Disruption October - November 2020

[whole diary]

[Gordon the Blue Engine]

Notwithstanding the fact the line should have been opened to-day, GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) are still (Saturday) stating:

"Live network updates

Good service on most of our network

Most trains across the GWR network are running on time at the moment. Use our tool to check your journey
Last updated: 09:06"

This is despite the fact that Journeycheck is showing 32 Train Cancellations and 85 Other Train Service Updates (as per the top of page graphic).

I make no apology about going on about this.  If you're going to have a website that gives out information, you should make sure that there are systems in place to make sure the information is accurate.

[bobm]

This is where the automatic and regimented structure of the railway's public information systems only serve to confuse.

The majority of Paddington to Swansea trains leaving Paddington at XX.48 have been replaced by trains at XX.18 to give them the extra running time via Kemble.  Journeycheck shows these as cancelled train at XX.48 and an additional train at XX.18 - thereby making the problem look twice as bad as it is.

Also, strangely, there is no mention of the issue under Line Updates which would help to put things in context.

There have also been some strange entries on services coming from Swansea



This additional train was already in the timetable but with different timings.   For some reason the times quoted down the left after Newport are for the train due to run an hour earlier.  The ones down the right are correct for that train and near enough what it achieved.  Even so if it was 34 minutes late at Swindon it wasn't on time by Reading - you can't have it both ways!

[grahame]

I make no apology about going on about this.  If you're going to have a website that gives out information, you should make sure that there are systems in place to make sure the information is accurate.

The system works very well when the trains are all working very well, and copes too when there are a handful of loos issues / formation changes / perhaps a diagram cancelled due to a train failure.

When big changes bring big disruption, it fails to present the information clearly or at times even correctly - the very time it would be at its most useful.   You are correct in making no apology for repeating your concerns.   There is a need for the railway to provide proper services and correct information at all times, but sadly we see something of the opposite in a move towards a "fair weather railway" - good when it's working, but not standing up too well when it has to handle unexpected issues.

I will add one caveat - the operational staff on the ground are - for the most part - aware of the various problems and will go over and above to sort out issues and keep customers moving.  Many staff elsewhere do their best to help too but are constrained by systems that aren't coping, or too complex, or a lack of knowledge; a few are "jobsworths" or so far removed from the customers that they think of the customers as a necessary evil, and / or as the "great unwashed" / "great uninformed".

[TaplowGreen]

The buses have been timetabled for the whole of the possession. There no trains listed in RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) between Temple Meads and South Wales, and services between Newport and Parkway are shown as buses. The same is true for tomorrow. The problem will be from Saturday ...

Many regular members take a quick look at the top-of-page graphic when they visit the Coffee Shop to give a quick, geographic overview of what's going on.     Never seen it quite this plastered with red and maroon before:



But, yet, with the lockdown in Wales lasting another couple of days, and the lockdown in England having started a couple of days ago, passenger numbers will be at their lowest and it's probably one of the better times in the calendar to have an overrun.

It's bad, but it's been much worse on BBQ Sundays.

[bobm]

Disruption set to continue until Monday 16th November.

Services diverting via Gloucester apart from tomorrow and Sunday 15th.   On those days there will only be the bus replacement between Bristol Parkway and Newport.

[IndustryInsider]

Many regular members take a quick look at the top-of-page graphic when they visit the Coffee Shop to give a quick, geographic overview of what's going on.     Never seen it quite this plastered with red and maroon before:

It's all very Jackson Pollock. 

[grahame]

Today's map looks much cleaner ... not because the line has been restored, but because the railway planners have now had time to plan in the changes due to the engineering overrun, so that our data feed treats buses from Parkway to Newport as normal.

Short, sharp lockdown in Wales is completed ... lockdown in England remains underway through from an exercise from home trip on Friday, I would not describe it as "sharp" here.

[Gordon the Blue Engine]

I accept that the journey disruptions around Patchway are now timetabled in, but that doesn't alter the fact that journeys are disrupted.

So for GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) to say that there is a "Good service on our network" is not helpful.  They should be saying something like:

"Travel through the Severn Tunnel [say that and not Patchway, as no-one knows where that is] to and from South Wales is disrupted.  Buses are running between Bristol Parkway and Newport, and some long distance trains to and from London Paddington are being diverted.  In both cases journey times will increase: please use our tool to check your journey"

This actually tells prospective travellers something helpful, unlike the current message which is misleading. 

