Great Western Coffee Shop

All across the Great Western territory => Across the West => Topic started by: dog box on January 31, 2008, 18:32:55



Title: 142 at BTM This Morning (31 January 2008)
Post by: dog box on January 31, 2008, 18:32:55
Yes folks it happened!!!....A Lovely 142 was sat on platfrom 9 at 7.30am ready to form a service to Westbury, apparently a 158 failed in the Taunton area and said 142 was despatched to take over.
had a quick look at i must say it wasnt that bad at all apart from the bus seats, the engines actually sounded quite quiet and apparently it made it to Wesbury bang on time.
With a new set of seats these units woulnt be to bad.
looking into my crystal ball when these 150s turn up from London Midland, Exeter depot will have got the 142s running really well, and we will be exchanging reliable 142s for knackered 150s


Title: Re: 142 at BTM This Morning (31 January 2008)
Post by: grahame on January 31, 2008, 18:44:06
I understood that only Exeter based train crews were "passed" for the 142 units.  Do some Exeter drivers sign for Bristol to Westbury as part of their route knowledge?


Title: Re: 142 at BTM This Morning (31 January 2008)
Post by: dog box on January 31, 2008, 18:46:22
A lot of Exeter staff sign Bristol/Westbury and it was an Exeter Crew on it today


Title: Re: 142 at BTM This Morning (31 January 2008)
Post by: devon_metro on January 31, 2008, 19:05:58
Worked:

2M06 0530 TAU -BRI after working up ECS from Exeter
1F03 0722 BRI - WSB after the 158 for the 0630 CDF-PMH failed
ECS to Exeter via Castle Cary
2F17 1018 EXD-EXM

Quite a round trip!!


Title: Re: 142 at BTM This Morning (31 January 2008)
Post by: gaf71 on January 31, 2008, 21:30:40
Worked:

2M06 0530 TAU -BRI after working up ECS from Exeter
1F03 0722 BRI - WSB after the 158 for the 0630 CDF-PMH failed
ECS to Exeter via Castle Cary
2F17 1018 EXD-EXM

Quite a round trip!!
0530 TAU-BRI was a knacker, on one engine only. 142 sent from Exeter to start service with 'cover' crew. Service was cancelled by Swindon control, only to be reinstated by performance(resource) manager when he started work at Exeter at 0500! This is the local  resource manager that FGW got rid of last April, only to reinstate (under a different title) in December. According to First, local resource managers were not required, and all could be run from Swindon. If that was the case the 0530 TAU-BRI, and 0722 BRI-WSB would not have run today, causing problems for commuters and fines for FGW. They have probably gained this guys yearly wage today alone in the saving of fines from these potential cancellations! At least they admitted their mistake, by putting performance managers back locally, and I think they have more than proved their worth.


Title: Re: 142 at BTM This Morning (31 January 2008)
Post by: Chris from Nailsea on January 31, 2008, 23:58:34
As both d_m and gaf71 clearly have some very impressive knowledge of the workings around Bristol, may I please ask for any help they may be able to offer on the following?

I (and others) arrived at Nailsea and Backwell in good time (from 0846 onwards) this morning to catch the 0859 to Bristol Temple Meads. Problem was, there was no reference at all on the FGW screens to the 0859 - not 'on time', 'delayed' or even 'cancelled' - just nothing! Suspecting the worst, someone phoned her husband at work from her mobile: he checked on the internet and said, "Oh, it's cancelled!" In that case, why was it not shown on the FGW screens at Nailsea and Backwell as being cancelled, so we could make alternative travel arrangements, where possible? Surely a decision to cancel that service must have been made some time before, so it would only have been fair to show that on the FGW screens, rather than leave all the passengers waiting hopefully at Nailsea for that train, completely unaware of its cancellation (no Digital Doris this morning, either, so we were completely reliant on the green screens)?

The particularly annoying thing is that, when I eventually got into work later, I checked the FGW website and saw,
"08:40 Weston-Super-Mare to Cardiff Central due 10:17
This train will be started from Bristol Temple Meads. It will no longer call at: Weston-Super-Mare, Weston Milton, Worle, Yatton, Nailsea & Backwell, Parson Street and Bedminster. This is due to a member of train crew being unavailable."

Well, cheers! That means every commuter west of Bristol was 'dumped on' by the cleverly concealed cancellation of that service. Surely any decision to cancel the service altogether between Weston and Bristol must have been taken much earlier, leaving time for the screens to be updated to tell us poor mugs (customers?) on the platforms, so we could make alternative travel arrangements?

As I said at the beginning, d_m and gaf71, can you possibly provide any background information as to how/why such decisions are made, by Swindon control or performance resource managers, and how perhaps unreliable rolling stock may have contributed to 'a member of train crew being unavailable' - because they were themselves delayed some other service failure???


Title: Re: 142 at BTM This Morning (31 January 2008)
Post by: gaf71 on February 01, 2008, 12:50:45
sorry chris, don't have any info on that. Only knew about the other one as it directly affected me!



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