Bourne End & Henley Services to & from Paddington

[whole diary]

[Electric train]

It also has to be remembered that its not only the train path of Padd to Bourne End / Henley and vice versa that has to be taken into account it is also getting the stoke to the start point and then away from the end point, these services are odd balls in the already complex diagram however they are currently part of the ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) franchise requirement.  The Bourne End through trains cease when Crossrail starts.

Slough passengers should not have to much to complain quite a few fast trains during the day, Maidenhead and Twyford passengers have no choice of fasts off peak

[eightf48544]

It is an open secret locally that the performance of Marlow branch in particular is very closely monitored by very very senior FGW^▸ (First Great Western) personnel.

I would image there was great reluctance to acceed to Networkrail's request to suspend the through trains, but as they control the points FGW had to agree.

[Electric train]

It is an open secret locally that the performance of Marlow branch in particular is very closely monitored by very very senior FGW^▸ (First Great Western) personnel.

Did wonder why its reliability and conectivity with London and reading trains has improved

[JRobb]

I've obviously hit a raw nerve with a few people here by daring to offer an opinion on the service that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) provide. When I joined I was not aware that opinions & thoughts had to be put across in such a way as not to offend certain people. (Phil & Ollie please accept my humble apologies for daring to have a view on FGW that you don^t agree with. I will try harder in the future to always see things from the FGW perspective, after all I only pay to use their train services & should be grateful for whatever service FGW can be bothered to provide)
I call things as I see them & having used the Slough ^ Paddington route & mainly the Henley & Bourne End services to travel the route over the past 3 & a bit years I feel qualified to offer at least an opinion on what I pay to use every day.
If someone from FGW could be bothered to communicate to passengers the reasons why trains are cancelled as opposed to falling back on the catch all line of ^Bad Weather^ then most people would I^m sure be more forgiving & understanding.
If passengers had been made aware of the fact that it was a Network Rail decision to cancel services & also that sets of points had been locked a certain way because of the weather, then at least from a passenger perspective they know why their usual service has been cancelled, they may not like it but at least they have been made aware of the real reason.
The majority (Please note, not all of them) of FGW staff at Slough & Paddington that I have had the dubious pleasure of asking for information are generally rude & aggressive & by their attitude & language more than often make a bad situation worse.
Before anyone slaps me down, I know that passengers can be just as rude & aggressive but that does not excuse some of the behaviour that I have seen from some FGW staff.
To the board members that have posted reasonable & helpful replies to my first post, I thank you, particularly for the Network Rail information, I honestly had no idea that they could cancel services.

[eightf48544]

To the board members that have posted reasonable & helpful replies to my first post, I thank you, particularly for the Network Rail information, I honestly had no idea that they could cancel services.

Unfortunately it is one of the anomalies  of the performance regime that a TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) or Networkrail can  cancel trains, change stopping patterns etc for events deemed outside their control without occuring any penalty.

Thus when I was commuing regularly I've been held up by  bridge strikes, lineside fires, suicides, bad weather etc. on many occasions without it counting in the figures.

It actually used to say on the performance poster which used to be posted at stations, (are they still?) something like events discounted in this period and then say bridge strike at Langley and give dates.

[Ollie]

Those on here who know me will know that I have no issue with people complaining about FGW^▸ (First Great Western) and making an opinion, as long as it is backed up. You will also notice I was only responding to a small bit of your post:

To summarise, in my opinion FGW love any spell of bad weather, it gives them the perfect excuse to cancel or change as many services as they wish, save money & then blame it on the weather.

Well I sure hope you return at some point and find a way to back this statement up.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Thanks for your very interesting first few posts, JRobb!

This is not a formal intervention by an administrator, it's just my own personal opinion.

I was rather interested in your choice of specifying two members who have posted on this topic previously, where you apparently believe you have "hit a raw nerve with a few people here by daring to offer an opinion on the service that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) provide".

Far from it: I happen to know both of those members personally, and while one is 'staff' and one is 'a passenger', they have both been known to criticise FGW in forthright terms, when appropriate.  Indeed, I too (and I am not, and never have been, FGW staff), have also been known to criticise FGW on this forum, quite forcibly, on specific issues in the past - and yet I too have been accused of being more pro-FGW than some of the staff!

