Great Western Coffee Shop

Paddington to Penzance due 17:12 
Service full and standing.
This is due to overcrowding because of an event.


-this has been the story on a number of services to Cornwall today, notably the 0906 from Paddington-Newquay, I've seen the pictures on board and it's the usual cattle truck throughout - people heading for the Newquay Boardmasters Surfing contest 10th-14th August.........customers were unable to access toilets, obtain food/drink from the buffet as aisles are full of people sitting down..........Bog standard response from GWR "Sorry if you feel it's unsafe, did you make a reservation?" - pal was at Plymouth when it arrived and people were struggling to get off.

It is the summer holidays, and this is an event which has been in the calendar for months, there are apparently some additional stoppers between Par and Newquay but that's all folks.

"there is no spare rolling stock, we cant justify obtaining rolling stock for exceptional events such as easter, summer weekends, beginnings/ends of university terms, football matches, Christmas, rugby matches, bank holidays, school holidays, Glastonbury, surfing events, pop concerts, and other rare events"

And just to make certain that no spare capacity is available in future, we intend to scrap as many existing trains as possible, once some of the new ones arrive.

The new trains should be adequate in mild weather and during months when none of the above exceptional events take place.

On any given day, the main InterCity franchises must have an idea of the likely loading of a given service, so why cannot a train lending service be used to share capacity, after all I'm sure West Coast and East Coast main lines could spare a train.

Oh yes, I forgot the systems are all different and no capacity exists at Paddington, unlike Euston or Kings Cross to add extra trains.

The next time anyone mentions upgrading GWR, they must consider either adding capacity to Paddington (an extra deck with 4-6 extra platforms) or get rid of Paddington and use Old Oak Common, but I suppose these ideas are two radical.   

There's two new platforms being built under the current station.  That should provide enough capacity as it will remove six arrivals and departures per off-peak hour from the current station - more in the peaks.

And don't forget a couple of the short platforms at Paddington are being lengthened in anticipation of the new (longer) electric trains coming into operation in the Thames valley.

The days of the 2 and 3 car Turbos are numbered.

Being optimistic for a change, the two new crossrail platforms being built under Paddington, SHOULD provide a lot of extra capacity.
Other things being equal, a through platform provides several times the capacity of a terminating platform.

If a train arrives in a terminating platform, it takes many minutes for even the most basic cleaning/servicing, and so on before it can depart.
A terminating platform can hopefully accommodate 2 or maybe 3 inter city trains an hour, or perhaps twice as many local services.

A through platform should easily accommodate 12 trains an hour, and maybe 20 trains an hour is just about possible under very favourable conditions. PROVIDED that the rest of the line is working reliably. 

Not sure they can spare a train. East coast keep pinching East Midlands HSTs so much so that EMT is down to the bare minimum required now.

As for capacity at Euston and KX, I don't think there is much if any spare capacity. I know paths out of KX are all taken at present but with a plan to squeeze an additional path into the system in the near future with faster trains and infustructure improvements.

 :o  Are you feeling alright, broadgage - you've not suffered a recent bump on the head, for example ??  ::) :P ;D

GWR have apparently said that there is no appropriate 'spare' rolling stock with which to run additional services.
The existing ticketing system cannot, in isolation, limit the number of passengers joining a particular service.
Even if Paddington platform capacity increases as described, does the network configuration in Cornwall and parts of Devon potentially have enough/any spare paths to allow the running of extra long distance trains?

In the very short term I think the specified issue could only be resolved by the introduction of 'Reservation Only' services together with appropriate ticket checks at or via a dedicated barrier. Trouble is, of course, that unless you also implement 'non-refundable, non-changeable, specified train only' tickets - can't see it ever happening - a full load of passengers can still not be guaranteed.

If 'RO' services are considered to be an absolute non-starter will the SET train plan come to the rescue?

Personally - and I know this will annoy some forum contributors - I believe that some of the blame for these incidents lies with the passengers; significant numbers of passengers have a degree of choice over the service on which they travel and when they buy their tickets so booking in advance, and avoiding trains which no longer offer reservations, should always be considered. Anybody turning up on the day and boarding an already crowded service has, in my opinion, no grounds for complaint.

This should not though absolve GWR of their responsibility for carrying out appropriate boarding controls, platform space permitting, on obviously busy trains and also for using the ticketing system, particularly online, to specifically and clearly warn intending passengers that certain services are already full and should be avoided.

(Lights blue touchpaper...  ;D)     

As I have previously remarked, the crowding could be somewhat reduced by selling no discounted advance tickets for services that are expected to be overcrowded.
I cant agree with proposals to ban or restrict the sale of full fare walk up tickets. It does seem rather odd to restrict sales of expensive tickets in order to give more room for holders of discounted tickets.

Elsewhere on these forums, the needs of business travelers have been discussed. It certainly wont encourage business use of rail travel if the potential business traveller is told "you cant pay the (very high) fare to travel today because the trains are full of discounted ticket holders"
Likewise, the business traveller who has paid hundred of pounds for a full fare fully flexible ticket, wont be very impressed if told at the last minute that "boarding controls" prevent use of the most expensive ticket on the chosen train.

Business users of trains want a reliable service, and by reliable they mean not "did the train run" but "did I/my colleagues board our chosen train without undue hassle and get seats"

Seems getting there by road has had its problems too...

From the  Plymouth Herald (http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/coaches-crammed-with-boardmasters-festival-goers-stopped-in-newquay-during-police-crackdown/story-29612782-detail/story.html)

I have some sympathy for this point of view.  If you decide to take a plane at the last minute and it is full, you cannot get on that is it! However, people are used to trains being a walk up service.  Any Reservation Only restrictions would therefore have to be very well publicised (not just  note in the timetable).

Regardless of this flagging trains likely to be very crowded in the on-line timetables would be a very good move.

Also enforcing the pick up only at Reading on these occasions would be good. Though as has been said before this may not be practical.

Broadgage is also right about discounted tickets on these services. 

If GWR has a suspicion that any service is going to be very busy, they can cancel stops on near stations (Reading/Didcott) to encourage these passengers to get another service, and look at cancelling another service(s) to provide an extra train.

Whilst cancelling an existing service may annoy a lot of people, GWR should consider running a number of extra services at some points of the day that it can 're-assign' in an emergency.

There is a surprising degree already in the planning along the lines of "what goes first".  On HST services out of Paddington, it's no mistake that the Cardiff trains starting with the 07:15 are first for the chop, with passengers falling back onto the trains that carry on to Swansea.  This is done almost routinely for Glastonbury and the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Ad hoc at short notice, it's much more complex as it involves last minute staffing rota changes, ensuring that there are paths, platforms, stabling and servicing along the way, and that the trains can be got back into pattern afterwards. There's also the little matter that at the times the trains to Cornwall are busy, the ones to Bristol and Swansea probably are as well. You could perhaps shorten a couple of suburban services out of Paddington on a Friday evening, but then a turbo service with the released train to Plymouth would be inappropriate and I suspect out of gauge.

indeed this does already happen in the summer at least when on summer Fridays the 1836 suburban service is formed of a turbo and not a HST.

