Some sort of internet access is fairly "essential" on our culture these days, but phones often cover that. Those on PAYG^▸ (Pay as you go) or who run close to their limits probably benefit most from services provided on board. Otherwise it's much the same as the service my phone provides - while the exact areas of good & bad coverage may differ from my own network's range, the overall amount of good & bad coverage is similar, and the speed is slightly better when it's good, but often very much comparable.

Some rely on the service provided to get work done, especially in the new era of not doing all work in the office – perhaps working on the train allows shorter office hours and better work-life balance for some. However, I wouldn't say the current provision is reliable enough that someone could guarantee being able to get work done on the train. Personally I'd be wary of doing some types of work on a busy train – checking messages might be fine, but I'd only be comfortable doing more in-depth work if I don't have someone next to me, for example, so how busy the train is could be as much a factor in being able to get work done as the gamble of how good the service quality is.

Not that work is the only reason for wanting a good connection. For some in the modern world, being able to catch up with other things online means the hours spent travelling are more valuable. So not having the provision could make the difference in terms of whether or not a regular long commute is worth it. For some it might be no different from using one's own data connection, but for those who perhaps can only afford a lower data allowance, perhaps free WiFi is a significant perk.

On the other hand, in these times when first class and season tickets need to be replaced with other income streams, while increasing fares isn't the greatest idea, perhaps charging a small amount for a better WiFi service is the way to go - whether better is because it allows more to be invested in the infrastructure, or just because fewer people are using up the bandwidth.

That's useful to know. Now the appeal is done I have to follow complaint procedure, but hopefully if a human looks into it properly they can see there's unrealistic data. I'll present a screenshot of RTT (live data will expire soon) – might not be "admissible" but at least as evidence to say there's an error to investigate. Part of me says forget it for £1.25, but I have a thing about companies giving false information, and not correcting it when given the opportunity.

I note on RTT that a London train left SWA P3 at 18:28, then the stock from an earlier arrival was presumably shunted back in to form the 19:23. Perhaps that shunt arrived at 18:36, and for some reason the wrong headcode was entered. In the RTT world, the arrival of the real train would override that, but maybe internal systems work differently. Not particularly relevant to the claim, but satisfying curiosity as to how something happened can make it more palatable!

I've sometimes pondered that one, as I have been known to get up earlier to avoid a cancellation.

However on this occasion I travelled on a later service as next available alternative. It just happened to arrive earlier than the delayed one because of the delay. It doesn't make a material difference to this particular claim - either way I'm delayed by 15-29 minutes, so it's an incidental note; the issue is that the arrival time stated by GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) comes from nowhere.

I'm feeling a similar frustration with TfW. There is a known issue with rolling stock availability (175 self-combustion), but many (probably most) of the cancellations are flagged as down to staff availability.

There was the backlog in training because of Covid, along with self-isolation issues. All reasonable. But we're well down the line now. I'm not in the know enough to say it's completely unreasonable for these to be having an effect now, or indeed if they are still the issue, but it feels never-ending. There is a lot of training on new stock of course, which needs to be done, and may mean some flexibility in re-allocating resources is lost, but still it's frustrating.

I'm in day-tripping reach of two lines that are great for day trips. I used to keep an eye on the weather when planning such trips. Now I'm watching for cancellations as well, and making early morning decisions.

I found a workable day on the Heart of Wales line not long ago. It worked fine for me, but I was aware of a cancellation during the day, and overheard people saying they had intended to have a day out in Swansea, but had switched to Shrewsbury because their return journey was cancelled. (The cancellation was the southern half of a train each way, i.e. the Carmarthen crew was unavailable.)

At some point I'd like to do a trip to Pembrokeshire. But every Saturday I check to see how things are performing and it seems more often than not there's a problem. Today the two early evening up trains are cancelled, making the return home from a day trip highly convenient. That's in an era when leisure travel is increasingly important to the industry, on a rural line whose numbers are hugely boosted by tourism, on a sunny day in the peak season, albeit not the height of the peak (still term-time). Journeycheck suggests replacement transport is being arranged, but it's far from ideal, and uninitiated travellers will just see "Cancelled" and feel they're stranded.

