Great Western Coffee Shop

I am confused about how the fare strike ran! Please add your opinion!

Due to first pro actively enforcing the purchase of tickets.

I beleive the strike itself was a complete and utter failure.

It wasn't designed to get people to avoid paying, it was designed to gets lots of publicity about the situation.  I think it succeeded in that respect, notwithstanding that the shot of me holding a ticket (pure chance I found myself sitting next to a cameraman) didn't get onto Points West.

Perhaps not a great failure as the ITVlocal news tonight said FGW will be getting 52 extra carriages (although not for up to 7 years) mentioning the fare strike at the same time, so it did and does get publicity. Also mentioned in this link -

http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=181429&command=displayContent&sourceNode=229968&home=yes&more_nodeId1=133174&contentPK=19721262

Thats what i was meaning.

The strike itself failed.

The publicity did well.

etc

The whole thing was a riot. Only 100people actually took part in a "FARE STRIKE"

Things are a bit clearer. It seems that not many people get away with it, but the problem was highlighted.

Could someone tell me whether this has happened to any other TOC (train operating company) in the UK?

Thanks, and keep voting!  :P

complete nonsense!!

Publicity is what MTLS wanted and they got that by the bucketful. Whether people paid their fare or not didn't seem to concern them that much. You have to get the media's attention and by saying we're having a 'fare strike' does just that. If they said we're going to stand outside Bath Spa and BTM wearing cow masks do you think even half the media that turned up on monday would bother? No, just some snapper from the local rag to take a picture to put on page 15 of the local paper to fill a bit of space.

So in answer to the question yes it was a success in its aim of gaining publicity but thats probably as much as MTLS are going to get. The government will not be swayed by action like this, they are getting what they want from FGW and that's money and over the coming years lots of it, yours and mine so why would they spoil it by pulling the franchise away from First?

PS I voted for option 2, not 3!

There should have been a don't know/not affected/don't give a tinkers option, for those of us who wish to actively abstain.

And what else are the regular passengers (customers) supposed to do???

Of the 1000's of regular FGW users we are the very few who post here who now have a reasonable understanding of the issues. The general FGW punter who aren't quite as switched on have now become easily accepting of a regular mediocre service.

Writing to your local MP/DfT/ORR etc etc will only get you so far, they will always stick their heads in the sand and stock will move to big Labour constituencies.

The South West have been let down again and again, and it will probably be over 4 years from the demise of the Wessex franchise that FGW get anywhere near previous levels of service, and probably not even then????

Yes succesful as it highlights the continuing problems of the West transport problems, (I have no problems with playing devils advocate) but where are the similar events to make all the intrerested parties for a greater Bristol TPE get themselves sorted out, and pressure on the new Wiltshire Unitary authority.

I said all along that someone would end up with egg on their chin and it wasn't Firstgroup and I was right. I bet that MTLS lot will be a little quieter now.

Fancy requesting to the Dft to strip First of the franchise. The Government won't listen to it own policitians let alone some nobodies with nowt better to do with their time but moan, so that ideal was going nowhere.

I've added one.

I agree - lots of publicity was gained, but nobody has gone down to Princetown for fare-dodging (yet!).

Now, John, was that ticket you were waving a valid one, or one of the dodgy fare strike ones ...?   ;D

A dodgy one of course. But there was such a scrum when I got to the barrier that I couldn't be bothered to go through the bother of showing it. So I put my crisp new 16% off annual season ticket through the gate instead. Others at work put theirs in their season ticket wallets, and the staff knowingly let them through.
Result - I didn't break the law but I helped publicise the cause (well would have done had it been shown, but they had much more interesting footage). Result: everyone a winner (except for FGW.)     

Thats what all but two people did, they all travelled with valid tickets aswell. Sorry MTLS but what have you gained??? NOTHING!!! MTLS have not changed anything at all!

Publicity is all about getting the issue you are concerned about in the public eye, whether it be press or media. Does Greenpeace chase Japanese whale hunters because they seriously expect to stop them? No, but because they want to highlight the issue to the world. Do people in towns demanding bypasses block the traffic for a morning because they want to hold up the traffic. No, because they want to show everyone how fed up they are, and get those that make the decisions to sit up and understand that there is a seriously p***ed off group of people.

It's the same here. The only objective of the Fare Strike was to raise public (and political) awareness of how strongly your customers feel about the level of service they receive. My local weekly paper has a full page devoted to the subject this weekend, and the daily in Bristol gave it extensive coverage, as did Points West and ITV News. So it succeeded in its objective.

One thing that MTLS achieved was barrier staff being verbaly abused and assaulted for DOING THEIR JOB!! This years fare strike was forgotten about by lunch time and it made it onto the news but noone really cared, I counted quite a few people refrain from taking the tickets from the numpties outside the stations, and at the end of the day MTLS were supposedly "withholding paying their fare" , which only  a few people actually did, yes it made it to the news but it's old news, FGW are not in the top 10 of most crowded trains in the UK, Cross Countrys walk on fares are more expensive than FGW for the same distances. Mr Ambrose, a tip, take up politics or gardening.

How do you make that out?
Bristol to London: 118 miles, 1hr 44min = 68mph. Peak walk on ^137 = 58p per mile, off peak ^49 21p per mile.
Bristol to Birm: 92 miles, 1 hr 26 mins = 64mph. Peak walk on ^66 = 36p per mile, off peak ^39.70 21p per mile.