I think you will find in this case that the 0906 is the only direct service to Newquay, and there's only one earlier service (the 0706 which would involve changing, and is eye wateringly expensive), and taking the 5 hour + journey into account, it's the only really viable option.

Two hour gaps between services to Cornwall at the height of the holiday season seriously limit peoples options and really aren't good enough, they make serious overcrowding inevitable, especially when events are taking place for which GWR don't make any extra capacity available.

I guess a cynic might say that GWR really don't give a toss, as no matter how packed the services are, they still get the revenue, so why should they lay on an extra train in order that their customers can travel in something approaching civilised conditions?

.............and now I've lit the blue touchpaper!!!  ;)

I'm not in an area of personal expertise, but I think the frequency of service on the Newquay line is dictated by the fact that only one train can realistically be on it at a time and with a journey time of over 50 minutes, that makes it one train every two hours at best.

Difficult to do much more with the timetable unless infrastructure improvements were to take place and/or a shuttle bus is provided from St. Austell for major events such as this?

There is a passing loop at Goonbarrow Junction which is only open / staffed on summer saturdays; I on a Crosscountry train through there July '15 and as we came back we passed an HST - so it ain't short.   Sadly in times of numbers of services, the XC sat at Newquay for about an hour, negating the loop!   I'm not sure how "balanced" the line is but I expect a service every 90 minutes would be possible, perhaps (on summer saturdays) alternate trains being long distance and local, as the local station people are very un-keen on loosing their service on a peak day as the line's given over to expresses.[/quote]

Goonbarrow Junction Signalbox is open the whole time the Newquay line is open (it doesn't have any switching out capability).  The service frequency is dictated by the return trip time from Goonbarrow Junction to Newquay which is about 50mins, so an hourly service is just possible.

Ah - interesting and thanks for that.

But with the Cornwall main line being a bit irregular at present, an hourly service to Newquay would be hit an miss on terms of connections ( * ) , quite apart from throwing lots more capacity onto a line that's not usually oversubscribed at the moment?    I'm being very careful as I write this, as I'm fully aware that doubling the frequency from every 2 hours to every hour a certain line  ;D would more than double the passenger numbers,  and I don't know the Newquay business case.

( * ) - noting that Liskeard to Looe is irregular to stop in dumping people in Liskeard just as the Plymouth pulls out, or getting back a couple of minutes after a service coming up from Penzance has called.

Just wondering.......with the Bank Holiday weekend almost upon us, are there any additional/relief services and/or more capacity being made available for customers between London and the Westcountry on Thursday evening/Friday?

(Asking more in hope than expectation!)  :)

Never mind the IC services, it's been mad on the Devon Metro, especially in the evenings out if Exeter. Easily the busiest I've seen it in the 4 years I've been commuting there. GWR doing their best with what they have, but it's not been pretty.

There ought to be some spare road coaches available in the school holidays.  Perhaps laying a few of those on and giving passengers a choice ("stay on the crowded train or transfer to the coach waiting in the station forecourt" is part of the answer?

It doesn't annoy me - I almost always book in advance. Apart from the issue of a seat, if everybody did the same, GWR would know there was a problem (or opportunity) in the offing, and might just be able to do something about it. As has been said earlier in this thread, special arrangements are made for Cheltenham Gold Cup, Glastonbury etc. I expect a lot of tickets are sold well in advance for services to both events because of the preponderance of wealthy middle-class travellers (yes, I know one of them is supposed to be a rock festival). You can't plan a railway for a last-minute surge. Mind you, FGW will always be happier with a train rammed with people who have just bought their tickets at full price at the counter than with a train running empty, but for Jeremy Corbyn sat by the khazi.


I have recently retired...

Makes sense. I understand that's routine practise on a Friday afternoon at Exeter St David's for Barnstaple.

Just this morning I came to realise just how under-utilised road / school buses are during the summer.  Reports or vandalism / damage to buses at Faresaver's Thingley outpost say that damage happened "between 12th and 19th August" which would suggest that all buses based there weren't required for the whole week.

Probably this is also when the staff have their holidays, so they may not have been available in great numbers.

Maybe ... yet  "We park about 16 vehicles here during the summer holidays" says Daniel Pickford, general manager of Faresaver buses "and almost all of them were damaged"  https://www.facebook.com/groups/option247/permalink/320798901604016/ ... and that's an awful lot of people all on holiday at the same time.  Of course, if the bus driver's partners are largely teachers, or the drivers are bringing up children as single parents, or from families where the other partner works then it does make sense that there are hardly any drivers available.   Your point is a good one!

I doubt it.  As we know, there's precious little spare stock available on a weekday evening.  You could replace a HST on the Cotswold line with a Turbo and run a relief HST down to the west country, but that would probably cause more problems than it solves this weekend with passengers travelling to Feastival at Kingham adding to the usually busy Bank Holiday Cotswold Line loadings.  Also people arriving the other way for Reading festival, and there's no rest bite over the weekend itself with Notting Hill Carnival adding to the mix.

Next year might be different as some IEP's should be in passenger service so there might be a surplus of stock available, as I doubt any of the HST's would have been retired that quickly.


I think I know what the answer of 99% of the passengers would be to that suggestion.   ;)

Not that I am aware of. RTT shows a lot of VAR, but they seem to be minor changes to timings AFAICS.

Interesting to see that several dozen people left the 15:27 Exeter St David's to Barnstaple (or walked away from the doors as they attempted to board) on 29th July upon the offer of a "nonstop coach express to Barnstaple ONLY ... anyone for intermediate stations should stay on the train".   Whether they transferred through a resigned pragmatism, through believing that a nonstop coach would get them there earlier, or because they liked the idea of a coach .. I know not.   But it does work in that case, and on a weekly basis I understand.

Though, as I'm sure you appreciate, Graham, there's rather a difference there.  One is a branch line with a slow average journey time by train and being offered a non-stop coach, and the other could be, for example, being invited to get off a crowded train and on to a bus between Exeter and Plymouth, when you've got several cases and have fought hard to get your square foot of standing space!

There is always a standby coach for the 15.27 and 17.00 standby coach for Exeter St David's - Barnstaple direct.

The coach is rarely used as people prefer to squeeze on to the train as it takes 10-15 minutes longer by road.

During high season it is easier to cherry pick people off platform 1 and on to the coach, usually on average 30-35 passengers, especially those with bikes and luggage, as they haven't boarded the train yet - mostly having come off the mainline connection.

During high season there has also been a coach available for the 08.43 and 09.43 Barnstaple - Exeter St David's departures. GWR control have been known to beg Barnstaple station to force people on to the coach to justify the expense of hiring one.  Again people just won't take the coach and would rather stand on a packed train (and complain) than risk missing their connection; and I think this coach may been withdrawn as a result.

I take the point about the undesirability of a coach versus a train, personally, I'd stay on the train even if it was crowded not because I dislike coaches but because I wouldn't trust FGW to be telling me the truth that the coach was immediately available. 

Surely the answer is to stick the coach journey into the journey planner and skew the advance purchase availability so that the coach journey is a couple of quid cheaper for those buying online.  There is a sizeable number of passengers who will make their decisions entirely on price and just a couple of quid saving would tempt them onto a coach. 

