Great Western Coffee Shop

The list of winners, and those highly commended, can be found here:

http://awards.railbusinessevents.co.uk/the-winners

Not a sausage for FGW. That's telling. My opinion is that FGW lost there way badly over the past couple of years. Too concerned with holding on to the franchise at all costs rather than striving to be a good train operator. That probably explains the rebrand.

Mot a sausage for most operators...not sure anything can be read into that.

Goid to see Reading Redevelopment run off with the Major Project prize, well deserved

Just wondering like, if Network Rail continue with their plan to take over management of all of the 'major stations', will they get the 'major stations award' every year?

Paul

 My opinion is that FGW lost there way badly over the past couple of years. Too concerned with holding on to the franchise at all costs rather than striving to be a good train operator. That probably explains the rebrand.
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*A Full refurbishment across the whole fleet
*Re-introducing restaurant services (the only restaurant service on the National Rail network)
*Increased Standard Class seating

I don't see how they've lost their way at all. They've hardly taken their fingers off the pulse.

Full refurbishment started earlier than the last couple of years.

Restaurant services never went away to be reintroduced. There has however been an increase in the number of restaurant services.

Standard Class seating has been increased incrementally over the past decade, not just the past couple of years.

They are positives yes, but are not areas of the business where I think FGW lost its way over the past couple of years.

You appear to be trying to quote someone as the basis of your post, Penzance-Paddington: may we have the source for that opinion, please, for clarity?

He was quoting me Chris.  Post #1 in this thread. ;)

Ah, thanks for the clarification.  :)

If you have observed a difference, could it be between the way a TOC operates under a 7-to-10 year franchises and - as for the sat couple of years - a contract which was basically a straight line extension.

From where I look and live, I would say that the service provided is much improved on what was available two years ago, and I would commend the TOC (First Great Western / Great Western Railway), local and national government for working for those improvements, and the passenger community for making strong use of those improvements to vindicate their provision.

I can't argue with that area specific improvement grahame.

So what is the deterioration in service over the last couple of years?

• Signalling problems in the Paddington to Slough Area?  - Hardly FGW fault.
• Flooding in 2014 - Ditto.
• Overcrowding of trains - Unless you know of some magic source of additional rolling stock then I am not sure FGW could have done anything about that either..
• Buffet changes - we have seen there is divided opinion over this

So what is it you want FGW to have done? 

I think Grahame makes some interesting points. I'm glad someone mentioned the floods as I think FGW Coped as well as possible. Also, FGW have recently won a health & safety Silver award, as contained in another thread. FGW have also organised extra projects such as arranging people to perform on-board for festival services and have been working with award-winning chef Mitch Tonks to develop a competitive on-board menu.

Overcrowding is something that FGW are basically unable to control. There is a national rolling stock shortage and FGW have increased seating to aid this. Lateness could be due to a number of reasons i.e. track issues (out of FGW control), disruptive passengers (out of FGW control) and leaf fall (out of FGW control).

Looking back at the award pictures,   I'm noting that the same two ladies (presumably the comperes / presenters) appear like bookends in all the pictures ... and I'm reminded that these events are very valuable publicity pieces, they're really good for showing appreciation that's often not shown for outstanding achievement and dedication, and the act of submitting the entries in itself calls for an audit / review of the thing being submitted which can be highly advantageous.    But they're several stages of indirection from the passenger / service user for the most part, and we so we should be careful about drawing links between prizes and passenger performance.

Some points raised in preceding posts are about circumstances beyond FGWs control. How they responded to disruption is within their control. Platitudes but no real improvement in that area. Other reasons why I think FGW lost their way in the last couple of years:

Needing to hang on to the franchise at all costs, despite walking away from the original extension available to them, after betting the farm on West Coast and having that taken away from them.

Staff morale. A company being run well doesn't experience industrial action.

Playing around with the fares database and basically breaking it for many flows.

Huge price hikes on the Cotswold Line.

Valid tickets being disallowed. I assure you I'm not alone in experiencing that.

Not addressing the reliability issues on the Night Riviera.

Consistently poor scores in national surveys.

Blame shifting. Being echoed on this forum.

Taking credit for capital investment when none of the expenditure comes from First Group.

