Great Western Coffee Shop

We all seem to hate XC, so let's concentrate all hatred in a thread!

What don't you like?

*The un refurbed Vomiters

*The refurbed Vomiters

*The pink doors

*No Buffet

*Customer service

*Seats too hard

please continue.....

Excessive slack in their timetabling ...  ::)

40 minute delays because the HST was too tired to turn up at Edinburgh on time... ::)

Their TMs and conductors are a great bunch tho.  Many is the sarnie and coffee I have enjoyed whilst pas ing.

I forgot their reservation system!

It is cra* and now the seats don't align with the screens!

Absolutely, I couldn't agree more, The TM's are normally very nice to me, occasionally you'll get a grump, but its the same with FGW :P I think we are all entitled to grumpy days :)

The buffet staff aren't to bad, but what I take exception to is a First Class Host offering me a drink, 30 minutes later and the drink hasn't arrived. Normally a verbal "poke" sorts the problem nicely... ;D

Good stuff:

Bringing back HSTs - very comfortable standard class seats with a good layout of tables / airline seats, very good refurbishment in my view (other than the removal of the buffet car).

Decent staff.

Bad stuff:

Stupid fare hikes - such as peak time fares in the evening between Cheltenham and Gloucester - why !!

Voyagers (admittadley a Virgin introduction, but utter crap, refurbished or unrefurbished). If they had ordered 180's instead, at least the train would be half comfortable and have more seating, even if they are underfloored engine DMU's.

Because they don't want local passengers cluttering up their tiny trains - shunt them off to FGW/LM.

But if they had ordered 180s, they would have stuck far more seats in, a la FGW HST refurb - and I'm sure FGW would have done something like this by now if they had chosen to keep the 180s. What would actually have been best would have been been a 180 body (good passenger environment) with the Voyager power train (highly reliable diesel-electric combo and well designed engine cooling).

Because before the December timetable change the xx16 Bournemouth XC service from Oxford always ran late and buggered up my xx21 FGW stopping service Didcot, thereby ensuring that I missed my effing Bristol connection, had to make an extra change and arrived 30 mins late!

Oh, and they seem to have achieved the impossible by making Voyagers even worse for long distance travel (which is bizarre seeing as their HST refurb looks spot on!).

'Nuff said.

.....this.....seat.....is.....available.....till.....Exet [ok try the next one]
.....this.....seat.....is.....available.....till.....Newt [ok try the next one]
.....this.....seat.....is.....available.....till.....Totn [and so on down the carriage]

Whereas on a HST it takes no time at all to locate the seats without paper tickets.

And of course on the frequent occasions when the system is down, it's a free for all. Must be great fun for 80 year old ladies catching the 1740 from Birmingham New St.

I thought I read somewhere that most of their passengers are on local journeys? after all they're a bit slow to compete with road and air for long distances.

DO the HSTs have the electronic seat reservation system then? If so, is it the same as on the voyagers?

How much out of line are the seat reservations on the voyagers out of interest?

No, the HSTs dont have an electronic reservation system, at least on FGW and AFAIK elswhere too.
Traditional paper tickets are used and this usually works quite well.

On the refurbed XC HST's they do have an electronic seat reservation system, but it hasn't setup yet.

I guess you could say that with the microwaves not being connected to the power source, the electronic seat reservation system not configured... It sounds to me like XC has only done have the job ???

The HST refurb is excellent although most other aspect of Cross Country are generally awful!

I hope they scrap the idea of electronic reservations. Virgin have!

Believe it or not, just because computers exist, it does not mean you have to use them for all tasks!

I disagree in all honesty, but thats probably because I am a computer technican ;D

The system would work if it was properly tested with regular customer feedback before a final solution was drawn up. Electronic systems means that we don't need to waste the card printing the labels, but the problem with labels is if someone is in a "I am going to sit down mood" they can just remove the label. An electronic system prevents this.

I know the system on the Voyagers doesn't always work and people never look at the display boards anyway. I think perhaps if a system for example was installed in the seat infront that said if it was reserved or not, would work better. Or perhaps, only allowing reservations in 2 coaches, with the third coach being totally unreservable. This way if the train is busy, the TM can make an announcement saying that unreserved seating is available in coach X

What does annoy me though about seat reservations in First Class is when there is loads of empty tables, yet the person who just got on insists on sitting in their reserved seat opposite you! Which results in serious loss of leg room >:( Now I know that it's their booked seat and they have a right to sit there, but why would you when there are loads of empty tables... ???

They do often have an "unreserved" coach.

The problem? It's always packed!

And I disagree. There are loads of problems:

*Computer breaks - no reservations

*Power, electrical failure - ditto

*It takes ages to see whether a seat is reserved or not. With cards, you can see immediately. This has lead to delays in boarding, as people are stopping in the aisles to look at the screens.

