Great Western Coffee Shop

This topic has been split from "Catering Facilities" - Graham

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=1614.0


I think tramway makes an interesting point. Lets look at it this way :

We now have a forum that allows passengers, staff and anyone interested in the issues to put their views (good and bad) specifically about FGW.

Was there a forum run on similiar lines, highlighting similiar issues about Wessex?

Genuine question, as I am sure that some of our current contributors would have been members of such a forum.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but this is an important question ... leaving aside (as per your wish) the following section. 

Do people think it is possible for First to win the hearts and minds in this way? 

I know that I have flown a lot with two major airlines, both parts of large organisations and have suffered delays and cancellations with both.  But there's something about the attitude of the whole team - from the most junior of staff to the CEOs - of one of them; they come out "sorry - that should not have happened" and they bend over backwards to put it right.  The other cancelled a flight on me 10 days before Christmas and then told me they were fully booked, and that I could fly 14 days later.  Guess which one I prefer now.

Wessex Trains are / were part of a large group too - National Express. And yet they managed to improve the service to my home town quite dramatically, and as a result saw a huge increase in traffic.   Sure, the trains were a bit shabby, somewhat infrequent, sometimes late and occasionally cancelled.  And if First were also providing a service that was a bit shabby, somewhat infrequent, sometimes late and occasionally cancelled we would be moaning a bit but I suspect this board would not exist - it certainly wouldn't if they took the attutude of the first airline I described.

However.  "Somewhat infrequent" has changed into "Bl**dy infrequent" with more than half the trains withdrawn, and the remaining few trains running at time that are away from the peak when they're wanted. I've no measure of lateness, but I think it is a noticably worse.  And an order of magnitude more trains are cancelled - truely shocking when you consider that most of the trains have been withdrawn anyway. Oh - and the price of a day return to London, bought on the day during the week has risen from under 50 pounds (on the 09:12) to over 100 pounds (on the 07:17) or even more on the 06:43.

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that I think it IS possible for First to win the hearts and minds hearabouts.  If they re-provide something that's approaching an appropriate service, reduce cancellations down to about the number that used to be cancelled by Wessex, then any shabbyness and a few delays would be forgiven.

I am going to refer you to a predictive post I made on 27 December 2007 :

Apologies for this being short, I'll provide a bit more later, Wessex were never going to get this sort of response, if anything I believe they would have started the forum themselves if asked.

They were almost there with the fans area, just a bit more time and who knows what would have happened.

Grahame/Lee and everyone.

Grahame, thank you for your time time to add to my earler very quick post, that was definately the main thrust of my comment, unfortunately I've normally very little time to contribute here so have to try to do things in one go.

I could always ask for a poll on a dedicated MTLS haters area.  ;D ;D ;D ;D

You can only take democracy so far....and I think we have enough MTLS debate on open forum.....

I would suggest the answer to the question in the title would depend on your experience of First in your local area in regards to bus travel. Why bus travel you may well ask? Because before First got involved in rail travel they were a bus company and how good or bad they were at operating buses in your area may have formed your opinion of them as a company before they got involved with running trains.

National Express are a bus company too you may say but they are a coach company that has been around for many years, A well known brand name that people trust to deliver one thing coaches on a national basis. Up until recently National Express did not brand any of their trains. Each company had their own identity including Wessex Trains. If you were to ask Joe Public who owned Wessex Trains I suspect most wouldn't have been able to tell you.

Wessex Trains were good at making themselves a friendly local company running your local trains popular with passengers and dare I say the staff too? This is where First have got a lot of ground to make up on because they look like they simply don't care about their passengers. Do you think that if they were a struggling company doing the best they could with what they had that MTLS would exist? Its because they are a large and very profitable company that passengers aren't prepared to put up with the service they have been receiving.

Going back to the start of my post. From a personal point of view I have always struggled to like First as a company because of my experience with their running of buses in Bath where I live. Though it has improved somewhat over the past couple of years, my opinion of them as a company was formed when they were a shoddy outfit in terms of operating a decent service in the city and I find it hard to forget that when I see what has happened to part of the franchise that was operated by Wessex Trains since they took over it with the help of the DFT of course!

Timmer, I think I have the same problem as you.
First operate nearly all the busses in West Cornwall and they cost a small fortune, they're always late and often don't turn up.
Also about five years ago First cut the bus service past my house from two hourly to not at all. This left me with a two mile walk to another bus stop. This seriously damaged my reputation of them.
Then they start running are local services and they cut are local timetable so there is no destination beyond Plymouth or Exeter directly. Then they nick are branchilne units for Bristol. Then they take away the 158's which allowed people to travel in comfort.