The financials might even make sense for FGW.  When a big event is planned and extra passengers expected, they can pull the advance purchase fares selectively for point to point journeys for which the coach is a viable option WRT timings etc and offer discounted fares on the coach only (and only up to the number of seats available on the coach). 
 

I'm one that will book the cheapest option be that train, coach, plane or even drive myself  but if I'm going by coach I will pick megabus or natex rather than a rail duplicate unless the rail dupe matches megabus/natex prices.

Megabus tomorrow evening (bank holiday weekend, Friday eve) 1800 from Victoria arriving Plymouth 2345 is currently £18.90 (plus £1.50 booking fee)


Alternatively the cheapest rail ticket for the 1803 Paddington to Plymouth arriving 2118 will be £71.20.

If I was being chucked onto a coach dupe I would expect to pay no more than the £20 megabus can offer such a service at.

All fair enough, though worth pointing out that it's currently £54 by train on the three later alternatives that still get you into Plymouth before the bus you specified.  They will all no doubt be extremely busy.

Still at £54 guaranteed seat at less than 50% of the price.

Summer holiday time is the time for school bus Drivers to have annual leave as the schools are shut!

Like most industries most employees get something like four weeks leave a year, and the school holidays are the obvious time to take it  as there is little or no demand unless the company has an excursion or busy private hire programme, and plenty of drivers, of which there is still a nationwide shortage.

Additionally, in this area anyway,  most school bus drivers are not full time, but deemed to be 'casual', that is they are used when required. When I was a full time 'casual' school holidays were off for six weeks in the Summer, three weeks at Christmas, and a fortnight at Easter - not required. Additionally if all the work was taken by full time drivers us casuals were not required then either. Real day to day stuff, and not guaranteed at all. The idea that school buses are in fulltime use and available for ordinary work is a bit of a fallacy. On the old decker I regularly drove for schools you wanted wipers on the inside let alone the outside when it rained, it used to pour down the inside of the screen and a roll of kitchen tissue was a necessity not an option.

My bus used to stand unused during the holidays because there was no way it would fit into the requirements of rail replacement. I remember one company I used to drive for locally got a job as standby in the Home Counties parked up at an airfield for a fortnight 'just in case' it was wanted to replace trains. Two weeks sitting on the vehicle, hotel accommodation overnight, three meals a day and all the trimmings. It must have cost the railway an absolute fortune. I wasn't on that job, it was during the Summer holidays and I wasn't required, all the full time Drivers got that, and welcome to it.

Bus companies don't have coaches and drivers hanging about on the off chance that the railway will call. It isn't that easy, or viable either. I tried to hire a coach for a private event and was quoted £350 a day, and I was driving it. Coach alternatives are not cheap.

And as with trains, there is a finite number of serviceable coaches. Their advantage is that they can squeeze around the fallen tree or divert around the flood, but they can't do 125 mph and find every light on green, while carrying 500 passengers or more.

For how much of a journey between Paddington and Penzance do HSTs travel at 125 mph, all things being equal?

And how often is every light on green?

If going via B&H (which I guess most do), probably between PAD and RDG and that's it!

I think there are some 110mph sections (eg, through Newbury to Kintbury area) but that's as fast as it gets.....and a lot of it (esp. Cornwall) is a lot slower.

I'm waiting for the 1502 totnes to Plymouth, there's only 3 of us heading west.
On the other side for the 1502 to Paddington., I've just counted roughly and lost count at 250 people waiting on the up platform.im guessing the hst will already be well loaded off Plymouth.

Anyone would think it was Bank Holiday Monday.

Cant be a bank holiday because it is not raining ! Any fule knoweth that it rains on bank holidays.

Surely First (oops, GWR) knows they should run extra train every evening Friday out of London, and every bank holiday Monday out of Plymouth.

They had a coach on standby unused at Plymouth this afternoon. The coach operator gets paid the same whether he runs a route or sits in the bay outside the station, is it would have been a smart move to use him. Even if the train wasn't heavily loaded off Plymouth, it would have left more space for those boarding at the next station, send say fifty passengers for stations Plymouth to Exeter or Taunton, that's fifty extra spaces at totnes or Newton Abbot that will be less cramped.

They run every train they have available on peak days. The problem is (as has oft been discussed in great length) that they don't have quite enough for the peak days, and especially not for the ultra-peak days (e.g. Maundy Thursday).

Yes, but can they sacrifice one of the early trains the following day to run a late train on the previous evening?

I know this compromises the schedule for the following day, but is probably better to lose one train the next day that trying to load a a train 2(+)x seated capacity.

That may already be happening. Maundy Thursday is followed by a BH, so quite likely that one of the extras was found in that way. And the Friday evening peak extras may also be covered in a similar way. Speculation on my part but I think you can take it as read that GWR will be juggling all options (including maintenance schedules) to release as many trains as possible at peak times.

14:07 London Paddington to Penzance due 19:33


14:07 London Paddington to Penzance due 19:33 has been previously delayed, has been further delayed at Reading and is now 12 minutes late.
This is due to overcrowding.


.............wonder what it'll be like this evening heading West if it was this bad this afternoon?

Probably about the same as every year.

Gosh, is it that time of year again already???

With fewer options and additional disruption tomorrow/Sunday, I'd say it'll be worse, as more people will be heading West earlier than usual.

It looks to be the opposite with more spreading of journeys than usual. 19:03 PAD-PLY left Reading with a few seats still available.  19:33 PAD-PNZ only had 20 people in Coach A. Long distance services on other routes mostly looking reasonably loaded, but by no means packed out.

Quieter than a typical Friday I would say, and good to see no infrastructure issues causing any problems.    Coming home will probably be a different story as many will choose the 27th.

  With Cross-Country services starting from Exeter St Davids, the sparse GWR services leaving Totnes
  yesterday were 'cosy' to say the least.

The 10am Penzance to London Marylebone  8 coach HST today was truly astonishing. Full and standing throughout the whole train from Mid Cornwall to Marylebone.
Limited buffet facilities in Cornwall due to 'heavy demand on the way down on Christmas Eve' and, despite promises of new stock being loaded on at Plymouth, none materialised for the whole of the journey. Not that you could get to the buffet anyway, or the toilets, or the luggage rack or anywhere. Useful PA announcements also seemed quite sparse. I felt truly sorry, particularly for the elderly and those with small children, and for passengers who spent nearly 8 hours on this service (yes 8 hours, Marylebone was reached just before 6pm, the train was losing time almost from the beginning due to passenger numbers).
Still nice to have an HST into Marylebone.
Btw Anyone thinking that 5 coach bimodes will suffice on London services in Cornwall is in for a shock, in one direction or the other, or both, you'll probably need 2 X 5 or 1 x 9 sets - preferably with station platforms lengthened to accommodate the services that serve them.

Scheduled departures from Penzance to London yesterday were at 05:32, 07:40, 10:00 and 16:00.

As the only through train from Penzance and other cornish stations to London that left after breakfast and arrived at an hour decent enough for people to complete their onward journeys, running on the day after holidays and the rail shutdown, this was always going to be a prime candidate for overcrowding with long distance travellers well endowed with luggage. 

