Great Western Coffee Shop

Hey there gang!!

I'm from Cornwall and I've been asked to research FGW for a class project. Any information you could give me would be greatly appreciated, specifically I'm supposed to be creating a new logo but info's what I need! Anything at all! Nothing to trivial, prices, controversy, opinions, routes, personal experiences, highs and lows, absolutely anything!

Thanks for your time!!

P  :)

Well, hello, pinderschmit, and welcome to the Coffee Shop forum!  :)

Hmm .. being asked to 'research FGW' seems to be a fairly onerous class project - so, good luck!

As to 'any information' ... well, there is a mine of that, on this forum.  ;)

If you let us know what the project is vaguely on we can try to provide you with as much relevant information as possible and forward you to helpful sites or threads within the forum

You could start with "First - Transforming Travel" and look into what that means. I ain't gotta clue!

(http://i598.photobucket.com/albums/tt68/bignosemac/First20Transforming20Travel.jpg)

_Ahem!

If you look around on this forum, and dig deeply enough, you'll perhaps get some clues as to where my own avatar came from ...  ::) :-[ :-X

Go on then..... shortcut me to the links. Save me digging....

Just another student looking for other people to do their research - god bless the web (not)

As a student I wrote to the author Terry Pratchett asking him to tell me 'everything' about his creation of Discworld for an Eng Lit project I was doing for GCSE. His reply (I still have the letter) suggested that maybe I narrow my frame of reference a little.....

Hi, Pinderschmit

You'll find that this forum is a wide ranging source of information, and so id the official site that's run by First Great Western themselves - http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk ... we're a customer group, with this site run by travellers (and people who would travel if there were appropriate trains for them to be able to travel) rather than a part of the rail industry, but we get a great deal of valuable input from the professionals without which this site would only be a poor shadow of what it is.

In my daytime job I get a lot of requests for help that are far less specific than yours, or say "please write my coursework for me". It becomes almost a 'standard answer' to encourage students to do their own projects - otherwise, they'll learn very little and even providing a perfect answer for them to submit is a dis-service as they couldn't actually do the task they're learning how to do.   The journey is more important than the destination.

You are specific that your 'endgame' is to design a new logo.

Hmm ... "the journey is more important than the destination" ... would that we a good byline for the bottom of a logo?  I don't think it would ... it's 'putting down' the destination and - let's face it - most people travel to get somewhere and not because they love being on a train ... but is IS positive about the journey.

Put yourself into FGW's shoes.  Learn more about their marketing and the company.  What are their aims and what aims do they want to portray to passengers? The answers may be different to those questions, certainly in emphasis, but it will be what they want to portray to travellers and potential travellers that should take the lead. How much does their logo need to fit in with corporate ... and so you'll go on.  You ask about things like "highs and lows".  They're history - give you background, but aren't the forward look that the message of a new logo primarily needs.  And lows, surely, are to be supressed rather than lauded in a logo!

Hopefully these comments will help steer you in the right direction. Ask specific questions here, and please follow up too.  You'll find that once you've posted a dozen or so messages and responses that the "Frequent Poster's club" opens up to you, where regular posters can be far more candid ... and please let us know / see your final result.

It means taking over a perfectly decent service of five trains a day each way on which traffic has been growing rapidly, and reducing it to two that (in combination) run at really silly times of day.  The great thing about "transforming" is that it gives a feeling of positive and forward looking - which has happened in some parts - but can also describe service reductions, fare increases, decreased legroom.  It is - as is almost all of the FGW marketing - actually very clever indeed.

A wonderfully accurate description of 'Transforming Travel', Graham. Although the underlying cynicism probably excludes you from a job with FGW's marketing department. ;D

Oh, and your right about "The journey is more important than the destination", particularly if that destination is Swindon!

If you want to see some of the issues raised, and responses from First Great Western, it may be an idea to look at the customer panel minutes available at
http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=100 (http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=100)

These will give you some information about issues going back to January 2008.
As you are based in Cornwall the Plymouth and Cornwall Board may be a good board to look at on this website.
If you have a more specific question we may be able to help and good luck with designing a new logo.

Here's a good one from First's local bus website: I'm sure that goes against the Trades Descriptions Act, as a number of routes have been withdrawn, and of course fares go up by well above inflation every single year. However I'm sure First have expensive lawyers who have thought of that, so I won't be mounting a legal challenge.  ;D

Look at FGW's Wikipedia page if you want lists of Criticisms and Problems! ;D

If you want moans, look at the "More Train Less Strain" website and "Charlbury Commuters Blog".


In normal circumstances I would agree. However, I don't think there are many books (?) about FGW so I'll let them off! 8)

Hmmm... I don't think the lack of books is the point here, really. The web is a fantastic resource for researching almost any subject, however it still requires the researcher to put some effort into filtering what they need out of it. It's all too easy to plagiarise; however one will invariably get caught out eventually.* What counts is genuine effort and a little originality.

This forum already contains pretty much all the information a researcher would need to produce a pretty good overview of the current standing of FGW both from an insider's and passenger's perspective (especially from a school or college project point of view). I'd suggest the way to go about such an investigation would be to sign up, spend some time studying the layout, content and themes, pin down the subjects which interest you or which you deem to be worthy of more attention, and if necessary then pose some pertinent questions - since there are some extremely knowledgeable people on here.

Diving in unannounced and asking others to do the work for you is not on, sorry to say. Consequently I'm with Fallen Angel on this one.


* I'm speaking here as one who has all too often has his own work plagiarised, stolen, and / or reprinted. The odd thing is that I instinctively recognise my own words; even quite short extracts can ring warning bells, sometimes ten or more years later. I'm sure I'm not alone in this, but have no way of knowing really!

Fair enough, I thought Fallen Angel's post was about "lazily" using the internet instead of doing proper research at a library.

Having read both posts, I agree with both of you about the "doing the work for him/her". There is a search facility on the forum, and there is no reason why someone can't do their own research!

I loiter on the TES website - the number of posts that appear there asking what is basically a PGCE assignment question is unreal - and from future teachers

I study with the OU - I can guarantee 80% of the TMA questions each year can be seen on the web by people posting on "ACME we'll answer all you academic questions" e.g. X reacts with Y to make compound Z - what is X and Y.  No reference to the OU but clear a lifting of a current assignment question.  All innocent people then have to make every effort to ensure they explain it to the 100th degree just in case your answer is too much like the web presence one lest you be accused of plagiarism.  Some courses have even issued supplementary questions three days before due date so if you. like I do, get ahead you have to redo half an assignment.  I can only imagine brick unis have the same problem however actually having to meet a tutor face to face may weed out the total idiots.

Its just down right laziness and the product of a school system that crams and spoon feeds 16 years to the end that they expect to be given the answers to everything on a plate.

Rant over.

A good researcher should use as many means as possible to establish the truth, websites and books are both valuable resources.