I think the comments by both the Bristol Evening Post and their readers regarding the article in the link below are good examples of why First's bus reputation does the perception of FGW no favours among "Joe Public."
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=1634.msg10912#msg10912

I think First made a big mistake in 'losing' Wessex services into Corporate First. They may have had to legally change the name Wessex but they should have kept the local services looking separate.

Towards the end Wessex had improved immeasurably from the days of Prism rail and 'Wales and West'. People in the West like things regional and felt that Wessex was 'their' railway with a more local identity. Their services were usually on time in comparison with late running First Great Western and the staff were nearly always very helpful.

Now all services look the same in their Corporate livery and our still good local services get a bad press as they are thought of in the same light as First Group. The messy 150 livery with a load of names over the side does not look very local, it just looks corporate first.

It is amazing how many people still comment favourably when a smart light blue St.Ives bay or Looe line 153 appears, they like the local touch.

I have always been very pro rail but I try to avoid First Great Western as much as possible. I actively seek out a Voyager or a 150 compared with the appalling refurbished Mark 3 carriages.

I read the comments about National Express but I noticed in Truro the other day that First provide the coaches or drivers for National Express in Cornwall. It did not make clear exactly how this works. There are even National Express notices on First buses explaining the ease of access to Heathrow by coach.

Western Greyhound with their involvement with Stagecoach are becoming more and more noticeable in Cornwall. Having a large presence in North and Mid Cornwall they also took over many routes in West Cornwall last year from Sunset.
 

Pure arrogance if you ask me, we don't care what people think, we won the franchise and are going to make sure everyone knows about it, even if you don't like us very much.


Totally agree, why completely remove a respected 'Brand'. History is littered with similar examples, I've never bought a Snickers bar. By the way is there a bring back the 'Marathon' campaign.


Your Polish must be getting better

Part (and I think a major part) or National Express is actually a franchise operation. If you catch the "National Express" Coach from London's Heathrow to Chippenham, you 'll find that it's actually operated by First Somerset and Avon ... very incestuous business  :D

History of NEG from their web site.

http://www.nationalexpress.com/utilities/about.cfm

The trip from Frome to Heathrow is only once a day, first thing in the morning and back late at night so it's probably makes sense to contract out this service. I'll ask a few drivers I know how it works.

FGW have it tougher than Wessex did because as fares rise so do passenger expectations.  When I am paying ^130 to get from Bath to London I expect the best and get hacked off when First fail to deliver.  When I was paying Wessex ^13 to get to Cardiff and things went wrong I was less annoyed.  And when I paid BR even less for that journey and things went wrong I was annoyed with the Government who under funded BR not with BR itself.

A reasonably OK service is not good enough because my fare is not reasonable.  My fare is high so I expect the service standard to also be high.  This may well be unreasonable on my part but it is fairly basic human physcology

(FGW also shoot themselves in by sticking "transforming travel" on all of their antimacessars.)

The 402 is First Somerset and Avon.

I'm sure many could recount similar experiences and thats why I gave up using the buses in Bath many years ago as I got fed up of waiting by a driverless bus waiting for a driver to show up but more often than not never did on a service that used to run every 10 minutes that now runs every half an hour. Now I either walk or take the car.

Indeed, and its because of First recruiting in Poland that the bus services in Bath have improved somewhat on a few years ago but I still won't use them...besides walking is good exercise  :)

I was only thinking last night that First really do need to come up with a new slogan as transforming travel seems a bit unfortunate with the way they have transformed 'Wessex' services into something that not many people like.

National Express contract out nearly all of their coach services. Often a different operator for each part of the journey.

150s arent uncomfortable and there is no sustained non stop running in Cornwall, so 150s are well suited.

BUT (you don't hear me 'wishing my 158's away') they need luggage space - 150's don't have it!

Casting our minds back to Dec 2005 when the new franchise winner was announced, FGW were going to brand their three "sectors" differently, First Great Western Express, First Great Western Link and First Great Western Local but for some reason it never happened? Oh, the "transforming travel" slogan is not actually advertised on any FGW brandings (just as well really I suppose!).

Quote from Wikipedia (link below) :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Great_Western


Looking elsewhere within the article, its interesting that the Wikipedia description of "Trans Wilts Line" is incorrect.

Now each sector of FGW is under it's own management I think they should review the decision of having one identity for the whole network.

This is true vacman, but as you work for them you know that this is still in effect internally, where the three 'sectors' are known as HSS, West, and Link.

