Is there any clear plan of action to reliably run full length trains ?
The new timetable does not seem to have improved matters.
Or is this the "new normal" and we should simply get used to it ?
There will be short formations on occasions, that is a given. It is a question of how many is acceptable and personally I think that an average of one diagram a day (so perhaps six services) is the maximum that we should be seeing, otherwise a plan to build more trains or lengthen others should be carefully considered. I have seen an improvement since the new timetable, but it is still not good enough - with the end of last week and today particularly poor.
We seem to have moved on from "all peak trains to or from Paddington will be full length" and towards "short trains are not that bad"
Who has said that short trains in the peak are not that bad?
Even paying the first class fare is of little help since first is de-facto declassified on short trains. Enforcement of first class is patchy even on full length units.
Short formed trains on occasion maybe, but that represents a small percentage of the total number of trains. I've seen little or no declassification for trains that are booked to be 5-cars as generally that is what is suitable for the service, though there are exceptions of course. I have seen no less enforcement of first class on full-length trains than when
HSTs▸ operated the services.
Reserving a seat does not help as the reservation system is still unreliable, and reservations are voided on half length trains.
Reservations have improved a great deal. There is an ongoing problem with the Cheltenham trains which was due to a last minute change of letter used in the headcode for the new timetable and that is being addressed. There are still sometimes problems with trains attaching and detaching, but otherwise I rarely see reservations not being displayed. Please let's not pretend reservations were always put out and displayed on HSTs, where if they were they were difficult to read and prone to people removing them.
And as for catering, the trolley service still hides more often than not, and is often in the other portion of a full length service.
I would agree that the trolley service isn't consistent enough by some way yet, but would argue with the statement that the trolley hides "more often than not", and from my own observations is slowly getting better.
And the new units have proved vulnerable to the adverse but well known conditions at Dawlish, despite the promises made.
Agreed. Still a lot of work to be done there, despite modification to various settings.
I have avoided frequent comment on this subject, and in particular have avoided remarking on my own unsatisfactory journeys, However the absence of frequent criticism from me does not mean that I consider the present situation satisfactory.
I'd quite like to hear reports of everyone's journeys, both satisfactory and unsatisfactory so we can start to more accurately turn your 'seems to be the case' into 'is the case' or 'isn't the case'. The only thing that many of us would rather not see is just repeating the same thing ad nauseam. So I am grateful you are doing that a little less often recently.
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