Great Western Coffee Shop

10/08/2007.

This FLAGSHIP Service, 1803 Paddington to Penzance, ideal for Londoners to take a weekend break to Cornwall on is, according to FGW e-mail bulletin terminating at Truro tonight, No Guard.

Funny, I've NEVER known a rostered crew change at Truro on an HST. Relieving crews operating units on the Falmouth branch YES.

Perhaps someone in the know can explain.

Usual FGW shambolic cock-up I suppose like the incident earlier in the week where 3 guards were rostered to wotk the same service from Exeter SD.

14/08/2007
From the FGW website ;-



05:05 Penzance to London Paddington due 10:01
This train has been delayed at St Austell and is now 63 minutes late. This train will be revised. It will no longer call at: Bodmin Parkway, Liskeard, Newton Abbot and Taunton. This is due to a train fault


109 minutes late leaving Plymouth.

FGW living up to their reputation of being the UK's worst performing TOC again.

Ah, was wondering why it was late

I was at Reading station on Friday evening and noticed this. I assumed it was due to engineering work.

Also, it was a 2+7 unit, with Midland Mainline rolling stock.

Changing lines, earlier this year, the 1827 Paddington/Hereford one evening was going to terminate at Colwall. For those who don't know, Colwall is an unstaffed station, with about a carriage capacity, on single track. That announcment is still an unsolved mystery!

The down Golden Hind is a Penzance guard from Exeter down. However was none available so a Plymouth guard worked it from Exeter after already completing his shift, to have worked it through to Penzance would have put him at over 12 hours at work which is against regulations. Train terminated at Truro and passengers where transferred to the Falmouth unit which normally runs ECS Truro to Penzance. Actually a fairly sensible move compared to some things that go on!!

This service is a 'don't cancel' job which would explain this move. Fair play to the gaurd, a very rare move by HSS staff! As for the up Hind I don't think this was Firsts fault. The weather on Tuesday was AWFUL and they ran a fairly decent service. I didn't see ANY late running.

Today it aint a 'don't cancel job'

From morning e-mail bulletin (30/08/2007) ;-

0505 Penzance to London Paddington has been cancelled at Bodmin Parkway.

Failure of MTU 43198 'Oxfordshire 2007', train had departed from Bodmin but failed and set back to detrain passengers.

Started from Plymouth due to lack of train crew. Surprisingly the engineering didn't overrun!

0542 Penzance - Pad left 15 late

1L19 0710 BTM-PAD cancelled  ;D

From the FGW website :

18:03 London Paddington to Penzance due 23:10
This train has been revised.It will no longer call at: London Paddington, Reading and Taunton.This is due to a train fault.

Oh right.

It had no catering earlier.... then it did. And now it starts Exeter?  ???

Was no catering or no passengers!

18:36 Paddington - Exeter St Davids was extended to Penzance.

You sure it wasn't full Pullman catering service  but without passengers?  ;D