............perhaps it would have been sensible for GWR not to leave a 6 hour gap between the latter two services in order to at least partially mitigate the overcrowding caused by the factors you mention?

I would suspect that the 13:00 from Penzance - which ran as far as Reading - was intended to mitigate. I suspect it was "too little, too late" for most people and a 12:00 Penzance to Waterloo would have been more effective - but that suggestion assumes all sorts of stock, staff and route availabilities.

If one more WoE train ran into Marylebone then another busy route would have had one less as it was handling as many as it sensibly could.  Was there a reason Waterloo wasn’t used this year?

Good to see no substantive engineering overruns and comparatively few tails of woe regarding crowding.  Friday night was ridiculously quiet and yesterday was busy but much better than I was expecting.  Perhaps punters are finally getting the message we don’t want their custom...  ;)

So, terrible from GWR in the run up to the big getaway, but well done for their handling of the big event itself.  Just the new timetable launch to deal with now!

Ah, but there was a plan! SWR ran 4 tph all day yesterday between Reading and Waterloo (as well as a few longer trains from Exeter). So GWR should - logically* - have been running the trains unable to get into a terminal (and perhaps even some extra ones) to Reading, telling people "change there to one of the frequent trains to Waterloo".

Do you mean to say they didn't do that? Did the stitches joining up the thinking come apart?

* Yes, I know ...

It was a shame GWR didn’t run to Waterloo yesterday. I couldn’t see a reason why.

If I had been travelling back up from the Southwest yesterday I’d have traveled on a Reading service and changed there for Waterloo. But that’s me, most will always opt for the direct service and I get that from the less hassle factor of changing. Of course when you have a much less frequent direct service operating the trains are always going to be full; especially from the SW.

Wouldn’t have been surprised if the SW-Reading services were quite lightly loaded.

Ongoing problems today.....

07:41 Penzance to London Paddington due 13:15 has been previously delayed, has been further delayed at Tiverton Parkway and is now 21 minutes late.
This is due to overcrowding.

Only had to travel between Temple Meads and Weston on the way home from work last night - on one of the Marylebone to Penzance services (1610 from BTM), I've honestly never seen an HST so overcrowded, not just with people but the amount of luggage that was being carried.
Was talking to a lady that got on who had three cases that had a reserved seat but literally couldn't find anywhere to put her luggage as the racks etc were already full, she was travelling down to Truro so good luck to her !

Earlier in the day, platform 3 was 4/5 deep all the way from Bonapartes to the help desk area, luckilly a 9 car service was due for Leeds, but goodness knows how many of those made it.

Of course the area was worse than normal with the Cross Country strikes yesterday and the random timetable that seemed to be running in the area

South Eastern are making a rare foray into Waterloo since Boxing Day with some of their Kent services. May be this was a reason why GWR didn't operate into Waterloo?

Elsewhere on these forums, the need for an improved service between London and Plymouth has been discussed, primarily to attract business travellers.
I wonder what a business traveller boarding at Plymouth today or yesterday would have thought ? "never again" I expect! Remembering that today is a normal working day.

Events like this make all the agonising over details seem rather pointless if business users cant even get on the train, much less get a seat.
And yes I know that it is their fault for travelling just after Christmas.

I very much doubt there were many business travellers yesterday, though with the arrival of the 802 fleet imminent, by this time next year many WoE service should have about 20% more seats.

All ready for more media GWR on Thursday ? The why don't they run more/ longer trains brigade will tweet like crazy !!

Can you blame them?

Well they are but it probably still won’t be enough. We Brits have this obsession with all wanting to travel at once when it comes to bank holidays.

At this time of year, "It's the customer's fault for travelling/no-one forced them to get on the train" is almost up there with "Oooooooooooos gunna pay for it?" on the Coffee shop forum Bingo card!  ;)

It might not be as bad this year as in some previous years, on account of the rather poor weather that is forecast.
Many passengers will have made arrangements some time in advance and are unlikely to alter arrangements due to moderately adverse weather.
I doubt however that many potential customers will look at the weather and say "It looks lovely, lets pop down to see aunt Hilda, you know that she wants to see the children again"

I posted elsewhere about some of the forward looking thought at yesterday's Transport Knowledge Hub in Bristol, covering the South West - and that was a qualified positive post.

Alas, I'm struck by the difference between Highways England - "We have just completed a great strategic road through the open countryside north of Exeter to Cornwall" and the speaker's view of "we can't justify a strategic rail link through the open countryside north of Exeter toward Cornwall because there's no-one much in that open countryside".   Dual Standards.

Also I was struck by the suggestion that the lines are currently at capacity and more passing place are needed on them.   Can't help feeling that someone's confused into thinking that the line from Exeter to Taunton is largely single, just like the line from Exeter to Salisbury is ... and that the fact that many trains are shorter than they need be is overlooked.

A little bit of arithmetic ... from Taunton to Exeter, come new timetables ... 2 x XC trains per hour at 5 carriages each, one x GWR train at 9 carriages super-fast and one x GWR train ever 2 hours semi-fast - I make that 23 or 24 carriages per hour.  Capacity, even at just one passenger train every 15 minutes - 40 carriages if they were all 10 car.      For how long would 66% growth in capacity be enough?   In chatting with the speaker briefly after the talk, I got the impression that the 'longer train' option may be an inconvenient option as it provides an interim solution that could muddy progress towards even greater capacity via capital expenditure on the current routes - especially via Salisbury.   For sure the extra trains will cost money - but doesn't that money need to be spent in addition to infrastructure anyway if there's to be more capacity on the infrastructure in future years - not much good having a railway that can take 60 carriages per hour if there are only 25 carriages available!

I think the sudden impulse to see a Devon or Cornwall based Aunt Hilda would be tempered somewhat by the cost of walk up fares at this time of year and the prospect of an extremely expensive sardine experience of several hours duration.

I'm afraid she'll have to wait to see the children, but on the upside she gets to eat the Easter eggs herself  :)

Surely the cost of walk-on fares doesn’t alter at all?  Very expensive if you involve London or Reading or places like that, but still pretty reasonable if you are going from, say, Taunton to Exeter, which is probably more likely to be the sort of journey involved to go to see Aunt Hilda on the spur of the moment.

Expect hellish conditions on many trains on Thursday afternoon, Friday morning and most of Monday with the usual ‘jam tomorrow’ caveat that more capacity should be available for Easter next year onwards.  That’s provided GWR can train up enough staff of course, their recent track record not exactly inspiring confidence.

I was thinking that too re: staff........if Aunt Blodwen or Uncle Ivor are expecting a visit this Easter they may well be disappointed. As GWR can't manage anything like enough drivers for Welsh services at the best of times, Easter is likely to be hopeless........and if they happen to have relocated along the Cotswold Line, heaven help them!!!

Just seen a tweet on the GWR feed, apparently over 100 people, mostly with seat reservations, were denied boarding on the 1903 from Paddington this evening.........GWR don't learn, do they?




.

Hopefully they all managed to get on the extra 19.32 Penzance service.

According to Realtimetrains the 19:03 left from the unbarriered platform 1 which would have caused problems of its own.

