. It was also not available on the machines at BTM ticket barriers, where I was allowed through after stating that I would visit the ticket office to buy one.

Not having the patience to endure what looked like a 30mins+ wait at BTM queuing for a PlusBus ticket, I decided to get on a bus and by a First Day SouthWest bus ticket instead. The first bus I boarded, driver had the ticket stock but no card validator, so sent me to the following bus. On this one, no ticket stock and refusal to issue it on normal 'paper' ticket stock as a 'special fare', so free ride into Bristol. Eventually, at the fifth attempt of the day, I was able to buy a ticket to give me a days travel, albeit bus only, and an enjoyable day was had (but no Christmas shopping got done!).

So, after all the moaning last week, well done First; on time trains and buses, acceptable stock and some contingencies in place for unplanned problems. But...please let me buy the ticket I want; no point advertising tickets that no one is capable of issuing.

 

[voyagerdude220]

Just felt like going on to the FGW website to see if they had any service disruptions, and found this: (Copy & pasted)

19:03 London Paddington to Exeter St Davids due 22:20
17 December 2006
This train will be terminated at Bristol Temple Meads. It will no longer call at: Nailsea & Backwell, Yatton, Weston-Super-Mare, Taunton, Tiverton Parkway and Exeter St Davids. This is due to an earlier train fault.

Customers to travel forward on the 2104 departure from Bath Spa


But I thought the line between Bristol & Taunton was closed because of engineering works, hence Voyagers running via Bath & Westbury?

Is that why it's telling customers to board the 21:04 (11:30 Glasgow to Plymouth via ECML & Westbury Voyager, arr Taunton 22:27, Tiverton 22:39 & Exeter 22:55) at Bath Spa?

I also note that a journey time of 50 minutes between Bristol & Taunton is being shown on the NRES website for the caped HST, but doesn't show booked Nailsea or Weston stops.

 

[voyagerdude220]

First Great Western Website

Service incidents
14:52 London Paddington to Oxford due 15:47
This train will be cancelled. This is due to a member of train crew being unavailable.

17:21 Weymouth to Bristol Temple Meads due 19:39
This train has been cancelled. This is due to a shortage of traincrew..

14:00 Cardiff Central to Weymouth due 17:12
This train will be terminated at Bristol Temple Meads. It will no longer call at: Keynsham, Oldfield Park, Bath Spa, Freshford, Avoncliff, Bradford-On-Avon, Trowbridge, Westbury, Frome, Bruton, Castle Cary, Yeovil Pen Mill, Yetminster, Maiden Newton, Dorchester West and Weymouth. This is due to a shortage of traincrew..

16:35 Cheltenham Spa to London Paddington due 18:42
This train will be cancelled. This is due to an earlier train fault.

13:48 London Paddington to Cheltenham Spa due 16:03
This train has been cancelled. This is due to a train fault.

15:00 Plymouth to London Paddington due 18:20
This train will be started from Newton Abbot. It will no longer call at: Plymouth and Totnes. This is due to a delay on a previous journey.

11:05 London Paddington to Plymouth due 14:35
This train has been delayed and is now 60 minutes late. This train will be terminated at Newton Abbot. It will no longer call at: Totnes and Plymouth. This is due to an earlier problem with line-side equipment.

15:56 St Ives to St Erth due 16:07
This train will be cancelled. This is due to a member of train crew being unavailable.

15:11 St Erth to St Ives due 15:22
This train has been cancelled. This is due to a member of train crew being unavailable.

13:22 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff Central due 16:42
This train will be started from Fareham. It will no longer call at: Portsmouth Harbour, Portsmouth & Southsea, Fratton and Cosham. This is due to a delay on a previous journey.

21:50 St Ives to Penzance due 22:13
This train will be cancelled. This is due to a member of train crew being unavailable.

13:48 London Paddington to Cheltenham Spa due 16:03
This train has been reinstated.

13:25 Hereford to London Paddington due 16:32
This train will be started from Oxford. It will no longer call at: Hereford, Ledbury, Colwall, Great Malvern, Malvern Link, Worcester Foregate Street, Worcester Shrub Hill, Pershore, Evesham, Honeybourne, Moreton-In-Marsh, Kingham, Charlbury and Hanborough. This is due to broken rail near Acton.

12:22 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff Central due 15:42
This train has been revised. It will additionally call at: Dunbridge, Dean and Dilton Marsh.

