Great Western Coffee Shop

"Bristol's Temple Meads station has won a national award. It was named major station of the year at the National Rail Awards. The 130-year-old station beat off competition from Edinburgh Waverley and London's Liverpool Street to win the award.

Temple Meads narrowly missed out on the accolade two years ago when judges felt its travel centre with only three serving positions was inadequate. But this year on the day the judges visited the station there were five staff on duty at the centre, four new fast-ticket machines and no queue. The judges rated several things at the station as outstanding and particularly praised the catering. They also commented on the range of facilities for passengers which include a new indoor help desk on platform three.

The judges of the contest also praised the station's staff, describing them as "helpful and smart". And they said the station, which first opened in 1878, had "a general mood of calm amid the bustle".

For full details, see http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/Bristol-Temple-Meads-wins-national-title/article-342952-detail/article.html

Chris

I spotted that recently, but at the moment cannot remember where, but it was an interesting comment regarding the "...mood of calm...", whether that says something about the general attitude of West Country people or not I'm unsure.  :)

It's fair to say that the staff at Temple Meads are generally helpful, friendly and good humoured, and the standards of customer service and facilities available today are a vast improvement on years gone by. Of course it helps that westcountry folk are nicer to begin with!  ;D

My only reservation about the station is that I would never leave a bike there again, having had two nicked from platform 4 in front of the so-called police station.

But all in all I'm sure it deserves the award, I get the impression there are a lot of staff there who take a genuine pride in their work.

Good grief, it's overcrowded, there aren't enough ticket sales options (despite the report finding "no queues" - presumably they visited at midnight?), there's nothing decent to eat or drink, virtually nowhere to sit, it's sat next to a derelict sorting office, it has an unused conveyor bridge spoiling the general atmos... I could go on! Paddington is a much more pleasant place, and that's coming from someone who prefers root canal work to going to London.

sorry, but as far as stations go, BTM is far from my favourite station. No matter how much they do it up, I still think its dark and depressing.

Ahem!  ;) :D ;D

If you want to see 'dark and depressing', mate, go to Birmingham New Street!  ;D ;D ;D

However, on a more serious note  ::)

FGW are apparently going to spend a lot of money on the 'travel centre' at BTM - well, to be fair, it's not really even a 'travel centre' at the moment?  This will involve improvements to the service positions, fast-ticket machines and information screens.  I look forward to seeing those improvements!

And in the meantime - as I've mentioned here before - the barrier and ticket office staff at BTM have always impressed me with their friendly, helpful and cheerful attitude.

C.  ;)

It's an important station, so it gets crowded at busy times.... to be fair it could be improved if all the passengers didn't have to be squeezed through the eye of a needle at the ticket barriers. But if you can't handle a few hundred people milling around, try Pilning....  ;D

Compared to the gourmet options available at other stations....  ???

I have difficulties if I stand for any length of time, but I can usually find a bench somewhere on the platform. (Unlike at Paddington....)

To misquote Basil Fawlty, what did you expect to see from a Bristol station platform? Sydney Opera House perhaps? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically.....

Absolutely, there's no crowds, no queues, stunning views, and it has a Burger King.... should win the award every year.  ;D

The First Class Lounge at Paddington is pretty much incomparable - a bustling modern business lounge for those who want it, plus a leather-padded Edwardian relic of times past for those who enjoy relaxing in a subdued atmosphere of faded luxury.

The First Class lounge at Bristol Temple Meads is nothing like the above. It's narrow, dingy, not particularly comfortable, out of the way, and rather than comfortably Edwardian, it's a throw-back to the 1950s. However...

This in itself has a certain attraction for those, like me, of a nostalgic bent. On a dark, wet and dismal late afternoon one recent winter for example I found myself stuck at Temple Meads for an hour and, being fortunate enough to be in possession of a First Class ticket that day, made my way along to the First Class Lounge to investigate. And what a memorable experience it was! As the rain poured down the windows, me and the older chap on duty there sat by the fireside drinking steaming mugs of tea together, discussing books, trains and railways, and generally putting the world to rights. He even told me to feel free to drop by again any time I fancied even if I didn't have a first class ticket, which is probably totally against the rules, but a mark of how in touch the guy was with customer service.

So, top marks to Bristol for service, and top marks to Paddington for facilities. Personally, if it was a competition and I was the judge, I'd give Bristol the award every time.