All the above and more led me to the conclusion that FGWs brand had become tarnished. So time to consign it to history was the thinking I strongly suspect. I don't buy any of the guff and spin from First about their reasons for the rebrand. That's just how they're presenting it in public. If FGW hadn't become so negatively perceived as a brand we would has seen an evolutionary change not a wholesale one with a totally new identity. Successful companies rarely changes names and branding.

The only industrial action I'm aware of is that regarding IEP. Assuming that is what you are refering to, I can't recall noticing anything in the RMT statements I've seen linked to from here that suggests the company is currently being run poorly. Rather, it appears that FirstGW have made mistakes in their planning for the future (or, I suppose, you could blame DfT for those mistakes but in that case FirstGW have failed to stand up to DfT or haven't noticed DfT's mistakes).

Who's to say the DfT/FGW made mistakes? Unions aren't always right, they just protect jobs/their own income from membership. Regardless of whether buffets are required

Industrial action took place in the west and at Landore in the recent past.

I'm not denying there are good aspects of FGW/GWR. There has however been much that is wrong recently.

Under what realistic circumstances can any TOC 'stand up to' the DfT?   

Paul

Well, in this case, the franchise bidders were supposed to have input into the details of the IEP fleets for each area, and it sounds like the Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC) fleet will have some differences (including, if the lack of industrial action on that franchise is any indication), buffets and guards.

Well, I've no idea whether removing buffets is a mistake, but trying to remove the mandatory passenger-facing staff (guards) is a big mistake if you ask me. Requiring call-for-aid buttons but not staff to answer the call is, in my opinion, worthy of the expression 'shooting yourself in the foot'. Certainly, if you want your staff on side the plan to allow trains to run without guards has already been shown to be a big mistake. I also think the mix of 5-car and 9-car sets which has been ordered is a mistake (should be fewer fives and more nines, again like the VTEC fleet where every one of the current trains will be replaced by a 9-car 800/801 unit), but we'll have to wait and see if I'm proved right on that one.

Remember that every HSS will have a train manager on board - they just won't be responsible for the doors any more. The original proposal to run a service without a TM in an emergency appears to have been conceded early on in the negotiations. The example given was that say, during a period of disruption, the TM due to take a service out of Paddington was seriously delayed on an inbound service, then he could alight at Reading and pick up his westbound service there.  Seems reasonably sensible to me, but apparently not acceptable and now conceded.

Call-for-aid buttons? Now you're making it up! (Or provide a link to any evidence)

I was aware that every HSS was supposed to have a TM diagrammed, but that the train would be allowed to run without one. I wasn't aware they'd conceded that, but if a TM is now mandatory on every train that's a slight reassurance.

Call-for-aid buttons are required on all trains from Jan 1st 2020, I'm not making it up. As far as I can tell, there is however no requirement to actually have a member of staff to respond to it, with I think is daft.

Call-for-aid buttons are required by both RVAR and PRM TSI, for example this regulation refering to wheelchair spaces:
There is also a requirement for two call-for-aid buttons in each wheelchair-accessible toilet. The above is quoted from a DfT spreadsheet regarding the level of compliance currently acheived by class 158 units download here (.xls) (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/203710/class-158-all-compliance-assessment.xls)

Only in the space provided for the disabled. Yes you are right

'Call for aid' will be responded to by the driver I'd have thought?  Like they do now on the 180s/Turbos.

Depends on your definition of 'appropriate action' I suppose, and the form of emergency the call-for-aid buttons are intended to help with. Certainly, if the only member of staff is the driver any physical assistance would have to wait until the next station stop if all the button allows is the ability to speak to the driver.

Yes, in many ways the driver is the best person to speak to - able to contact the emergency services the quickest (via the signaller) and able to make the best decision on where to stop the train to allow help to be provided.  In other ways, not so, as they might not be able to respond as quickly physically to a situation if that's what's needed - say a person is trapped in the toilet, or the lights have gone out in a carriage.

Either way you look at it, having a call-for-aid that's dealt with immediately or at the next station is better for the passengers than having no call-for-aid at all, surely?  And it certainly won't be a case of not having a member of staff responsible for dealing with them.