Great Western Coffee Shop

Afternoon,

Given that First Class is, at GWR's recommendation, increasingly full of seat reservations I was wondering whether someone could provide more colour on how the reservations process works and also whether reservations are permitted in Standard with an annual seasonticket?

To cut a long story short it is coming up to renewal time and the ^800 premium for First Eastbound (that I've coughed for for 5yrs) doesn't seem such good value any more.

If I dropped back to a Standard ticket then can I make reservations to get a seat, and in your experience does this actually work? 

Thanks

You certainly could under FGW (13 weeks at a time, I believe, 1 train each way per day)

Whether you still can, you'd need to ask GWR customer services - or tweet @GWRHelp

I've emailed GWR to find out the technicalities.
Any personal experiences would be most useful.

For bulk reservations can email forward@firstgroup.com - just let them know the trains you get and the details of the season ticket (photo card and such)

Thanks Ollie - that method is still working, good to hear.

Thanks Ollie.
I guess I've got some decisions to take before 31st December. I bought the upgrade to guarantee a seat, but First Class now has worse provision than Standard and papers/refreshments don't even appear on some HST's. That ^800 upgrade just doesn't seem worth it anymore.

I received the 'official' reply from GWR which confirmed that I can make reservations for standard class travel as a season ticket holder.
So I think that has clinched it - after 5 years of first class (ha!) travel i'love be downgrading and saving ^800 per year.
Shame really but GWR doesn't actually run a First Class service in the Thames valley anymore.

I guess the real test of doing that is if you can actually get to your reserved seat (depending on overcrowding) and if you can if you are then able to "convince" the person sat there already that it's your seat and not theirs  ::) ::)

So it's finally happened - we've hit peak ticket. No seats nor reservations for the next month. So frustratingly obvious that this would happen but GWR would rather stick it's head in the sand and ignore the problems.

"Thank you for your recent email regarding seat reservations for your
journeys between Maidenhead to London Paddington.

Unfortunately there are no seats available in first class for the 07:08
service between 10-05-2016 to 26-05-2016."

Arrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhh.

Yet a random selection of dates during that period for an Anytime Single for the same train, but from Reading, gives you the option of a seat reservation.

So it appears there are spare seats, but GWR are barring reservations for them for Season Ticket holders from Maidenhead.

I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or more victimised.

Any ideas on how I can get a reservation, which is after all what gwr have forced us to do?

I would reply to that email with the details BNM has provided you with and ask them for a good reason why there aren't.  Advance tickets aren't available on that train (surely?), so there's no reason why the entire allocation shouldn't be reserved regardless of journey.

There, from my observations, usually seems to be under half of the first class accommodation reserved on that train, so clearly some way to go until there are no seats left.

Thanks - I have challenged gwr's statement and I'll see what I get in reply.

I've explored the day-ticket reservations options and it seems to me that the service in question has plenty of seats from reading to Paddington but no seats from Maidenhead to Paddington. The only conclusion that I can draw from this is that the system is only allowing a certain number of reservations from Maidenhead in order to allow more passengers 'upstream' to get a seat without reservations.

I am royally sick of the games GWR are playing with their season ticket customers. I'm playing their game but they won't throw straight dice.

Yep.

Moving the goalposts frequently, and now it seems they have taken the goalposts away completely.

I can understand why there's a quota. From GWR's point of view, uprooting passengers who boarded the train further back (such as - purely for example on that service - those from, ahem, Charlbury) would risk driving away lucrative longer-distance passengers in favour of short-distance ones. I also suspect the resulting arguments would not be something the on-train staff would want to mediate!

But that isn't, of course, to say that the quota is currently set at the right level, or that there are enough seats available in general. I suspect the latter is the real issue, and hopefully the eventual advent of the 387s, 365s, Crossrail etc. will go a long way to relieving overcrowding in the Thames Valley.

