Great Western Coffee Shop

Good news for FGW and well done to everyone who turned this TOC around.

http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/travelandtransport/Train-firm-track/article-1165760-detail/article.html

I'll point out that angry passengers actually dubbed it Worst Late Western. :P

But joking aside, this is great news. And it makes a change the press with a positive new story about FGW! I wonder what MTLS will think...

I travelled 731 miles on FGW on Saturday and the longest delay was about 15 minutes.

Adonis statement can be found here - http://www.dft.gov.uk/press/speechesstatements/statements/firstgreatwesternfranchise

Which is a bit rich coming from the person who so grudgingly acknowledged just a few weeks ago the strides in punctuality that FGW had made many months ago - and which some of us in the press have been reporting in a positive way for a long time...

...whilst at the same time other sections of the Fourth Estate are producing howlers like this:


How many of FGW's trains have no toilets? And how hard would it have been to check?

I was going to say! How about the Falmouth line saga?

And me, a lone, small, insignificant voice is a COMPLETELY different kettle of fish to the media.

I will admit my comment was a generalisation, but the evidence is out there...

I am still not a fan of FGW - before we get too carried away patting them on the back, we should still ask why a supposedly proficient transport operator ran such a wretched service for so long. I haven't seen any stats comparing their recent performance with other operators, but presumably they are doing now, what other TOC's have been doing for a long time.   

Mr Bray.........  perhaps if you aren't a fan you should try alternative modes of travel!! I travel three or four times a month from Reading to the West of England and believe you me it is much better!! Now that the dead wood management that used to prevail have moved on, and the majority of people that run the show seem to live in the real world it has really made a noticable difference. Even the staff on the trains acknowledge this!! Dont be so negative - it still isn't perfect but, based upon all that has been said on this site over the last 18 months, I thought you would have realised what steps have been taken to improve the situation! Read some of the previous posts on many many threads - that will answer your question!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

I don't think Steve Bray is saying it isn't better.. He was just saying how come FGW were allowed to run such a bad service for so long. And I tend to agree. FGW are now getting a pat on the back for such great improvements.. But the improvements are only so great because the service was so bad before.. Other train companies are consistently good.. We're probably back up to the pre FGW takeover of what used to be Thames trains in that area (ooh I can almost tell someone is going to complete disagree with me on that one  :))...

The problem I have - yet again

they are more reliable - never denied it BUT its only because of padding!

As I've said before - I'd rather get home on time 3/5 times, late 1/5 very late 1/5 than have arbitrary time added to my journey just so they meet punctuality.

But fgw pays ^100 per minute of delay!

Not my problem as a customer

I think I did the math on another post

Average journey time for me is now - to london - about 20-30 minutes longer than in 2004 (my figures are going to differ from last time because of basic assumptions in the model but they are indicative)

Let use 20 minutes

Per day that is 40 minutes

per month that is 880 minutes based on 22 days

in hours that is 36

Thats an extra 1.5 days on a train PER MONTH just because they cant run reliably 5/5 days


Why is this my problem

Out of interest, who gets this money? Is it invested in the railway... ::)

_{PS: Central Trains only paid ^60 per minute! :P}

Quite, a generalisation - and the media is not some single entity - it is people - and like people generally, some of them occasionally make mistakes, or like you, use generalisations, or don't know the ins and out of how the railways work intimately. As a result, in the countless stories the media produce about railways, among other things, every year, some mistakes will get through. TerminalJunkie, did you bother to tell the North Devon Journal about their mistake, so they would have the opportunity to correct it?

And speaking of generalisations, to claim that FGW's punctuality has improved only because of padding is a classic. On my journey - on the same route you use, FA - the typical journey time for the section I use has gone up by a couple of minutes, mostly added, as far as I can tell, to allow for people who don't shut HST doors behind them. And those extra stops in the Vale that upset you all so much are a pretty big factor in the extended journey times.

How often have you actually suffered a really long delay on the train recently? About as often as you could expect to get stuck in a jam on a motorway if you drove everywhere, I would suggest. And let's not forget the saintly airlines - the worst hold-up I've had lately on 'public transport', to use the term loosely, was sitting in a plane at Calgary airport waiting to take off for 30 minutes after the scheduled time. But with the help of their padded schedule, we were 'on time' at Heathrow.

