Great Western Coffee Shop

From the Save The Train Forum :

Let's hope 3 coaches are back on the agenda very soon. I wonder how many passengers are lost to the railway for good each time this happens, either because they are left behind, or decide they don't wish to endure a journey standing and squashed ever again.

That 09.08 from Pompey on a Sunday is always full, I recomend the 09.39 Frome-Bristol TM, normally atleast 2 car

As Mark says the problem is that there is a two hour gap between services on Sundays since SWT's Waterloo-Bristol service was moved to later in the afternoon.

As Bradford-on-Avon was mentioned as the station where passengers were turned away, I'll mention departures from this station as an example. Before December 07 TT change, between 11am-13.30 there were three departures at 11.10, 12.37 and 13.07. Now its just the 11.10 and 13.07. So have FGW added an extra carriage or two to either of these two departures to compensate? NO! Hence the huge overcrowding problem on these two services in particular.

Why can't they do this when on weekends there is often spare rolling stock hanging around Bristol or Westbury? Surely some sensible diagraming could relieve this problem of overcrowding OR FGW providing an extra service in between these two departures come the next timetable change?

Whereas groups like MTLS are good at highlighting problems commuters face Monday-Friday, there is often servere overcrowding on the Cardiff-Portsmouth line at weekends with passengers unable to board services as has been highlighted by what happened yesterday at Bradford-on-Avon. What's fustrating is that FGW do have more stock at weekends in which they could run longer trains but don't, anyone know why?

If only SWT could be convinced to run a Salisbury service at that time, in addition to the later afternoon one!

Again SWT would have spare rolling stock at weekends though its not really thier responsibility to provide services between Salisbury and Bristol...FGW should be doing that.

No problem today though, the 06.00 Ports-Cardiff was canned, thus the 06.51 ran as SIX CAR, and yes, a plug to prove! : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qzC1gWUpqM

Maybe someone should get some more 158's and use 6 car down the entire line ;)

Excellent! Now why can't we see that on every service  ;)

Wow, can 6 cars even fit onto platforms like Bradford-on-Avon? If so, this should be made standard!

No, the guard had to use the 'butterfly' (Emergancy Door Open Flap on the outside to you and me) on a selected amount of doors at the short platforms, to let everyone in.

Hmmm.  Isn't all this modern state of the art technology just amazing ... ?

 ;) ::)

Yes, for FGW it is!

On short platforms on Southern, there is a beacon on the end of each platform if it is a short platform (also if differing lengths of platform on either side, or it uses GPS) which tells the train how many doors exactly to open from front. So for instance, let's make up a station, that can take 6 coaches and front set of doors in the next coach.

Train pulls in, gets data from beacon, releases 13 sets of doors. Something all train operators should use IMHO. :)

You didn't mention the downsides. There is two:

1) It takes quite a long time for the doors to register which ones should open so you have to wait before you can get on/off and the station stops take longer.
2) IIRC the guard/driver must check that  they have stopped exactly right before they open the doors wasting even more time.

Tell me it doesn't run on Windows 3.1  :D

It would be a waste of money in FGW land anyway as not many trains run as 6 car and also the 158s are pretty ancient compared to the electrostars!

When they were first introduced it took quite some time, yes, but the technology behind it has been refined since and it is pretty much instantaneous. For differing stop markers, there are different beacons. Therefore if you stop short, not all doors will release and so on. Although on short platforms, the stopping marker is generally at the end of platform...

devon_metro, Windows 98. Upgraded last year to allow the system to announce "Coach 9 of 8". ;)