Great Western Coffee Shop

Does anyone know why the information boards at Maidenhead aren't working at the moment. I wondered if it was due to the current refurbishment going on, but I haven't seen any signs to indicate that this is the case..  And I did notice that Slough's weren't working this evening either..

It's all ok when the real people remember to make an announcement about a train, but not so good if they don't as people have to guess which train it is!

They weren't working at Twyford late last week or yesterday. This morning at about 07:00 they were working but were declaring that all trains were running 2 or 3 minutes late, however the two trains I saw were both on time!

All the displays were blank again at Twyford this morning, and from what I could see from the train they were also blank at other stations including Maidenhead, Taplow and Burnham. I think the system is about 10 years old now although in my opinion it still does its job generally very well. I wonder if the hardware which drives it has ever been replaced? Maybe it needs replacing now!

Given the age of the technology about 12 years my guess is a vital bit has fallen over in the heat and a replacement part is hard to find

And wouldn't it be so much easier if they actually told us that instead of leaving us to guess! ;)

"We can't provide this information due to it being commercially sensitive..." probably  ::)

but i guess we're allowed to all work it out for ourselves though? :D

All screens at Twyford were working fine this morning so hopefully it's the same everywhere else!

And yes, Maidenhead information boards were fine again this morning.. Just as they had put up posters explaining why they weren't working!!? We're not here to understand!

I do sympathise with your comments: we have similar problems, at (just for example!) Nailsea and Backwell!

Some mornings, the screens are blank, the public address system is silent, the ticket cabin is locked and shuttered (despite FGW still advertising it as a manned station) and there's no other means of finding out what the heck is going on than for a passenger to phone on their mobile to someone they know, asking them to look up the internet, only to discover that our train has been cancelled!

(Based on a true incident, FGW: not one of your finest moments!) Chris  ::)

Do you have a help point at Nailsea? If they answer they might be able to tell you what is happening but you get through to Networkrail not the TOC. If there is disruption they probably won't answer as they will be overwhelmed from other stations.

I agree. I find if there are problems with the trains, and no indicator boards working, my best way of finding out what is happening is asking one of my colleagues already at work to look at the national rail website arrivals boards.

Similar story at Oxford but with an added twist.

The old dot matrix departure boards and platform screens fail so often that the temporary notices sellotaped over the screen apologising that they are not working are often in place for days.....even when the screens start working.

As a stopgap they have introduced a new screen manually updated to indicate next departure to various destinations....but it is not always updated and when things go pearshaped at busy times it can be an hour out of date.

A second stopgap are a pair of screens showing departures and arrivals based on a windows PC system with data over the internet, this frequently crashes, shows a blank screen or has the useful information covered in windows error message boxes.

All in all the original screens can be the most reliable which is not saying a lot.

It is my guess that the CIS systems in the Thames Valley will not be replaced or upgraded until the new Thames Signalling / Control Centre is open and the signalling system replaced, which means in the Maidenhead to London stretch a long wait until its re signalled for Crossrail.

The screens at Worcester (and other LM stations where Central Trains installed them) often sprout rubbish.

The amount of times the staff at Worcester have to "cut off" Digital Doris as she is sending people over to platform 2 for no reason (even though those who know the track layout can see that there is no way the train can leave from that platform).

She also repeats some announcements. Normally the trains to Great Malvern. She never repeats London ones - you can tell by the distain in her voice when she says "Londan Paddingtun."

As for the screens they are out of control and insult people by saying "on time" even though it is 15 mins late!

Is there any way that availability/accuracy and timliness of information to passengers could be added as a metric for FGW (or Network Rail if they run it) to be measured ? 

There seem to be no appreciation that, as passengers, we'd rather know 30 minutes before a planned departure that the train has been cancelled as we may be able to make alternate arrangements.  I've seen it too many times at Paddington where the scheduled traiis shown as 'on time' until five minutes before departure. Then shows as delayed....even though it was pretty obvious (e.g. all the earlier trains had been delayed) that there were problems.

I was catching a train from Maidenhead to West Drayton last week when the screens were out and trains weren't running on time. There was an announcement, but it was totally drowned out by a train pulling away from the opposite platform. I decided to take a gamble and got on the train - it stopped at Taplow, Burnham and Slough, so I assumed it would stop at West Drayton as well. Unfortunately it didn't so I ended up in Hayes where the screens informed me that the 16:17 to Banbury was on time - great, but this was about 18:30. When a train eventually arrived (after 25 minutes or so) there was no announcement to say what train it was or where it was going - luckily it did stop at West Drayton, but I could have quite easily ended up in Slough again...