Great Western Coffee Shop

My daughter was telling me this evening of her awful trip from Warminster to Trowbridge the other day.

She intended to catch the 1331 from Warminster. This train was cancelled, the next arrival was the 1401 to Cardiff; this train was absolutely packed ! By the time she got to Westbury she felt so unwell she decided to abandon the journey and go home. It was only with difficulty that she even managed to get off the train as even more people struggled to board.

She sat on the platform to recover somewhat, then was amazed to hear that the next departure from that platform in just a few minutes was a service to Bristol (SWT ex Waterloo)  !!
She was amazed that no one at Westbury (or Salisbury presumably) had had the common sense to advise passengers on the grossly overcrowded Cardiff train of the, almost empty, SWT service following a few minutes behind !!

She's taking her car next time !

Indeed, moonrakerz: that is yet another example to FGW of how not to do it.  ::)

May I suggest that your daughter completes and sends in one of these - http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Documents/Custom/FGWYourViews.pdf 

As FGW say, at http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=443

Most of the Westvury staff are a credit to fgw. It wouldn't suprise me If it had been advertised that the following service might be quieter, however passengers being passengers will always join the first train that comes!

Also worth noting that staff on the ground are only informed of busy trains by control when they bother/know which are busy. If the traincrew request a notice at stations info can be passed on. With the lack if staff at Westbury, once the train has arrived it would be too late to put out an announcement as the member of staff is dispatching the train.

Indeed - just to confirm that if Control are told by a Train Manager or Conductor that a service is full & standing, this is put out on the CIS immediately. I would also second Devon Metro's comments about Westbury staff - they are a credit to FGW!

I;ve been impressed with the guys at Westbury.  On one occasion they (together wuith a guard coming off duty) dealt manfully with a huge foul-up whereby loads od BTM meads trains terminated at Westbury withouyt much warning because of a mistake over the palnning of engerring works. 

They did there best to get everyone home eventually despite givingthe impression that they had been abandoned by control. 

She did just that Chris, regret to say that the response appeared to be a machine generated one full of the usual platitudes, phrases written originally by a PR man ! What I would call: "a bed bug letter".

It also arrived (e-mail) yesterday - do FGW really have people answering complaints over a Bank Holiday weekend ?

I have to say that this response was another:- "How NOT to do it " !

as said the staff at westbury are amongst the best FGW have and i am sure they would have informed passengers wishing to travel sations to bristol.
but i have witnessed it myself when passengers must think the staff are lying and still choose to get on the busy service rather than waiting an extra 5 minutes and actually get a seat on a nice quiet train.

I don't quite get your point here - my daughter said the platform staff were actually telling people to "move down inside the train" - which was nigh on impossible as the gangways and the vestibules were already packed with standing passengers.

No one said the staff were "lying" - that was the point - they said nothing. All they had to do was to say there was another (almost empty) train to Bristol 5 minutes later from the same platform. It would have been nice if someone had told the passengers that there was a choice, instead of cramming them in like cattle - having said that, the RSPCA would have been there like a shot, had it been cattle    ;D

PS. The toilets weren't working either - not that anyone could get to them !

Are you just assuming that the staff at Westbury had been told the following train was "almost empty"?

I am assuming that the staff at Westbury would KNOW that the SWT trains are never busy because of where they are slotted into the timetable.  Cardiff train, as mentioned 1401, SWT train 1412 ! Not very likely to collect many passengers that close behind - wonder who did the timetabling ? FGW or SWT ?

The SWT services wouldn't have had too many possibilities for timing them because they are portion worked off/on existing services from/to Waterloo.

Paul

I must confess to being more than a little surprised by most of the responses to my OP.

Apart from one, all of them have seemed to comment how good the staff at Westbury are - have I stirred up the "staff room" at Westbury, I ask myself ? 

I did, myself, comment favourably about the staff at Westbury (in a post a couple of weeks back) who were trying to organise things a little more efficiently - but in my daughter's case the system, for whatever reason, failed miserably. Not only for my daughter, but all the others who were either on the train, or couldn't get on it further down the line.
The complaints system from FGW also failed, producing the usual "management" speak and totally ignoring the original problem.

When things work well, fine; when they don't work, that is when action needs to be taken. In this case the action taken was zero and no one here seems to be in the slightest bit perturbed.  I don't know how the revenue sharing works on this line, perhaps someone actually counts the bodies per train, that's why so many were being shoehorned into the FGW train - don't let the paying punter get on SWT ?

Does anyone in FGW read this forum ? and is willing to make a meaningful comment .....................they say you get the service you deserve..................

I agree, the staff at Westbury were NOT very helpful in failing to mention to passengers that there was another service to Bristol just several minutes behind.   Why they failed to make that announcement, I too would be interested to know the reason behind this.   Not very helpful atall.   

