This is a public readable board, and comments posted here and their responses can be read by anyone.  Some general thoughts and observations.

* It's very easy to come across as brusque when that's not intended, especially when replying to / answering a specific post.  We tend to think as we write such answers of the person who we're answering, of whom we may have quite a long knowledge / experience but in fact we're going to be read by hundreds.

* Having posted in public, the natural response is also in public.   It allows the complete audience group to continue to be involved in the ongoing discussion, and it saves on multiple responses of the same sort via personal message, post reports, emails, etc. which would only reach a tiny part of the ongoing audience group.

* It's possible for people to ask for notifications to be sent to them by email when a thread to which they started / contributed has received a further post, and that lets them get back onto the issue quickly without having to keep coming back just in case more has been contributed.  It is, though, courteous for someone making a strong post in response to another member to send them a personal message to alert them, and perhaps to add more personal background if they wish.  In the normal turn of events, it could be considered hypocritical to post in public, yet have responses sent back to you in private;  if you start something in public ...

* Things get brought to the attention of the moderator / admin team in which they haven't been involved - things that clearly cause enough concern to at least one member of the audience groups for that person to write.  Sometimes the only follow up will be to write back to the person who raised the question and explain something / why / wherefore.  But many times it will be to bring the matter to the attention of the poster who wrote what's been brought up ... and the audience group too may well need to know.  So very often, the action will be a public one, perhaps backed up by personal message.   To respond only in private leaves the concerning thread uncommented to the rest of the audience group - ripe for an avalanche of complaints, and misleading the majority of the audience group into thinking that the post about which the moderators have been contacted is uncontroversial.  On some occasions, the only public response may be to lock the thread and add a brief comment that it's being considered / worked on.  And occasionally, especially where it's the moderators who have picked up a possible issue, it might be done by p.m. only; this runs the risk of a mushrooming workload for the moderators / admins though, as others may pick up and be asking too, and our volunteer's time is limited! Posters should in general be aware that posts they make on public boards will generate responses, including those they may not have intended or anticipated, also in public.

A lot of general comments there. Probably an unfairly long response from me to a little incident, but good documentation that I can add to my FAQ^▸ (Frequently Asked Questions) store. 

Edit - slight reformat - G

Cynical view of "a regular service" is one that runs every 3 hours from Tavistock - say 06:15, 09:15, 12:15, 15:15, 18:15 and 21:15.   Note - nothing there for Plymouth commuters (perhaps the train's up at Gunnislake?).  So "with services during peak hours" is a correct and welcome additional comment - it means that one's planned to be at a reasonable commuter time (and it's a correction we need in Wiltshire!)

Video report: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21156908

From the Scotsman

http://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/trains-could-be-bomb-proofed-say-engineers-1-2751706


also reported elsewhere.

Interesting to compare the heading - "Trains could be bomb proofed" with the text - "A bomb on a train is always going to be devastating".  How far should we go / expenditure (that could make a service unviable) v safety against terrorist attacks?

Me too.  But does that mean put up a Chippenham to London weekly from 243.00 to 554.00, reduce the peak return fare from 158.50 to 69.00, or something in between (350.00 weekly / 100.00 daily)? 

Hi, Bathgreenpark9f, and welcome to the forum.

You and I have been in correspondence as to why a thread with a "Scary Subject" has been moved into the Rumour Mill, and why that Rumour Mill isn't public readable. I'm disappointed that I didn't make myself clear in my email to you when I suggested you post your concerns here - I was talking about your concerns with regards to the Hereford services,  rather than about our decision to have a board called "Rumour Mill" - I understood you appreciated the reason for that, writing "OK thanks , understand this, ..."

OK ...

1. On the "Rumour Mill"

On occasions, posts are made on the forum which cannot be substantiated and which are of questionable accuracy, or which are taking a "reductio ad absurdum" line.  If these posts were to remain generally viewable to guests, or to users who hadn't yet been around here long enough to appreciate the pinch of salt with which they should be taken, then we would be doing a disservice to such readers by mixing fact with what's potentially fiction, to the dilution of our usefulness.  So we made a decision to move such posts - while they remain in question - to a more secure area where (for example) they won't be indexed by Google, nor read and taken as gospel by visitors casually browsing the site.

The threads in the Rumour Mill are available to any member of the forum.  You just need to complete enough posts to take you over a threshold which will (amongst other things) confirm your understanding of the posting guidelines, and just what posts in these extra areas mean.  I may have inadvertently mislead you into thinking the Rumour Mill was an "invite club" by saying I could promote you into it after just a couple of posts.   However, that was an extra concession and the board is open to all members subject only to the threshold of experience.