FWIW, my (entirely personal) opinion is that seat reservations shouldn't be available at all on with-flow peak services, and if they are, they should be reserved for those paying the full Anytime fare - i.e. not season ticket holders, who already enjoy a 30%+ discount on the standard fare. But I realise that might not be popular in this thread. ;)

If seat reservations should only be made available to full Anytime fare passengers on these services, what about people who've planned in advance and purchased Advance tickets and obtained a cheaper fare? Your suggestion rather falls down here, especially as when people complain that they can't get a seat on busy services the default response from GWR is "did you reserve a seat?", or are seats to be the privilege of those few who can afford the often astronomically priced Anytime fares on busy services?

Personally standing from Maidenhead to Paddington on an HST wouldn't bother me, it's only 20 minutes or so, but if tickets (of whatever type) are sold on the basis that reservations are available, then this shouldn't be changed in this way in such an apparently disingenuous manner.

Again - my entirely personal opinion is that Advances shouldn't be offered at all on peak-time with-flow services; and that on off-peak or contra-peak services, they should only be offered on other services where there's evidence that it's not possible to fill that service with walk-up tickets, and for some reason lower walk-up prices (a la Super Off Peaks) aren't possible.

But I recognise that may be a minority opinion, and it certainly isn't the way GWR have been going with recent pricing changes, sadly.

To be clear, I don't think that reservations on peak services are the best option either and I resisted making such reservations until the alternatives became untenable.

By way of explanation: Fgw/gwr downgraded adjacent services from Maidenhead from HSTs to turbos a few years ago. This had the effect of condensing all 1st Class travellers on to a single HST - the 7.08.

In a feat of populist stupidity Fgw then removed a whole 1st class carriage from this service resulting in constant overcrowding.

Fgw's response to constant customer misery was to say 'you need to make a reservation'. They ignored everyone who pointed out that reservations just allocate the seating and don't increase the seat count.

I have not seen a Train Manager on this service for a year. They squirrelled themselves away when the carriage got cut and everyday resulted in a bun fight.

Lastly, I'd love to get a later service but unfortunately Gwr have cut the parking capacity at Maidenhead by 50% in the past year so to park I have to arrive before 7am and I'm not standing on the platform for 25mins waiting for another train.

That being the case, if you're basing prices solely on demand, pretty much every service from the Westcountry towards London on a Sunday from late morning onwards will be walkup fares only - whilst this would make GWR very happy, you would be severely limiting the number of people who could afford it, and for an industry that receives vast public subsidies would be politically (and arguably morally) unacceptable (it would probably make National Express and other coach operators very happy too when loads of people shift to their much more reasonably priced services!!!) The standard of service and reliability would have to improve considerably to match expectations at these prices and people would not tolerate standing from (for example) Taunton to London as I have witnessed. It is also a non starter if like many on this forum you seriously see rail as a viable alternative to road/coach/air travel.........absolutely respect your opinion though and it is very thought provoking!  :)

The super off-peak fare is quite reasonable compared to driving. Its the limited (time) availability that needs amending

Certainly thought provoking!

Let's say an HST can take 500 passengers. And let's say 500 passengers are prepared to pay a walk-up fare of ^83.30 for that service (Super Off-Peak Return, Exeter-Paddington).

What's the moral justification for selling cheaper Advances on that service? First is subsidised to run GWR (^200m (http://www.westerndailypress.co.uk/Passengers-prop-lines-subsidy/story-22809084-detail/story.html) pa in a recentish story) so ultimately those cheap tickets are supported by taxpayers, not by First's shareholders. Many of those taxpayers will be less well off than the time-rich people who can afford to plan their travel in advance: think working taxpayers vs the comfortably retired.

This is why I'm so bamboozled by the recent fare changes on the Cotswold Line. It's now possible to buy a Charlbury-Paddington advance single on the 08.31, the busiest departure of the day, for ^10 (randomly chosen weekday, fare checked just now at gwr.com). Previously the cheapest single was ^30ish. I know plenty of people here who travel several times a week, and were prepared to pay the walk-up fare, but who now jump on the Advances as soon as they're released and snap them up. So the changes seem to have two effects: reducing the amount regular travellers are paying GWR, and (because of the attendant increased fares and tightened restrictions) dissuading unplanned turn-up-and-go travel. Life is going to get interesting once Chiltern start running through to Oxford...