If I don't see consistent running soon, I might just not bother trying to go that way this summer. And how many of the general population want to be tracking performance for weeks before taking the plunge and making a trip?

I don't doubt that there's no magic instant fix for these issues, but it is a problem and it could cause long-term problems for the industry if people are put off, especially with the leisure market being much less captive than commuters.

I've had a bit of an issue with a GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Delay Repay claim. It's only a 15 minute delay but I'm not inclined to let it go because (1) it's been a bad train week generally so I'm not feeling sympathetic (not something anyone can totally prevent but still a huge inconvenience) and  (2) if there's a systemic issue with the claim process it could affect more significant claims and needs fixing.

Intended to catch the 17:42 from CDF^» (Cardiff - next trains), arriving SWA^» (Swansea - next trains) 18:33. RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) shows it departed CDF 18:02 and arrived SWA 18:58. That's a 25 minute delay.
In the end I took the 17:47 (TfW), which itself arrived 18:55, so my total delay was still 22m.
The claim remains with GWR because my intended journey was on their train, and that's what pushes me over the 15m threshold.

GWR's response:
The intended leg from 17:42 CARDIFF CENTRAL left at 18:02, scheduled to arrive at SWANSEA at 18:33, actually arrived 18:36.

I just can't see where that 18:36 comes from. I've double-checked the date on my claim, and checked the times logged on RTT.  My claim is correct. Even if it skip-stopped and had found a way to overtake the 17:47 (I'd have noticed it being looped!) the journey just can't be done in 34 minutes!

OK... perhaps they've made honest mistake... so I logged an appeal, noting the likely data glitch. But I've had the same outcome.

I just can't see where the data's come from, given that the logs on RTT are correct, and I assume their data source is ultimately the same. Is the initial claim processed by a human or fully automated?

Do I just re-appeal? At some point perhaps someone far enough up the chain can realise the data is dodgy, given how much time was allegedly recovered!

Not much in the way of semaphores left at Whitland now. The bay & branch semaphores were replaced with colour lights a few years ago, and the main line signals have been colour lights for decades*, so AFAIR the only old-school signals now are the ground signals. The fixed distant boards on the branch at least provide semaphore pictograms though!

Given the box is relatively new (1970s - albeit secondhand?) were the main line running signals always colour lights? Given its relative youth, perhaps Whitland might be one of the last mechanical boxes to go hand over to Cardiff.

It looks like fares from Bicester (set by Chiltern) aren't much less, so by providing a cheaper Oxford via HW fare they'd be undercutting their own fares further up the line.

It's good to have a day that culturally is a 'quiet' day - I don't think Sundays tick that box any more – and given many people only have 2/3 days for a weekend, Sunday travel is necessary. So perhaps Boxing Day is the last opportunity for enforced serenity.

But there are many reasons to need to travel - not least people in essential jobs getting work, let alone those who don't want to have to choose which side of the family web to visit. Could argue the same for Xmas day itself of course, but one day having to make other arrangements is less hardship than two.

I nearly went for Strike Days but it could probably do with being a bit better than that. Perhaps a similarly minimal service, but covering a bit less tight – more routes, somewhat longer day, in order to present realistic travel opportunities. And tailor it to local demand needs such as sporting events and maybe even key shopping destinations, although I think there's a strong case for a cultural shift to not having that sort of thing on boxing day (see above) – keep essential local shops open, but not the big shopping 'destinations'.

It's hard to judge demand, of course. Perhaps some people will just assume no service for the first two years; having said that, I've known people to be surprised to check NRE^‡(resolve) and find nothing, several years in a row, so who knows! Where TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) ran limited services I think the reports were that demand was low, but it would be different if a bigger range of connections became available as more journeys would be possible.

G - Swansea? (Still colloquially sometimes known as High Street)

I even had a 3-car 175 last week.... they seem like a distant memory! One thing all this does show is that a non-uniform fleet can be quite helpful. When 197s are on almost everything non-valley, if they need a mass withdrawal it could be a lot worse! I hope there's decent availability of stock for those potentially warm bank holiday weekends coming up.

The forthcoming closure of the Treherbert line for upgrades will also free up a couple of 150s. (Looks like the CDF^» (Cardiff - next trains)-PPD parts of the journeys will still run.)

