Great Western Coffee Shop

I'm worried.

If the franchise is about to be broken up, what is to become of this, our venerable First Great Western/Great Western Railway Coffee Shop?

Will "Great Western" be superceded by the Liskeard & Caradon Coffee Shop, the Bristol & Exeter Coffee Shop and a host of others?
Will we have to have a cappuccino shop, an americano shop, an espresso shop and so on?
Will it be a Welsh Coffee Shop, the Wilts Coffee shop, the Peninsular Coffee shop?
or "The Coffee Shop formerly branded FGW"/"the former FGW Coffee Shop"?

For the forum owner it would be an Americano with no sugar.  ;D

Nah - in common with GWR's own naming decisions, the various forums in their short-forms will hence forth be 'Castles'  :D

Popular Front of Judea, anyone?

Many an interesting question is raised in jest.

In spite of so many factors that can work against it, the forum was busy once again last month with nearly 2,000 posts with 9,100 users in 26,700 sessions viewing 168,000 pages.  Over 95% of visitors were from the UK, and even within the remaining 4% or so the biggest group was "not set" which means that they're probably UK too!

Over the coming period where much will be discussed and perhaps change, I see little change in our direction, which has been a gentle widening away from the single FGW franchise to include connecting services and indeed other public transport links within our area.   Looking forward beyond 2019 (or is that beyond 2022 or 2023) our options are open but I suspect we may wish to see only gentle development of the successful formula rather than radical change.

Politicians may need to be seen to be bringing change - whether that's combining three franchises into one as happened for 2006, or splitting the result into two which may happen in the next few years.    The need to change in order to better match the demands of the future, and to grasp that nettle, is to be applauded; the need to change purely to be seen to be doing something or to follow some sort of unproven theory or dogma, or to get your name in the history books, is to be regretted.   I don't see the need for change for the good reasons here, and I have no desire to test theory or dogma or to get our names in the history books this way.

I couldn't agree more. This forum offers an excellent blend: informative and challenging ideas and observations, a variety of viewpoints, all invariably shared with respect and good humour.
  :)

That's why after 11 years I'm still here. It's a great forum because of the great people who use the railway and work on the railway who post here. Thanks to everyone who has put up with some my rants over the years. Maybe one day I will get over my dislike for Firstgroup. I know most of what they do isn't bad  ;)

Better than calling the short HST sets the gti or Castles why not call them the Westerns .

Whither the Coffee Shop? It's not withering.

Think you might be biased.   ;D