Great Western Coffee Shop

Blog post link on disruption over the last week.
http://www.iworkforfgw.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=105&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

Just to let people know I have a technical problem at the moment and am currently only able to update the blog itself and not other areas of the website. Sorry.

Yes but none of it can be attributed to FGW, at least we are still not constantly seeing "due to traincrew unavailiabilty" or "due to train fault".

I've tried toput this in perspective ...

Over the last 48 hours, 49 trains (that's 2% of services) have been short term cancelled, short run, or missed out stops. Reasons for all alterations notified (that includes shorter trains, extra stops and catering changes) are:

Reason given 'weather': 35
Reason given 'stock': 13
Reason given 'not_identified': 8
Reason given 'staff': 6
Reason given 'infrastructure': 4

I put "stock" and "staff" at FGW's door, "infrastructure" at Network Rail's and at times I think that some of the "weather" problems could be prevented if Network Rail had the infrastructure in a more suitable condition for our climate.

See http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/running.php for an ongoing log / update

My conclusion / comment.  Yes - FGW problems are much better thank goodness, but still there are issues. It remains a lot worse in some areas - the service I use has figures a lot worse than 98% ... and it's more often stock and staffing than weather.  But even here it was getting better until last weekend.  That's another story.

Not strictly true though!

If a HST set is in Bristol when it should be in say London due to previous problems concerning weather, bridge strikes, accidents and the like it can't always be a FGW problem. Remember that there isn't much spare stock (for whatever reason) around these days!

Same goes for staff. When I was stuck due to flooding at Lavington last year for 75 minutes there was no way I would get to Paddington for my back working. That day there was a queue of trains in front and behind mine some with drivers and guards who would have had trouble being into London in time for an break which is adequate. The resourceing staff work hard to cover these trains in times of disruption and staff show their goodwill in these times of chaos by cutting short breaks and by doing that little bit extra!

12hrs, I would guess that FGW would put a stock shortage for that reason due to "bad weather" or something of the like... or NR could say they don't need to pay the delay penalties... ;)