I’ve been keeping an eye on the Taunton departure boards and it is the first train in either direction today to be reported “full & standing”.  Admittedly the message is down to the individual train manager reporting it but earlier departures seem to have been better.

Is the 19:32 additional a new thing?

Certainly things were far, far better than I was expecting this afternoon and evening.  Virtually all long distance trains ran, with reasonable punctuality.  I saw two IET 10-car trains running around with one half locked up (but that was early afternoon before it would have been too much of an issue), and one 5-car IET on a Swansea service, the 18:45 out of Paddington I think, that didn't look like much fun.  Heck, even the Cotswold Line survived largely unscathed with the 15:52 PAD-MIM making it all the way and the 16:22 running.

Busy, and far from perfect, but not the meltdown I was fearing and predicted I'm very pleased to say.  Fingers crossed for tomorrow morning and Monday.  Let's hope the recent GWR disaster has been largely sorted in time for the next big getaway!

I’m hearing that most of Plymouth’s guards will not be turning in tomorrow due to disciplinary action taken against a colleague.

Yet there are reports that GWR trains are running half-empty with coaches locked and out of use.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5671377/New-InterCity-trains-running-ghost-services-half-carriages-locked.html

On some trains from London to south Wales and southwest England, five carriages were shut off to passengers because Great Western Railway did not have enough staff on board.

The trains, which were purchased in a £5.7billion rail revamp, saw their maiden voyage in October of last year begin with age-old complaints - including delays, no available seats, broken aircon and tickets costing £200.

Great Western Railway described the closed carriages as 'isolated incidents', but The Sunday Times report four trains were run in this way during an eight-day period in April.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/passengers-crammed-in-as-gwrs-5-7bn-ghost-trains-close-half-their-carriages-nlgw8w3cd

One passenger, Rachael Claridge, was travelling with her family from London Paddington, to be told they should board one of the front five carriages on the train, because the other five were not open.

They all ended up sitting on the floor whilst other carriages were locked empty.

Trains to the West Country haven’t really been affected by this, yet.  Though it’s happening far too frequently on Bristol/South Wales trains so I’m glad the national press is picking up on it.

One of the comments on the Mail report opines

"[redacted], Swansea, United Kingdom, about 2 hours ago

These Hitachi trains are not fit for purpose, the seats are too hard, handles stick out into the aisles and you bump into them causing injury at high speed, the luggage racks are too small and will not accept standard size suitcases, you have to unplug your charger if the passenger by the window needs to leave their seat. My wife and I tried to board one of these trains in April and our pre-booked seats did not exist? After boarding the train and finding other seats we were also told that due to staff shortages there would be no food or drinks available for the entire journey from Swansea to London Paddington....GWR is a disgrace."

In GWR's defense they didn't order these trains Dft did. Lessons from ordering 4/5 Voyager trains for XC were clearly not learned that this length of train is just not suited to IC services. Gosh GWR struggle to crew one train net alone two joined together. Farcical situation forcing them to give up HSTs too soon until 9 car sets became available. These should have been built first not the five car sets.

Indeed, a phased introduction of 5 and 9 car sets would have been much more sensible than just all the 5-cars first.  Was there a reason other than Hitachi being able to say it had delivered more sets more quickly?

Why defend GWR, GWR were told what stock they were getting by the Dft and didn't hold their hand up and ' say wait a minute but .... '.

Why defend GWR, GWR hasn't come out and said, ' its the DfT's fault for .... '.

Why defend GWR, GWR didn't hold on to HST's and say, ' we'll release them at OUR convenience not yours .... '

Why, because if they'd gone against the DfT's dictates then there would be no chance of them retaining a future in any GWR franchise renewal.

Remember in the days when Alison Forster was MD things went ' t*** up ' caused by too tight turn-arounds at termini, mainly Paddington in an attempt to generate the funds necessary to enable the committed payments to HMG to be made which eventually resulted in the keys of the franchise to be handed back and the situation the franchise is in today.

I predicted the situation where the franchise operator would be facing a situation of having to hand to HMG £ millions in the latter years of the franchise and not being able to honour that commitment and in this case instead of monies being set aside out of the operators profits in the early years of the franchise, they paid dividends and eventually the parent company had to go to shareholders to raise millions through a rights issue what five years ago and haven't paid a shareholder dividend since.

If there are / were other factors involved then could not a reduction of the payments been agreed between the DfT and the franchise operator then HMG would of got something rather than NOTHING out the franchise or would the unsuccessful franchise bidders have cried FOUL in the circumstances. 

It was set out that way from the start. Remember that the 9-cars were then going to be electric ones, so having the 5-car bimodes first would be more flexible on both counts. How much it would have taken to change the order when the extra engines were added I couldn't say - but not very much, since the vehicles are now pretty much the same however coupled.

In addition, when seen from a few years in advance, the whole production period doesn't look so long, does it? (7 months for 5-cars, then 5 months for 9-cars.)

Before these new shorter DMUs replaced full length HSTs, there was a general view on these forums that they would be wonderful, and that busy services would be full length, and that a trolley was better than a buffet.

Now that the wretched units are in regular use we hear regular reports of half length trains, or of full length trains with half locked out of use, and of no catering.
All very Voyager like, as predicted by my famous crystal ball.

The newspapers contain many reports regarding the hard seats, the lack of luggage space, and the absence of a buffet.

Supporters of FGW/GWR seem to have changed their tune a bit, from "they will be wonderful" into "They are not wonderful, but that is because the government specified them"

We need to wait for them all to be in service before making any judgement regarding capacity in my opinion.  Half of the train locked out is not the fault of anyone other than GWR, reliability has been acceptable in my opinion and is likely to get better.  5-car trains on services booked to be 10 has been higher that I would have expected but not unduly so (though combined with the number running around with half locked gives an unacceptable service). 

Seats in my opinion are ok, I would prefer slightly softer but I suppose the could always be replaced, and the improved legroom and number of table seats is most welcome, though first class is a definite step backwards.  Luggage space seems to be ok, the overhead racks are especially spacious, but end of carriage racks could have been slightly bigger.  The fact the reservation system is still not working properly is disappointing, but when it does it will be a big improvement.  I would say a trolley is more suitable than a buffet rather than better, though I remain of the opinion they should have a buffet for the WoE routes.

Some of the negative comments are clearly from people like yourself that had already made their minds up beforehand, but doubtless some others will be disappointed with certain aspects and some impressed with some of the improvements over the HST fleet.

On balance I would give them a 7 out of 10 rating as a train, which could rise to 8 or 9 if and when a few issues are resolved.  The overall service offered by them is only worth 4 or 5 out of 10 for the other reasons I’ve mentioned though.

Just a word on 10 car trains running as five.  While I have no doubt in many cases the reason is down to crew shortages there may well be some occasions where a technical issue is to blame.

There have been problems with the on board software when two units are uncoupled.  Thus if there is a fault in the rear set which prevents it being used for passengers it may well be thought prudent to keep it joined to the good set rather than risk losing both of them.   

Only if a trolley actually runs through the whole train.
I haven't been on that many IET journeys yet, but on more than a couple of them, the trolley was only available in the front 5 coaches.

And a specific forecast of mine was that "and of course the trolley will be in the other half" This forecast was widely criticised as being unduly negative, but seems to be happening regularly.

