The image at the top left of the page

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Do you want to see if there any disruptions at the same time as visiting "The Coffeeshop" - to see if your journey is likely to be disrupted?

I have added a little map at the top left of the page showing all services that have been notified with last minute changes in the last two hours.  Colour coding is as follows:

red - cancelled completely
blue - running a shortened route
green - skipping stops

You'll also see

yellow - catering change
orange - shorter train
grey - other change (e.g. extra stops)

If the dot at the end of the route is black, the train hasn't yet reached its destination, (or wasn't scheduled to, anyway!).  If the dot is coloured, the train should have complete its journey by now. All services are show from start point to end point "as the crow flies" - somewhat diagramatic!

If you click on the image, you'll be taken to a page I'm testing to give you some further specific information.

[swlines]

Can you force the image to be cached Graham? Takes yonks to reload every time I go on another page....

[grahame]

I have added this graphic on the top of this website which shows the current train running information.   As this information can change quite rapidly, my initial thought was to have it displayed afresh quite frequently rather than instructing user's computers to store the image so that it could get quite out of date - however, you'll notice that at least one user disagrees with that decision.

Do you find the (new) download speed acceptable?   Or would you prefer me to set a substantial timeout on the caching to speed up your page loads?   Please let me know by voting above.

[devon_metro]

A nice thought, but an incredibly confusing map!!!

[grahame]

A nice thought, but an incredibly confusing map!!!

Constructive comments (i.e. what would make it better) welcome ... but bear in mind that there are practical and technical limits to what I can do.   

I did consider putting certain intermediate points in, in the knowledge that all trains from Brighton to Great Malvern go via Bristol, for example.  However, there are some routes such as London to the West Country that can be via Chippenham or via Westbury(ish) and without a full timetable I would end up generating a misleading map ...

[swlines]

May I advise you take the info from a different URL then?

[grahame]

May I advise you take the info from a different URL then?

Thanks, Tom ... I have been doing a bit of experimentation (with the alternative source you suggested, thanks) but although I've come up with a reasonable test case showing intermediate stations too, there are some ongoing issue with it which may (or may not) get sorted.  I prefer to provide something that is clearly diagramatic than something that looks close enough to being a real map but causes confusion in areas that it isn't.

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

i wasnt sure what the lines on the map were all about but thats a good idea now i know

[Btline]

A nice touch! I take it that it updates automatically, and you don't have to do it yourself.

Hmmmm, a possible new high speed route from London to Penzance...

[grahame]

i wasnt sure what the lines on the map were all about but thats a good idea now i know

Good point - the map is intended to give regular users a quick glance to show them were there are ongoing issues that may effect their journey, but for the newcomer it can look a bit odd; I've added a  "? about" onto the image to encourage people to click on it ... taking them to the more specific details and also the description.

[TerminalJunkie]

... taking them to the more specific details and also the description.

Referring to that page, can I just point out that they are affected trains and services, not effected ones!

[grahame]

... taking them to the more specific details and also the description.

Referring to that page, can I just point out that they are affected trains and services, not effected ones!

Clearly you can     ... and have done.

And I have corrected the page.  Thanks - I always have trouble with insurance and assurance too!

[Btline]

Can I suggest that you change the colour of short formed trains to purple - it is too similar to the red of cancelled.

And the "effected" is still there.....

[grahame]

I have now corrected the second occurrence of the error ;-) ... and will look at the colours; there are various tweaks that I'm looking at and I'll roll it in with that.

[Timmer]

grahame's map is starting to look like the met office radar with all the different colours appearing!

Sad to say that today's long list of short formed/running services has shown that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) still don't have enough rolling stock to run a completely reliable service when a few units are faulty. As the summer holidays have gone on the daily list has increased day by day.

Not that there is any extra spare rolling stock left in the country for them to have even if they wanted more rolling stock for the West fleet.

There must be huge reluctance to let the 5 142s go in October if the current fleet is as stretched as it is. Am I right in saying that the 150 refresh was suspended for the summer holidays to provide as much stock as possible for the Cornish branches/Weymouth line services?

Basically, until new stock is introduced to the West fleet, which won't be in the lifetime of the current franchise, you just can't see this situation ever really improving despite the best efforts of the FGW maintainance crew to keep them running. These units have been thrashed going back to BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) days and they are tired and worn out. No amount of new paint or fabric on the seats is going to change that.

Though to contradict my own argument about old rolling stock, look how well the 34+ year old HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) are preforming since the fleet had new engines installed. Just goes to show what great pieces of engineering they really are