Great Western Coffee Shop

I know we once had the family coach,

who recalls the advert where their were goal nets and you could(alledgly) play football in the coach?

I digress, a small item on ITV west country news about families travelling by train.

Young Mum with two toddlers, Adam Webster was the journalist(think he based in the area north of Birmingham) 
and Sara Nelson(being interviewed at Birmingham new street station?) from Transport focus were featured.

In my input, I would like to see(on IET) all table seats in the fourth coach down from the first class

and all single seats in the quiet coach.

Table seats, significant numbers of these are not a feature of modern stock*. "Progress" is marked by fewer table seats, not more. Surveys no doubt show a customer preference for bus airline seating, which co-incidentally is cheaper to provide.

Removing tables from the quiet coach should be doable, "in response to customer demand" but not perhaps appreciated by business customers who want to use a laptop PC or read papers.

Buffets are often used by families, but the modern tendency is to reduce or withdraw such facilities, not to improve them.
And no, a trolley that is hiding in first class, in the other unit, static in a random location, or otherwise not available is not a proper substitute. GWR are strongly opposed to buffets, and SWR cant even manage a half hearted trolley any more.

Families would no doubt like more free and preferably reserved seating for young children, Not likely to be very popular with other fare payers who have to stand on new shorter trains.

*And before IET supporters raise the old chestnut that "IETs have more table seats than the HSTs that they replaced" That is only true of the downgraded high density commuter HSTs, not the proper inter city trains. I can remember when HSTs had 16 tables with a total of 64 table seats per coach. And when inter city loco hauled coaches had almost all table seats.

To be honest, I think you’re hoarding all the old chestnuts.  ;)

I have (possibly rose-tinted?) memories of needing nothing more than to be able to look out of the window to keep me occupied on childhood rail journeys, and felt my wife was too ready to offer "things to do" when travelling with a child of our own as that then often needed parental involvement rather than just looking out of the window myself!  The current seat layout on most long-distance trains with seat backs and/or partitions blocking the view from most seats and hardly any seats grouped around a table is definitely a big negative; in that respect local trains are often better.

I can remember being satisfied with looking out of the window, and maybe with a bar of chocolate, on long train trips, but you cant expect kids today to be so easily satisfied.

Electronic entertainments and a continuing supply of sweet fizzy pop and unhealthy snacks are expected these days.

.......hoping to catch a glimpse of Queen Victoria!

Young sir, you are again prone to a little exaggeration !

Though it must be said that after an accident, that when the paramedics asked me "who is queen" That I replied, Victoria, as always.
I do however remember working steam on BR, not preserved, both of the great floods in New Malden, the severe winter of 1963, and working horses in suburban London, and even DC mains electricity.

Childhood train rides with the family were definitely a formative influence on my liking of train travel now.  It was usually enough to look out of the window at the changing views to keep us happy, especially on our journeys across the Netherlands and Germany with it's less familar scenery and architecture.  For the longer journeys mum would pack a jotter and pens/pencils for us to doodle away with plus a "Beano Summer Special" or similar.  There were even some continental English language comics that we would buy in the station for the return leg to the UK.....that's when I found out that there was also an unfamiliar american version of "Dennis the Menace"!

As a child, I travelled a lot by train ... as an adult with children, I travelled with them.  Windows are marvellous things.  A changing picture and an ongoing educational opportunity. The one mode where that failed was flying, in larger aircraft especially.  For longer journeys, worthwhile the adult preparing ahead - knowing a little about the route, making it educational and / or a game, and having other activities within the car / bus / carriage / plane to break up longer journeys.  I will say we are all different and that applies to children - they are all different too and I was darned lucky with mine!

For a return to leisure traffic, we need to encourage families to travel. Family fares (what a pity that Groupsave is now adult only) and - here's a biggie for the buses especially - clean windows.   Pictures from last Saturday (below - at end of post) - showing where improveent is needed; part of a bus study.

We also need to help providing travel information - I remember travelling, sometimes in quite recent years, across Germany on longer distance trains and having leaflets at each seat / table showing where and when the train called, onward conections, and so forth. What a wonderful aid to parents and to the occsional traveller.  No harder that the carriage labels on an HST to manage, and perhaps an opportunity to add one or two - not much more - interesting facts and figures, "did you know" and quizlets on the back page.

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/iacb1.jpg)

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/iacb2.jpg)

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/iacb3.jpg)

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/iacb4.jpg)

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/iacb6.jpg)

P.S. Three buses I travelled on - 272 Melksham to Bath (picture from within), D1 Bath to Trowbridge (picture from within), 69 Trowbridge to Melksham (cleaner, also pictured within)

Dirty windows remind me of the buses in Poland, which often had advertisements on the outside of the windows. Mostly town buses so there's not much a view anyway but it makes them so dark and depressing inside.

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/iacb1.jpg)

Love it!
That's a very broad generalisation broadgage. Your chocolate was okay but sweet fizzy pop and snacks aren't? I was perfectly able to keep my young nephews entertained on train journeys without them  needing electronic devices.

With the current weather conditions, busses would need to be cleaned twice a day to ensure they didn't look too bad.
Clean it overnight & it's filthy by lunchtime but also has to continue in service until late at night.
Around 15 minutes manual washing per bus, or 6 minutes if in a bus wash - plus the cost of detergents and electricity.

The Option 24/7 team (http://option247.uk) was taking a look at what is in various BSIP bus charters from around the UK, and "Clean buses" came out pretty darned high.  We came to a suggestion of a daily clean, with a middle-of-the day pick up of loose litter internally as a standard to be aimed for, rather aware that although various places in the country are committing to this target, it'll not be an easy one to achieve.

I hear you on how quickly they get dirty in the current conditions, but I would be very surprised if the bus pictured here before 09:00 in the morning had left the depot clean that morning.

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/b49.jpg)

GWR are looking after families before they leave Paddington with a priority boarding trial on selected services during February half-term.

An excellent idea which will hopefully be extended to all school holidays.

Booking details and the list of services:
https://www.gwr.com/travelling-with-us/family-travel/priority-boarding

I thought your philosophy was "first come first served" given your comments on under 5s in seats?

I'm consistently inconsistent. :P

As I predicted a few posts back. Another case of priority boarding so as to reduce the chances of ordinary ticket holders getting seats.

Not if you make a reservation surely?

I remember a couple of years travelling to the West Country and there were a family sitting opposite.  One of the adults thought it would be a great idea for the children to imitate the noise of a cow every time they saw one out of the window.

There are a lot of cattle beside the Berks & Hants line.

Indeed it is an excellent idea - just the sort of customer focussed thing that TaplowGreen suggests (quite rightly) that the railway industry needs to become better at...though it got a lot of negativity from other forum members.

Clearly the first trial that started in August last year went well as it's the same format and the same list of trains.  Come to think of it, did that trial actually end?  http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=25324.0

Must have been Moooo-sic to your ears

The children should have been told that cows are usually almost silent and only make a noise if frightened, in need of food or water, or over excited.

Wish you’d been travelling with me.  I’d have stood you a port or two to tell them!