If you want to provide a decent real time information system it needs some real time human involvement.  You can't always drive it off the timetable and other IT systems. 

[grahame]

From Twitter (@GWRHelp) - noting "Until further notice".

[stuving]

I accept that the journey disruptions around Patchway are now timetabled in, but that doesn't alter the fact that journeys are disrupted.

So for GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) to say that there is a "Good service on our network" is not helpful.  They should be saying something like:

"Travel through the Severn Tunnel [say that and not Patchway, as no-one knows where that is] to and from South Wales is disrupted.  Buses are running between Bristol Parkway and Newport, and some long distance trains to and from London Paddington are being diverted.  In both cases journey times will increase: please use our tool to check your journey"

This actually tells prospective travellers something helpful, unlike the current message which is misleading. 

If you want to provide a decent real time information system it needs some real time human involvement.  You can't always drive it off the timetable and other IT systems. 

I think you're wrong about that flag message of "Good service on most of our network" - it's meant to be a one-liner to put at the edge of a page or display, and tell you whether today's service is running as expected overnight. It's expected these days that a few trains will be delayed or even cancelled, but you'd be unlucky of one affected you.

Changes or disruptions are inherently confusing, and once you set out you don't want to be alarmed by warnings of a "change" that isn't one as you already knew of it before today. Of course there can be changes  to changes, and that calls for very clear labelling - bobm's example earlier of this thread is an example of that going wrong: confusing changes from planned to altered with those from altered to altered again.

The longer message belongs somewhere else, and if you look in some somewhere elses there already is one. However, there is a big issue with how the extension of this work is shown on the gwr.com web site. If you can find "Planned engineering", the "Bristol" works are shown as "ongoing". But looking under "Planned Improvements", or any of the calendar-based data, shows nothing - presumably because its original end date has passed. Now, they can't have it both ways - either it was timetabled, in which case it should show up as "planned", or it wasn't, in which case it's a disruption of some kind.

Perhaps they think "everyone looks at Twitter" so the web site doesn't matter any more - in which case they'd not be the only ones.

[rogerw]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) now stating until 23rd November

[grahame]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) now stating until 23rd November

One wonders, a little tongue in cheek, why GWR don't use replacement buses for just the short distance from Bristol Parkway to Pilning ... which after all is still open, and has an honourable history of emergency and engineering use, and has crossover facilities.

[grahame]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) now stating until 23rd November

Indeed ... JourneyCheck reports:

Between Bristol Parkway and Newport South Wales

Planned engineering work will take place between Bristol Parkway and Newport South Wales from 09:00, Tuesday 10 November 2020 to 02:00, Monday 23 November 2020.

Additional Information
Buses will replace trains between Bristol Parkway and Newport. Train services will run to an amended timetable between Swansea / Cardiff Central and Newport, Bristol Parkway and Portsmouth Harbour, Bristol Temple Meads and Weston-super-Mare, Taunton and beyond and between Bristol Parkway and Worcester Shrub Hill.

"Planned engineering work" I notice ... yeah, bit of last minute planning when the original plans fell apart 

[stuving]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) now stating until 23rd November

Indeed ... JourneyCheck reports:

Between Bristol Parkway and Newport South Wales

Planned engineering work will take place between Bristol Parkway and Newport South Wales from 09:00, Tuesday 10 November 2020 to 02:00, Monday 23 November 2020.

Additional Information
Buses will replace trains between Bristol Parkway and Newport. Train services will run to an amended timetable between Swansea / Cardiff Central and Newport, Bristol Parkway and Portsmouth Harbour, Bristol Temple Meads and Weston-super-Mare, Taunton and beyond and between Bristol Parkway and Worcester Shrub Hill.

"Planned engineering work" I notice ... yeah, bit of last minute planning when the original plans fell apart 

Surely the work being done now was planned. It just wasn't planned for it to be done now.

[TonyK]

Surely the work being done now was planned. It just wasn't planned for it to be done now.

There's a job waiting for you at MetroBust, in the propaganda public relations department!