Great Western Coffee Shop

Not strictly First Great Western related - but South West Trains are set to run shorter trains on Saturdays as they claim half their carraiges are empty on a Saturday.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7830158.stm

I've never been on South West Trains myself but I've found most train operators have Saturday trains as busy as their busiest weekday trains throughout the day on Saturday.  So find this claim very strange.

On a similar topic First Transpennine Express were looking at not using any 3 car 185s for overnight services and only using 2 car 170s, in an attempt to save money and 'help the environment'  Not sure how much money that will save.

Not just on Saturdays either. See also link below.
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=3613.msg27930#msg27930

With the fares stagecoach charge in torbay I'm rather confused as to why they see the need to cut back!

I agree with you about the bus fares but when I have talked to other people about this I have been told that as the number 12 is a popular service then it's what I should expect to pay.

Madness really. Especially with the cost of diesel falling, shame Stagecoach cannot pass the savings onto us 12/12A passengers.

Has this got anything to do with swt's failed desire to shut ticket offices?

If I'm going up that way I get a Plusbus ticket for ^1.30 (railcarded) that gives unlimited travel anywhere bounded by Shaldon, Kingswear, Buckfastleigh & Newton abbot - flipin brilliant !

 

Like I mentioned the other day SWT have got to find the savings from somewhere.

And here's another one:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7831383.stm

Makes you wonder if they are under severe pressure to make their premium without Stagecoach taking a major hit on it's profits.

Remember many of the newer (2006-2007) franchises that are a couple of years old were negotiated when things were good but even at the time many commentators were questioning the fact that groups like First, NatEx, Arriva and Stagecoach were making billion pound bids to win or retain their franchise, that they may not be able to afford once the subsidy stops and the premium payments kick in.

How long will it be before one of them has to hand in the keys? I can't see the government being as generous with the TOCs like they have with the banks.

I'd like to pick up on the use of "have got to"

Personally, I think this is untrue, Stagecoach is a large company who I contribute extortionate sums of money to for a sub-standard service. They must be creaming money out of mugs like me who have no other choice than to use their awful bus service!

You are more than welcome to pick on me saying they have got to make savings D/M.

The reason I say that is because of the track record (no pun intended) of the companies that run rail franchises and buses in the UK is that they will do everything they can so as not to harm their profits that they can get away with without breaking their franchise commitment. lt was good to see the government taking a firm hand the other day in not allowing SWT to reduce ticket office opening hours in the way they had planned which hopefully shows the TOCs that the government won't roll over. How long that will continue is anyone's guess of course

Statement from SWT on job loses:

http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/SWTrains/News/_joblosses.htm

Er, maybe they could try reducing the dividend paid to shareholders, who have done very well out of Stagecoach over the past few years and surely should take a share of the pain - though in common with First, NX, Go-Ahead et all, what is actually happening at SWT at the moment is a slowing of the growth in business, not a decline which you might imagine from the pronouncements of SWT and Southern.

And as owner of half of Virgin Trains, Stagecoach will be doing very nicely out of the improving fortunes of that operation thanks to the completion of WCML modernisation and the new high-frequency timetable. Even before that started last month, Virgin was hoovering up lots of new business from Manchester, with a clear shift from planes to trains for business travel to London.

I have received this from David Habershon of the no450 campaign (see http://www.no450.co.uk/) :

I have to say I'm not totally against this as there are a lot of trains running around with ridiculous amounts of spare capacity. For instance on Sunday an 8 car 450 was being used on the Alton - Guildford shuttle which was completely over the top. A four car until would have been more than adequate.

So as long as it is done sensibly to match demand and flexibility is maintained I don't see a hugh problem. I don't want my fare going to fund empty trains running around. Having stock out of service for longer should mean more servicing time and fewer break downs!?!

I partly agree with those sentiments. There still is an awful lot of Mr. Darling's 'fresh air' being carted around the network outside of the peak hours. The challenge is to save money by removing carriages from certain trains without impacting on other trains later in the day when things get busier again. The gap between the morning and evening peak hours may seem large, but in reality a train may only do a couple of return trips in the interim period, so sometimes detaching a unit and sending it to the depot for those few hours only to have to bring it back out again for the evening peak causes more problems than its worth.

I don't think there's much scope for removing carriages from the FGW network anyway, as few units run coupled up outside the peaks and at weekends - but on the more intensive commuter flows south and south-east of London there are an awful lot of trains running well within capacity such as the Alton-Guildford shuttle mentioned by 'autotank' above.

Sadly (but inevitably) whatever SWT's intentions, moves like this will only ever garner negative publicity with the hacks.

Sorry, I disagree. The demand is there off peak. If seats are empty, off peak fares are too high.

Lower the fares, fill the seats and get cars off the road.

Critics say some off-peak services are just as crowded because of new staggered work times, according to the article below.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23621477-details/Rail+crowding+set+to+get+worse+as+SWT+shortens+its+trains/article.do

It's interesting that most of the public comments to this story are people who assume that peak trains are going to be affected - despite SWT stating that they won't. It's also interesting to note that the 'critics' mentioned are not revealed as to who they are, and the only attributed criticism comes from a Union spokesperson whose comments are totally predictable from a Union standpoint.

This is appalling.

You can guarantee that on occasions, coaches will be uncoupled during off-peak hours, but SWT will not re-couple them in time for the evening peak (either because of staffing, or a day of late and cancelled trains where they don't have time).

Offer more Advance fares, and more super off peak fares.

I would rather there be less advance fares and cheaper walk-on fares.  It's the move to advance fares that are forcing up the prices for people that don't book in advance.

Indeed, id rather not be tied up having to be somewhere if the weather is going to be grotty!

Why not a mixture of both....

But I see and agree with your points.