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Title: What happened to the early trains / lessons to learn Post by: bobm on May 18, 2014, 16:32:19 Not a good start to the summer timetable, with the 08:49, 09:52 and 10:47 (Melksham times) all cancelled. Don't know about the 12:07 yet. "This is due to a member of train crew being unavailable." Cancellation of 08:49 was quite close to the time it was due / initial help point advise was to wait for the 10:47 (would her been brilliant thing to do as that's cancelled too!) but people had appointments, connections, tickets for events. FGW / Twitter and Station Manager a great help in getting Taxis - took 8 people from Melksham up to Chippenham. Don't know about passengers from Westbury and Trowbridge. Kiss and ride passengers for 09:52 decided to drive to Westbury themselves; we were a bit overstocked with taxis (that's probably because people saw about the cancellation online, and estimates were based on a guess as to how we might do). I do note a scathing review on our Facebook page, but it's unclear as to whether that's from an intended traveller or an armchair critic. Certainly not someone I met at Melksham Station; and (for Melksham where I have been) at least, everyone who's come to the station has made their journey so far. Very VERY disappointing ... hopefully just "one of those things"; I can personally accept it if the train crew member involved had a significant crisis, on the basis of "these things happen" For the record, the member of train crew missing was the driver. Edit by Grahame I have split this topic as it's turning into a technical analysis which might rather concern potential service users ... Title: Re: What happened to the early trains / lessons to learn Post by: SDS on May 18, 2014, 19:51:36 Paste from Tyrell.
2M05 and 2M06 2M07 and 2M08 I do believe it was a diagram error. Aka someone forgot to assign a driver to that diagram. Title: Re: What happened to the early trains / lessons to learn Post by: John R on May 18, 2014, 20:00:15 That's pretty poor if it was a diagram error. And if so, once they realised, did they try to find someone willing to work a few hours of overtime, so that at least the later services ran?
Title: Re: What happened to the early trains / lessons to learn Post by: phile on May 18, 2014, 20:20:20 Diagramming or rostering error ?
Title: Re: What happened to the early trains / lessons to learn Post by: grahame on May 18, 2014, 20:34:19 I have split this topic off from http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=14018.0 as it's getting technical and perhaps would concern people who are not regular rail users - it was starting to highlight flaws that need to be resolved rather than publicised!
Title: Re: What happened to the early trains / lessons to learn Post by: grahame on May 18, 2014, 20:45:57 My understanding is that it was technically a rostering error and at one point it was expected that the next round trip would have been cancelled too.
Once the problem was realised, taxis were arranged for departing passengers; tricky one to know just *how* many as it was a new service. Two very full taxis for the first service, 4 hardly used for the second, 3 fully used for the third and 3 (or which two were filled) for the fourth. Not too bad going, considering it was being worked out on what can only have been educated guesswork! I was a little disappointed that the chap who turned up in a First van wasn't able to help ("I'm only here to ....") ... but that's perhaps an operational discussion to have locally. His was a very different role, but he should have known who to call, I think. Title: Re: What happened to the early trains / lessons to learn Post by: bobm on May 18, 2014, 22:47:33 I was a little disappointed that the chap who turned up in a First van wasn't able to help ("I'm only here to ....") ... but that's perhaps an operational discussion to have locally. His was a very different role, but he should have known who to call, I think. Out of interest was he there to update the timetable posters? This page is printed from the "Coffee Shop" forum at http://gwr.passenger.chat which is provided by a customer of Great Western Railway. Views expressed are those of the individual posters concerned. Visit www.gwr.com for the official Great Western Railway website. Please contact the administrators of this site if you feel that content provided contravenes our posting rules ( see http://railcustomer.info/1761 ). The forum is hosted by Well House Consultants - http://www.wellho.net |