Great Western Coffee Shop

Every 3 months, the forum admin team meet with Caroline Cummins - our main GWR liaison contact; that meeting took place on line yesterday.  The nature of these meetings is that they're a quick checkpoint rather than lots of issues to be thrashed out, and with a feedback of news in both directions. That tends to be lightweight as Caroline reads the forum and we already know much of the news from GWR's 'side'.

In view of the fast-moving nature of changes at present, a further meeting has been set up at a much shorter time frame.  Being online gives us the benefit of being able to meet without the overhead of travel, and that's something we can and are taking advantage of.

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Direction / information on current emergency measures and how things might move forward

How are services going to change, moving forward?

* Currently Running a "Key Route Service"

Phased return
* Next stage - "Key Routes plus"
* Then to December 2019 service levels
* Then to May 2020 planned levels
but no knowledge of when these steps may happen; no plans for further cuts

Scope to restart "learning for the better" are very limited. Timetables still need to be planned and bid with Network Rail, and with so many unknowns and levels of planning involved, and people who are used to an office having to learn how to work at home, lots of extras are not really feasible.

As services ramp up and / or passengers return, large question marks remain over social distancing at stations an on trains.  Although passenger numbers will (surely) be lower, goodness knows what will happen to station dwell times depending on the rules of engagement.  How lockdown is lifted and whether PPE is needed and if so by whom is an open question and one the DfT don't have an answer for, let alone GWR.  It has been thought about but with such demand GWR are / could / will be looking for shortage products in this arena.

Emergency measures are currently in place until 20th September. The Government has the option to extend them and it's anticipated that a decision / announcement on that will come in June or July.   The First group DA3 (direct award 3) was made as the lockdown and emergency measures cam into place, and work is ongoing to evaluate from the enhancements and projects
- what can be done now
- what can be done in the future, though perhaps later than initially planned
- what elements might be cancelled

There is a backlog of refunds due, created by the volume being several orders of magnitude greater than normal, and slower to process because of fewer staff in the office; things like credit card refunds cannot be done from home.  However, GWR sent out a holding email to their backlog queue to assure people waiting that they will be getting to it - not as quickly as usual, but much quicker than some of the worst cases we have heard of.

From the Railway Gazette (https://www.railwaygazette.com/uk/franchise-support-to-be-extended-by-18-months/56901.article)