Paul7755's comment above has me baffled.

I have been on those severely overcrowded services between Bristol and Salisbury a number of times, in particular on Sunday evenings.  Just a 2-car DMU and crammed in like cattle.  Not nice atall.  And made me feel very sick too. 

Unfortunately this kind of stupidness happens sometimes at Bath Spa too. If a high speed train is running just a few minutes late ahead of the local Great Malvern train, the heaving crowds all jam into the local train without the staff at Bath Spa giving a hoot. They take bikes and all, and of course standing room only, the people at Oldfield Park and Keynsham don't stand much chance.

What should happen is on health and safety grounds, the staff should stop everyone going to Bristol Temple Meads from boarding, by checking tickets on entry, with only those going to Oldfield Park, Keynsham, and stations towards Great Malvern. At the very least, they could make an announcement asking passengers to only board if traveling to Oldfield Park and Keynsham. To my amazement this actually happened once, and unsurprisingly seats were free for Oldfield park and Keynsham passengers.

In your case moonrakerz I'm afraid it's another example of staff not being bothered. It would not have been much effort to prevent anyone from boarding on health and safety grounds if the SWT was a few minutes behind. The delayed FGW could also have left much quicker, and people would have had a much more comfortable ride being only a few minutes more late.

I'm afraid it seems you always have to assume passengers have NO common sense whatsoever- I'm surprised some of them even manage to get onto the right platform!

Just noticed this.

A previous poster had wondered why the SWT service ran just behind the FGW service. I was just pointing out that there wouldn't have been any flexibility to retime it  because you'd have to retime the Waterloo or Exeter departures (which they split from and join) as well - which will be locked by SWT's overall timetable.

(Ideally you'd want trains equally spaced on the clockface - eg if 2 trains run 30 mins apart the pax should theroetically be shared 50/50)

Paul

Whilst agreeing with Paul's point here, I find some of the train timings to be strange, to say the least. I have commented previously about some of the services which appear to run for no other purpose than to enable another "box" to be ticked.

Another example I have noticed: The 1108 FGW service from Warminster (Cardiff) to Portsmouth is followed 8 minutes later by another FGW service from Westbury to Southampton.
This train then returns as a service to Worcester - admittedly well timed at Warminster to be exactly 30 mins after/before the regular Cardiff trains!

I really cannot see the point of this Westbury-Soton-Worcester trip. I personally do use the Worcester trains as they provide a very cheap way to get to Birmingham, but I cannot see FGW getting rich on my fare of ^2.65 each way. If the platforms were packed with people at that time of day - maybe - but they aren't.

This train has to be there solely to allow FGW to say it is meeting some minor requirement of its franchise - it really isn't of much use to the travelling public - who end up paying for this through their Income Tax.

Hence my firm belief that the afternoon FGW service from Malvern to Brighton is a waste of time beyond Southampton. As I've said before, the SN train that runs in that path in every other hour has to be diverted via Eastleigh so that it can be overtaken by FGW's service, which is generally a 2.158, or sometimes a 150.  Now the FGW service often leaves Southampton surprisingly full, after a fair number of new pax join it.  I suspect because the basic journey planners default to the fastest trains, so the SN service for that hour drops off the planners! (In any case most pax given a choice will select a faster train even if only by a few minutes.) 

Now if that service was terminated short, wouldn't it be more use to FGW in Wiltshire somewhere? The service between Salisbury and Southampton should be adequately provided for by FGW and SWT's respective hourly semi fast and stoppers - those odd 153s that terminates at Southampton during the day seem a bit of a waste of a unit as well...

Paul

1108 Westbury - Southampton connects from the 0645 Penzance - London Paddington. Its only a single 153 and is often rather packed.

I totally support operating through services like this but feel the FGW Brighton's have become a bit of a luxury with every unit available to FGW a precious commodity that could be used elsewhere on the network. As Paul says, Southern now operate an hourly service from Southampton along the South Coast which requires a simple same platform change at Fareham off a Cardiff-Portsmouth train for Southern services to Brighton.

I have heard it said that the return of the Malvern to Brighton afternoon service from Brighton at 17:00 is a vital commuter train from Brighton out via Hove.  You may question whether or not "First Great WESTERN" should be providing a commuter train right outside their territory - all the way across, beyond SWT land ... but they do.  And I suspect that the ORCATS arrangements pay them well for it, as well as it being part of the frachise arrangements.

Hypothetically, running it as Malvern to Southampton (arr 14:32) then 14:40 to Swindon (arr 16:30, leave 16:40) would put it back into Southampton at 18:30, to pick up the diagram to Malvern at 18:42.  That is all 'paths allowing', of course.