I thought that the whole point of advances was to fill empty seat because not enough passengers were prepared to pay that fare. 

Remember its not just about filling a train between Maidenhead and Paddington.  Ideally it would be full for the whole of its journey.  Arguably a Worcester Paddington passenger is of more value to GWR than a Maidenhead to Paddington passenger on the same train.  So still sell Worcester Paddington advances even though the train is full between Maidenhead and Paddington.   

Absolutely - so did I. But GWR are selling Advances on the 08.31 from Charlbury, a train which used to fill up of its own accord, and people who previously bought full-price tickets are now buying these instead. And as TaplowGreen posted, Sunday trains from the West Country would still be full if walk-up fares were the only ones available. GWR's logic baffles me.

When services commence from Oxford (Central) to Marylebone, much of the potential traffic will be abstraction from the London journeys of people from Oxford and to the north and west thereof; it's likely that (for a while, anyway) overall capacity on Oxford - London may exceed demand.   So it makes logical sense for the incumbent that will be facing competition (GWR) to take steps to reduce the number of people transferring to the new service.   Lower price ticketing (through the advance mechanism, where people cannot switch route and get the lowest cost deal available) seems like a commercially sensible route to go in the short term.

Of course, the coming of additional trains from Oxford to London that take some of the all-the-way traffic off those trains may be good news for people at places like Reading, Twyford and Maidenhead as overcrowded services there become a little less overcrowded, and indeed the potential of more comfortable journeys into London from the Thames Valley may help in turn to grow traffic there.

Also when CH services start from Oxford ('Central'), GWR will have to share their walk-up/season  OXF-LON revenue with the new operator.  Already some of it goes to XC and SWT.  With advance tickets 100% of the fare goes to GWR.

I would guess that Chiltern will launch their own OXF-MYB fares too - and they'll keep 100% of that

Could GWR offer a Paddington only ticket at a very slight discount and thus keep all their revenue? Or is that not allowed?

Not allowed, as they're the fare setter on the Any Permitted routing

A bit of competition, even if indirect, can only be a good thing and should make GWR raise their game.

They're raising it for the May timetable change by utilising more HST's on some of the off-peak services that are currently Turbo operated.

I wonder from where these HSTs have been found, and which other services will suffer as a result?

I suspect the key words are off-peak.  If you take a look at real time trains for next week, you'll see a stream of HSTs empty from Paddington to Old Oak from 08:00.   Looking for the following week, there's still a stream of them - but with slightly varied times which makes it quite difficult to compare.  But the 08:12 (5L08) doesn't seem to have a direct replacement, so there's one of your trains.  It's the 04:58 ex Swansea, arriving at 08:02.   That particular train now goes out as the 08:30 to Bristol - previously that was a return working of the 06:05 from Frome, arriving at 08:09, which now does go -  but later - onto Old Oak.  It gets complicated, but somewhere in there is a train to run a couple of round trips to Oxford.

Yes, as Graham said it's utilising sets that currently sit idle in Old Oak for most of the time between the peaks.

.......so will the Turbos that are being freed up also be forming additional services? I find this quite puzzling as the standard mantra from GWR is that all stock is fully utilised.

All stock is fully utilised in the peak, I suspect you'll find.

Now a very old diagram ... but if you could find a way to even out the peaks ... you would have a lot more efficient system.

(http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/bystarttimex.jpg)

(The '*' indicators on the diagram are the time that the only TransWilts trains ran prior to December 2013, showing how that service was provided without the need to have any stock on hire for the line).

Surely what that diagram is showing (which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, and to some degree returning to the original point) is that most passenger journeys are 'commuter style' at peak times and not leisure trips up from Cornwall.

So, returning to the OP, gwr twitterers have been helpful in uncovering what is happening behind the scenes.
Apparently someone at gwr who is to remain nameless has decided to cap the number of reservations available specifically for Maidenhead customers. That means no reservations available until 8th June.

