Great Western Coffee Shop

Great Western Coffee Shop

TfW: carriage washing.

In "Shorter journeys in South and West Wales" [370903/31431/23]
Posted by Mark A at 16:17, 11th January 2026

Thinking back to last week's travel, are there parts of their network other than the lines serving mid-Wales and the Cambrian Coast for which TfW do not have the kit to wash train exteriors (at least, presumably the depot at Machynlleth does not have a carriage washer otherwise they'd surely be using it). I recall the shorter distance trains that run to Warrington as being clean, the valley lines metro train from Merthyr was squeaky clean, or had started out that way, and the Cardiff - Manchester services were clean. Not sure where the trains that run via the likes of Builth Road are serviced or their current state of exterior cleanliness, at one time they weren't brilliant.

Mark

Customer and Community Improvement Fund (CCIF) 2026/27

In "Diary - what's happening when?" [370902/31430/34]
Posted by grahame at 15:56, 11th January 2026

https://www.gwr.com/about-gwr/what-you-can-expect/community/community-investment

Customer and Community Improvement Fund 2026/27

GWR are delighted to announce we are inviting bids to our Customer and Community Improvement Fund for the financial year 2026/27.

The fund will open to bids on Monday 5 January at 12:00 and close to bids on Monday 2 February at 12:00.

Our Customer and Community Improvement Fund is designed to support small and medium rail related projects that can be completed over the course of the 2026/27 financial year. Our maximum bid amount is £25,000 and we welcome a wide range of applications, particularly from organisations who haven't worked with us previously or who propose innovative projects.

We are particularly interested in schemes that benefit customers, increase rail travel, encourage carbon reduction, connect communities, people, and places, support economic growth, promote inclusion and diversity, and educational programmes that support careers in rail.

A good bid will show a strong level of community involvement and support, and the proposal will have benefits that last beyond the duration of the project.

Important information for bids

Bids must be related to the railway and proposals which don't relate in some way to customers (or potential customers), stations, railway property, rail services, rail education or careers in rail will not be considered.

Bids which involve installations at stations (for example, murals, artwork, signage, wayfinding, platform furniture etc.) will require consultation with GWR before bid submission. Please contact us at community.fund@gwr.com to discuss further.

Re: GWR passenger representative forum??

In "Who's who on Western railways" [370901/31426/2]
Posted by grahame at 15:40, 11th January 2026

: TaplowGreen

: Mark A

Still on their web site, but no dates, mind.

Mark

https://www.gwr.com/about-gwr/what-you-can-expect/meet-the-manager

"Regular" doing some extraordinarily heavy lifting there.

Leap years are regular ...

We've had "Meet the Manager" session on the Coffee Shop over the years, as recent as October 2024. With technology moving on, perhaps we are not the best forum for those these days, but something *is* needed.

We anticipate their being a senior GWR manager at the TWSW general meeting on 6th March, and there should be a chance to network engage. You will see I have use woolly words "anticipate" and "should" in there, and TWSW is not a forum for all - rather for reps of user groups. There is a degree of flexibility there for independent transport advocates to attend - needs to be agreed / booked ahead.

Re: GWR passenger representative forum??

In "Who's who on Western railways" [370900/31426/2]
Posted by Chris from Nailsea at 15:34, 11th January 2026

Ah. Image not available to guests Cue my own ongoing grievance about the misuse of 'regular v frequent'.

'Regular' could be, for example, 'once every 100 years'.

'Frequent' could be, again for example (and in railway terminology), 'once every three months'.

CfN.

Re: GWR passenger representative forum??

In "Who's who on Western railways" [370899/31426/2]
Posted by TaplowGreen at 15:18, 11th January 2026

: Mark A

Still on their web site, but no dates, mind.

Mark

https://www.gwr.com/about-gwr/what-you-can-expect/meet-the-manager

"Regular" doing some extraordinarily heavy lifting there.

Re: Storm Goretti 'weather bomb' to hit South West England

In "Shorter journeys in Plymouth and Cornwall" [370898/31405/25]
Posted by ChrisB at 15:12, 11th January 2026

I saw a tweet that said the Falmouth line was open, though with cancellations

Re: North Sea ferries - case for re-opening routes?

In "Buses and other ways to travel" [370897/31429/5]
Posted by Mark A at 15:01, 11th January 2026

If there was a convenient port in the south of England, add a call there and they'll have reinvented Motorrail to Scotland.

Mark

North Sea ferries - case for re-opening routes?

In "Buses and other ways to travel" [370896/31429/5]
Posted by grahame at 14:56, 11th January 2026

From Time Out.

How committed are you to slow travel? So committed that you would swap a swift two-hour flight from Scotland to France for a 20-hour ride on open water? Soon, that could be a very real option.

