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All across the Great Western territory / Across the West / Re: Delays near Hayes and Harlington 21/01/2013
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on: January 22, 2013, 19:44:48
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..........pretty much a cut and paste from the last "apology", when is it going to improve?
Theres not really anything else he can really say, FGW▸ are Network Rails customers so i assume he's been putting pressure on Network rail to find a solution to this problem. Similarly i know the HEx MD has been putting a lot of pressure on Network rail as its not Network rails reputation thats suffering |
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All across the Great Western territory / The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom / Re: Christmas and Boxing Day trains - ongoing discussion
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on: December 27, 2012, 15:18:55
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Also as crossrail is going to be a new company i wouldn't be surprised if they included christmas day and boxing day in staff contracts much the same way heathrow express do now.
I can foresee this being a significant problem though, because surely a significant majority of Crossrail staff will be TUPE▸ 'd across into the new ' TOC▸ '. Greater Anglia have already been required by their current franchise agreement to set up a completely separate and discrete 'business unit' for their Liverpool St - Shenfield service, including all relevant backroom staff as well as the drivers, because they are all to be transferred into Crossrail lock stock and barrel. All this has to happen within a year or two, but well before the new stock arrives, so I'd think those people will all expect to keep their current T&Cs? The current railway seems to have more than a few areas where merged staff are on separate T&Cs depending on where they came from; doesn't Northern still get managed effectively as two sub-TOCs, for east and west of the Pennines, and harmonisation was abandoned some time ago? Paul Was actually thinking more in terms of the heathrow drivers that move over as crossrail will be taking over the current connect services, these drivers are already contracted to work christmas day and boxing day and would in time be joined by new entrants to the industry. Yes its not a perfect solution having staff on different contracts but if managed correctly its workable. |
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All across the Great Western territory / The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom / Re: Christmas and Boxing Day trains - ongoing discussion
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on: December 27, 2012, 10:52:39
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One aspect people have forgotten particularly on the eastern end of the line is there is major crossrail engineering work scheduled every christmas for the next couple of years, so thats likely to mean there will be no service in the next couple of years. This year for example theres been resignalling in the acton area and there are other major projects in the pipeline.
Also as crossrail is going to be a new company i wouldn't be surprised if they included christmas day and boxing day in staff contracts much the same way heathrow express do now.
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Journey by Journey / London to Reading / Re: Massive Disruption at Paddington - ALL day Thurs / Fri
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on: December 21, 2012, 22:17:27
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As for your point of lack of contingency the harsh reality is that due to the crossrail works taking place which resulted in the closure of the old taxi road where replacement buses used to operate from. The new taxi rank frankly struggles with taxis most of the time and there's no other locations in the paddington area for buses to operate from. It's for this reason that there's no bus replacement service Christmas Day and Boxing Day. The tube is therefore the most appropriate alternative although granted its far from ideal.
Also the point about lack of management presence, to be honest they probably wouldn't offer anything the current staff presence would offer and to be frank there's probably more productive things they could be doing.
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All across the Great Western territory / Across the West / Re: Major delays/cancellations, Paddington to Reading, 20 December 2012 and ongoing ...
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on: December 21, 2012, 22:04:50
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The CJB666 thread was locked - this is the reply I tried to post to it:
This site was originally set up in answer to ... frustrations ... at "things rail" in the area served by First Great Western, and indeed a noticeable increase in visitors to the site tells me that those frustrations are still there. Heck - many of us feel them, and it's common that on long distance journeys its the FGW▸ area end that's the problem.
snip
The big issues - as with every disruption to the GWML▸ are: 1/ lack of management visibility at Paddington inc. BAA or Heathrow Ltd / FGW / Network Rail 2/ conflicting information from station staff who themselves aren't kept informed - this latest disruption was known about at 11.00 Thursday morning - yet no-one bothered to announce that it was a major fire or where - pax at, say Hayes (where I was) at 15.00, were given NO information whatsoever yet the FGW Duty Manager (Mr. Singh) was there on the platform chatting to a friend - he seemed totally unconcerned about anything 3/ complete abandonment by Heathrow Ltd (ex-BAA) of pax for Heathrow, no coaches, no cabs, no real alternatives to get to Heathrow other than the over-crowded Piccadilly Line Yet this line and Paddington has severe disruptions almost every month from cable thefts, suicides, points failures, signalling failures, etc. YET FGW / HEATHROW (EX-BAA) / NETWORK RAIL ALL SEEM INCAPABLE OF HANDLING THE EMERGENCIES. PATHETIC. Speaking from a hex perspective it isn't abandonment as such but the harsh reality is due to the crossrail work there is now no chance of running a bus replacement service as buses previously used the old taxi road whereas the new one struggles with taxis most of the time. Also there has been a continual staff presence offering information to customers regarding alternative routes etc and handing out compensation forms. So I'm not sure what a management presence would offer as I'm assuming your referring to senior management then surely putting pressure on network rail to rectify the problem and come up with a robust contingency plan would be a better use of their time. |
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All across the Great Western territory / Looking forward - the next 5, 10 and 20 years / Re: Great Western Invitation to Tender issued today (Friday 27 July 2012)
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on: October 21, 2012, 16:45:23
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Going back to an earlier post, FGW▸ did run a Paddington to Stratford HST▸ some years ago. Given that it's one of the biggest tourist destinations in the country I'm surprised they abandoned the service.