My head hurts so much from smacking my head against the wall.

I wonder what the number of Maidenhead reservations are/could be?

There are 60? seats in a 1.5 coach set, I think....it does make sense to restrict the bookings if that is likely to be most of them....the alternative might be to remove the 1st class eastbound (which may happen come electrification

I asked for the number and for a person with whom I could discuss the issue. Neither was available.

If gwr want to remove all reservations in the TV I would support that. What is absurd is discrimination against one station's passengers, who have been following the instructions of gwr.

What will happen now? When faced with a rationed commodity consumers cease to purchase it rationally (see queues during petrol shortages as example). They won't think about days or weeks that they won't need a reservation and instead will block book for the maximum period of time. This will compound the problem.

I've given up on gwr to provide sensible solutions or even to engage with its passengers without lying. My first stop is my MP.

There's many free Turbos available between the peaks on weekdays - there's very little in the way of maintenance that can take place during that short window, and the commuting bias near to London means far more sets are required during the peaks than, for example, in Devon/Cornwall.

The Turbos being upgraded to HST's are from Paddington at 09:50, 10:50, 11:50, 12:50 and 13:50.  The return workings are 12:01, 13:01, 14:01, 15:01 and 15:31.  None of those are desperately overcrowded at the moment, but a much higher quality journey will now be provided.  Good news.

Where do these trains start?  If they start in say Oxford is it reasonable that all the 1st class seats are booked from Maidenhead leaving them unavailable for passengers travelling for much longer. 

The train in question starts from Worcester and is the first train of the day. If passengers from Worcester, Kingham or anywhere else wish to make reservations then they can and there is no shortage of seating for them.
What i am highlighting is that anyone who wishes to make a reservation should be entitled to make one as opposed to gwr arbitrarily deciding that they've got enough passengers from Maidenhead and we're causing too much inconvenience.
What is at the heart of my annoyance is that I only started making reservations because gwr told me to. To me it has always been abundantly clear that telling everyone to make a reservation creates further problems rather than solving them. As I've stated earlier I would be happy if all reservations from the TV or even beyond were removed and it was first-come first-served.

Here's the situation today.  Total of 33 reserved first class seats from a total on the train of around 65 (of which around 10 are never reservable).  Of those 33, 30 were reserved from Maidenhead, with the other three all being Oxford or Reading - so no seats reserved from further down the Cotswold Line. 

Perhaps there's a cap of 50% of the total that's been put on?

It would be interesting to know how many o the seats were occupied before the train stopped at Maidenhead. 

NickB...they can't if Maidenhead pax have already nabbed 'em! Well, they can, as far as Maidenhead! Seems as though 50% is your max.

Which strikes me as reasonable, leaving the rest (bar 10 unreservable) - so less than Maidenhead pax can get - for those west thereof. Of course, if they're not reserved, then they're first come, first served like you recommend!

Let's be clear - passengers from Worcester or Kingham are welcome to make reservations if they find that us pesky commuters are reserving a lot of seats. They also have first dibs on those 10 unreserved seats. What I'm arguing for is a level playing field for myself and other Maidenhead passengers to be able to make those reservations too.

A year ago there were next to no ticket reservations on this service for passengers from any station. Then Gwr told us that we should make reservations to ensure we got a seat. This is what we have done, and this is the result. Either have a fair non-discrimitory reservation system or don't have them at all. I don't mind which.

I think it's entirely reasonable for GWR to leave a proportion of seats unreservable, so that a first class passenger from further up the line can walk on without a reservation and enjoy their journey without having to get up at Maidenhead. After all if you've a customer who's paid ^162 (or even ^258 - the OLJP seems to have two different prices for direct services from Worcester to PAD), then you are going to want to look after them, at the expense of someone who is paying c ^9 for their journey. 

Remember this was the DfT's making. GWR are trying to manage the system they've been lumbered with to the best of their ability, and I think limiting reservations is not at all unreasonable under the circumstances. 

