Great Western Coffee Shop

For those of you who may wish to ask the FGW Regional Manager of the Severn / Solent area about the December 2007 timetable or other issues , there is an ideal opportunity at 1900 on the above date at the Railway Inn , Westbury (West Wiltshire Rail Users Group Public meeting.)

I am sure that all matters Melksham will also get an airing at this meeting , and on the dates contained in the links below.
http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=4089.msg7696#msg7696

Hope to be there, should be a good and informative meeting.

I had many dealings with Andrew Griffiths under Wessex when he was business manager for Devon and Cornwall and he is a very approachable person and the success of the community rail strategy on the Cornish branch lines was mostly down to him, unfortunately all his hard work was undone by First group when they took over!

If he still has any influence then he is the man to change things!

If this Andrew Haines is as good as he is "cracked up to be" on his past performances at his previous posts then the two Andrews might together get things moving in the direction that passengers want but I fear he has been handed a poisoned chalice this time. As for Andrew Griffiths, he appeared on television at the outset of the disquiet over the December 2006 TT change and he re-assured passengers that things would improve. They are at a snails pace although his indication was they would improve in the short term, a month.

You could liken the situation at FGW as that of a football team, if the manager and head coach arent given the cash to buy new players you cant expect the team to be at the top.

Sums up the whole thing nicely.

Unfortunately , he doesnt seem to care as much about the Cornish Branch Lines now. AG was directly responsible for taking units away from Cornish Branch Lines in January 2007 , thus causing their bustitution. How does this square with his former reputation as their "saviour"? (see page 7 of the link below.)
http://www.wellho.net/wccfoi/wccfgw1b.pdf

His actions resulted in this FGW press release from January 2007 :

Rail replacement transport on the Looe Valley and St Ives branchlines.

Below is a letter from Glenda Lamont, Customer Services Director, apologising for the withdrawal of the train service and replacement road transport on the Looe Valley and St Ives branchline.

Dear Customer,

I regret to inform you that services on this branchline will be replaced by road transport up to and including Friday 12 january.

We have had to withdraw train services on this line due to a shortage of serviceable trains.

I would like to apologise for the fact that we have had to introduce this alternative service. I assure you that this issue is receiving our urgent attention and that customers will see a continual improvement in the provision of First Great Western services.

Glenda Lamont
Customer Services Director

Sorry but AG is a numpty as anyone who works under him at Temple Meads will tell you, even people from the old Wessex trains franchise say this. His comment on Points West re " We are in this buisness to make a profit" would confirm that. That statement must of done untold damage to FGW,s delicate reputation!

The way things have been on West services these past few days may not make for a pleasant meeting for him.

I certainly wouldn't want Andrew's job at the moment (or for the past 18 months, come to think of it!) 

Yet meetings can be held and pulled around;  I'm suspecting that Westbury on 9th October wouldn't be selected to announce something major (like trains from Westbury to Swindon at 08:10, 11:00 and 14:00), but that certainly would help turn the meeting around once we we re-assured it was real and not just a "holding proposal"  :-\

Yet meetings can be held and pulled around;  I'm suspecting that Westbury on 9th October wouldn't be selected to announce something major (like trains from Westbury to Swindon at 08:10, 11:00 and 14:00), but that certainly would help turn the meeting around once we we re-assured it was real and not just a "holding proposal"  :-\
[/quote]

Grahame, your forever an optimist, I say that with tongue in cheek, see my post on the Tranz Wiltz line "Dreaming".

A year ago, I gave us a 5% chance.  I now give us something ike a 35% to 40% chance - and I know that the case has been looked at rather more than trivially.  I am assured it is being looked at again even more seriously at the moment, for December 2008, and I would be even more optimistic if we hadn't been, frankly, had so many letdowns in the past.

Why am I so optimistic: because the more you look forward at the case, the stronger it is.  And the more you look back at the evidence gathered prior to the premeditated slaughter of the service last December, the more the old evidence backs up the future.

Auto-reply from Andrew Griffiths :

Good to see he is having a decent break cos come the new year he's sure gonna need it.

When I see the name AG I think,
"It will be better next week"

Maybe it's easier for him to take holiday than travel on FGW this week to get to work!? If that's what he does...

Or perhaps the following quote from a list of recent questions posed by an FOSBR member :

Andrew's not been the only one to take a very optimistic view of how things would go, of course ... and it's very much his job to put the best positive foot forwards.  I note that it's the press office who should be contacted with regard to anything urgent in the "out of office" message.

Andrew Griffiths will shortly be seconded for a period of around 3 months to lead the development of a "dynamic environmental strategy" for FGW, reporting directly to Andrew Haines.

Mike Carroll will stepping in on a part-time basis, with Julian Crow and Richard Rowland also covering Andrew's role of FGW Regional Manager for the Severn & Solent area.

And what exactly is a dynamic environmental strategy?!

Well - I hope it means making use of resources to lower the carbon footprint of travel in the areas in which FGW operate their trains - things like getting more people off the roads by providing trains at times that the roads are busy and there are no trains available to offer an alternative  ;D  ... seriously, I do hear that the DfT is going far more along that approach, so we may have a shift towards sanity for some routes!

It's probably a posh name for some time off... and reporting his holiday to Haines.  ;D ;D

In reality it's probably a posh name for "network-wide environmental review" though.

I wish XC would have an environmental review and not leave the Voyager engines running whilst trains lay over at Temple Meads. Apart from the pollution and fossil fuel used, you can barely hear the station announcer the noise is so intrusive.

It's basically as Tom says, to go over what FGW can do to reduce our emissions and be more environmentally friendly.

Well, I'm all in favour of FGW reducing their omissions ...







Sorry  :-[  ;D

Boooooo hissssss *throws apples* :D

*orders taxi*

"Your coat sir."

Thanks, lads: I'll stick to the day job, then, eh?  ;D