Sadly that seems to be the case .

Again, I would say it’s best to wait until the full fleet and timetables are introduced, but it comes as no surprise that GWR have so far proven lacklustre in providing a suitable trolley service, give their inability to provide enough staff in other respects.

Whilst you make a good point, this is another example of "jam tomorrow" receding further into the future. Initially it was claimed that improvements would be felt from the beginning of this calendar year as the new trains  came into use.

I suspect that full length trains with a trolley in each portion have already become an aspiration rather than a commitment.

Well, we should know by this time next year.  Provided there are no more delays of course...  ::)

Around 20 services formed of 5 cars rather than 10 today.

How many HSTs (which could have been used?) have already left the fleet?
Do GWR pay Hitachi less for a shorter train?
Do GWR still make the same income per passenger, or is there some sort of penalty that they in turn incur with the DfT?
How are short forms reflected in ppm / performance measurements?

Manana, manana.................... ::)

All of this ruining the experience for customers of having a brand new train that should have been a good news story for the Western region. Very sad.

Trains have been temporarily split in order to provide more units for driver training. Training is running behind schedule due to late delivery of trains so splitting them is a temporary solution to help get drivers trained up.

Good to hear it isn’t due to technical problems with the trains themselves.

I have noticed some 5 car departures from Paddington that should have been 10 are not advertised as stopping at Reading during the evening peak.
When confirming with staff that it did in fact call at Reading I was told this is to reduce potential overcrowding.

The DfT have instructed GWR to do this as well as cancel some services to provide paths and units for training.

My friend, who knows I know about trains, asked me why having booked a seat from Yatton to Paddington on a rare through train, she had to change units at Temple Meads where the coach letters did not match.  She said it was awful for the mums with prams and the elderly with luggage who had to struggle between the two sections.  (I'm not sure whether it was 10 coaches joined or two separate 5s that came close together at the same platform).  As I tried to explain what I knew of the difficulties of providing anything like the promised improvement to the service I could see frustration and disappointment on her face.  She loves the train normally as a great way to travel to see her grand children and this experience came as a shock.

As I have remarked before, I understand the background to all this nonsense and can at rationalise it as a supporter of public transport, but it's not the likes of me who have to be convinced to continue to use the train when a car or coach is a reliable alternative.  This reduction in seats, convenience and indeed whole trains will have a reputational knock on even if the main media don't go to town on the situation. 

And presumably no one could have foreseen the need for training, and planned for it? It sounds nearly as bad as Easter arriving each year without warning.

And presumably broadly similar events will occur when the far West services are downgraded from HSTs to the new shorter units? 5 car on the "Golden Hind" on a Thursday night whilst training takes place?

And yes, outside of these forums the new units are generally considered to be a downgrade. It is not just me who thinks that long distance trains should be full length, gangwayed throughout, have mainly facing seats at tables, and a buffet.
At least they don't smell like voyagers though.

Sadly, I have to agree with that - for long distance train journeys.   

By "mainly facing seats", I guess you are meaning seats facing each other across a table, rather than old tram-style toast rack seats that can be reversed at the end of a journey (but, heck, why not?).  And personally I prefer a table as it allows that little more space / laptop capability and able to carry on a meeting ... current thinking is that many lone travellers, especially ladies, prefer airline style.

BUT what proportion of GWR passenger mileage (and what proportion of GWR passengers) are "long distance".  I would love to see journey length stats for passengers on 125 m.p.h. capable trains on GWR, and see how they have changed since - well, since the first 125 m.p.h. trains arrived.   I suspect that a "what's important to YOU" survey would reveal a different balance in its results if you look at passengers on the "ignore Wiltshire" run from London to Plymouth and beyond, and compare them to passengers travelling from Swindon and Chippenham into Bath and Bristol.

Okay fair enough, so why don’t GWR come out and say the reason for short formed IC services at the moment is because...

A fair few listed again today. I really hope they don’t do this Friday when people are getting away for the bank holiday.

At least GWR can claim that no trains are running around with 5-cars locked out of use anymore and get the press off their backs!  :-\

Yup, makes it slightly less frustrating when you knew there were five empty carriages behind you.

One for those ITK on here but I find that amazing that 17 hours + whatever from the day before and the trains are still in the "wrong place"
Any reason why they can't be put in the right place ? and if so why does it take so long?

In deepest South Somerset we await the first diversion of either a 5 (0r 10) or a 9 car IET. Wonder if the powers that be will be arranging a gauging test before July just in case?

The single curved line between platforms 1 and 2 at Yeovil Pen Mill is banned to certain steam locos although the HSTs are OK. New carriages are a little longer so possibly worth checking before the inevitable diversion happens at short notice.

Incidentally Tuesday 12 - Thursday 14 June sees Whiteball Tunnel closed so 'could' be the final sight of HSTs in regular service up the Southern line from Exeter.

The consequences of an earlier cancellation due to a lack of train drivers.....another long, uncomfortable journey for many....bet the 1903 was cosy!



15:03 London Paddington to Penzance due 20:40 will no longer call at Pewsey.
It has been delayed at Reading and is now 25 minutes late.
This is due to overcrowding.

The whole route "Castle Cary to Exeter St Davids via Yeovil Pen Mill and Yeovil Junction" was on the "List of Routes" for the IEP project. This was in the Train Infrastructure Interface Specification (TIIS), which had the purpose: "to provide information concerning the Network Rail infrastructure on which the Intercity Express Programme (IEP) trains will operate from the date of their introduction."

The requirement for gauging was very comprehensive : "The description of the routes includes all running lines in signalled direction, including Fast/Main, low/Relief and loops, all crossovers and connections between them and all tracks serving all platform faces including bay platforms). The routes exclude sidings, depots and crossovers/connections between the running lines and those sidings and depots."

Never mind ... there's another one scheduled an hour and three quarters later  ;D

Funny old service has Pewsey .... like London buses ... nothing for hours then 2 at the same time!
WTT   1936   1947¼   London Paddington   1   1J93   GW   Frome   1937   1949¾
WTT   1943   1953¾   London Paddington   1   1C93   GW   Plymouth   1944   1955½

Interesting eyewitness account;

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/standing-joke-something-really-really-needs-done-state-trains/?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#link_time=1528013684

Looks like an interesting read. Sneaky with the paywall though.  >:(

Not prepared to sign up, so will miss out on this one!

I too only read the first bit, and was put off by the irrelevant picture which looks like a SWT unit, perhaps at Clapham Junction, and is not at Paddington nor of a GWR train.

And anyway, as we all know, overcrowding is not dangerous !
And it is the customers fault for choosing to make a presumably leisure trip on a holiday weekend.
And for choosing to get on a busy train!

More reports like this could lead to compulsory reservations and/or boarding controls.

I doubt it.  If they didn't have walk on fares they would lose money.

I cant agree with any proposal to ban the sale of walk on fares, or with any similar proposal to restrict the use of such tickets.
I have previously suggested that sales of discounted tickets should be restricted or eliminated for very busy trains.
The original idea of these discounted advance tickets was to fill seats that would otherwise go unused. NOT to make overcrowded trains even worse.