And the idea about re-opening Stratford to Honeybourne is "intriguing" as the trackbed down to Long Marston is now a cycle way and somebody has built some industrial units across the old trackbed at Long Marston. Not that these problems are insuperable but it would cost a bit. Also potential conflict with the GWR▸ steam service as and when they get north of Broadway (unless GWR want to reinstate the old east curve linking to the main line east of Honeybourne) - and don't laugh as the GWR have just completed a ^1 million plus fundraising to carry out repairs and invest for the future.
It wasn't abandoned as such, the SRA» as it was then decided to transfer London to Stratford services from FGW to Chiltern |
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Journey by Journey / London to Reading / Re: Fatalities at Hayes & Harlington - merged topic
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on: September 12, 2012, 12:40:22
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To reduce the risk at Hayes and Southall stations some structural work is required on platform 2 at both stations, fence off the first 20 to 30 metres of the platform from the platform stairs, the platforms are very narrow and hence very busy at this point; this would mean extending the length of platform 2 towards London especially at Hayes as this is the emergency evac station for HEX trains.
Even this would not eliminate the risk, it more than likely manifest it self elsewhere.
The last few fatatities at Hayes including this one have occured on platform one which incidentally when the platform was extended gained a new exit leading from the platform to the adjacent car park, so a fence on platform two would have had no effect |
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All across the Great Western territory / Fare's Fair / Re: Labour slams FGW
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on: August 15, 2012, 16:34:41
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True, but as you say it was blindingly obvious she meant First.
I bet she'd moan about reducing the costs of the railways too (ie. staff).
[/quote]
She could also have been referring to National Express as the government are still operating the service they abandoned.
As for criticising First for using a clause in their contract, it was her partys government that agreed that contract so maybe its another example of labour trying to rewrite history
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Journey by Journey / London to Reading / Re: Delays this morning (25/07/12)
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on: July 27, 2012, 12:02:46
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To be fair it sounds like you are making an assumption about FGW▸ staff there
As for your first point, first thing the signaller needs to work out is where every train is and without detection this isn't as simple as you'd think and then they need to arrange for a pilotman to guide the trains through the section one by one at cautionary speed. This does take time to organise though and trains can't be moved until then
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Journey by Journey / London to Reading / Re: 18.51 Paddington to Slough.. and then being left there....
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on: July 11, 2012, 15:38:43
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There was a points failure last night that affected the up airport to up main and down relief lines, while this mainly affected heathrow services there was some knock on effect on tv services travelling on the releif lines so may go some way to explaining the delay to your service
It doesn't however excuse the lack of communication but having been in that situation myself the station staff are often the last to know, although to be fair to fgw i find that network rail can be just as much to blame for this
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Journey by Journey / London to Reading / Re: Fatalities at Hayes & Harlington - merged topic
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on: July 10, 2012, 19:00:00
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A pertinant point regarding crossing trains from relief lines and main lines and vice versa is the track lay out, where as other lines have two up lines and then two down lines the gwml has up and down main and up and down relief. This means that potentially to cross a train from the relief to the main you have to slow down/stop a up service as well as stopping the one on the down main meaning that potentially you now have three delayed trains rather than just one.
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All across the Great Western territory / Fare's Fair / Re: Bath to Ayrshire 1st Class Return via London. ^1206???
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on: March 02, 2012, 05:24:21
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Its not valid on Hex or Connect between Hayes and Heathrow due to BAA not being full members of ATOC» and the only reason 'priv' tickets are accepted in because its done on a reciprical basis. Hex's line is that they have requested to become full members in the past but has been refused due to the small insular nature of their operation.
The reason other open access operators accept it is due to them being owned by companies that are full members of ATOC i.e First with Hull Trains and Arriva with Grand Central.
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