Letter from Great Western Railway Managing Director Mark Hopwood

[whole diary]

[SandTEngineer]

....mmm.  I did think last night that a certain Cotswolds MP^▸ (Member of Parliament, or Mile Post - a method of measuring the railway in miles and chains from a starting point - usually London, depending on context) had a word in the ear of a certain Maidenhead MP, who then had a word in the ear of a certain Epsom and Ewell MP, who then had a word in the ear of the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) who then had a word with MH......That would take a couple of weeks......

Grahame, I do agree with some of the things you have said in your earlier post and yes, as they say "from small acorns do large trees grow" but......GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) as an organisation seems to have lost touch with its customers, but not entirely due to its own fault.  Performance from NR^» (Network Rail - home page) has been dreadful, and we seem to be suffering from major infrastructure failures on a daily basis (the total failure of the signalling at Swindon yesterday being the latest example).  In the past, and yes I do know we shouldn't always live in the past, if this number of repeat infrastructure failures had been encountered then senior heads would have rolled.  Trouble is, NR got rid of all its people with the necessary experience to manage such issues and I strongly believe we are now seeing the results of that.  Remember that modern signalling systems are designed for what we call 'Graceful Degredation' where during a failure only parts of the system should fail, and not the whole system, so I am at a loss as to how a whole signalling system can fail like it did yesterday.

So I do agree with some of your post, but not all.  There are certainly a large number of issues that are within GWRs remit to manage.

I'll go and have a lie down now.....

[ChrisB]

....mmm.  I did think last night that a certain Cotswolds MP^▸ (Member of Parliament, or Mile Post - a method of measuring the railway in miles and chains from a starting point - usually London, depending on context) had a word in the ear of a certain Maidenhead MP, who then had a word in the ear of a certain Epsom and Ewell MP, who then had a word in the ear of the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) who then had a word with MH......That would take a couple of weeks......

I can happily say that this is incorrect. No MPs were involved to our knowledge. A certain President might have though :-)
The CLPG^» (Cotswold Line Promotion Group - about) has excellent relations with GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) and that helps too.

Mark Hopwood generally does attend CLPG AGMs^▸ (Annual General Meeting) - I think he's probably been to more than he's missed.

[RichardB]

Don't forget too that John Ellis, Chairman of the CLPG^» (Cotswold Line Promotion Group - about), is a very senior retired railwayman - GM of the Southern Region and MD of Scotrail.

[SandTEngineer]

...I would like to add to my earlier post that I do have a certain amount of sympathy with GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), and in particular its front line, customer facing, staff.  I know of quite a few GWR staff that cannot wait to get out as soon as they can, or have even taken demotion due to the pressures they are facing.  Not good news for the railway industry in general.  I can imagine the chaos caused in the GWR Control when things like the NR^» (Network Rail - home page) failings mentioned come into play.  It must take many hours of hard work to get the crews and trains back to where they should be.

Edit to Add: I wonder if GWR get penalised by Hitachi if they deliver a train back late for maintenance or at the wrong depot?  I'm sure STUVING will know

[ChrisB]

yup! 3 drivers needed to get the 1700 as far as Bristol TM^▸ (Train Manager, or possibly Ticket Machine, depending on context) last night....

[devonexpress]

Says someone who hasn't had to experience the awful service, obviously

I commuted with GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) for 3 years, the longest delay I had was 41 minutes when the Dawlish sea wall re-opened. Otherwise the occasional 5 or 10 minute delay.

[grahame]

Says someone who hasn't had to experience the awful service, obviously

I commuted with GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) for 3 years, the longest delay I had was 41 minutes when the Dawlish sea wall re-opened. Otherwise the occasional 5 or 10 minute delay.

You mention Dawlish. Was your journey on the Paignton branch?

[YouKnowNothing]

I still think the contents of the letter should have been made public across the whole of GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) and not just confined to a Cotswold Group

Can someone explain to me why the Cotswold line is being prioritised? What upgrade works are currently being undertaken there? What level of service is the Cotswold line suffering from that it needs to be prioritised? Is it worse than the rest of the GWR route?

[ChrisB]

If you spend a few minutes reading this thread and this one

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=19201.0

You'll get a good idea. Quicker than another member typing it all up again.

[devonexpress]

Says someone who hasn't had to experience the awful service, obviously

I commuted with GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) for 3 years, the longest delay I had was 41 minutes when the Dawlish sea wall re-opened. Otherwise the occasional 5 or 10 minute delay.

You mention Dawlish. Was your journey on the Paignton branch?

Newton Abbot to Exeter St Davids

[YouKnowNothing]

If you spend a few minutes reading this thread and this one

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=19201.0

You'll get a good idea. Quicker than another member typing it all up again.

From what I can see the Cotswold line is suffering from the same issues as the rest of the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) network and shouldn't really stand out for additional attention.

[ChrisB]

Seriously? With daily disruption to the timetable, no  one knows which trains are running from day to day!

[grahame]

From what I can see the Cotswold line is suffering from the same issues as the rest of the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) network and shouldn't really stand out for additional attention.

Seriously? With daily disruption to the timetable, no  one knows which trains are running from day to day!

We could play a pretty depressing game of "my service is worse than yours", coming up with different answers depending on the measures taken.

Some places are clearly better than others, but there are several contenders for the booby prize for performance - it's not a one line race!

[TaplowGreen]

From what I can see the Cotswold line is suffering from the same issues as the rest of the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) network and shouldn't really stand out for additional attention.

Seriously? With daily disruption to the timetable, no  one knows which trains are running from day to day!

We could play a pretty depressing game of "my service is worse than yours", coming up with different answers depending on the measures taken.

Some places are clearly better than others, but there are several contenders for the booby prize for performance - it's not a one line race!

I think "slightly less awful" rather than "better" is the phrase you may be looking for, but the Cotswold line is clearly way ahead in the race to the bottom! 

[JayMac]

I think the best performing line at the moment is the Gunnislake branch. That one rarely seems to be mentioned on this forum, on JourneyCheck or GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s social media.

Perhaps GWR have been focusing all their efforts on this very important strategic line.