It would be very odd to ban or restrict use of the most expensive tickets, so as to give more room for holders of discounted tickets.
If very busy trains were "full fare only" that would either greatly reduce crowding, or perhaps greatly increase revenue.
Any significant increase in revenue could be spent on some more trains.

I was of course being a bit provocative, although many countries do run their longer distance services requiring reservations, or quotas for particular types of customer, or boarding queues. Or indeed by charging a premium fare.

However, it is clear at every peak getaway time that a significant number of people believe that if booking online that's they select a particular departure time, even if they do not get a seat reservation (*) they have still in some manner secured a seat somewhere on that service and if they don't get one it is because it is 'overbooked'.

The only explanation I can think for this is that they believe it works like an airline, where they might get a specific seat reservation free, or paid for, but if they don't it is allocated or found on the day.

(*) the reservation may of course not be honoured by failing to be displayed on the train, or someone refusing to move from it, or being physically unable to get to it.

BBC Spotlight ran a report last night on an unspecified train from Paddington to Plymouth yesterday which was overcrowded to the extent that some children were allowed to sit in the crew room next to the buffet.

Seems the train had no reservations (I assume because the train arrived late into Paddington to form the journey) and had at least one coach with no aircon and was formed of 2+7 rather than the usual 2+8.

GWR were quoted as saying anyone who had a seat reservation but wasn't able to claim it will be able to claim a full refund.

I note today's 12:30 from Paddington to the West of England (via Bristol due to the engineering works on the Berks & Hants) will run fast between Reading and Bristol Temple Meads with a relief train for intermediate stations leaving London three minutes behind it.

I noticed this too and applaud GWR for doing this. Not often you see relief trains running these days. Why they decided to merge two trains into one in the first place when it's a long distance WofE train I don't know.

Looking at Real Time Trains it seems that relief train is going to run for the rest of this week.

That doesn’t surprise me, after all on a normal running week it would be. GWR trying to save money running one train instead of two. You may get away with it in winter but not in the middle of summer.

You can't have it all - today's relief train has no catering.  ;D

Here's the article:


The writer's questions in the last paragraph are answered by her statement in the second. She turned up with a walk-up ticket. The TOC has no idea what service she will use unless she reserves a seat. For as many of those who demand 'Reservation Only' trains, there's an equal amount who will decry the loss of a turn up and go railway.

That's the choice you make when not reserving a seat and hoping for the best.

I do remember towards the end of Intercity on busy weekends/holidays, services to the West of England boarding cards were issued to ensure everyone got a seat. Once these were handed out the service was classed as full and you couldn't board. I guess the system didn't work very well as it was dropped at privatization.

I am a strong believer in the principle of a walk up railway with no requirement to book.
As I have previously stated, I believe that sales of discounted advance tickets should be limited or even eliminated for services that are expected to be overcrowded.

I see no merit in the sale of discounted tickets when this results in the scenes described.

And as for the advice to book a seat, I very much doubt that so doing would have helped in the situation described.
At least twice I have booked a seat and found it taken by someone else who simply refused to move. On one journey the on board staff felt unable to intervene, on the other occasion I saw no staff.
Being reluctant to give the usurper a good thump, I had to stand to Taunton. And that was in first class, cattle class was presumably even worse.

On another occasion when I DID get my reserved seat, I was asked very firmly by the train manager to give it up  in order that a mother and baby could sit. Splendid value for over £150 to Taunton.
I was refused any refund for having to stand with a first class ticket.

Whilst most of my FGW/GWR trips go very much better than that, this is only because I avoid days when the railway can not cope.

It will be interesting to see what happens when a single 5 car DMU turns up for a popular Penzance service !

Totally agree.

Those who require a seat on a specific train can reserve one.  Those who require the flexibility of an open ticket can also have it, often paying a little more for the privilege than they would for a train-specific advanced ticket on the same train.

Many of us find it quite impossible to know when a meeting / appointment / task will finish and for us a "must reserve" system would be a nightmare.  I have seen (and shuddered in sympathy) with passengers travelling with cycles who have been bumped (cancelled) off a TransWilts service, and who have then had to visit the ticket office to get a cycle reservation for the following train, because it's a 125 via Bath Spa.  Just imagine such a system if it wasn't just the cyclists, but all the passengers bumped!

There were certainly 'Reservations Compulsory' trains in the BR era and into the early years of privatisation. The printed timetable symbol, a boxed, black capital 'R' on a white background, is still listed in the printed National Rail Timetable. See attached.

Of course, the privatised TOCs are far more concerned about maximising revenue, overcrowding helps the bottom line. This is one area where British Rail were more customer focused than revenue focused.

Should such 'Reservation Compulsory' trains be brought back? Perhaps in GWR land it shouldn't be blanket for a train's entire journey. London/Reading to Taunton/Exeter/Newton Abbot/Plymouth/stations in Cornwall and vice versa. The train still being accessible to those making intermediate journeys such as Taunton - Plymouth, Exeter-Truro. Those travelling furthest are less likely to be travelling on the hoof so have to reserve and are guaranteed a seat. Make it a positive with an advertising campaign. Offer an incentive in the early days if the scheme. - free drink and snack voucher. Those travelling regionally take their chance on availability of a seat. Elderly and disabled excepted.

………….given that position, how do you ensure that those reservations are honoured on trains which are already packed beyond cattle truck conditions?

If that is the philosophy, people will quite rightly expect it. I have never seen a TM insist on someone moving from a seat on such a train (they are normally nowhere to be found in these circumstances), the only time I've seen anything close to it (ironically) was a TM publicly shaming two GWR employees discovered to be occupying 1st class seats on staff passes long after the announcement had been made for any doing so to give up those seats. The two concerned did not identify themselves until exposed by others.

So if you are going to say "those who require a seat on a specific train can reserve one", there needs to be a mechanism to ensure that having done so, they can occupy it for the duration of their journey.

I agree.

Very helpful! 😂

Reading this you can see why the Flybe Exeter to London is still operating, despite forecasts on here that it wouldn’t last long. On the plane you don’t pay £150 and have to stand for over 2 hours, babies or no babies. I see Flybe have increased capacity on the Newquay route, too.

From what I understand National Express are considering a couple more daily services to Devon/Cornwall too.

Just scrolled back to that Telegraph article. Hard to believe that someone named  Sophia Money-Coutts was travelling cattle class  :D

This is half the problem back in the original GWR days trains where extended and made more frequent down to the West, these days they can't make them longer just for that, and there isn't enough to increase to the frequency required, and because of other cheaper railway ticket sites, GWR can't control how many people will book for specific trains. Which has led to the common problem every year of massive amounts of passengers for 1 train, what would be an ideal solution is to run 1 train direct, non stop through Reading down to Exeter, and then run another service 5 or 10 minutes behind stopping at Reading and the common stops of Pewsey, Westbury etc.   I fear that because the railways don't tend to use logic anymore that won't happen, and the IET's won't help much either, give or take a few years (or maybe months) and the problems will be back again.

Regretfully, I agree. I do not approve of air travel on account of the fuel used and pollution caused, but can see the attraction.
On an aircraft, you get a seat a seat. End of.