My FGW journeys at the end of 2007 and into the middle of last year were frequently being delayed by 30 minutes or worse on a run of just 35 minutes - I had the sheaf of vouchers to prove it - and padding has nothing to do with sorting out those kinds of delays. The only claims I have made for delays of 30 minutes-plus in the past eight months or so were one at the end of November and one in January. I can even manage to get pretty hacked off these days about a five-minute delay - that's how much they have improved.  

It was precisely because FGW weren't delivering that the Government put on the thumbscrews, which coincided with the arrival of  new faces at the top determined to turn things round - it should not have got like that, but it's clear from everything that went on from 2004, when First took over from Thames Trains, and then adding Wessex in 2006, that someone, somewhere within First and FGW had seriously underestimated the scale of the job they were taking on - going from running couple of hundred expresses a day to operating what is arguably the most complicated franchise of the lot, with everything from half-hourly frequency intercity routes down to the Looe branch line. They took too long to sort it out, but they have done it, so give them a little credit, for goodness' sake!

1.5 days a month extra on a train than 5 years ago............what could you do in those days

I remember back then - as i've said

3/5 you got in on time
1/5 you got in late
1/5 you were very late

Forget comparing to 2007/2008 - I lost at least one contract maybe two due to unreliability - clients are happy if I can tell them when I will arrive - then I couldnt guarantee arriving by lunch time! - I am, not comparing it to then - what we have now is better than that

I am comparing it to 2004/05 when I did get the first turbo up because it was quick and stopped at slough and the cathedrals was first stop oxford!

If  you live in the vale and commute to oxford - I can see why its not an issue.

As I've said - if im working IN london, I wont be using FGW - virgin are competively priced on a season and evenn if not reliable are far more frequent.

I'm even thinking of going virgin to slough next week!  if I do that and im still in sough after the blockade - I may not come back - I would if I had some guarantee that in the future decent journey times will come back!  I wait with baited breath

Well back in 2004 and earlier, I used to get a good few vouchers out of Thames Trains too, because they were also quite adept at messing up. And still being in Oxford at a time when I was supposed to be back home was quite an issue for me actually.

And how long is that journey using Virgin going to take? Doesn't sound like a recipe for hassle-free travel to me.


PS: A thank you for going through your WOS-SLO journey options using FGW would have been nice.

Yes, I was surprised that there was no thank you, even if the options didn't suit. It must have taken a fair while for you to work out and type the reply. I very much doubt I'll lift a finger to help with her requests from now on.

The reason there was no reply is that i thought I had posted one from my iphone the other day !  it clearly didnt post!

i am not so pig ignorant that I wouldnt have replied!

I always unread posts since last visit so I suispect, the reply never made it (probably due to dodgy signal in the vale) and the next time I went in there were no new replies!

Apology duly accepted.

PS: Unfortunately, I think that 'through' journey may be a printing mistake in the timetable booklet, which definitely shows the slough time in bold type, but running it through the journey planner has it as change at Reading.

Well, it is! If FGW is chinging out ^100 at a time for each location it passes late then fares will have to rise...

Robust timetabling makes the whole operation more efficient.

That's a relief to hear. My opinion of iPhone's is dropping, they're only 99.9% perfect in my opinion now!  :)

Regarding the recent upturn in performance, It's also only fair to give a large slice of the credit to Network Rail, too. After all if their infrastructure fails there's not an awful lot FGW can do about it except suffer the delays.

Yes, and they ignored me.

(a) If they had bothered to get back to TJ, what would they have done? Printed a miniscule apology that few would read. Ultimately, FGW's reputation would still be stained by those who had read the original article. e.g. when the Daily Mail* printed lies about Jon Snow last year. The apology was miniscule.

(b) They should not make these errors in the first place. As for "... [they] use generalisations, or don't know the ins and out of how the railways work intimately..." If this is the case, then they should not be reporting on it. It should be well researched - like, to be fair, most articles I read are. The media have a responsibility because they have such a huge influence; peoples' and companies' reputations can be affected by what is written, as people take what is written as the truth.