 

[Guinness]

That's normal day.

 

[Nat the Ned]

Thats not half of it.......................

 

[asopu10]

It amazes me that in this age of health and safety that this could even be allowed, any other transport has a maximum number of passengers yet rail seems to have a policy of if the doors will shut its ok. On the plus side central also have these problems on some of there services and its saving me money on fares since no conductor ever gets to me, I pay for it when departing from my local station as its only a five min wait, but like hell I'm waiting twenty mins for a ticket that won't get checked. I know a lot of people do that too, so you'd think it would cost Central a lot of money but clearly not eneuth for them to operate trains with eneuth capacity.

 

[voyagerdude220]

It amazes me that in this age of health and safety that this could even be allowed, any other transport has a maximum number of passengers yet rail seems to have a policy of if the doors will shut its ok.

When I was on 221132 a few weeks ago (which was forming the 07:30 Penzance to Glasgow), we were quite full before Birmingham N St, but as we pulled into Brum, there were hundreds of people wanting to get on my train. (Apparantly 2 or 3 WCML bound services in different areas had been caped, so we had several train loads of pax)

At Wigan, we refused to take passengers onboard (for obvious overcrowding reasons), but a very rude female chav started shouting at the FC host for refusing to let her board the train.

Whilst all this was going on, only 2 people were standing in FC, and I was relaxing in my seat.

Didn't this brainless chav think that it's not very safe to be crammed inside a 125 mph tilting train?

 

[87015]

Don't Virgin think its not very clever to have four/five car DMUs with no seats going 400 miles??

 

[devon_metro]

Don't Virgin think its not very clever to have four/five car DMUs with no seats going 400 miles??

Bingo

 

[Guinness]

Don't Virgin think its not very clever to have four/five car DMUs with no seats going 400 miles??

In the original post it said 3 previous trains were capped. I think any TOC, 9 Car HSTs or 4 Car Voyagers will have problems with overcrowding...

 

[Tom]

It was mentioned in the latest Modern Railways that if a 18-car TGV was squeezed down Thameslink... all the capacity woes would disappear.

 

[Nick W]

It was mentioned in the latest Modern Railways that if a 18-car TGV was squeezed down Thameslink... all the capacity woes would disappear.

While that would probably be fine north of blackfriars, where it shares tracks with other trains services it would mess up capacity due to spending longer in blocks and on junctions.

 

[960012]

ill be writing them a letter now after yesterdays performance, me and some friends were going from North Camp to Guildford should have taken 15 mins it took an hour and 20 mins, the first train was cancelled but we werent told and the second one ran late coz of the first one!

 

[Nick W]

Sorry I was assuming they'd stop at every station, therefore at trains every 2 they'd have to run slowly, often on reduced aspects. Perhaps if you have 8 platform station on thameslink, hmm. What about all the stations in southern region they stop at?

 

[Nick W]

You can run every two mins or so with stations. The underground does it all day every day on some lines.

Trouble is you then go about the same speed of a bicycle which doesn't help when your 18 coach mark 3 train is blocking the entance to london bridge.

Nevertheless longer trains ought to be cheaper than double decker spave clearing and moving block but i'm a fan of long term solutions like extra lines more platforms and better junctions.

 

[Tom C]

The other problem comes when the line through London Bridge is blocked and you have to send trains through via Elephant, all platforms are 8 car as far as Crystal Palace (used by quite a few trains in the morning which avoid London Bridge usually stopping at Tulse Hill, Herne Hill and Elephant, two stop at Loughborough Junction, one AM and one PM to/from Brighton) or Selhurst (rarely used apart from the two booked trains out of Selhurst to Bedford via Streatham Common which stop at Thornton Heath, Norbury and Streatham, a few fast trains and ECS however during disruption trains are often sent this way simply because the Palace line is full to bursting). City Thameslink is a 12 coach platform strangly.

The other stations are East Croydon, Redhill (peaks only) Gatwick Airport, Three Bridges, Haywards Heath, Wivlesfield, Burgess Hill, Hassocks and Preston Park which are 12 car and Balcombe which is 8 car.

 

[16CSVT2700]

It was mentioned in the latest Modern Railways that if a 18-car TGV was squeezed down Thameslink... all the capacity woes would disappear.

Ha, a-ha ha, good luck