Great Western Coffee Shop

Meeting today in Taunton - for TravelWatch SouthWest members before the AGM.  Partly informed by discussions on "Frequent Posters" here

John Stock for DfT - without slides or notes distributes, so here's what I noted of the initial presentation. Please ask if you have any questions - I am not of the  "court recorder" quality for these things!

9th and last Direct Award (DA)
New / with Incumbent. Single Tender Action. 
EU procumenet law; value for money. Do not overcompensate.
12 month window. Prior inforation (PIN) notice.
3 years with callable up to 13 4 week periods.
Start position is current franchise.  No lesser service. As others.
About taking what's there and improving it - not just 3 years but business cases that go ahed when we go to competiton.
Thereofr not steady state
Look at new services. Work stakholders / TOCs etc.  TVMs, seats, better stations, refurbs
"Always put the passenger First".
Some pain won't come back for 10 years.
On innovation - have a pot 1% of turnover.  Small to medium size enterprises encouraged
HERE ... going forward wth stakenolder
XC odd - whole countly except London.  Going around to engage.

What's it like today?
What would you like?
What are aspirations for next 10 years?

Look at gain for UK as a whole / economy.

Midsummer next year sort it out - 6 to 8 weeks sign ahead of ...
Franchise runs out / DA in from October
WILL be in contact with stakeholders during, and will check befor signing off.
A year in (late 2017) looking at competition for next franchise - 7, 10, 15 years etc
Engaging now - these forums up and down the county.

What would I like?

Electrification Bristol-Bromsgrove in CP6, Bristol-Plymouth in CP7. New bi-mode rolling stock to accommodate "sparks effect" and general increase in rail patronage.

Pie in the sky?

Yep, its a 3-year direct award....not an HLOS statement

Hmm, as you noted in frequent posters, XC don't manage any stations.

I was aware of that when he said it ...

a) There as a discussion about how you might improve stations to meet requests / requirements by operators of train services at those stations which are not the main operators.

b) There are stations with TVMs operated by multiple operators

I'd say extra carriages must be up near the top of the agenda. I was on the 1007 out of Paignton today, going to Brum, and it was heaving straight out of Torbay, and looked like anyone off at Brum was instantly replaced by people Manchester bound.. This is the back end of November, mid morning, yet unless you had a seat booked like me, you were right out of luck. Utterly mad.

One way to improve station management is to ensure that the station operator displays which way round the train is so that people with reserved tickets know where to stand and those without know where the unreserved coach is. That would remove a lot of confusion and people getting in each others way at Cheltenham Spa.   

The PIS displays in SWT territory seem to manage this on behalf of XC nearly all the time, so there must be a fairly watertight system in place already, that just needs to be copied?

Paul

Indeed. Better announcements about CrossCountry ticket validities are needed at GWR/Network Rail managed stations as well.

I don't think I've ever heard annoucements about operator specific tickets at Bristol Temple Meads or Reading for example. Both are served by three TOCs. Each with their own Advance Purchase or route specific walk-up tickets.

I only occasionally see scrolling text on the PIS mentioning CrossCountry's non acceptance of GroupSave. You only hear announcements on board XC services about GroupSave. Too late then. New ticket please and argue the toss later with Customer Services. Station PA announcements would definitely help. Targeted PA to those waiting for a particular train rather than a general warning played frequently. People tend to tune out of the general announcements. Most though are listening for specific announcements about the train they intend to catch. That's when you should be warning passengers about ticket validities on their chosen service. With clear PIS as well for the hearing impaired.

Was Newquay mentioned, Graham?

Yes - but only very briefly and it's probably fair to say there was little / no substantive comment on it. 

The statement was made that the starting point for the new direct award is the current service, and a question specifically asked was "what, if anything, that Crosscountry do at the moment should they no longer do in this period" - asked in terms of services.   Absolute silence.   So the 'thin' services of trains to the North East / Scotland / Manchester from Newquay, Bath and Cardiff ... and the much thicker (but less than hourly) from Penzance and Paignton remain as the perceived starting point, with no-one suggesting any reduction therein.  I'm going to come back on a point of wider discussion in a follow up post.

Some further comments ... hopefully to encourage ongoing discussion.   Much more I could say; the lack of comment in this post doesn't mean it's not on the agenda ...

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"What is Cross Country for?" ... a question raise on Wednesday at the TravleWatch SouthWest meeting / briefing / discussion with DfT.

Cross Country Trains provide for both long distance journeys that avoid London, and in places for more regional and even local transport and the questions were asked in the discussion (seeded by TWSW) which way / where it's going for future in strategic terms.