I take it you have never been to FGW's 'jewel in the crown' then? Exeter Central, the most dank and depressing station on the network.. :'(

Give me dank and depressing any day rather than the wasteland that's Westbury. If they want wind turbines sited anywhere then the power potential there has to be immense, a couple on the station roof and you could power most of West Wilts.

Platform 9 towards the H&C isn't particularly pleasant though! Whilst arriving under the canopy was excellent, a real credit to the station, departing from the unbarriered ( ???) platform 9 might have well have taken place at Midnight!



Luckily an Ex Southern Region station!

i only have one memory of being on a train platform and not wanting to be there and that was a birmingham n s for 6 hours in the freezing cold at night.... to make things worse my now x decided to tell us ten mins before the train that there was a waiting room with a heater...

Bristol Temple Meads station has won the National Rail 2008 Major Station Award, according to the latest edition of Rail Magazine pp 40-44.  The award focuses on the station itself and not the trains which use it, although station manager Mike Holmes said, referring to the enlarged FGW franchise and their management of the station...

"Just having FGW as the sole operator has made it a lot better.  It was not always as easy as this and it was almost like coming up against a brick wall at times trying to deal with other operators."


Congrats to all concerned, personally, I find the staff at BTM to be wholly professional and dedicated.

We also learn that BTM sees more than 6 million passengers per year and that numbers are increasing.  Good news for the industry in the west of course.  

However, things are put into perspective slightly when one considers that the Mumbai suburban network, at just over 180 route miles carries 6 million passengers per day and that the principal station, CST Terminus, sees over 6 million passengers per week.

Thanks, G.Uard!

Further details have been posted on a previous topic, at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=3479.0  ;)

CST is only one of Mumbai's major stations, long distance expresses also terminate at Lokmanya Tilak, Mumbai Central, Bandra and Dadar, while Churchgate is the busiest commuter terminus... the constant stream of thousands pouring out of its narrow confines during rush hour is a sight to behold.

Some of the outer terminus stations were developed because CST and Mumbai Central were already operating at 100% capacity with no room to grow, and the same has happened in Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai. It's like an express train to London being timetabled to terminate at Ealing Broadway because all of Paddington's platforms are full.

All statistics from Indian Railways are mind-boggling.... second largest single employer in the world (after the Chinese army, before the NHS), over 8,000 stations, 14,000 passenger trains a day, 1.4 million tonnes of freight per day.... It's almost pointless to compare with railways in Britain, but not quite, because there are a few things we could learn from them.

Temple Meads is one of the few British stations I know that has something of the old romance of rail travel about it.... but there's still plenty of that romance on Indian railways.

Oh dear.  I hadn't seen that. Slap on wrist self administered. ;D

Can this be merged with the original topic mods?

It can, and it has.

I hope they're not trying to persuade India to privatise its railways... :o They've recently started making a profit, there are dozens of new lines and electrification projects..... the last thing they need is to become a gravy train, there are enough ways for rich Indians to get their hands in the till already.

I used CST as a comparator with BTM because it handles both long distance and suburban traffic.   From a purely suburban perspective, the Western Line of the Mumbai network, terminating at Churchgate, carries over 2.4 million passengers per day. 

Of course, I agree with bemmy that most comparisons between Indian and UK railways are pointless. (no pun intended). Safety considerations in the UK would never allow anything approaching the 30 second dwell time in stations for example, nor 6000 people crowding onto a 12 car rake designed for 1300.  (I can just imagine the reaction at Yate  ;D )

That said, I also agree that we can learn from India, especially from the attitude and 'can-do-ability' of staff at all levels.

I'm just imagining the reaction of 6000 Mumbai commuters as their train pulls into Yate!  ;D

That thought will keep me smiling this morning.

Mumbai commuters would have to leave the front car only, clear for the Yate commuters who steadfastly refuse to walk down the platform.

At some Indian stations, special  railway courts deal with fare evaders on a 'then and there' basis.  Over the last 2 days, there have been revenue blocks, complete with BTP presence, set up at Filton Abbey Wood, which has come as a distinct shock to some short distance commuters.    :o

But allowed to get into that state after the Western took it over from the Southern in the sixties!

Union Minister of Railways Lalu Prasad Yadav has said that Indian Railways is the lifeline of the nation and it is necessary to run fast moving trains in view of ever increasing passenger and freight traffic (link below.)
http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/index.php?sid=421040

Addressing a gathering at the inauguration of an International Seminar on "Emerging Technologies and Strategies for Energy Management in Railways", Yadav said that there is need to increase the pace of electrification to meet the increase in demand.

A new bidder for the franchise.  The Western Railway.......of India ;D