I think the point is that you need to make sure you produce evidence for any specific criticism: if you "have seen staff verbally abusing & threatning customers with police action", you should take that further through the appropriate complaints procedure.

On the other hand, any sweeping criticism of 'FGW staff', or 'FGW train services' will not have too much credibility, as it flies in the face of the evidence.

See www.passengerfocus.org.uk where there is evidence that FGW are performing well - and are improving their performance!

[JRobb]

Chris, thanks for your feedback & I'll take your points on board, when posting in the future.

[JayMac]

JRobb, I too came to this forum after experiencing some frustrating moments when dealing with FGW^▸ (First Great Western).

There were two incidences at the time. One where I was being overcharged on my local line and another when I was ejected from a train for calling FGW 'muppets'

Regarding the overcharging, I was eventually compensated and recieved an apology and a further gesture of goodwill. I'd recieved some interesting pointers from forum members, with one FGW staff member looking into the issue on my behalf.

Being ejected from the train I've not mentioned on the forum before, but it was, without doubt, the worst experience I've had on the rail network. I'd booked a 1st class seat on a Pullman train out of PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains) to sample the food on offer, and was refused service because I'd brought along my own bottle of (non-alcoholic) wine. I was having a 'dry' period at the time and didn't want to drink alcohol. The customer host refused to bring me a glass and said I could only purchase drinks from the restaurant menu. I even offered to pay a corkage fee, but no dice. I asked why I couldn't drink my own wine with my meal only to be told it was 'company policy'. That's when I called FGW 'muppets'. Not the CH herself but the company she worked for.

Taking exception to my criticism of her employer, she called the train manager and told him I was verbally abusive toward her. I was asked to get off at Reading where I was met by a couple of private security staff who took the TM^‡(resolve)'s version of events as gospel and proceeded to attempt to escort me off station premises. I asked for the station manager, who backed up all staff and tried to get me to sign a piece of paper banning me from Reading station. When I refused, BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) were called and I finally got to tell someone my side of the story and to point out that at no time was I abusive, and my criticism of FGW was nothing worse than calling the company, and not any individual, 'muppets'. Banning me from the station, was, I was told a civil matter, and the station manager could do that to whoever he wanted. After a long and protracted debate, where I managed to get BTP on my side (it didn't help FGW that the station manager walked off while BTP were talking to him) I was eventually allowed to resume my journey, minus the slap up meal. Right throuhout this experience I remained calm (I was seething inside!) and made my points constructively and never raised my voice or created a scene.

I wrote to BTP for an incident report, and then contacted James Burt, who at the time was FGW's Customer Service Director. He called me personally and said he'd investigated the matter fully and agreed, lightheartedly, that my calling FGW 'muppets' could be taken as fair comment and that the reaction of all the staff concerned was grossly inappropriate. He confirmed that Pullman staff had been advised that it was fine for diners to bring their own drinks if they so wished, and further said that the private security firm were being replaced at Reading after numerous complaints, with FGW funding BTP PCSO's instead.

What I hope to highlight with these two experiences is that in the first case this forum can be a wonderful resource to help get problems with FGW resolved, and in the second case, occasionally we do come up against jobsworths, but with a calm head (perhaps it helped that I was 'dry' at the time!!) you can get your point across, and when all the evidence is in, see a satisfactory conclusion to your complaint.

JRobb, don't take the robust replies to your initial posts as a sleight. Generally this forum is a friendly place, where people can have differences of opinion without debates descending into slanging matches. The moderation is 'light touch' and friendly. This forum has opened my eyes in lots of ways regarding FGW and the wider rail network, I dunno how I coped before I stumbled on it!

Finally. I'm just a FGW passenger and I too am occasionally a muppet. 

[Electric train]

Every day a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle is tipped out of its box and a team, a very large team working for different organisation, start to put the puzzle together; just occasionally pieces of the puzzle are missing or someone nudges the table.   The picture these people are building is one of a wonderful railway scene many times the jigsaw goes together perfectly we forget we see this, just occasionally the picture is grotesque these we do remember because to us the traveling public its the stuff of nightmares.

This 10,000 piece jigsaw to being put together all around the UK^▸ (United Kingdom).

My point is the railway is quite possibly the largest logistic operation in the UK that repeats its self day in day out a lot of the time with out a hitch.