Great Western Coffee Shop

Only just noticed this from the local free paper, but was reported on 12/09 in the Bristol Evening Post.

Passengers who use a busy commuter train from Yate have welcomed the promise of an extra carriage in the morning rush hour to reduce overcrowding.

Train operators said they would be able to put a third carriage onto what is currently the 8.16am service from the town to Bristol from December.

But, although pleased with the move, regular users said they were disappointed the additional space would not be available on their return journey, nor on other equally busy trains.

A long campaign to improve the service for those catching trains in Yate has involved passengers, councillors and Northavon MP Steve Webb complaining to operator First Great Western and Government ministers.

Criticism centres on too little space on the busiest trains taking people to and from work and college, with many passengers having to stand, sit on the floor or even squash themselves into the luggage area.

Users have sometimes also been left on the platform because trains are so full, while on occasions trains have just not turned up.

On yesterday's 8.16am to Bristol Parkway, Filton Abbey Wood and Bristol Temple Meads, it was standing room only for passengers in the two carriages ^ many of them students going to Filton College.

Those who had boarded the train in Gloucester and at the Cam and Dursley station said there were plenty of seats when they got on but the problem developed once it arrived in Yate because so many people wanted to use the service.

A long queue for tickets at the station also meant some passengers had to get on the train without one and try and pay the conductor, if he could get past people standing in the aisles.

A common complaint is made about the difficulty in buying tickets on the train and passengers travelling without paying.

Yate commuter Kerr Brown, 45, said if First Great Western didn't have so many passengers travelling for free, it would have more money to improve the service.

He said: "If the train is so overcrowded that you can't get on, there can be an hour's wait for the next one.

"Sometimes taxis will be put on for those left behind but on other occasions that doesn't happen."

Civil servant Justine Nicklin, 42, also of Yate, said: "Sometimes it does seem like we're travelling in a cattle truck."

When the extra carriage is added, the service will also be brought forward to 8.09am. Some passengers who don't live near the station said that could cause problems if they relied on buses to get to the station and the bus times remained unchanged.

Yate town councillor Wully Perks, who is vice-chairman of the Friends of Yate Station and a retired railwayman, said: "An extra carriage is great but it's only one small improvement on one service.

"Recently the train that arrives at about 7.40am turned up with just one carriage and 40 to 50 passengers were left behind. It was ridiculous. Regular users don't deserve to be told they can't get on and are left on the platform."

 

So it's a positive move, but 90% of the article is anti rail.

What a surprise...

That might be because much of the article is based upon talking to the commuters of Yate, who have apparently had to put up with the present overcrowding for a long time before anything has been done - so might be forgiven for being less than overwhelmed with gratitude towards FGW at this point, even if it is doing its best to cope with the boom in traffic around Bristol with a local DMU fleet that is at full stretch and desperately needs strengthening.

Perhaps because it's easier for a hard-pressed local journalist to bodge together a story, based on anecdote rather than evidence, taking a cheap shot at a company that has received much unfavourable media coverage in the last few years. I don't see any attempt in there to contact FGW for comment for example.

I see, so the views of some of the people who actually use the trains in question are 'anecdotes' are they. Like the 'anecdote' about the loading on this very train posted on this forum a few days back. If you're not willing to trust the word of the people who use the train, exactly what quality of 'evidence' about gross overcrowding do you need?

Here are lots more 'anecdotes' gathered by a reporter from the BEP who rode on peak trains between Bristol and Yate last November but I suppose they have no value as 'evidence' either.

As a hard-pressed local journalist and FGW passenger, I and many other Cotswold Line passengers who contacted them were told earlier this year, in no uncertain terms, that whatever 'anecdotes' we chose to relate about our own uncomfortable and overcrowded experiences using the train in question, that a three-car Turbo had adequate seating capacity to operate the 8.58 from Malvern to London instead of an HST.

Then the details of the December timetable start to emerge and what did I find, but an extra train covering the main stations at the eastern end of the line, running 20 minutes in front of the one from Malvern. FGW's comment when I asked? Er, well, it's to do with the passenger numbers from those stations.

To go from belligerent denial that there is a capacity problem to introducing an extra train on the basis that there is, within the space of six months, takes the biscuit. Is it any wonder that FGW and rail firms get a bad press at times? And I say that as someone broadly sympathetic to the railways.

