Great Western Coffee Shop

To those of you who might catch the 0856 Cross Country arrival into Bristol Temple Meads, from Nailsea, Yatton, Weston, Taunton etc. (0640 Plymouth - Aberdeen) From tomorrow, this will be an HST with 7 coaches and will now go all the way to Aberdeen.

I will be interested to see how punctual this will be!

Wow, get's better and better. I shall have to get that tomorrow. A 5th morning HST from Nailsea into Bristol. It's usually very punctual, and indeed stands for 2 mins at Nailsea most mornings.  Thanks for the info D-M.

Yes, thanks for that information, Liam!  :D

As John says, the 0846 XC from Nailsea is generally very reliable and punctual - which is more than can be said for the 0946 FGW service!  That's rather prone to delays or cancellations / starting from BTM, for example.  ::)

I may well see you on the platform at Nailsea tomorrow morning, John!

C. ;) :D ;D

Only reason I say it might be late is due to the timings which are very tight for an HST.

Plymouth - Exeter in 56 minutes, whilst FGW allow 60 in most cases.

Be interesting to see if they use SDO at a short platform then.

Well, the 0946 HST uses SDO at Nailsea, and it does add to dwell times - but only marginally, in my experience.

However, that particular service starts at Weston, so it's not had chance to build up a cumulative delay by the time it reaches Nailsea!  As you say, Liam, it will be interesting to see how an HST on the 0846 from Plymouth actually works!  ;)

It hasn't got SDO either, so all doors are open. The 1711 from Bristol will also be an HST giving Dawlish and Teignmouth a daily XC HST service.

Thought it started at Paignton?

Ermm, sorry, John, but I have it starting from Plymouth, according to my search result from the National Rail website?  :P

I meant the 0946, which I think if I understood you correctly you were suggesting starts from Weston, and hence doesn't have much time to built up SDO related delays.   

0738 Paignton - Paddington is the one you are looking for ;)

I often find it runs pretty much on time as far as Weston Super Mud!

In which case, John, you're quite right: my apologies for misunderstanding your point.  :-[

It certainly appeared to be on time this morning, rear 43 in new XC livery, paasengers were certainly happier than those from our neck of the woods, if we were running to time I would have missed it. I arrived at Trowbridge to catch the 07.58 Cardiff train, now the platform is normally quite quiet as the 07.44 Worcester train will have just left which can be quite busy, (not my favorite train as it sits for an eternity at BTM). This morning the station was packed due to the 07.44 being delayed, with problems also compounded by lack of train crew for the 07.58, Cardiff train, so not only didn't the Cardiff arrive before the the delayed 07.44, but when the 07.44 finally turned up and was only a single 153 there were obviously looks of horror on many faces.

Fortunately station staff were well informed and walked the platform to tell all waiting passengers that the Cardiff was right behind and there was no need to pack the Worcester train. Cardiff duly turned up as 150+158 (5 cars full and standing by BTM)

We were therefore late off BTM and were held outside the station to allow the HST to pass.

To inform those of you using the 0846 from Nailsea (0640 PLY-ABD)

Tomorrow this will be formed of the refurbished cross country HST

Thanks for that information, Liam!

John - are you still catching the 08:46?  Care to compare notes on this refurbished version tomorrow?  :D

Hopefully. I was a bit disappointed last week, as one of the sets was out of action, so we had a Voyager on M/W/F.  I felt quite cheated.

Travelled down to St Austell on Saturday on an unrefurbed Mk 3 buffet with the rather nice brown seats. What a treat! 6 hours of 1st Class travel for ^20. The Devon and Cornwall countryside, and a Travelling Chef on board too. Travel as it should be!   

joined a voyager at Taunton lunchtime today...full and standing couldnt wait to get off it at BTM

Hmmm.  The moral of the story: Don't join a Voyager!  ::) ;D

Sat with a colleague so not really able to form anything other than a very superficial view. But my initial reaction was much nicer than the FGW refurb - much less claustrophobic - seat backs aren't so high, and you can see down the carriage (so why does FGW think it's a H&S thing whereas XC can install lower seats?) Sat by the little window so must have been where the toilet has been removed. Fortunately they had remembered to take away the partition.  ;D

Seat seemed hard, but I guess that's true with all of them these days. Still I would much rather travel on a refurbed XC HST than a Voyager, and generally the ambience seemed much more inviting than FGW.

not much choice really....could have waited for the unit and took twice as long

Clearly the XC got a much better designer, that actually KNOWS the health and safety regulations, and LOOKS where the windows are when they are deciding where to put the table seats.

I think the FGW designer must have been the Voyager designer - put in seats without looking for windows, made train claustrophobic.

For FGW the designers were: Michael Rodber and Mike Muldoon

Well I certainly hope I do not ever meet 'Michael Rodber and Mike Muldoon' after the appalling uncomfortable claustrophobic mess they have made of our previous wonderful HST mk 3 carriages. I hope they never ever have anything to do with a train I travel on again.

FGW won a "special commendation" (ie, second prize) for their "refresh" at the national rail awards.   http://www.natrailawards.co.uk/cat_project.html

 I don't know why! The prize was in the "project of the year" category so it might have been for good project management rather than the poor design.

on the XC HST today...actually forgot how uncomfortable the old standard seats are with that useless fixed arm rest on the ex MML Set

The refurbed (I'm presuming) set seems to be around 40 down at present on it's way south "due to an earlier train fault".

Have you ever travelled on the Eurostar? Because Michael Rodber was involved with that..

I guess it's all down to the brief he's got from his customer as to what's required.