Great Western Coffee Shop

From a reply from First Great Western to one of our members (posted elsewhere)


Are passengers REALLY as selfish and shortsighted as this implies?  And is it right that we should have no consideration for others, nor for the longer term?

Depends on the circumstances

ask me at 6pm on a friday night when trying to get home and you may have a different answer than today when sitting in front of a PC in my office

I'm just happy to be considered a passenger. I never did feel very comfortable being called a "customer" or a "stakeholder".

I think the problem here is that short sightedness comes with the "I want it now" attitude that prevails in modern society. People only see what affects them so using Melksham as an example, the people there are working hard for a rail srvice however the rest of the UK I doubt cares to be blunt as long as they have a decent service themselves. This is despite the fact if the network as a whole kept improving then increased investment would be more viable so everyone benefits. Average Joe only cares about the particualr journey they take and I doubt most would care if no other service ran apart from their own.

I must stress this is not my view but is a view I have heard surprisingly often by other people I know who think a service should run at 8am one week and 9.30 am the next week just to suit their needs (over exageration but not far from the truth  :-\)

I think the prime candidates for being selfish and short-sighted are those people who insist on driving everywhere and then complain about the amount of traffic that there is.

For rail passengers, in many cases, their objectives will be aligned.  If you double the frequency of trains on a particular route, that improves things for everyone.  Where there may be conflict is in relation to stopping patterns and connections.  If a connection is held for a delayed train, that is good for the passengers on the delayed train but then delays the others, and possibly those on the return journey.  If a journey is speeded up by removing stops, that is good for end-to-end passengers but bad for those wishing to go to/from the intermediate stations.  In my view, most passengers will accept changes in timetables if they are benefiting the majority, even if they are adversely affected - they can often choose another mode.

This is not completely true.  Sure I care about Melksham's service level less than some people 'cos I live in Bath which has a decent service... except Bath doesn't have a decent service if you want to get to Melksham.  In fact no-one in the country has a decent service from their local station to Melksham.  The service to Melksham isn't just an issue to anyone who lives there if effects everyone else who want to go there or travel through there (and the estimates are that these are not inignificant numbers)

Many expensive intercity tickets have been bought by me in the past which I have only purchased because of the existance of a conecting service to a "minor" station at Cruachan, Saxmondham, Taynuilt, Ribblehead, Freshford etc

 

hhm I think I know which letter that came from  ;D

I didn't notice that when I read it last night as it was late and a very long reply to read and digest..

And I disagree with it.. I wish I'd noticed it before I replied to FGW as I would have mentioned it..
In the instance that they were actually talking about my journey was delayed by over an hour just to prevent others being delayed 15 minutes instead of 20 minutes.. I think in this instance it is a bad decision that delayed lots of people for a very long time for no apparent reason.. If I thought by being delayed for an hour other people would be better off I'd be more than happy to tolerate it.. Or just go home instead ;)  ;D

I also think (or is it hope) that most other people want the service to be as fair as possible for everyone...

Not necessarily

When I started using trains it was just under 2 hours WOS to PAD

Not its over 2.5

I don't care that honeybourne, hanborough etc get better service, I care that it makes my commute almost impossible even by my standards

Of course, this is not an issue at the moment but it may become one again - at the moment I don't know

I have not liked a single timetable change since 2007 - padding on the line make me look thin

_{Edited to disentangle quotes ;) i_b}

The PC versus Mac debate that erupted from this thread (partially my fault, I confess) can now be found here (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=7086.0).

Hi ... I've rudely asked a question to start this thread, then not come back to comment on what's been said for two and a half days!    So - THANK YOU for your thoughts.   