I've seen it mentioned that the return of Swanline could be a place for 197s to start appearing in the south. Although before Covid they were very much not self-contained diagrams – effectively 1x interworking with valleys and 1x interworking with HoW^‡(resolve) – both of those routes are in a very different situation now and the Swanline diagrams are therefore very likely to be self-contained. Swanline also don't require multiple crews & depots per journey, so it's simple to ensure only trained crews work them, and keeps the diagrams close to a depot should a swap be needed. So for much the same reason that Swanline will be one of the last bastions of 153s when the full timetable rehash with mass 197s deployment comes into play, it makes sense for it to be a good place for the early 197 diagrams in the south. The CMN-MCR route is at the opposite end of the complexity scale, especially if 4/5-car workings and related split/divides start coming into play, so it will be be more of a long game to put on the hands of 197s.

4- Sugar Loaf

Reversals just beyond Y-shaped stations on diversions e.g. Virginia Water, Lewes.

Unplanned occasions e.g. reversal needed when when using 2 sides of Landore triangle to reverse a set with cab issue or avoid a points failure - very occasionally happens in service. I think the same was needed on a planned basis in the past at Inverness when 'through' services were scheduled.

On a similar note, reversals at unadvertised stations on diversions e.g. Banbury. (ISTR^▸ (I seem to recall/remember) XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) at Newport in the past?)

I would hope the plan isn't just to drop the 175s! A good job has been done making do without the 175s, and it's been nice having more 158s, but making do it is – the ongoing cancellations that are needed are not good PR^▸ (Public Relations), and the associated costs (provision of road transport and compensation) must be building up (I wonder how they compare to the savings of not running the trains). Then there's the loss of 3-car diagrams – the 2-car trains on the Marches were already a problem, and are now ubiquitous apart from the Mk4 journeys. Passengers were already fatigued before this happened, and "more trains than usual..." is becoming tedious.

Given the general tightness, even before the current issues, retaining the 170s seems sensible.

I wonder what's holding up a gradual return of 175s. Compare with the IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) issues – they started coming back into service quite quickly by comparison. An apples with oranges comparison – and I have nothing against self-combusting trains being investigated properly – but I do wonder what the likely timescale is, given that there doesn't even seem to be much of a trickle coming back into service. Some sort of release from TfW explaining the issue behind the "(even) more trains than usual..." and what the plan is might be helpful for jaded passengers, even if it creates a wall of "more excuses" comments on social media. Or have I missed one? Can't say I've looked closely but if there has been one it doesn't seem to have been made prominent on website or social media.

Once the base product can be made to work properly - and that should be the immediate priority - providing some sort of 'extra' is a way to recoup lost earnings. However I'd be inclined to think charging for many of these things makes rail less accessible. If we want to encourage public transport use, it needs to be usable for 'real world' purposes - so the base product should include things that are a normal part of travel such as carrying luggage, using the toilet, having a drink etc.

Some paid-for extras are already provided on some routes e.g. on-board catering, first class etc. Perhaps this provision could be reviewed and revised so that it could bring in new income in the current and future market. First class usage would have changed if fewer people are commuting – especially as people in roles in which one would be willing to pay the extra are more/most likely to be working from home (tentative assumption). Perhaps offer a product more akin to Weekend First, with some sort of upgrade option, or with some sort of extras available. Some sort of Family Carriage or Tourist provision might be worth providing – pay extra for a family pack or information pack, and have use of the observation area. Note I'm thinking of extras that don't remove from the base product here. Where these require extra capacity, ensure the capacity provision is up to scratch first. AAUI TfW is to provide first class on the S Wales - Manchester route, but only retrofitting it after the new stock is in place and up to 5 cars.

I find reservations more hassle than they're worth, for a number of reasons, but some people have a greater need for them if they are to have the confidence to use the train. A lot of reservations end up unused. Once basic capacity issues are sorted, perhaps offer paid-for reservations – but only if the system works reliably, and there's plenty of space for non-reservers.

No inside information, but I can't see it being any time soon. From what I've read the 175s will be the first to leave TfW, and overall stock availability still seems quite tight. And the 158s with their attachment to the Cambrian lines and the amount of splitting and attaching that creates a tangled web of diagrams for the 197s to take over.