Great Western Coffee Shop

Hi, Mike here. Regular commuter from Highbridge & Burnham to Weston-super-Mare, and long-suffering user of a host of other FGW services in the area. I work in a local authority, in a transport related role, so I have both a personal and professional into the problems caused by poor frequency and reliability of public transport services. I've become involved in few campaigns in the past, but a lot of them seem haven't really reflected my concern for the local stations here and in Bridgwater, which are just a little too far from Bristol for FGW to care about!

Like Nick I suppose I'd be described as an enthusiast too, and its truly heartbreaking to see the service on some of my favourite journeys disappearing as FGW (and some of their sister companies) run them into the ground.

Hi, Mike ... and welcome.    We'll welcome your personal and professional input here ... many of us are not travel / transport experts, but we think that even us passengers / customer can smell some fishy things and poor practises at times!

Being something of an 'anorak' I keep fairly detailed records of my rail travel - even for the daily commute.

I was fiddling about with the database today, doing a little routine tidying. Out of curiosity I did some quick queries totalling the 'departure delayed' minutes.

Since the Greater Western Franchise began: 22.95 hours
Since the December Timetable Change: 12.27 hours

If I get time I'll do some more number crunching on these figures shortly. I was however startled to note I'd lost almost a day of my life waiting for delayed FGW trains!

I couldn't resist some crunching .. 2 hours per month from 1st April last year as a whole, rising to 5 hours per month since 10th December.   All the more shocking seeing as I've not made any allowance for the Christmas holiday period when, I suspect, Mike, you didn't travel every day?

"The remaining services will be more reliable once we start the new timetable, so although you'll have fewer trains, some things will improve ....".   I must go back and find that quote, in an email to me from a senior FGW person, last Autumn.  Seems a little hollow.

Any evidence of "teething troubles" Mike, or is it too early to look at the figures month by month?

I've broken the trips and minutes delayed by month, and given an index of delay minutes/no. of journeys undertaken. Sort of speaks for itself! February doesn't appear to be a significant improvement.

Month	Trips	Minutes	Mins/Trip
April 2006	47	140	2.98
May 2006	37	88	2.38
June 2006	50	146	2.92
July 2006	50	116	2.32
Aug 2006	58	43	0.74
Sept 2006	44	100	2.27
Oct 2006	45	132	2.93
Nov 2006	38	100	2.63
Dec 2006	24	147	6.13
Jan 2007	50	266	5.32
Feb 2007	22	113	5.14