My own initial reaction was to disagree with what the First Great Western customer representative said - I read it as "we expect all customers to be totally selfish and have a complete disregard for the journeys of others".   But then I thought "if that's how you treat people, then perhaps that's how they will react"

I have done a lot of air travel - a wife from Florida, her family in the DC area, my cousins living in LA, a previous employer in San Diego and miscellaneous other trips ... the majority of which have been with two airlines.  With both of them, I've suffered delays and cancellations, sometimes inconvenient for ongoing plans, and also with family "in tow". Nothing to choose

I have found one - we'll call it WWair - to be pompous in its attitude, and to provide mimimal information, to "drip" the delays so that they're initially small but grow longer.  RBair says "look - we have a problem here.   We're not sure exactly how long it's going to take but we estimate X, and we'll then do Y and Z which will sort it out for everyone.   Sorry some of you are going to be delayed a bit more than you would wish".

And just watch; yes, RBair's passengers are frustrated at the problem, but not annoyed - and yet they've been told much more of the priorites and can see that they're not top in the mopping up operation; as long as they're shown it's going to minimise the problems for all the passengers in total, they're very much accepting of it.

For short term delays, I think that the same thing applies very much to rail travel / travellers, and I despair when I see passengers handled as if they are selfish ignormauses (sure, there are some!) rather than being fully informed.    And - quite frankly, I don't think that FGW do always treat their passengers in that way anyway ... I was on a 10 minute journey on a 158 the other day - or rather it was scheduled for 10, left on time, and took 25.  We were told (a bit late, but we were told!) it was "due to a late running HST ahead of us", and no-one was greatly fussed that it had gone first.

In the longer term, I and I suspect most fellow passengers want rail travel to do well.   For there to be a train service available to Whitby when we want to go there, and for the Ilkley service to thrive and bustle.  We may be a bit jealous as to why they get 5 to 8 trains a day to termini towns which are comparable in size - but that doesn't stop us wishing them well, encouraging them to learn from some of the stupidities of fares / service etc that happen on other lines so they don't get caught by the same trap, and we (talking here with a campaigning hat on) will delight in learning from their successes.

On the campaigning side ... there WILL be difficult compromises.  FGW may ask "do we run 42 diagrams with 45 serviceable sets, leaving three parked up to cover for failures ... or do we run 43 out of 45, leaving two strategic cover units, and provide a decent TransWilts service"

But - certainly - there is strength in not being tunnel visioned as the correspondent at FGW seemed to think we are, and there is also the most enormous benefit in working with, and understanding, FGW and the other TOCs.   In fact - it's funny at times how what are regarded as opposite sides of the fence come together so much for the greater good.   Really - that's how it should be.  The current train users should be the ambassadors for rail ... and encourage more train users by tails of excellent schedules and service.

A very good summary Grahame.

I agree that we should be supporting all rail viable rail projects, however campaining goups have limited resources. Maybe what should happen is that all the Groups in FGW terriotory get together and agree a priority list of projects within the FGW area.

i would suggest Portishead, Tavisotck for priority reinstatements with Brafdford on Avon North curve next. Swindon Kemble for redoubling. Melksham for improved services.  We should also support Evergreen 3 to Oxford and East West, plus any open access operators who whish to operate in FGW territory, even if i don't like trains competing with trains.

To quote you: On the campaigning side ... there WILL be difficult compromises.  FGW may ask "do we run 42 diagrams with 45 serviceable sets, leaving three parked up to cover for failures ... or do we run 43 out of 45, leaving two strategic cover units, and provide a decent TransWilts service"

This invovles some interesting maths with 42 diagrams fro 45 you require 93.33% availability with 43 diagrams you require 95.55% both of which are almost impossible to achieve. So maybe what we should be campaigning for is 45 diagrams from 50 sets requiring 90% availability which should keep any bean counter happy and would provide more services much more reliably.

I'm not from Wiltshire, but I'd like to see Melksham get a better service for the purely selfish reason that I still haven't coloured in the line in my rail atlas! Keep managing to miss engineering and emergency diversions as well. Although I would actually like to get off at Melksham to see what all the fuss is about!  ;)