*People take no notice of them. The number of times I have had to kick someone out..... This has never happened on a card reservation.

*Ok, they can't be removed, but how often are cards removed? Not much I suspect.

Would you get out a calculator to do 2+2? So why use a computer to do reservations when cards are BETTER.

As the railways are run for profit and pressing a button is cheaper than employing a person to go through the train putting the cards in the seats.

If there was a coach X there'd be plenty of room for everyone!

Not necessarily...I'm not making this up, honest.

Circa 2001, back in the glory days of Virgin XC mk 2 stock hauled by class 47/8s (it was always nice to see a proper train rolling into Oxford station making the ground rumble, unlike the constant steam of plastic that operated all of the Thames valley services at the time) I travelled from Oxford up to Darlington on a set that appeared to have been cobbled together in a desperate attempt to operate a service rather than cancel it: 47 + 5 mk2s, labelled something along the lines of H, K, L, M, X.

Given that it was a 5 car train vice 7 car, there wasn't plenty of room!


I don't think this rule is enforced very often, but technically if you're travelling on an AP ticket then you are actually obliged to occupy your reserved seat and no other.

... and the very practical problems with having someone trudging the length of the train with such cards has been discussed at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=2897.msg25669#msg25669  ::)

I thought that now they charge ^5 for a reservation that it not made at the time of booking your ticket FGW might be a bit more careful about making sure reservations are provided, but this doesn't seem to be the case.

A passenger is of course entitled to a refund of the reservation fee if such reservation is not provided (and will probably also be due for compensation under the relevant operator's passengers' charter should they have to stand).

I don't discount any of the points you have made there because you are right. What I think I was trying to say was electronic seat reservation is easier for the company, is more environmentally friendly, can be reused. BUT they never quite thought of what the passengers wanted did they...

As I have said, It could work given a significant amount of beta testing. But it's not necessarly easier for the passengers, which, I must add, is the whole point of a passenger railway ;D

The railways of Great Britain are run as a business by private companies, profit will always come first in this system.

Eh?  Who told you that?  Priority order in our parts / on our line is:
a) Meeting the DfT specification
b) Having as positive a balance sheet as possible for the Shareholders
c) Passengers

To meet (a) you have to run two trains a day, one of which has to start beween 5:30 and 7 at night.

To meet (b) you want to run with as few sets as possible, so you start one train just before 7 at night (through to twenty past eight) as - that late at night - you have a spare after all the commuters on other parts of your system have been dropped off at their home stations. And you run the other train that the DfT has asked for soon after 6 a.m., because it's not yet needed elsewhere at that time either

Which leaves nothing for the third item on the list -  (c) - the passengers.  If the service was turely being run for passengers, you would have (a sensible minimum) 06:15, 09:00, 12:00, 15:00, 17:45 and 18:45 - with the 06:15 and 18:45 being much busier that they are atthe moment because you would be offering <b>return journey opportunities which the passengers need!</b>

Yes - I did see your smiley face suggesting that the service was run for the passengers. But we all know that's not true!

Sorry, thats a wording error on my part. What I was trying to say is that there would be no point in running a passenger railway if you didn't have passengers in the first place.

I think I should have added a  ;D ;D too. Sorry, your post was just such an excellent heading under which I could point out (and I see I'm not alone in pointing out) that passengers seem to come far too far down the pecking order. 

Does anyone prevent you sitting somewhere else, then?

Hmm. I was sat in Coach G on the 1423 Exeter - Leeds on Tuesday. The ride was almost as bad as a 142 on the Barnstaple line...

Have virgin stopped using electronic seat reservations then? Have they reverted back to cards as was suggested  in an earlier post?

Seems a strange moove, considering that they pushed ahead and installed it on all their services!

Anyone clarify the situation?

They have. But there are no holders for the card so they have to be folded between the seat back and the cushion!

ANy idea why they stopped using the seat reservation system? 

I thought one of the issues was that they literally didnt have time to put in the new reservation tickets now after vigin had recast the timetable,hence why they were using electronic system? 

What was the real reason for abandoning it?

Umm.. perhaps because it didn't work? ;)

It also caused delays at stations; dwell times were increased because of slow boarding due to people pausing at every seat to check the tiny screen with slow scrolling text. This "queuing" also meant that passengers standing near internal doors were squashed every 10 secs!

The point I was making was that I was already on the train before the person at the next stop got on an decided to sit opposite me :P Mind you, I feel sorry for anyone who has to sit opposite me, today was the third time I knocked my cup of tea over...  8) *makes not to self not to be so clumbsy*

Surely that argument doesn't stand anyway, as you either saw that the seat was reserved or that 'This seat is not reserved', and walked to find the unreserved ones?!

