Great Western Coffee Shop

Just curios to know what was happening this morning. Neither the CIS boards or the train planner apps (which I believe get their info from te same place) Showed any services from reading to gatwick. My service (0634) turned up a few minutes late but there was confusion amongst staff as to what to tell passengers.

Some pax weren't happy as they were tod to wait at the end of p4 past te end of the waiting SWT service. Others were to,d to take an SWT service and change at Clapton

To be honest it didn't bother me as I waited at my normal place on p6 in the optimistic hope my train would arrive...which it did.

_{Edited to put a capital 'R' on Reading...the thread topic confused me initially ;)}

The morning North Downs trains simply don't appear to be in the timetable this week.

A look at the National Rail journey planner for Reading to Reigate tomorrow shows the 0634 then the 0804 with the intermediate journey shown via Clapham Junction

On Wednesday the 0634, 0704 and 0734 are currently missing.

The 0634 appears to have been loaded manually this morning as it showed no report on the online live departure boards until Guildford.  It was on the westbound CIS at Dorking Deepdene rather than the eastbound one.

Two late shunts recently and, given the 0740 from Reigate to London Bridge appears to be guaranteed an on time departure five minutes late becomes ten.  The lack of an overlap on the signals at Reigate prevents a train entering platform 1 from the west whilst another is signalled to leave east from platform 2.

Many thanks JH...my mission today is to find out what RJIS data load error on a ticket voiding machine ( at thatcham ) means. I suspect it probably means "rail journey information system" but the end result is I can't renew my weekly ticket because the ticket office doesn't open until later.

Morally as I don't have a ticket should I board the train and buy a ticket at reading or should I wait for the ticket office to open in 30 minutes?

Close, it's service not system! :)

If you would like an information overload... http://www.fujitsu.com/downloads/ZA/industries/travel/rjis.pdf

I'm sure I should admit this but I found this interesting :)

Ahh the red screen of doom, the machines get regular updates, if the update fails to install you get that message

If the ticket office is closed and the ticket machine is on the blink (assuming that's the only one at the station) then there's no way you can buy a ticket for your journey. You are therefore entirely within your rights to board the train and either pay for a weekly season on board or pay at Reading after explaining the situation. They should be able to verify remotely that the ticket machine wasn't working. You certainly don't have to wait 30 minutes for the ticket office to open :)

Well thanks for that IB - I am anal enough to keep my old tickets (which have the travel card number on them) so I can prove I have a history of unbroken tickets.

To be fair I normally renew my weekly the night before when passing back through reading but last night because I was late (no fault of FGW this time) it wasn't an option.