Great Western Coffee Shop

So Plymouth Argyle are playing the first leg of their Division 2 playoff semi final on Saturday evening at Home Park in front of an anticipated crowd of up to 15,000 and the last trains in either direction leave Plymouth............before the final whistle......marvellous!  :(

Indeed. You'd like to think the organisers of the match would take into consideration the transport options available to their fans. But they don't. They just consider the ^s broadcasters throw at them.

The train timetable is a known quantity much further in advance of any club's potential play-off fixtures. It's hardly the fault of the railways if the powers that be, The Football League, the club and SKY TV, decide to schedule a 1945 kick-off. Blame them. Not the railways.

The last train eastbound from Plymouth is 2115. I've caught it once before. Bit of a joke how early it is really!

It seems that the 24 x 7 railway of the future isn't quite the headline it was at one time - and I've mentioned (and been followed up) on how its done 365 days a year (yes, even Christmas day) on the PATH into New York.

There's a very interesting thought about extending operating hours in general as a first move toward it -I'll leave each area to the local experts to comment, but I do know that Swindon Town supporters would love a later train on Saturday nights on the TransWilts for getting home from away games, and (into Swindon) 18:48 is piteously early for the final Westbury to Swindon on Saturday.    From Bristol to Chippenham and Swindon, the 22:35 could do with being followed by a further service an hour later.  And there are also places where a service an hour earlier than the first morning train ...

Such service extensions need to be considered financially; passenger numbers may be high and may be patchy from one day to the next.  Do you work out the financed based on
a) Sharing fixed costs of the train across the whole extended service or
b) Consider the new service on purely the additional costs of the extra services
and
a) Do you consider the trains based on the passengers they will convey or
b) Consider them based on the extra journeys made - so taking in to account the extra daytime traffic in the other direction, and on connecting trains

..........and that folks, perfectly illustrates the railways attitude to its customers, and one of the reasons why it has such a poor brand image - most Businesses gave up that attitude around 1975 and started to shape and adapt their operations around the needs of their customers, rather than expecting their customers to organise their lives around the business for its own convenience...........its the worst manifestation of a monopoly supplier - take it or leave it.


A great opportunity for good PR, publicity and additional profit thrown away on the altar of "...that's not the way we do things around here"

Once again you pose some interesting questions Graham.

The "bean counter" approach tends to be b as cross subsidies are frowned upon by true market force economists.

As a Keynsian I would favour a but also take into account  c and d

C in particular is important there's no point in putting on an extra train if nobody uses it.

d is interesting argument which came up with the Beeching report where lines were measured indivdualy and no account taken of final destinations. so people travelling on a line from a to c changing at b (end of first line) were not taken into account as being a loss to c if the a to b line was shut and they couldn't then make the journey to c.

Not expressed the very well but you get the point.

Rail  should basically be an integrated connected network and costed accordingly. However, that is almost impossible to do as the number of journey combinations are huge. However, it should be possible to do some modelling on key nodal points by counting starting station for arrivals, destination station for departures. It would probably have to be done on some form of sampling basis.

Good points Taplowgreen but i'm afrain the TOCS are now meant to be "lean mean money machines".

Whist there may be spare stock (not under maintenance on a Saturday night) the chances of there being spare drivers and guards at that time of night is remote to say the least.

Gone are the days when control could whistle up a spare 80XXX 4MT tank, driver, fireman and goods guard to take some wagons from Redhill to Three Bridges, in the middle of the day down the Brighton line (no timings) and give me footplate ride at the same time are long gone.

This debate occurs every year around the play-offs, because by their nature they are completely un-plannable until about a week before.   

Should planned engineering work, booked 2 years in advance, be cancelled and re-planned?

Should NR Western route just leave a whole fortnight clear every year just in case - given the vast majority of teams likely to appear are not in the South West?

The authorities that are culpable here are the league and TV companies.

Paul
 

No - of course such things shouldn't be replanned - but where there are no such engineering works, running of extra services at times when the stock's not all in use shouldn't easily be ruled out ... and if there are engineering works it would be good to see that explanation in public - "sorry - preplanned engineering", which I'm not aware of in this case.

The final arrivals into Plymouth from Taunton and beyond are at 23:46 and 23:56 on Saturday night - so an eastbound train leaving at 22:00 for Exeter would be virtually there before the second of those trains set off, so the public will think "why NOT take people home?" I'm not privy to engineering closures - I take it that the eastbound line out of Plymouth is closed early for engineering this Saturday while the line coming in from the east remains open for nearly 2 hours more?

It is very much harder for a big set of organisations to (re)arrange things at short notice that smaller ones - however, come up with operational issues and we know they can do so, and at times it does feel that those same skills which we know they have could be put to use for issues away from the rails, and with marketing and business benefit.

There are no planned engineering works this weekend on that route, so that isn't an issue.

https://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/-/media/pdf/ticketsandtraintimes/traintimes/plannedchanges/2015%20-%202016/week%2007%20saturday%209%20may%202015%20to%20friday%2015%20may%202015.pdf?la=en

Can the operator and Network Rail really rustle up extra services with less than two weeks notice?

Or can the Football League, club and broadcaster chose an earlier kick off?

I think it I know which of those options is more practical.

Don't be totally sure.  The document quoted - as I understand it - refers only to engineering works that effect scheduled trains.  As no trains are scheduled on the eastbound track at the time we're talking about ...

Backup evidence - there's frequently engineering south of Castle Cary toward Weymouth on winter Sunday mornings, which doesn't appear in "train changes" publicity, and requests for the Sunday morning TransWilts train to run an hour earlier (supported by the TOC) aren't able to be met because of longer overnight engineering possessions on Saturday nights.