Its no different when theres tickets on the chairs.

Could they have reduced the text down at all maybe on the screens?

With card, passengers without reservations head straight to uncarded seats.

With screens, passengers pause at each row and wait for the scrolling text. Becuase the screens are too small for "NOT RESERVED", they say "This seat is not reserved" on a cycle.

That causes the delay.

I'm not sure how much space on the screen, but maybe it could say "SIT HERE" :)

Bring back HSTs - hopefully not with FGW seating and pink Mickey Mouse ears

BT Line is spot on. With cards it's easy. You walk down the train and find a seat without one. It's obvious to you which are the unreserved seats. With electronic reservations that are above head height you have to walk down the train with your head at an unusual angle, and it takes a fraction of a second to stop at each one and check. And of course, it takes a bit longer to double check the seat number with the display.

Multiply that by 20 or more passengers per coach boarding at a principle station and it's easy to see why dwell times are increased. Thank goodness the FGW refurbishment didn't include electronic seat reservations.  

But the issue that has got GNER threatening to end free reservations is that when people don't turn up, or sit somewhere other than their reserved seat, it remains empty for the rest of the journey, as people just see the reservation card and pass on, without bothering to check what stations are indicated.

Today on my way into Oxford, I sat in a seat from Moreton-in-Marsh to Oxford that was reserved from Pershore to London. Because the train was an Adelante and would be full after Oxford, I expect someone did look closely and it probably was taken from Oxford onwards but if it had been the booked HST, I'd bet it that seat would have stayed empty all the way to London.

Occasional rail users just see reserved and pass by - the electronic things aren't great but they do make you look, even if they are ignored by people much of the time on Voyagers, but that's down to the pitiful number of seats available, not the reservation system itself, though I agree a short snappy 'seat free' type message would be a good idea.

The question is... why didnt virgin realise this when they pushed ahead using electronic seat reservations? 

Seems a bit odd to me!  Like I say, Im sure the displays could be adapted! And if all reserved seating was in one coach, it wouldnt be a problem!

For the same reason Virgin went ahead and ordered the Voyagers without thinking that 4 coach underfloor engine DMUs may not be up to the job on long distance intercity routes?

I think there is enough space for a non-scrolling 'Seat Unreserved' or 'Seat Available', even 'Seat not reserved'? After all, that's what the Class 222 'Meridians' say on their displays, which I think are identical to Voyagers. I'm surprised a software update hasn't changed this?

Surely "Unreserved or Reserved" could be displayed and then it changes from Reserved to Unreserved once they arrive at the appropriate station.

But someone travelling for a long distance will want to be sure the seat will not be needed at all.

Imagine the scenes: "but is said unreserved when I boarded 3 hours ago, so I'm not budging."

And as for a non scrolling sign for "Unreserved" - I doubt it is possible, otherwise I am sure they would have tried it!

Not meaning to be offensive here, so apologies in advance ;D

It's very possible, just depends on the person who programmed the computer, and whether they know what they are doing...

When I travelled on a Pendolino (for my sins ;D) they boards said when I arrived at a seat, Unreserved or Reserved. So it is possible :)

You would be suprised at the amount of people that work in IT, yet don't have a clue...  ::) :P

So they CAN do it!

So why aren't they.... >:(

But remember, it is only any good for seats which are (un)reserved for the rest of the journey. You can't have a changing sign.

Technically speaking, it would be a fairly straightforward process to issue a PIN with a seat reservation. Or even adapt the technology to use the code issued with self-collect tickets.

The display, which doesn't necessarily have to be overhead - it could just as easily be in the apex where the seat-backs meet facing the corridor, or in the floor next to the seats, either reads:

"Reserved to [station name]"
"Seat Taken"
or "Unreserved"

On arrival at the seat, the passenger enters the correct code into a touch-pad installed in the seat-back in front of him (or her, obviously), and the display immediately changes as appropriate.

Technically this is all possible, as I say. Extremely doubtful whether it would ever happen though.

Presumably the Voyager displays are similar to the continental ones.

I seem to remember that in the bike reservation part of the IC DVT the display said reserved from Dortmund to Hannover. Whether it could show two sets of reservations I'm not sure.

It was quite funny, as it's almost unheard of, the train was in reverse formation with the DVT leading so as we ran into Dortmund there were all these cyclists waitng at the wrong end of the paltform, As we passed the driver hooted and waved but they didn't move.
We left 5 late. The DVT takes about 30 bikes.

Phil has a good idea. But it would be inpractical and espensive to deploy/maintain.

Essentially we all know what would solve this problem...

More carriages which means more seats ;D