Great Western Coffee Shop

Without wishing to upset anyone, I'd just like to post the fact that during January I issued around 35% less taxi and bus replacement Dockets than for the month of December.
Should be taken into account that there are fewer passengers around in January than December (which is the busiest winter month).

Still far to many trains get cancelled, or short work, (turn back before end of booked working).

One suggestion I would make is that the Adelante units taken off hire should be made available by the Rosco's for short term spot hiring to cover for failed HST's or other units.

With a spare Adelante around, a bit of unit swapping and that cancelled train can be reinstated.

Yes, there are some signs of better performance. The Charlbury commuter blog may not be entirely scientific, but there is definitely a trend to better performance, though with the odd glitch, often imported delays caused between London and Oxford.

For example, yesterday both the morning and evening peaks were almost as per timetable, though one mid-afternoon working hit trouble, but on Thursday evening, a failed Heathrow Express managed to screw up the early evening service on the Cotswold Line both ways - and no doubt did the same for much of the rest of the FGW network.

Ian L has also flagged up on the Charlbury town forum that the latest four-weekly Passengers' Charter figures are now posted on the FGW website and the Thames Valley peak punctuality figure is up from a shocking 64 per cent for December to 78 per cent for January. See http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=265 (http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=265)

Some people will be upset this month, no season ticket discount trigger for some!

Getting better - are you sure?

During January, dozens ( or even hundreds) of trains where cancelled due to flooding at Chipping Sodbury, landslides at Chipping Sodbury and other problems at Wotton Bassett, Severn Tunnel and Box Tunnel.

Many passengers chose to drive or cancel journeys because of this! This no doubt helped to reduce the number of dockets issued.

Maybe so, but thats not FGW's fault...

Overall i have noticed a better pefromance on the services i use with them!

I know this is a bit off topic.

But is it me or are the Hearthrow express trains not as reliable as you would expect for just over 10 year old trains. A member of my family works for said company and oftern seems to encounter fiailed trains. They say that the trains we never desingned to do short 15 min hops and this is why they are breaking down, I dont often hear about the turbos FGW use breaking brown or am I mistaken?

I think on the whole it's getting better, but with 200% compo available if your over 60late, those late trains will become busier, as they can posiabally be paid to travel!

Ha! I would be surprised! No- those Thames Turbos are clapping/clapped out (see another post of mine somewhere for an eg!). They won't last much longer!

I think the gov/FGW will have to order some Desiros to replace the Thames Turbos within the next few years.

Preferably mainly electric ones!

FGW "London suburban" services are due to get new DMU vehicles as part of the DfT Rolling Stock Plan :

Sorry to dissapoint but this has nothing to do with FGW, Network Rail are in charge of Flooding and I have a feeling the Station Manager was on about the dockets issued on behalf of the train company.

That's a relief. As long as they're not Pacers!

Here is a related Oxford Mail article (link below.)
http://www.oxfordmail.net/news/headlines/display.var.2035831.0.trains_fail_on_punctuality.php

Sorry flooding did cause problems to services, but that was mainly NR problem.

My post does refer to FGW problems.

2 units due to transfer from ATW to FGW this weekend, rumoured to be 150s - more to follow.

Hopefully not pacers, hopefully 150's/ 158's.

The suspense is killing me!!!  ;D

Would be nice if they were 158's!

Vacman / Devon / Anyone in the know... will First refurbish new units to the same standard as the rest of their stock?

If they plan to keep them long term, but can't confirm anything. Going back to Grahames "bathtub" effect, lets hope that FGW are out of the bottom "dip" and finally on the way up!

A stark reminder of the Cardiff-Pompey problem today was the 14.30 CDF-PMH/14.22 PMH-CDF. Both turned away passengers at 1 point in the journey!

At which stations, Jim?

14.30 at Westbury
14.22 at Warminster (apparently)

So are you going to elaborate or do I need to take a trip to SPM tomorrow to find out?

No - the move didn't happen although rumoured to take place next weekend and be formed of 2x150/2s