Fair point but you are missing the key element which is that those seats can be reserved by passengers from any station apart from Maidenhead.

Please remember these are long distance services and Maidenhead passengers are short distance passengers. These trains only stop at Maidenhead to give people there more journey opportunities.

There is only so much capacity to share about and if commuter passengers east of Reading want the to take up too much of it then that is hardly fair on travellers from the west country and Wales. After all long distance passengers pay more in total and even far more per mile than the lower Thames Valley commuters do and fewer of them are season ticket holders so they pay even more. If lower Thames Valley commuters want to take more of the current seats then they are going to have to pay a great deal more to make up the loss of revenue from elsewhere.

Crossrail and new electric trains are coming and we will all get more capacity.  In the mean time there is not enough to go around and it causes problems for all of us. 

GWR have tried their best to find solutions and it looks like his one had unintended adverse consequences for other passengers for whom the train is primarily intended. 
 

I have to disagree with your opinion but will leave it there. My reason for raising it on this forum was to seek help with finding the cause of the discrepancy and I thank those who helped with that.
I will say however that when mention is made of the trains 'intended passengers', and that one passenger should have more rights than another, I find that rather disappointing. Yes, passengers travel different distances and pay different fares, but at no point in this thread has I or anyone else suggested that anyone from Worcester stand to London. It is also disappointing that the usage of gwr by commuters is demeaned by this statement. Yes, we overfill the nice trains and clog the aisles, but do you really think any train operator would survive without us?

Hmmm - not far off. If all seats were reservable by Maidenhead-ites, all those with 1stt class tickets would be standing from that point inwards at least....

The irony is that some blame in this situation must go to an MP from elsewhere on the Middle Thames*, Alok Sharma, for his long campaign to declassify first class to standard.

Given the limited seating now available, and that the train is in the PSR so has to run anyway, it's not too surprising that GWR prioritises its more lucrative long-distance passengers over the outer-suburbans.

As ellendune alludes, this will probably become moot anyway once IEPs and 387s/365s come in, at which point I'd expect Cotswold and other such services to stop calling at Maidenhead.

* traditionally Windsor to Abingdon

perhaps if GWR had thought this through properly & not raised the prospect of Maidenhead 1St class season ticket holders being able to reserve seats in the first place then people would not be so disappointed. Part of good customer service is managing expectations, rather than giving unsustainable short term solutions & then withdrawing them.

Wasn't this introduced *before* some egotistical MP 'persuaded' GWR to reduce 1st class by a whole coach?

Frankly, one of the downsides then should have been this policy which GWR could then avoid the blame

Nope. All of the current badness has happened subsequent to the removal of the second carriage. Before that time capacity was just about right.

I was referring to the introduction of the East only 1st season....you confirm it was about right before the reduction.

So the blame lays firmly on the egotistical MP Sharma, I think - and GWR have to deal with the fall-out. Ok badly, but the reduction was rather forced on them. I suspect you'll see the end of this product once the electric trains are in. In the meantime, grab those seats that are not reservable. If you find that they've all gone, then GWR have a point....

Perhaps, I overstated my point but if Worcester 1st Class Passengers found out that they would have to vacate their seats and stand from Maidenhead to Paddington I think it might impact on the number of Worcester passengers buying 1st class tickets. (Yes I know they could book but irregular travellers do not always book that much in advance). In that case GWR would have empty 1st class seats over most of the route.  If the same were to happen in Standard class then the viability of Worcester services at that time would be significantly compromised. 

Still it is hopefully only a relatively short term issue and what I was really calling for was some sharing of the pain. 

By way of a quick update, following a more formal enquiry (complaint) I received a reply stating that there had been an "error with our booking system" and I have received reservations for all services that I requested.
I am also pleased to report that no Worcester passengers have been made to stand in exchange for this concession.  ;)

Sounds like a more generous allowance from Maidenhead has now been allocated.  Good news - shame you had to push it with GWR though.

Well done NickB. I applaud your tenacity. Man (or woman) after my own heart.  ;D

Glad to hear that's now been sorted out

I should hope not!  :)