Both services half hourly. I make the FGW service 60% dearer in the peak for a broadly similar service in terms of speed and frequency.   

try off peak, Penzance Paddington saver (valid on all but one train) ^75, Penzance - Birmingham saver (roughly the same distance) ^109, there are many more! both fares are for returns.

The Penzance to Paddington saver at ^75 is pretty good value for a walk up ticket as opposed to a Bristol to London saver at ^49 which IMHO is poor value. I say this about all rail companies not just FGW, that yes you offer great deals on advance booked tickets for those who can book in advance but the price you get charged now for tickets bought on the day on IC services in particular is pretty poor since supersavers were abolished.

So much for regulation of rail fares under privatisation and thus ensuring good value walk up fares.

Keeping in line with the thread of this post...Fares were one of the reason why MTLS held the fare strike last week.

I suspect the passenger flows from Bristol to London and Birmingham are somewhat more than from Penzance to same destinations.

What's the difference in peak fares from Penzance? ^257 to Paddington or ^109 to Birmingham. Similar distance. I think you'll find that most people complaining are grumbling about the peak fares, which have become extortionate from Bristol to London. Off peak fares, (whilst not disagreeing with Timmer) don't seem to have attracted the same concern. People feel ripped off, especially when you consider that uniquely amongst the "Inter-City" franchises, the service is slower than 25 years ago.   

Bristol-London is ^42.

And that is i think the problem

Fares have gone up across he board BUT......

Almost every where else , journey times has gone down

In 2004 when I first did this insanity - a season cost about ^730 and took 2.01 hours

In 2008 it costs ^1130 and takes 2.17 hours

Maybe it was a while back but its now ^49 for a Saver return. If you are not in a hurry you can save a few pounds by going to Waterloo at ^46.50 but its a much longer journey. If you are only going for the day and can't book in advance you can also buy a cheap day return Bristol-Waterloo for just ^33.20 and on weekends upgrade to First for an extra ^5 each way. The first class section on SWTs 159s is quite good, better than it was on TPX and Scotrail 158s. 

One of the problems with the Bristol-Waterloo service is the lack of direct trains, particularly coming back in the evening with the direct train leaving at 19.20 and not getting into Bristol until 22.00. You can travel back on other SWT services with a change at Salisbury but that means changing onto a two carriage FGW 158 between Salisbury-Bristol which is almost guaranteed to be very busy. Credit to SWT for adding another direct service leaving Waterloo in the morning returning from Bristol at lunchtime. They just need to add a further direct service leaving say around 5pm and you have a pretty good spread of direct trains to choose from during the day out of Waterloo.

The peak fare doesn't really come into it, as anywhere west of Newton Abbot only has one "up" peak train, the 0505 Pnz-Pad the "Golden Hind", and only one "down" peak service the 1703 off Pad, we're lucky really as most peak restrictions don't apply if your going to/from Cornwall! However, our real "peak" is july and August but off peak fares are still valid then!

So maybe you'll understand the frustration for those of us for whom peak fares are indeed a reality. The focus of the MTLS protests is in the Bristol/Bath area, and it's those fares, services and overcrowding which is their concern, not the service and fare structure in the far west (and that's why I cited the Bristol to London fare structure and compared it with our regions's XC services and fares.) 

But it makes a change for the far south west to not have to suffer for the sake of Bristol and London, it's usually us that's forgotten about, remeber last year when Bristol area nicked all the units of our branches?? Thankfully common sense prevailed and it only lasted 3 days! Peak fares are a reality in terms of standard day returns which are on average double the cheap day fare! Good old supply and demand I suppose.

One of the reasons that it only lasted 3 days is because the issue was one of the very few that has ever united virtually every campaigning group in opposition to it.

Thats an indication of how difficult it is to get consensus, and the lack of coordination is something you will hear campaigners complain about regularly.

We are lucky at CANBER in that we have a collection of forward-thinking groups and individuals who want to work together. However, there are still issues that cause disagreement, sometimes markedly so.

Having read through the responses to this survey, perhaps I could offer my thoughts on some of the points raised?

- I voted 3: I think the 'strike' was a success, in the sense that it highlighted the problems;

- it was never a question of 'FGW losing their franchise', far less the complete re-nationalisation of the railways: that's a complete non-starter;

- MTLS themselves were careful to avoid being seen to be encouraging fare-dodging: they just wanted a good headline - 'Fare Strike!', not 'MTLS get lots of people to break the law';

- the 'strike' did get lots of publicity, particularly in the Bristol / Bath area, where there are lots of voters / MPs;

- the publicity generated by the 'strike' does put a lot of political pressure on Andrew Haines to explain himself / FGW to politicians, who will want to be seen to be 'doing something', and who will demand that FGW in turn actually do something to improve the situation, where it is within their control to do so;

- to vacman - I'm sorry to hear that you or any of your colleagues were verbally abused or assaulted during the 'strike'. When I arrived at Bristol Temple Meads on that Monday morning (some time after the scrum that John R mentioned above), I saw four uniformed BTP officers, standing in a semi-cordon beyond the barriers, ready to deal with any such incidents. It is regrettable if this support was not made available to other front line FGW staff elsewhere. I am on record in other posts on this forum as holding a strong view that abuse or assault on any front line FGW staff is well out of order.

So far it is pretty even even.

I am also very sorry that members of staff were assaulted.

That's not on.

Keep voting!