as of 11:45: 16 incidents listed and 14 are traincrew related.
As good as it is that commuter groups highlight the problems they encounter during the week, what about services on weekends where just as many passengers, at times even more use the railways?
I recall listening to Alison Forster, former MD of
FGW▸ , speaking at Travel Watch soon after she had headed the company that won the franchise. She was talking about just how many potential customers there are out there for the company - people who don't use trains, but are willing to give them a go. There are probably a lot of them around this weekend ... but "plenty more fish in the sea" if they happen to get a bad experience, and they probably won't know how to get redress for bad service or bother to complain with Christmas just a day or two away, so it's rather a good time for the service to be intermittent through understaffing as far as the operator is concerned, isn't it?
One of other lines we were familiar with under the Alison Forster regime was the shifting of blame routinely to Network Rail - sometimes justified, and sometimes not. I was very happy to understand from Dave Ward (new at Network Rail) and Andrew Haines (new at First Great Western) that a more honest approach would be taken. So it is very sad to see selective quoting of statistics by Andrew Haines to the Sunday Times of today, as follows:
On the Thames Valley routes into London, for example, FGW is responsible for only 28% of delays, with almost all the rest being the responsibility of Network Rail, which owns and operates the track and signalling. The age of the infrastructure leads to sudden and unexpected problems. ^A fortnight ago Network Rail did an ultrasonic inspection of a one-mile section of track that showed eight faults that had to be fixed immediately. The result was that the line was closed in the morning,^ said Haines.
I think he chose, when talking to the reporter about the West in general, to choose the one specific example that would show up Network Rail rather than First as the main culprit in the current problems - certainly Dave Ward was talking very specifically about London - Reading problems at a
TWSW» meeting a couple of months ago.
Naughty, Andrew, and a sad indication that the leopard hasn't changed its spots.
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