Are Cross Country services primarily long disctance services to take people many hundreds of miles - for example my own journeys to places like Motherwell, Leeds, Lancaster and Manchester, or are they primarily fill in servives such as giving a reasonably fast service for travellers from Taunton to Bristol?  The trains were characterised as being fast in parts (such as north of York and between Cheltenham and Birmingham) but less than would be hoped of a long distance extpress between Birminham and York, and at the outer ends of (especialy) the extended journeys.  The initial "Operation Princess" concept of a cross that interchanged at New Street was slated as being broken wit the North West leg no longer serving anywhere but Manchester, and I'm going to add personal comment (not made at meeting) that it was also broken by the removal of the Brighton and occasional Kentish services.   These days, CrossCountry seems "in places to be a fill in local service where the local TOC isn't providing a service" - not my comment, but I understand what's being said after I had to get from Wiltshire to Plymouth early one morning, and found myself on a CrossCountry train from Bath to Bristol, and the another from Bristol to Plymouth ...

The "what's this train for" is an important question.  If it's long distance, an optimum service may be Bristol Temple Meads, Parkway, Cheltenham Spa, Birmingham. If you're looking for local coverage, perhaps Bristol Temple Meads, Filton Abbey Wood, Parkway, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Ashchurch, Worchester Parkway, King's Norton, University, Five Ways and Birmingham might be more appropriate.

Following on ... major flows / travel requirements from Torbay, Bridgwater, Weston-super-Mare, Bath, Swindon, Cardiff and Gloucester were highlighted as being un- or under-provided if you're looking long distance.   And gaps where neither a local operator such as GWR, nor XC provide a service when wanted were highlighted - for example east from Plymouth in the evening.  There was a universal view that CrossCountry have not engaged with travel groups / passengers in the way that other TOCs have done - for example they have been notable by absence being their norm at TWSW meetings over the past 3 years.  We had several out-of-SW representatives at the meeting on Wednesday, and this lack of engagament appears not to be limited to our area - some rather strong things were said by those who one expects to be very diplomatic.

Thanks Graham.  Sounds like it was an interesting event and I was sorry not to get to it.

Sounds too like the Newquay through Summer trains should be safe. 

They are - without doubt - long distance trains.  If they end up stopping at every farm gate then they will be useless for that purpose.  I use them to get to Birmingham, Derby, Sheffield and Leeds - picking them up at Cheltenham Spa. 

Agreed, but this will only work if the DfT sort out the Regional/local service deficit on other franchises....a point made on the day.

One annoyance for me is that 1V60, the 0820 ABD-PNZ runs five minutes in front of a ScotRail semi-fast between Dundee and Edinburgh calling at the same stops, scooping up all of the passengers, both local and long distance. It's been like that for years and having worked for both companies I can say that the ScotRail is empty and the XC full to bursting. Now common sense would say run the ScotRail in front and take stops out of the XC, with connections made at Haymarket, those making local journeys with little advance planning get to travel on a train with no reservations applied and those making longer journeys can hang back a bit and get on a train where they can actually reach their reserved seat!

Like your comments RTS. This should happen all the way from Aberdeen to Plymouth. So you have locals in front from Aberdeen Edinburgh, Edinburgh Newcastle, Newcastle York, York Derby? Derby Birmingham, Birmingham Bristol, Bristol Plymouth and then the stopper folow the CC from Plymouth.

In the reverse direction the stopper is in front to Edinburgh and then follows to Aberdeen.

In the reverse there is an 1800 ScotRail to Dundee, unfortunately it's usually delayed by a local jeopardising the onward connection from XC at Aberdeen for Dyce and Inverurie - as a direct service from the North East (of England that is!) the train carries a lot of offshore workers needing the airport at Dyce.
Another irritation is that peak restrictions finish at 1809, the XC is 1810!

A couple of years back, I quite often used the CrossCountry train that arrived into Temple Meads at 20:38 and I connected into the 20:49 Weymouth service (I think my memory serves me right - the timing was certainly just inside the official connection time for Temple Meads).   A useful connection, but it must have been a bit of a nightmare for staff on those days that the XC was running a bit late - indeed I have been part of such an incident where about a dozen people were left stranded.  Delay blamed on XC by FGW staff as then was, even though the XC had been on time until quite close to Bristol where it had gotten behind a late running FGW local which had caused the delay (which may, of course, in turn have been held up by Arrival Trains Wales at Gloucester  :D ).

Anyway - problem solved.  The XC is now scheduled into Bristol Temple Meads at 20:41, meaning that this no longer counts as a connection and the rail industry can now say "tough - your problem!" to anyone who sets off from Birmingham for Weymouth at the time they always have, and finds they can no longer get beyond Frome ...

I'm not offering an alternative solution - rather a need to consider / be aware of onward connections, especially if the drive is towards XC trains not making more local stops.   The accountant's compensation culture solution is to time / schedule the XC services to arrive just after the last available connecting time at key stations, and I suppose that helps relieve overcrowding too.  But it's a pretty negative approach ...