But there are alternatives which wouldn't mean 'canning' the Brighton run.   The 16:28 arrival at Westbury (a terminator) could go up to Swindon, and form the 17:45 to Cheltenham.  The arrival at Swindon at around 16:35 from Cheltenham could be extended to Westbury, and pick up the northbound path of that 16:28 arrival - at 17:38.   This would only mean the removal of a Westbury - Warminster - Westbury run starting at 17:01, and I note that as from December there's an extra such round trip off the 16:45 from Parkway.

I don't know the arguments w.r.t. the 11:07 Westbury to Southampton, which stops at Dilton Marsh but has an otherwise identical stopping pattern to the 11:01 from Westbury, nor of the 12:26 return which follows the 12:10 but has a much more leislurly schedule.   Yes, as a timetable option that could run a Westbury -> Swindon -> Westbury cycle - filling the current northbound gap between the 07:02 and the 19:35, and the southbound gap between the 06:15 and the 18:44  ;)  . But there's another option - there's a train that arrives in Westbury at 11:36 and is the parked up until 13:38, which could make the Swindon cycle.

Not covered in this topic so far, but the 08:13 from Bristol to Swindon (a 150 diagram that goes on to Cheltenham after a layover of 45 minutes in Swindon) courl run as it does at the moment from Bristol  to Bath (i.e. with Keynsham and Oldfield Park stops) then fast to Westbury to keep it ahead of the 08:22 from Bristol - it would arrive at Westbury at around 08:55, and form an 09:06 Cheltenham via Swindon train pickup up its original route at Chippenham and path at Swindon. Passengers from Keynsham and Oldfield Park to Swindon would drop back to the 08:30 from Bristol at Bath, and arrive in Swindon some six minutes later than they do at present.

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Let's look at the crewing costs of those options.   The train that's parked at Westbury over lunch time probably WOULD need a new crew / changed rotas / extended shifts.  Cutting the Brighton back to Southampton, and not running to Southampton but rather to Westbury at lunch time, look like they're 'crew neutral'.   My other options eat into what could be short crew breaks and I am open to advise.

The train costs are minor - running units a little further or diverting them, and I have already established that there is no risk of fuel running out in the tanks.

The passenger story is that this gets us a significant step towards an appropriate service on the TransWilts - trains arriving in Swindon at aroung 07:48, 09:50, 12:36, 16:35 and 20:20, and returning at 06:15, 12:45, 16:50, and 18:45.   That means excellent 9 hour days in Swindon for people with an 8 hour day - 07:48 to 16:50, or 09:50 to 18:45.   It means the ability to go up to Chippenham for the Wilthsire Heritage Centre, or Swindon for shopping - arriving at 09:50 and leaving back at 12:45 or 16:50.  It give half day work opportunities ... I could go on.   It's a step towards the service that the GWRUS has such a high BCR.

You're quite right. Indeed the Sussex RUS (edit: consultation draft) explicitly mentions needing to strengthen the service out of Brighton because as a 2 car, it isn't big enough for commuting flows. This seemed ridiculous to me, because the only way to strengthen it at this time of day would be take an FGW 3 car unit from something more useful.  Hence I've responded to the Sussex RUS asking why it is being suggested that FGW are being asked to deal with commutrer flows in the Brighton area, when they are supposed to have so many issues of their own in the Bristol area.  Perhaps someone in the DfT has just mixed up Brighton and Bristol... ::)

As I may have pointed out before, binning this service wouldn't be a new idea for DfT, because it was definitely proposed in the SWT 2007 franchise consultation.  [I think the reasoning was that the FGW Brightons ran in lieu of SWT services in the odd couple of return paths they used on weekdays, the corresponding SWT services being curtailed at, and started from Fareham's bay platform, although they didn't provide connections out of the FGWs.]  As it turned out the proposal wasn't carried through, for some unknown reason.

Paul

If the dftare making fgw run extra servicesto Paignton as a result of swt withdrawing from the area, then could they not do the same for Brighton as tehy have in teh West and fund a loco hauled diagram to enable first to use the units on this service in their area whilst enabling a potential increase in capacity for Brighto whilst freeing up a unit or 2 to either replace the loco hauled diagram in the west or even provide a service for Melksham.

There is a difference though, as in the Paignton area, FGW are filling in real gaps compared to the current timetable. On the West Coastway out of Brighton, FGW's 2 car DMU is additional to a pretty high frequency EMU service, 6 or more tph, formed of 3 or 4 car (or 8 car from Hove) EMUs. It runs only three mins ahead of a Brighton to Portsmouth service as far as Havant, so why don't they just get SN to strengthen that Portsmouth service? They are making big alterations to their rolling stock fleet on the south coast services anyway, so that could be the best time to change the diagrams...

Paul