Danish company DFDS wants to launch a brand new ferry service from the port of Rosyth (around half an hour from Edinburgh) to the French city of Dunkirk this year.

A very real and useful option - top left to bottom right on the North Sea. Is there a case for a bottom left to top right service? I recall making businss trips from Harwich to Oslo, back from Gothenburg, and also trip from Newcastle to Bergen. The Harwich to Esbjerg service is no more - the most northerly you'll get on the mainland now is in the Netherlands. Is there a case for a Harwich to Hirshals and / or Kristiansand service?

Re: GWR passenger representative forum??

In "Who's who on Western railways" [370895/31426/2]
Posted by Mark A at 14:55, 11th January 2026

Still on their web site, but no dates, mind.

Mark

https://www.gwr.com/about-gwr/what-you-can-expect/meet-the-manager

Re: Why survey for bats?

In "Railway History and related topics" [370894/31427/55]
Posted by Chris from Nailsea at 14:55, 11th January 2026

Thanks for posting that, Mark. Ah, those four-hundred-year-old railway bridges, eh? Image not available to guests

YouTube has a whole board based on the demolition work of 'Blaster Bates', at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpzbCG8ICvmluYV8aa8zh7w

I commend it to our readers - there's some very funny material there! Image not available to guests

Re: Wales explorer 4 in 8 part 4

In "Introductions and chat" [370893/31419/1]
Posted by Chris from Nailsea at 14:30, 11th January 2026

: grahame

... Shrug shoulders and move on.

Indeed. About two months ago, after a medical appointment at the BRI (the hospital, not the railway station, bobm Image not available to guests ), I walked to (the other) BRI and bought a single ticket to Nailsea.

The train was delayed, by well over 15 minutes, but I simply got the next available one to get me home.

I couldn't be bothered to make a claim on 'delay / repay': I'd have got a notional refund of rather less than a pint in Wetherspoon's, for example. Image not available to guests

CfN.

Re: North Cotswold line delays and cancellations - 2026

In "London to the Cotswolds" [370892/31371/14]
Posted by charles_uk at 14:29, 11th January 2026
Already liked by Mark A

Nothing mentioned on JourneyCheck re short-forms but the entire service on the north Cotswold line today is made up of five car units. This is very unusual as normally nine car units make up the majority of the Sunday service.

Re: GWR passenger representative forum??

In "Who's who on Western railways" [370891/31426/2]
Posted by TaplowGreen at 14:14, 11th January 2026

............I can remember a time when GWR managers used to spend time meeting their customers at stations and listening to their concerns in person...........I believe that forum was called "Meet the Manager" - seems to have fallen into abeyance now though.

Re: Swindon <-> Westbury service updates and amendments, ongoing discussion - 2026

In "TransWilts line" [370890/31359/18]
Posted by grahame at 14:11, 11th January 2026

13:54 Chippenham to Weymouth due 15:45

13:54 Chippenham to Weymouth due 15:45 will no longer call at Frome.
This is due to a short-notice change to the timetable.

Re: Wales explorer 4 in 8 part 4

In "Introductions and chat" [370889/31419/1]
Posted by grahame at 14:08, 11th January 2026
Already liked by Mark A

: Mark A

Also, Graham's experience with respect to a rover ticket when opportunities for travel were curtailed by Covid restrictions... that was poor.

Yes, it was. But at the time everyone was far more concerned with the huge business of covid and I felt that although the treatment was poor ("trains were still running - not our decision that you could not use them" as I recall) it was not a time to follow-up and make a song and dance over it. Pragmatic acceptance as sometimes happens.

I have had similar thoughts with regard delay / repay claims on rangers and rovers ... and in Interrail ticket compensations too. There have been a couple of occasions where significant delays have been suffered but ... yes ... I believe it's worked out by dividing down the cost over the number of active days, and then based on an assumption of a return trip on that day. I am planning a 7 day Freedom of North East at £101.45 in a few weeks - that's £14.50 a day and so £7.25 per single journey. So for delay of just under an hour, I would get £3.63 back. Shrug shoulders and move on.

Re: Survey - Making a success of rail reform - Campaign for Better Transport

In "Looking forward - the next 2, 5, 10 and 20 years" [370888/31424/40]
Posted by johnneyw at 14:03, 11th January 2026
Already liked by grahame, Mark A

Just completed the survey, and yes, it does rather focus your attention of what it is that you want/expect from GBR.... although I now realise that I forgot to mention in the appropriate free text area that I prefer the old BR title, which I rather expect most people will refer to it as over time anyway.

Commuting to Uni - not so new, or was I ahead of the times?

In "The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom" [370887/31428/51]
Posted by grahame at 13:51, 11th January 2026
Already liked by Chris from Nailsea, Mark A, rogerw

From The BBC

My three-hour university commute is worth the £7,000 saving on halls

On a packed morning train to Manchester, 19-year-old Amelka Zambrzycka is surrounded by commuters heading into work.

