Great Western Coffee Shop

Below is FGW's pathetic effort of providing details of alterations to London-West of England services. Where are the revised timetables for this busy route? We were told that blue alterations books would no longer be provided at times of engineering work except at times of major work. Obviously this isnt very major closing a line for five days. In previous years when this line was closed revised timetables have always been provided

I hope when Andrew Haines mentioned inproving information for passengers he was referring to the useless service currently being provided at times of engineering work by FGW. They have to provide revised TTs for staff so why cant they publish them on their website and in print?

http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=1664

From 0945 Mon 24 until 1315 Fri 28 September. Paddington to Taunton, Plymouth and Penzance
From 0945 on Monday 24 until 1315 on Friday 28 September 2007

Major weekday engineering works between Castle Cary and Taunton

Are you travelling between London Paddington and Newbury, Westbury, Castle Cary, Taunton and stations to Plymouth or Penzance between 0945 on Monday 24 until 1315 on Friday 28 September 2007?

During this time train services will be subject to alteration with some services being diverted and others terminating short of their normal destination.

Buses will be replacing trains between Castle Cary and Taunton.

Customers are advised to use the journey planner to check journey times before travelling.

This engineering work will continue during the following week, Monday 1  to Friday 5 October, with the same service alterations.

I dont think it unreasonable for FGW not to publish in booklet form details of alterations as they used to do.

An A0 sized Information poster with the timetable posted at the relevant stations affected in my opinion is sufficient provided the same is available for download as in an A4 size via the internet for intending passengers.

FGW HAVE to cut costs to pay HMG the premium they are committed to and we do not know the level of hits that are being made on the FGW website. This may be at such a level that FGW management have made a decision to discontinue the issue of these supplements or blue books as has been mentioned.

Another point is that one booklet contained disruption throughout the FGW franchise area but if I wanted to travel between Taunton and Paddington, I couldnt care a toss what was affecting passengers between Bridgend and Swansea.

If I was intending to travel and saw notification of intended disruption as detailed in the previous post I would then use the OJP.

A comment / question by Tim (Welcome, Tim) has been separated out into a new thread and moved to a more general board - I felt that the subject of the availability of timetables is just too important to have sitting on a board where we're looking at one specific line.

I encourage you to follow this link:

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=678.0