You can put as many inverted commas round the word as you like, but these stories are, quite literally, anecdotes. Putting it bluntly, if I tried to publish a scientific paper based on a small number of comments from a potentially non-representative sample population, I would be (absolutely rightly) laughed out of town.

There are three main problems I have with that article.

1. The Yate-Bristol journey time is booked for 21-25 minutes. Whilst it may be unpleasant or inconvenient to have to stand for that length of time, it's hardly unbearable, and all the old 'cattle truck' clich^s are just a little tired.
2. The only comments published in those two articles are wholly negative. Whilst it's possible that no-one who was asked had a single good thing to say about the service, it's equally possible that the journos involved simply ignored the quotes that didn't fit their hypothesis and left them out of the article.
3. Since the dawn of time, no matter how good a service is provided, a proportion of commuters has always felt hard done by and complained bitterly about their lot. Read I Tried to Run a Railway or Fiennes on Rails, both by the late, great Gerry Fiennes if you don't believe me. I used to be one of them - when living in Oxford I bitched endlessly about my daily bus journey to and from work. Then one day I actually sat down and figured out how often the journey ran smoothly, which was the vast majority of the time. It's just that I was biased towards remembering the days when it didn't. Where I live now there is an excellent, cheap public transport system with integrated regional trains/subway trains/trams/buses/trolleybuses and yet still there are whole websites devoted to complaining about it - see for example http://www.septafail.com (http://www.septafail.com).

Now to answer your question directly. As evidence of gross overcrowding I expect to see passenger counts carried out on a representative selection of days, with sample sizes being sufficient to demonstrate statistical significance. You'll probably dismiss this as me being overly fussy, but it's part of my day job to produce robust, reproducible quantitative data. I suspect that this approach would be far more likely to achieve success with the accountants and operators at FGW towers than a bunch of bleating vox-pops in the local paper. In fact, I may be mistaken, but I believe that the excellent CLPG has used the passenger counting approach with success in the past.

Bad news sells better than praise so obviously to sell more copies of the paper it is in the journos interest to make the story as negative as possible. It's not right that ithappens but it's the way the media works so you either believe it word for word or realise there are usually two sides to the story. After all, what service is loosing an extra carriage for this service to gain one?

Whilst in general I agree with Blakey's robust response, I feel it is a little dismissive to say that standing for 20-25 minutes from Yate to Bristol Temple Meads is OK. Standing is just about bearable if the service is operated by a class 150 with its 1/3-2/3 double door alignment which has the benefit of wide door areas which make loading and unloading easier and offer space to stand. Its a whole different ball game if the train is a 153 though. Overcrowding on these units is unbearable and downright dangerous. 158s are little better if they are overcrowded.

So you want positive, do you? Well here's positive, but I'm sure they are all far too grudging for you. What do you want? For them all to shower FGW with unbridled praise? Unlikely, on the basis of those utterly valueless anecdotes.

The story below also explains where the train is coming from, with an apparent continuation of borrowing SWT stock.

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/Success-Yate-rail-campaign/article-1330870-detail/article.html
 (http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/Success-Yate-rail-campaign/article-1330870-detail/article.html)

There's a very simple reason for there not being any positive comments - because two reporters, going out on different occasions, couldn't find anyone on those trains who felt in the slightest way positive about the service they have been getting. We don't go looking for the negative but I'm sure you don't believe that, since I'm no doubt a lying untrustworthy journalist who does only look on the negative side of everything and relies on utterly unscientific, anecdotal evidence for my reports - and no wonder, I'm writing a news story, not a scientific paper.

Many Cotswold Line passengers remember being told by FGW in 2004 that it would be "delivering InterCity quality and comfort to the route throughout the day" with Adelantes. When those went, we were told there were going to be HSTs instead, but what did we end up with on many off-peak trains from February? The Turbos we had before December 2004, in exactly the same condition, except for a coat of blue paint, some stuck-on vinyls and a lot more miles on the clock.

How and why should I, or anyone else, put a positive gloss on that?

And 2004 was the year that - I kid you not - FGW was the most punctual long-distance train operator between January and February. And we all know what happened after that... or have you put all that went on after the December 2006 and 2007 timetable changes to the back of your mind?

