"Old Worse and Worse"

Witham Bobby

Transport Scholar
Hero Member

Posts: 702

"Old Worse and Worse"

« on: February 12, 2025, 14:16:14 »

The service between London and Worcester/Hereford truly lives up to its Old Worse and Worse name

Looking at the almost 10% cancellation rate in the most recent figures. This compares unfavourably with the "average" amongst the so-called high-speed services of 7.7%, which is itself, very high

I think the figure for cancellations doesn't tell the whole truth, either. If you're waiting at Evesham to go to London, but GWR^▸ decide to start that train from Oxford that day, and not from Worcester, as far as you are concerned on the freezing platform, your train is 100% cancelled. It doesn't show-up in the figures, though. I don't think it would even count as a cancellation if a train starting at Worcester Foregate Street was amended to run only as far as Shrub Hill. This has happened a couple of times in the recent past

The GWR figures for 8 December 2024 to 4 January 2025 show that 9.83 of Cotswold line services were cancelled, and a measly 52% of them ran on time


	Logged

IndustryInsider

Moderator
Hero Member

Posts: 10398

Re: "Old Worse and Worse"

« Reply #1 on: February 12, 2025, 21:23:57 »

Quote from: Witham Bobby on February 12, 2025, 14:16:14

I think the figure for cancellations doesn't tell the whole truth, either. If you're waiting at Evesham to go to London, but GWR^▸ decide to start that train from Oxford that day, and not from Worcester, as far as you are concerned on the freezing platform, your train is 100% cancelled. It doesn't show-up in the figures, though. I don't think it would even count as a cancellation if a train starting at Worcester Foregate Street was amended to run only as far as Shrub Hill. This has happened a couple of times in the recent past

I don’t think that’s right. AFAIK^▸ they are still using the following methodology:

A train is classed as fully cancelled if it didn’t run at all, or completed less than half of its journey length.

A train is ‘part cancelled’ if it ran at least half but not all of its planned journey length, or it missed one or more stations in its planned calling pattern.

So, the figures are actually better than they look…though still pretty awful!


	Logged

To view my GWML^▸ Electrification cab video 'before and after' video comparison, as well as other videos of the new layout at Reading and 'before and after' comparisons of the Cotswold Line Redoubling scheme, see: http://www.dailymotion.com/user/IndustryInsider/

Richard Fairhurst

Global Moderator
Hero Member

Posts: 1273

Re: "Old Worse and Worse"

« Reply #2 on: Yesterday at 10:32:24 »

It feels that the main issue right now is the late afternoon/evening peak. The morning and daytime services seem to be largely ok (at this end of the line, anyway).


	Logged

Mark A

Global Moderator
Hero Member

Posts: 1844

Re: "Old Worse and Worse"

« Reply #3 on: Yesterday at 17:09:23 »

This made me think of one aunt in particular, and of the nailed-up timetabled train from Paddington in that direction - loco and coaches at 16:45, which used to depart rather serenely, just in advance of most of the evening rush.

Checking Realtimetrains and yes it still runs, at 16:48, a five carriage IEP^▸ to Malvern, backed up by a 10 carriage set 40 minutes later.

Mark

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:Y22372/2025-02-13


	Logged

Do you have something you would like to add to this thread, or would you like to raise a new question at the Coffee Shop? Please [register] (it is free) if you have not done so before, or login (at the top of this page) if you already have an account - we would love to read what you have to say!

You can find out more about how this forum works [here] - that will link you to a copy of the forum agreement that you can read before you join, and tell you very much more about how we operate. We are an independent forum, provided and run by customers of Great Western Railway, for customers of Great Western Railway and we welcome railway professionals as members too, in either a personal or official capacity. Views expressed in posts are not necessarily the views of the operators of the forum.

As well as posting messages onto existing threads, and starting new subjects, members can communicate with each other through personal messages if they wish. And once members have made a certain number of posts, they will automatically be admitted to the "frequent posters club", where subjects not-for-public-domain are discussed; anything from the occasional rant to meetups we may be having ...

Pages: [1]

« previous next »