Re connections Graham you have hit the nail on the head. The problem is that the "bean counters" have never been able to cost a Network as a whole rather than indiviual legs. Thus the potential of  connections is not factored into the costings for a particular train. This is exacerbated in your Birmingham Weymouth example by having to two different TOCS who in theory are supposed to compete with each other and all the complictions of splitting the revenue from the ticket.

Although BR was not beyond such tactics. My friend ran the Regent Street Travel Centre and increased the revenue quite considerably. Unfortunately it came under the Southern for pay and rations and the revenue. Most of the tickets sold were to Tourists to York and Edinburgh on the HSTs. The Eastern Region got it closed because they were not getting the revenue.

Looking back through old timetables it appears that the CrossCountry arrival has been at 2040 or later since they took over the franchise in late 2007. Prior to that, in Virgin Cross Country days, it was as early as 2036. That's more than a couple of years back though. At first glance it would appear that the conspiracy theory is correct if you look back nearly 10 years. Arriva CrossCountry had changed their timetable and an official connection to the Weymouth train at 2049 was no longer possible.

However, in 2008, a couple of years after First Great Western had taken over from Wessex Trains, changes were made to the timetable for services from Great Malvern to Bristol. The 4 a day services from Great Malvern (two to Gloucester only), in Wessex Trains days, were increased to 6 a day (all to Bristol or beyond) and evenly spread. This included a service departing Great Malvern at 1854 (today 1850) that runs ahead of the CrossCountry service arriving in Bristol at 2037 (now 2039). That train has taken the path of the CrossCountry service as it nears Bristol TM, pushing the XC arrival into Bristol TM back to 2040 or 2041.

So, the reality is that changes to First Great Western's timetable mean that the 1912 from Birmingham (formerly the 1910) now cannot arrive any earlier. Throughout the day its the same. A GWR service from either Great Malvern, Worcester, Cheltenham or Gloucester runs just ahead of the xx12 XC departures from Birmingham as they approach Bristol.

Easy to blame CrossCountry for their being no official connection between their 2041 arrival at Bristol TM to the 2049 GWR to Weymouth, but misplaced blame I feel.

I'll offer a potential solution. How about getting GWR to move the Weymouth departure back to 2051? After all it is they (in FGW guise) whose changes in 2008 now prevent earlier XC arrivals in Bristol TM. I can't see any junction or path conflicts between Bristol and Westbury. At Westbury the 2049 ex Bristol TM it currently dwells for 5 minutes. That could be reduced to 3 and then its back to its current timings from there.

Finally, I wasn't aware that it was the accountants or the compensation culture that dictated timetables. Surely that's down to Network Rail and the operators. CrossCountry are always in a somewhat invidious position. Their services have to be threaded between multiple different TOCs' local services as the head up and down the country. There are always going to be some connections that are either just outside official interchange times or ones that leave passengers with a long wait. Blame for poor connections should not be laid at their door.

Noting your timings ... it certainly was an official connection when I was using it a couple of years back, but agreed it's gone in and out.   I wasn't intending to come across as attributing blame, but rather reporting on the blame attribution that went on when it was official and failed to connect.


I have made that suggestion is the past, but I suspect it's gone into the "too many suggestions, too little time to explore them seriously" bucket, or another section of the long-grass field. Certainly not heard a good reason why not.


I would go along with "blame for poor connections should not always be laid at their door".  There's no way that everything can connect with everything else - but at the same time there are occasions where the TOCs and NR together could do better.   And we've had discussions on here before about recovery times at certain points in journeys to help end-of-journey stats, and public and working timetables differing. 

As a matter of interest, I looked back at the now-non-connection at Bristol as an example over the last few days

* On Monday, it connected.  However, passengers from north of Birmingham would have been disappointed because the train from Scotland terminated an hour later there, with a fresh train found for passengers heading further south

* On Tuesday, the train from Birmingham arrived 30 seconds before the Weymouth left. I'm pretty sure that was a miss

* On Wednesday, it missed by 5 minutes

* On Thursday, it connected (just)

Clearly, not advertised, not official, not recommended these days.  But on previous official uses, it was officially recommended ...

I stand, partially, corrected.

May '12 to Dec '12 and Dec '12 to May '13 timetables do indeed have the XC arrival at 2039. Either side of those its 2040 or later.

Perhaps CrossCountry tried to make the connection work, but realised that following a stopper that closely wasn't sustainable.

Had the FGW timetable recast in 2008 not put the ex Gt Malvern in the way then maybe the connection could have been maintained permanently.

Looks like CrossCountry tried it for one year. Then realised it couldn't be sustained.