There isn't a suitable bus from her mum's house in Horwich, on the other side of Bolton, so she has just walked the 25 minutes to the station - as she does every morning - despite the freezing weather.

But Amelka isn't on her way to work. She's a first-year biology student, one of hundreds of thousands of undergraduates who now choose to live at home rather than paying for university halls

I can identify with this. I ~~studies~~ studied at The City University, lived at Petts Wood in north west Kent with my ~~patents~~ parents, and commuted ... 20 minutes walk to station, 45 minutes by train to Holborn Viaduct and then a further 20 minutes walk (through Smithfield meat market!) up toward The Angel. I missed out on the social side of Uni, but with lectures on only 4 days a week I was left either time to work / earn my keep the other day and at weekends, and to make use of my train time reading, making (illegible!) notes and to thinking things through.

Edit note: Two of grahame's trademark typos corrected, for clarity. CfN.

Re: Somerset to Sydney without flying

In "The Wider Picture Overseas" [370886/28286/52]
Posted by broadgage at 13:44, 11th January 2026

My friend is currently in the USA having travelled thereto by container ship.
Weather very cold with snow and high winds.
Nice and warm on board.
Food was excellent, and included Beef Wellington.
They intend to return on a second cargo ship, or possibly the same one.

Why survey for bats?

In "Railway History and related topics" [370885/31427/55]
Posted by Mark A at 13:37, 11th January 2026

Surprised that this film isn't used as an exemplar for what happens when we do not survey for bats. Also, Coffeeshop readers might like to read the description and play "Spot the error".

Film from 1962 hosted on BFI: the marines demolish a bridge using explosives. Most of the debris falls to the ground, some of it takes to the wing and flies away in terror. The fate of the lamb is not recorded.

Mark

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-royal-demolition-1962-online

Re: Point to point passenger numbers since the pandemic

In "The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom" [370884/31376/51]
Posted by Mark A at 13:31, 11th January 2026

Thanks for this, appreciated. It also appears as if some parts of their site are dead or not implemented.

Mark

Re: GWR passenger representative forum??

In "Who's who on Western railways" [370883/31426/2]
Posted by grahame at 13:29, 11th January 2026

: Mark A

Does GWR still have a forum that they use to gather feedback from their passengers? ...

: ChrisB

Their management has a stakeholder conference where one can engage with any & all varieties of management once a year - yet to hear whether a 2026 version will be taking place.

The definition of Stakeholder has been an interesting one, with a strong slant towards players other than passengers / passenger groups. Much more a business to business and government affair.

: ChrisB

Meantime, their management will & do engage with many user groups throughout the year at station manager & above. If you ever have a problem, drop a line to their Head of PR, Thomas Lydon. He will either deal, or find a more suitable manager.

Good advise, and I / we for WWRUG appreciate those engagements as far as they go. But yet at the same time, this route won't necessarily get you beyond an official answer (and perhaps to a different question than the one you asked) and may not get the problem itself addressed. But then a passenger rep forum (the topic of this thread) gives passengers a chance to make inputs, with no assurance of any answers. At such meetings GWR can, will and should give you a customer update, and those updates tend to be marketing lead rather than addressing passenger feedback.

Re: Defibrillators on the railways - at stations and on board trains (merged topics)

In "The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom" [370882/17500/51]
Posted by Chris from Nailsea at 13:26, 11th January 2026

In the course of my browsing the Coffee Shop forum (as I tend to do, as an administrator Image not available to guests ) I found that we had three topics, on different boards, relating specifically to defibrillators.

I have therefore moved and merged them all here - as ever, in the interests of consistency and ease of future reference.

Hope this helps, CfN. Image not available to guests

Re: Storm Goretti 'weather bomb' to hit South West England

In "Shorter journeys in Plymouth and Cornwall" [370881/31405/25]
Posted by Red Squirrel at 13:19, 11th January 2026
Already liked by Mark A

Stop Press: my Penryn correspondent tells me they've just spotted a train!

Re: Point to point passenger numbers since the pandemic

In "The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom" [370880/31376/51]
Posted by grahame at 13:07, 11th January 2026

: Mark A

Anyway... who are 'Trainslive', anyone? It's worth spending a few minutes on their site's home page.

Hard to find much ... their data is very much open data sources (many of which we have and used on the Coffee Shop) but much of it is far better done than we have done. https://trainslive.uk/about-the-sunset-update

The wayback machine gives no clue - it crawled just once - the blank page when the site was first registered on 27th December 2021 (clue - hobbyist project for Christmas?) with 123 reg, and I conjecture that one of the early thing done was to add a strong GO AWAY message to crawlers via a robots.txt file.

Thank You
To everyone who has used, shared, and supported trainslive.uk over the past four years - thank you. This journey from a simple departures board to a comprehensive railway platform wouldn't have been possible without you.