It's not really, for e.g. Penzance has one traincrew manager who is responsible for both "West" and "HSS" crews, also, rostering and resources are all together (hence the mess!!), and most of the management is now combined, with the company more split into regions that cover both "west" and "HSS" but not sure about LTV???

AND we have the longest running West service running into the county. Bristol-Penzance so how come that is more often than not a 150(both trains).

Yeah, BUT how many people actually use the service all the way? you don't ever see any long distance tickets on that service, it's basicly 3 local services put into one.

I know, but when it ran the opposite way, I've used it to Taunton, and was going to use it to Bristol but it got cut in the timetable change. No wonder no-one uses it long distance, its a unit (150 probably), and leaves at 5:50 or 6:30 at Bristol.

Well who really wants to travel from Bristol to Cornwall at that time of morning? especially when there is an HST from Bristol at about 0930, when the "up"train did run to Bristol then it was a 158 but theres no need now it only goes to Exeter, and only to Newton Abbot from May. TBH 150's are far better suited to Cornwall stoppers, there are only two units that actually connect with long distance services and those two aren't that busy anyway, 150's kepp time better due to them having sliding doors rather that plug doors that take ages to close and they're more reliable!

I used to quite like getting the 06.30 Gloucs - Penzance. Not only was it a niceish time from BTM (0729) it was nearly always a 158, and quite a hot working for a TPE one at that! FIne, it wasn't exactly a fast service, but I liked itas it wasn't that busy, till Exeter anyway. The other good thing was, it had an ATE in Cornwall on it!

That service now runs from Exmouth to Penzance, I think theres still an ATE on it now?? in Wessex days that service was a 150, used to return as the 1308 Penzance to Exeter St Davids via Paignton! And yes I do mean via Paignton! used to take about 4 hours with two reversals and stopped at Newton Abbot, Torre and Torquay twice!!

Haven't done it since FGW introduced those bloody rover restrictions on FOSW!!!!!!!!

It was booked 158, it did *digs something out*:

CARDIFF CANTON SIDINGS 03+48 5G03
GLOUCESTER 05+06 06.30 2C07
BRISTOL TEMPLE MEADS 07.24 07.26 2C07
EXETER ST DAVIDS 08.59 09.11 2C07
06.10 Birmingham-Exeter used to connect
PLYMOUTH 10.24 10.28 2C07
PENZANCE 12.27 13.19 1C73
The 07.30 Padd-PZ used to arrive just over an hour after, despite being nearly 2 hours behind at Bristol!
PLYMOUTH 15.16 15.31 1C73
NEWTON ABBOT 16.17 16.22 1C73
PAIGNTON 16.41 16.54 2F47
EXETER ST DAVIDS 17.44 17.50 2F47
EXMOUTH 18.20 18.24 2B27
EXETER ST DAVIDS 18.49 18.54 2B27
BARNSTAPLE 20.02 20.20 2B28
EXETER ST DAVIDS 21.26 21+30 5B28
EXETER ST DAVIDS FP 21+35

I agree 150's are suited to Cornish Services but I liked the services to Bristol at sensible times. Why has the service you talk about been cut back to Newton Abbot, I know that is where it connects to London, its usually a 150 now even though its booked 158, i've seen 150/1 a couple of times aswell.

For the benefit of those who may not have noticed, I am the irritating git who has been using 'transforming travel' ??? as my byline for some time now ... and I shall continue to do so, until things improve!  :) :D ;D

By the way, FGW do use it on their branding: see http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=93

It's a First Group branding, it's not FGW specific.

I know, Ollie, and it's not personal!   ;) 

It's just to clarify Chris, mainly because you stated it's on FGW Branding but you linked to a page on FGW which is About First Group.

Not a problem either way :D

No, but you are trying to transform travel for the better: http://www.iworkforfgw.com/blog/ for example!

I'd go along with that. Its an excellent blog that I check regularly and have recommended to others.

Thanks Lee and Chris, always good to know it's appreciated. I didn't realise it made a difference. I realise lately it hasn't been that active, but I am starting to make more time for it, so hopefully it will end up being a good resource.

:D

It's a good Job First Great Western don't use FIRST transforming travel on their brandings,

How long before some wag came up with FIRST TRANSFORMING TRAVEL INTO A NIGHTMARE

Remember when BA came out with "Breakfast In London, Lunch in New York" fine untill someone just happened to ADD to a poster "Luggage in Malta"

Like FGW posters, the visit Bristol 1 was good:
"Why go anywhere else to get mugged"

Also, I remember on the FGW improvments to units one, there was a lot of single figure numbers!

I still quite like http://www.scott2007.fotopic.net/p44573822.html .!!!!!