Great Western Coffee Shop

Picked up some of the new FGW winter timetables that are available at BTM this morning and noticed on the back of each book the following statement:

Why not put this timetable back in the rack? encouraging you to logon onto FGW's website and select the print your own timetable page where the link takes you to the National Rail print your own timetable page.

FGW aren't the only TOC 'doing their bit for the environment,' SWT for example now print their timetables on recycled paper but here are some questions to consider:

Are the TOCs trying to cut costs, save the planet or both?

Have the TOCs carried out any surveys to find out what the majority of the rail travelling public prefer when it comes to availability of timetables? I would suggest many have their own preference whether it be a paper copy, website, journey planner, station poster etc. Whats your preference? I'm a bit old fashioned and prefer a printed version but as I often travel at weekends still have to use the online journey planner to check train times.

Do you like the the National Rail print your own timetable facility?

Anyone know if FGW are planning to launch their own print your own timetable facility like SWT, XC and other TOCs have done rather than directing you to the National Rail version?

And finally, is this beginning of the end of printed timetable?

One comment from me about about the National Rail version of the print your own timetable is the limitation to only providing the option to print times over a four hour time period rather than a whole day. Suggest trying the XC print your own timetable http://www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/Find_a_train/Create_your_own_timetable.aspx which does allow you to select a whole day of train times.

Print your own just encourages people to waste more paper, I've started using it as I can't be bothered writing one out by hand. This weekend classic example, I'm off to Weymouth Sat afternoon returning Sunday, nice neet timetable to carry about, but I bet you I'll have printed off several in a 12 month.

Rather than charge for the timetable at the station why not get the PX to pay for all the printing at home. Probably demise of the pocket editions.

I will aways prefer the TOC printed version for journeys I make frequently (FGW booklet for Bath-London and their hugh Pompy-Cardiff/Worcester booklet and XC's Bristol-Manchester, Bristol -Leeds) and will seek them out at stations (i'd even be prepared, reluctantly, to pay a few pence for them if they wee no longer freely available), for other journeys the online srvices are great and probably mean that I accumulate a smaller pile of timetables at home than I did - there was a time I would pick up anything that was on offer just incase I needed it again. 

A well designed timetable booklet is much more useful than the details of one or two journeys and for any long distance journey I'll try and carry the timetable booklet with me.  Even if I am booked on a speciifc train I like to know what the options are if I miss it or it is cancelled. 

The most recent couple of times it has come in useful was travelling from Manchester Picc to Bath Spa last month.  I arrived at Manchester on a local train only to find that the train I had hoped to catch to Oxford for onwards connections via didcot was cancelled.  The next service that the customer service chap was able to print out for me was basically the same route (with a change at Reading this time).  It would have got me into Bath 1 hour late.  Not satisfied with this I raided the racks at Manchester and found an alternative route with sub-10 minute connections at Birmingham and BTM which I made (just) and I arrived at Bath only 6 minutes late, thus saving myself 54 minutes and saving XC paying out a compensation claim to me.  I did what a computer journey planner had said was impossible.

To give you another example, I had a trip from Nottingham to Bath booked with a change at Cheltenham Spa.  But before I reached BNS, the battery on my laptop died.  The Turbostar from Nottingham had no plug sockets so I looked at my timetbale booklet and decided to change at BNS to a train with a charging point (and was rewarded by it being one of XC's refurbished HSTs which as an aside I think have been much better done than FGW's) 

Good point you make there Tim about charging for a timetable which leads to another question to ask the forum. Would you be prepared to pay a few pence for a timetable?

SWT produce and excellent complete timetable book of all of their services as well as FGW services which reach the South Coast such as the Cardiff-Portsmouth and Bristol-Weymouth line which I would be quite happy to pay ^1 for but which they still provide free of charge. So if train companies produce a good enough timetable then maybe customers wouldn't mind paying a few pence to cover the printing costs.

I just hope we never see the day where they completely stop publishing timetable and tell us all to use the journey planner.

I don't want to waste time and ink on printing "a" route.

I recycle all old timetables, so the paper is not wasted.

It is useful to carry a timetable - what if you wish to go a different way down the line? If you have only printed out B to C, you have to log on again to print off B to A.

As mentioned above, they lie/ miss out info sometimes. They might miss out set down only stops etc. which could be a nuisance.

And pricing timetables is not a good idea - imagine putting a price on viewing the Argos Catalogue (Argos' profits go down as people shop elsewhere).

I tried XC's timetable printer and it was awful - not separated onto separate sheets and page breaks in the middle of a journey! The notes were also unclear. Never again.

And I like the extra "train info" that is printed at the back of paper timetables. And the Chairman's message.

Yes that is a real problem with the XC timetable printout which makes you wonder why don't they fix it?!

Like your comment about the Argos catalogue Btline. Just think how many millions of those are printed and given out twice a year which makes saving a pocket timetable to 'help the environment' a little trivial and a bit of a PR stunt on the part of the TOCs though being green is not a bad thing I hasten to add.

I think that FGW along with most ToC's have known for a long time that probably 95% (wild guess) of printed tables are discarded within 1hr. We are the 5% who actually keep and use timetable 'E' more than 3 times.

Wow that is a shocking waste so I can well understand FGW asking Why not put this timetable back in the rack?

I only use 1 timetable per route, as I keep it with me at all times during its validity!

If people only need to know the train time for 1 journey, that day, then I'm sure they can use the large timetables, on notice boards, at stations!!

I miss the Old BR Intercity timetable.  Evrything you need for loads of journeys in one place

At least we still have the "All Line Timetable" (as some of us oldies still insist on calling it).

FGW aren't helping this. In order to replace the very useful "B" I now need 4 timetable books!

I actually don't think FGW's booklets are that bad.  However, I am sure that they could be improved on.  The problem is that as soon as a TOC gets the chance to improve perhaps by listening to feedback, the operator changes, or the franchise boundaries get redrawn and the timetables layput or content changes.

This leads to confusion which isn't good from a customer service point of view or from a cost/wasteage piont of view.

Paignton didn't even have any of the new timetables on show last saturday!

A company called UK Rail Timetables Ltd is planning on bringing out an Intercity Timetable next May TT change along with one for the former Network Southeast area. For more info see the December edition of Modern Railways.

Now thats where BTM travel centre is really good as they always have a entire rack of new timetables out in advance of the timetable change for you to pick up rather than having to queue and ask. Whether this will remain once they close the travel centre and replace it with one single ticket office area I don't know as it's always been an excellent travel centre and one of the last remaining since Bath Spa travel centre closed.

worth knowing thanks