"The best way to end is to end well. trainslive.uk v3.10 represents not just the final update, but the completion of a vision four years in the making."
- Rick from the trainslive.uk team

Brave to go out on a "high". Their domain is registered by/to Cloudflaire and actual owners redacted, so no source of evidence there. I find myself guessing as to whether their team wants to move on, and / or whether they have funding issues, and / or whether they find their server loads and admin mushrooming with all the AI crawlers, and / or whether things have moved on to apps and social media and getting new membership and engagement has become an issue. All guesses based on what else I have seen - I do't actually know. I also note sites like railway data - https://www.railwaydata.co.uk - which provide some similarity of content.

Re: WECA becomes WEMCA, sometime between December 2024 and January 2026 (updated title)

In "Bristol (WECA, now WEMCA) Commuters" [370879/25181/21]
Posted by Red Squirrel at 12:53, 11th January 2026

So the preferred handle is 'West of England MCA', or just 'the MCA'.

Not that this will bother the great majority of people who still don't know or care much what it is or where it is...

Re: Storm Goretti 'weather bomb' to hit South West England

In "Shorter journeys in Plymouth and Cornwall" [370878/31405/25]
Posted by Red Squirrel at 12:47, 11th January 2026

The Squirrel family's centre of gravity has shifted a bit towards Cornwall since one of our kits moved to Penryn. They had an exam on Saturday, and had booked their train on Friday. Best laid plans etc!

There was an option to retake the exam later, but a decision was made to drive instead. They certainly found things pretty messy down there, although it looks like the locals won't be short of fuel for their woodburners for a while! Much of the traffic west of Truro seemed to be people taking their chainsaws for some exercise.

Re: Point to point passenger numbers since the pandemic

In "The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom" [370877/31376/51]
Posted by Mark A at 12:32, 11th January 2026

Anyway... who are 'Trainslive', anyone? It's worth spending a few minutes on their site's home page.

Mark

https://trainslive.uk/

"Complete UK Rail & Tube Travel Toolkit

Get real-time train information, plan your journey, and track trains across the National Rail and London Underground networks. Simple, fast, and reliable."

Re: GWR passenger representative forum??

In "Who's who on Western railways" [370876/31426/2]
Posted by ChrisB at 12:12, 11th January 2026
Already liked by Mark A

Their management has a stakeholder conference where one can engage with any & all varieties of management once a year - yet to hear whether a 2026 version will be taking place.

Meantime, their management will & do engage with many user groups throughout the year at station manager & above. If you ever have a problem, drop a line to their Head of PR, Thomas Lydon. He will either deal, or find a more suitable manager.

If however, it relates to changes to train operation at stations, it's the local Network Rail manager you need - they have a public contact number that will provide suitable contact details when you explain the problem.

GWR passenger representative forum??

In "Who's who on Western railways" [370875/31426/2]
Posted by Mark A at 11:48, 11th January 2026

Does GWR still have a forum that they use to gather feedback from their passengers? The way that the railway has settled into managing the trains & platforms at various stations (thinking Gloucester and particularly Bristol), it's irksome, and it's something that everyone has grown to accept. It also discourages travel by people with a mobility issue that's significant but not significant enough to result in them requiring a wheelchair.

Mark

Re: Wales explorer 4 in 8 part 4

In "Introductions and chat" [370874/31419/1]
Posted by Mark A at 11:34, 11th January 2026

Thanks, both. I'd already slung in the delay repay claim but good to know more background. Not totally happy that for the four days I travelled, each day I raised the issue that the ticket had been given to me without the coupon needed to record the days on which I'd travelled and each time the reply was 'Don't worry about it' until it became an issue when I legitimately needed to use the 'fourth day' for travel after the ticket's expiry date had passed at which point I was alerted that I'd be hitting a penalty fare area. But the guy wasn't hostile about this, so, fine. (Also, why does the railway have 'Penalty fare areas'? Either they're checking ticketing universally or they're not...)

Also, Graham's experience with respect to a rover ticket when opportunities for travel were curtailed by Covid restrictions... that was poor.

Mark

The Coffee Shop forum is provided by customers of Great Western Railway (formerly First Great Western). The views expressed are those of the individual posters concerned. Visit https://www.gwr.com for the official Great Western Railway website. Please contact the administrators of this site at admin@railcustomer.info if you feel that the content provided by one of our posters contravenes our posting rules. Our full legal statment is at https://www.greatwesternrailway.info/legal.html

Although we are planning ahead, we don't know what the future will bring here in the Coffee Shop. We have domains "firstgreatwestern.info" for w-a-y back and also "greatwesternrailway.info"; we can also answer to "greatbritishrailways.info" too. For the future, information about Great Brisish Railways, by customers and for customers.