_{*Disclaimer: I do not buy (or read if I can help it!) the Daily Mail! ;)}

Thanks johoare. You are spot on in your interpretation of what I was saying. Improvements are to be welcomed and I look forward to future improvements. 

Well, I can't speak for the journal, though I find it hard to believe you have just been ignored (and someone has put a comment pointing out the error on the bottom of the story in the early hours today), but many papers, including the one where I work, run regular columns of corrections, and individual corrections, because we believe we should bother about these things - and you would be surprised how well read such items actually are.

Trying to equate this with the Jon Snow case is absurd and a few other things besides - get a sense of proportion! I doubt vast numbers of people have been put off using a train between North Devon and Exeter after reading this - if that's the case, people reading some of the things you have said about Turbos here might well have been put off using the Cotswold Line.

As for "They should not make these errors" maybe you would like to tell all us hard-pressed journalists how to achieve some superhuman level of perfection in our work, not least in a climate where thousands of journalists have lost their jobs in recent months - about 30 more are going at papers in Gloucestershire and Somerset in the next few weeks. Fewer people are filling pretty much the same number of pages as before. And I'm flattered that you think people take what is written to be the truth, when there is endless research showing that people don't believe much of what they read in the papers - certain ones in particular.

Lurching off on a bit of a tangent here, but willc you've actually just hit on an interesting point. I'm going to get briefly philosophical (and declare an interest, for those of you who don't know already, which is that I'm a research scientist).

I was reading Bad Science by Ben Goldacre a few weeks back (if you haven't already done so, I highly recommend it, as well as Goldacre's weekly cloumn of the same name in the Saturday Guardian). He notes that consistently when the public are surveyed regarding professions whom they trust, journalists routinely come near the bottom of the pile, with scientists coming almost at the top.

However, look at a story such as the MMR episode; my memory is slightly faint and I don't have time to look up the exact details right now. However, what I am sure of is that this started off on the basis of some extremely dubious research which almost any scientist would have laughed out of town. However, it was picked up on by journalists (I think, initially, at the Daily Mail* but then spread like wildfire) and all of a sudden newspapers were shrieking about MMR causing autism.

You would think, based on those surveys referred to above, that the public would believe the scientists who have patiently and calmly shown in lots of properly carried out studies since that there is no causative link between MMR and autism. However, it seems that in fact a large number of people prefer to view the journalists in this case as heroic crusaders exposing the truth whilst the evil scientists hover in the background trying to conceal pull the wool over the nation's eyes. All I'm saying is, I value a scientist's opinion more than a journalist's here but a lot of people don't.

So the moral of the story is that actually a large proportion of the public gives immense credence to what appears in print. Journalists should not underestimate the power that they have to influence people's thinking, because with it comes an immense responsibility.

I will now remove my philosophical hat for the evening.

*incidentally (with credit to Goldacre) has anyone else noticed the Mail's ongoing project to categorize everything on earth as something that either causes or cures cancer?

Or maybe it was just that they were choosing to believe what the scientists stood up in public and said... because as you note, journalists are about as trusted by the public as estate agents and politicians, while scientists are rather more highly rated, so to try to say this is about the power of the press is a bit rich.

The infamous MMR research paper appeared in The Lancet, which your average person - journalists included, since we are not superhuman, despite what some on here seem to think - probably regards as the leading medical journal, so if they publish it, it tends to give things a certain credibility in the eyes of the layman. And until the information about Andrew Wakefield's financial dealings with lawyers fighting MMR claims came to light, there were rather a lot of other scientists named as co-authors, who then hastily withdrew only at that point, several years after the paper was published - oh, and it was a journalist who got to the bottom of Wakefield's links to the lawyers.

Sorry, but it's stretching credibility to make out that this one was the fault of journalists - clearly some scientists had a hand in it.  As far as I'm aware, peer review of papers is supposed to stop this kind of thing - dubious research - in its tracks, long before it gets near the likes of the Lancet, so I'd suggest the science community also has to take its share of the blame.

And now it's time to head off for another day spreading lies and distortions...

The Secretary of State for Transport's statement is now available on the e-gov website, at http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/26381