And i know all about CLPG passengers counts - been there, done them, probably not in a precise enough way to satisfy your scientific demands, but good enough to stand up the valueless anecdotal reports received by the CLPG about the 8.58's problems - from people like me after standing for 35 minutes from Moreton-in-Marsh to Oxford - and I'm sure FGW have done plenty of very rigorous counts of their own from Yate in response to what would appear, on the basis of the valueless anecdotes in those reports, to have been a pretty constant stream of complaints.

Should you care to go here http://www.myyate.co.uk/yate/travel/friends_of_yate_station (http://www.myyate.co.uk/yate/travel/friends_of_yate_station) and download the minutes of the Friends of Yate Station's last meeting, you will be able to see a letter from FGW acknowledging "We know that some peak trains can be full with standing passengers" - or does that only count as an anecdote?

one all ;D

You shouldn't, because that IS a negative story. ;)

But this Yate story is a POSITIVE move, and yet - as I said before - 90% of it is negative; for no reason. Yes, there have been problems in the past. Ok - mention them in passing. But when a TOC does something positive, it would be nice for the article to acknowledge this in its tone. >:(

willc,

I think it's readily apparent that you and I disagree on many (although perhaps not all) issues. Please understand that what I'm trying to do here is have a mature and robust debate, by critically evaluating a couple of articles in the Bristol local press. What I am not doing is tarring all journalists with the same brush or attacking you personally. Whilst it's not my intention to cause further aggravation, there are a few things you have said in that last post of yours that I find somewhat unfair, and would like to respond to.


No, of course I don't expect a story of that nature to be wholly positive; please don't assume things. If you read back over my original post, I acknowledged the possibility that all of the comments in the article were negative because no-one had a good thing to say about the service. However, without having been there when the passengers were interviewed, neither of us can be sure if the comments published were a representative selection or "cherry picked" to bolster a pre-conceived angle for the story.


I'm well aware that it's both lazy and plain wrong to dismiss all journalists as untrustworthy. Like I said, my comments are not a personal attack on you; please don't try and turn them into one. Further, please don't put words in my mouth. I have never suggested that you are either lying or untrustworthy; those are unnecessarily cheap shots. In my other life in the heritage railway sector I have met several local journalists who were interesting, interested, enthusiastic and well-informed. They went on to write some hugely positive, informative, supportive and often extensive articles that gave my organization valuable publicity and promotion, all free of charge. This included editorial coverage on several occasions.

The flip side of the coin, which I'm sure you can't deny, is that there are journalists who love to put a negative spin on any rail-related story. Once more, to reiterate so that there's no danger of any misunderstanding, I'm not suggesting that you are one of them. Remember on the day of the electrification announcement when the BBC led with coverage about "years of disruption" whilst lines were wired rather than the enormous benefits this would bring? I recall an editorial in Rail where Nigel Harris had been asked by a BBC transport correspondent whether he could help them get some negativity into one of the recent good-news rail stories (I have a feeling it may have been the opening of High Speed 1 or St Pancras International). If this is happening in one of the most trusted journalistic organizations in the world you can bet your life it's happening elsewhere in the media as well.


Again, read my post. I was praising the CLPG for taking this approach, one of several things that sets them head and shoulders above many other rail users' groups.

Finally, I stand by my point about fact versus anecdote without any apology. Put yourself in the position of the operators at FGW. You have an extra vehicle or two to allocate to commuter services. There are however several places across your network which see overcrowding during the peaks. Do you:

a) allocate those vehicles based on objective numerical data that show where they are needed most;
or
b) allocate them to wherever the "I think it's disgusting..." brigade are shouting loudest in the local press?

Surely the only sensible answer is (a) allocating the vehicles based on fact rather than opinion, hence my strong opinion that hard statistical data should be used in these situations instead of the complaints from commuters.

Blakey 2-1 Willc  ;D ;)

Hopefully, we should see an increase in the number of dmu's for FGW by  may 2010 when FGW receive 5, 2-carrriage class 150 dmu's from London Overground with the 30 or so class 150's from London Midland not coming down til at least september 2010, thats if ATW dont  put in a request for some as they are very short of trains, especially since 2 pacers were written off recently after a inccident at rhymney.

Anthony - there just aren't that many units available. Many of the LM 150s will go to Northern anyway.  As I posted in another thread just recently, Modern Railways have worked out that the 150 cascade will result in only two additional vehicles for FGW - unless some 142s are also kept.

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=5546.msg52876#msg52876 (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=5546.msg52876#msg52876)

It is also particularly important not to confuse 'vehicles' with 'units'...

Paul