2. On "No FGW^▸ (First Great Western) services to Hereford".

Ah - the title is rather too provocative.  Under the  ITT^▸ (Invitation to Tender) (paused in October), the specification is for number of services calling at various places - including Hereford. It was rather less prescriptive than the current franchise, so (in theory) allowedfor all sorts of scenarios at the commercial choice of the operator.    You'll see threads elsewhere talking about Portsmouth - Cardiff services being split at Westbury, with a Portsmouth - Westbury service meeting a Westbury - Bristol service end on, and then yet a different service Bristol - Cardiff; in theory, that would have been possible.   With the Brown report suggesting a move back to more prescriptive specifications, I suspect that the thing will be rewritten in due course without the crazier options.

I want to post this fairly fast so that I don't leave you hanging around ... maybe another follow up in a few minutes.

Addition / Edit - checked the thread. No change. In summary "The fact remains that the Greater Western franchisee is required as a minimum to serve Hereford to/from Worcester. Realistically that is going to mean services to/from London for operational and revenue reasons. Even if there were connecting services they can't be farmed out to another operator and the connection must be no greater than 20 minutes."

Does if form the start of the intermediate daytime service which provides the half hourly Cardiff - Paddington trains by adding to the hourly Swansea - Paddington service?   It's my understanding that this extra service is regarded as something of an extra, and is the first to be withdrawn in the event of operational difficulties as all the withdrawal does is put people back 30 minutes.

Taking over an hour each, I note, from Reading West to Paddington, with just one intermediate public stop at Reading [General].

Under CoC, I know you're right EBrown.   Morally, by paying extra for First Class (especially on a service without catering), you're paying in addition to the standard fare in the anticipation of additional space / comfort, and if you don't get it you shouldn't end up being out of pocket by that additional amount.

A local source of good repute has emailed me to say:


So I think we can infer that almost all the travel from Shipton is on that one train.

I noted that the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) figures have fluctated wildly, and already wondered if there may changing timetables, and perhaps be a fare anomoly about which means that ticket journeys sold does not match actual travel.   If - for example - there were regular Shipton users (season ticket to Oxford) who bought Kingham tickets instead, so that could travel back at other times of day if the occasion demanded and phone a partner for a lift.   The difference is only 3 pounds on a weekly season, and they would then be regular Shipton users who don't show in the figures.  This is all very theoretic stuff, but it is well documented already that DfT footfall figures already include generalities and assumptions about the use of season tickets.

Putting that in figures:

If I take a course that runs on Mondays in London over 10 weeks and travel peak, I pay
158.50 x 10 = 1585.00
for my peak tickets from Chippenham

If I take a course that runs on Mondays to Friday in London over 10 days (so within 2 weeks) and travel peak, I pay
243.00 x 2 = 486.00
for two weekly season tickets

Is it really right that I pay only 30.6% of the cost for the same number of journeys if they happen to be close together?



Edit note: I've crossed through a couple of grahame's words, as I think they are typos. CfN. 
Edit note: Thanks - I have clarified / change it to what I think I meant to say!  G

Shipton's annual figures are shown in http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/smr/SIP.html (you have to be logged in to see them).  Remember to divide by 2 for the number of arrivals and the number of departures (I don't suppose there's a significant difference), then divide by around 300 to give a number for a typical day, then see how you think they would split between the various trains.

The local council map also have specific survey figures, and they may provide extra data like the journeys being made by the people who get on and off; we've found such data highly enlightening on the TransWilts (and not what we expected) and the council will give you their data (FOI^▸ (Freedom of Information)) whereas the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) probably won't (Commercial data)

Looks like the "Stock Art Fail" thread ... http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=11558.0 ... although I think they may at least have a train that goes through Taunton!

But surely they have been displaced by disruption - they could probably have been home and asleep in bed by the time they got to Paddington if they were London based and they probably shut up at exactly the right time - just in the wrong place. Having said which, it says nothing for a positive customer service approach.

It's around 10:30 p.m. here in Melksham, and I have just come back on duty to await a very late checkin who we understand has got held up. The first 90 minutes of the overshoot is covered routinely by the afternoon shift person staying on duty late, and we then make a decision as to who covers on a case by case basis.  It's called "looking after the cuatomers" and remembering that without customers buying from us we wouldn't have jobs!

You may ... I don't totally. I understand Pewsey and Bedwyn (and that a second journey in the same week can use the same season ticket), but why is the Iver split valid for trains not stopping at Iver?