Edited to fix my bad quoting - G

Do you have evidence of this confirmation TG?

Thanks in advance.

"Evidence"? well nothing that would stand up in Court!  ::) However the information was provided in a Plymouth Argyle fan forum by one of the admins, who's also a trainspotter/rail enthusiast who had taken it upon himself to speak to FGW on behalf of a lot of fellow fans who are understandably cheesed off with the rail situation both regarding the semi final on Saturday and the final (should they get to Wembley), and this is further backed up by the information on FGW's own website so it's good enough for me, notwithstanding Grahame's speculation on "unlisted" engineering works.

Obviously I'm happy to be corrected if this is wrong, however the response from FGW merely states that "we are unable to source additional services" - if the issue was engineering works then I would have expected them to say so?

agreed.  I am hopeful that the far west will see some improvements when the new AT300 trains arrive (2019, I think subject to bean counter and DfT approval).  As I understand it there will be a small total increase in vehicles over the current HST, a 24% increase in the number of seats, a 5 minute journey time reduction to PLY and greater flexibility afforded by a mixture of 9 and 5 car sets.  Coupled with 158 released from the Bristol area, there is scope for a recast of the timetable to give better frequencies and hopefully a later last train.

The other bugbear with the far west service is the fact that the first train from Paddington arrives rather to late, is being mitigated from 2017 apparently https://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/about-us/media-centre/2015/march/new-trains-for-devon-and-cornwall-passengers (https://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/about-us/media-centre/2015/march/new-trains-for-devon-and-cornwall-passengers)   

.............from what I can gather the coach companies are mobilising and making up for FGW's shortcomings tomorrow night, at least for those heading West after the match in Plymouth.

When Exeter City went to Wembley in 2007 and 2008 and faced a similar situation, coaches were being brought in from as far afield as South Wales and the Midlands as each and every available coach in the Westcountry was heading up the M4/M5 or A303/M3 to Wembley. 

............that many coaches for 27 fans?  (oh alright come on you'd expect that from an Argyle fan!)  ;D

Seriously though - it is Wembley and you will always get the so-called fan that has 'supported <insert club of your choice> all my life', yet never been to a league match - home or away. ECFC took 35,000 (!!!!) to Wembley in 2007 and 29,000 in 2008 and yet the average Home attendance is under 4,000 :-)

Yep, there will be 15/16,000 at Home Park tomorrow against 7,000 normally, and if they do get to Wembley expect at least 35,000 lifelong committed Argyle fans to be clamouring for tickets!

Similar issue affecting the North Devon Grecians, such loyal users of the Saturday Tarka Line services that they had a personal thank you from the Barnstaple station manager. Yet on Tuesday night games they have to hire a minibus as there is no return service late enough.

Ditto Argyle supporters who are regular users of lines into Plymouth on Saturdays and yet are not catered for on Tuesday nights (and last night) either.

It's really quite woeful how poorly connected Plymouth and Exeter are by rail for anyone wanting to visit the theatre, have dinner, go to football etc  at a weekend

Long gone are the days where a spare rake of coaches would be available at virtually any time - look back at some of the 1960s reports and see the incredible number of coaches used only for one round trip per week.

But ...

There are "Q" freight paths.  Could there also be "Q" passenger paths - alternatives on the end of evening diagrams which can be switched on a week or two ahead of time when there are evening matches?   I'm NOT advocating peak relief train paths here when all stock is running anyway.   

TransWilts example (sorry, but I know the line!) late night round trip to help (example) Swindon fans get home when they've had an evening or away match.  Approx 21:00 off Westbury, and 22:36 off Swindon.  Also on summer Saturdays the "up" train would help day out traffic to from Weymouth / I need to check connections.

These are good and imaginative ideas - it would be refreshing if FGW etc could look at what they could do with a bit of agile thinking, rather than simply saying "no" by default and trotting out the usual line - if the railway is to have a future, it is surely to be as a system which responds to the need and demands of its customers, rather than always expecting them to fit around it.

(we'll say no more about last night's results!)

Sorry, must have missed something! Did something happen last evening?   :P ::) :o

QPR lost 6-0 :(

It may not be immediately apparent, but FGW take a look at ideas and developing things forward ... but I remember being told in my early days of involvement that I should expect things to take 10 times as long and be 10 times more expensive than I might expect.   I'm also very conscious that it's very easy for us passengers / amateurs to put forward suggestions without a full appreciation of why they simply can't work ... and that an awful lot of time and goodwill could slip away with lots of evaluation.

On the community rail side, with an ever so slightly professional element we've been able to make little things happen which together have made something bigger - in Devon, yes, on the Barnstaple line and on Paington ... on TransWilts, lots I'm aware of. More difficult on main lines / bigger services - and there's a very interesting question as to how community can be brought in for (for example) the community in Chippenham and Swindon and their journey to London.

With one corner of the carpet that passengers ride on pulled back, I have been able to see a little inside ... and I've spoke with others on lines outside the FGW area too and (hard though it is to see, small though the steps are) I can confirm that FGW in its current form is much more open to sharing and ideas that many / most / almost all others.  But that's small comfort looking at what looks like a quick and easy idea ... and (by the way) you may often find the folks within FGW, and within local government,  often just as frustrated as they work the practicalities and the systems.

Swindon Town fans now facing the same problem - they've made it to Wembley but............no trains from Swindon on that day due to engineering works! Hope FGW have got plenty of coaches organised!!!  :o