On a train, you MIGHT get a seat, but probably wont at busy times or during disruption.
No reservations if the train is half length
No reservations if there is not time to put them out.
No reservations if the system is broken.

And if the reservations HAVE been put out, they are not enforced at busy times.
And if by luck you get your reserved seat, you can still be told to vacate it if the train manager considers that someone else is more deserving.

With the recent downgrade to 5 car DMUs, reservations have got much worse. Voided if the train is half length.
Voided if it is an HST instead of a new DMU.
And if it is a full length train, the reservation system may well be out of order.

Next time that I am asked to give up a reserved full fare seat, I may consider refusing. Especially as my later request for a refund was refused.

What a terrible picture you paint of rail travel. You're pretty accurate in your descriptions of the issues, and it's not so much of FlyBE being so good that it gains passengers, rather that the railways have been proving such a poor passenger experience that they're loosing it.   And it will take may years to regain the ground lost.

To be accurate, I suspect you probably WILL get a seat even at busy times ... I don't think that either HSTs or IETs have enough standing capacity to carry more than twice the number of passenger than seats they have.  A train with 580 seats ain't going to physically take 1160 passengers.

As you point out, statistically there should be a better than even chance of obtaining a seat.
That does however presume that one is being at least somewhat decent and honourable and is "playing by the rules"

Under the conditions that I have experienced, I probably COULD have got a seat by a combination of pushing, shoving, use of luggage as a battering ram, generally aggressive behaviour, and so on.
Rather than looking for the seat that I had booked, I would have done better to take the first empty seat, even if reserved by someone else, and simply refusing to move.
I would however be most reluctant to behave so badly.

In the interests of balance, I should point out that most of my journeys are in fact fine. But that is because I almost always plan ahead and avoid  holiday times etc.
Not everyone has this option, and many passengers have had worse experiences, or more frequent bad experiences, than I have had.

The recent downgrade from full length inter city trains to 5 car DMUs has made a bad situation worse, both as regards actual capacity and the general non availability of reservations.
And remember that the downgrade of longer distance services has not yet started. 5 car DMUs on Penzance services next Easter or Summer should be interesting !

Are the peaks and troughs of the Regional needs the same as the peaks and troughs of the InterCity needs?

The logic you're looking at would lead to a clock face service something like this:

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/bh_wb.jpg)

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/bh_eb.jpg)

Which would be one extra diagram over the sort of thing proposed for (now) May 2019. Peak hour / start and end of service trains would still use the Bedwyn turn back, but otherwise the regional train would in effect be an extension of the old NSE trains that just made it into Wiltshire.  The HSTs / slam door trains, with their diesel engines and extended station duties as the conductor checks the whole train at unstaffed stations, make the few Berks and Hants trains that serve stations both east and west of Bedwyn feel incredibly slow, but with the IETs (no matter how hard the seats, how short, how lacking buffets) you have something which overcomes these issues, and could progressively overcome them even further if you electrified short sections through plain-track stations such as Kintbury, Hungerford, Pewsey, Devizes Parkway and Bruton.

Note - my software is somewhat basic.  The regional IET that arrives at Exeter St Davids at :05 from London carries on at :15 to Paignton, having been overtaken at :10 by a stop in the intercity IET.   Same in reverse - the :35 arrival from Paignton carrying on at :45 as the London regional, with a call at :40 by the intercity express up from Plymouth and beyond.

There are lots of exciting new market opportunities if you run something like this, and some challenges too such as working out connections at Exeter for and from Exmouth and Barnstaple whilst remaining excellent on those lines within the hour for local traffic.

Not sure what that smiley is.  Perhaps you're suggesting I should speculate on a method of ensuring that the seat reservation system works "properly". 

I'm attracted to the idea of specific coaches always being for passengers with reservations only. But I have reservations about such a scheme (sorry about the pun) under the current setup where open ticketed passengers can reserve a seat on the train they're most likely to take, but can just abandon that reservation at no penalty.  Combined with a system of purely reserve coaches, this current setup would result in far too many unused seats in the "reservation only" carriages.

I hate to suggest it - but change seat reservations on open tickets into a low fee, none-refundable, charge.  With entire carriages given over to reservations, those last minute during-journey reservations we mostly hate would become practical - I could grab a seat in my app as I headed for Paddington t ensure a seat on the train due out in half an hour ...

Of course, before implementing, performance standards need a good kick upwards to ensure that the new system is implemented on a secure footing.

Graham - please don't take offence - it was more about the substance of my question to you about the practicalities of how reservations would be enforced on cattle truck packed trains apparently being ignored after you had asserted that "Those who require a seat on a specific train can reserve one" - do feel free to have another go!  :)

Offence utterly not taken.   Indeed - thank you for the hook on which to hang a follow up answer  :D . My original reply just a short direction pointer rather that diluting the key point I was making into a (slightly) longer description of one possible way of doing it, which I provided in the follow up.  I'm no way an expert (as a user or in how it works) of reservation systems, so will leave it for those with more experience to make best suggestions.  I do know that the current system leaves a lot to be desired, and cannot adequately cope in current times.

Excuse me if im being stupid here Grahame, but what your suggesting is nothing like what im talking about. Im meaning two express trains, one going direct to the South West, and the following service 5 or 10 minutes later being an overfill and taking passengers off the fast train for stations such as Westbury & Taunton. This would help with the overcrowding issues on many of the busy services.   The main problem I see with the IET's is even in 9 or 10 car the capacity will soon be used up (because everyone will still want the direct service). Even with a regulary timetable it won't change much, because what's needed is one train specifically for the far South West, and the other for Wiltshire/Somerset, effectively splitting the current train loads in half.

I agree, at busy times I foresee a need for a mixture of trains that serve the true long distance destinations and those that serve the nearer bits of the west country.

Something like XX-15, fast to Plymouth and then principle stations to Penzance.
Followed by the XX-20, Principle stations to Plymouth, including Newbury, Westbury, Castle Cary, Taunton, and others.

Alternatively, restore to use the extended platform 1 at Paddington and run a few much longer trains such as 9+9 IETs therefrom to Taunton, which also has very long platforms.
At Taunton these services could divide into perhaps a fast to Plymouth service, and a slower service.
Note that this does in effect provide several "extra" trains from Paddington, by providing 9+9 instead of 9 car, but without needing any extra paths in the London area.

Someone needs to keep a VERY CLOSE eye on network rail to stop them shortening these long platforms.

Agreed, that's more like it but with your model I'd probably have the xx15 stopping at the two other significant South West towns (Taunton & Exeter) too, but no more than that before Plymouth.

One thing that has not been mentioned anywhere in this thread is the attitude of GWR at Paddington to pax bound for Reading and Newbury (under normal circumstances). Virtually all of the Westcounty-bound services on Fridays are supposedly 'Pick-up Only' at Reading, but this is ignored by the GWR Paddington philosophy of 'get pax out of London as quickly as possible'.

If there was any sensible way of putting the 'Pick-up Only' rule into practice, then I am sure much of the overcrowding would vanish. Couple that with relief services on peak holiday weekends.

Sorry to any Paddington to Reading passengers here, but at times I have a feeling that the first half hour of my journey from London is made darned uncomfortable, and the quality use of my time diminished, by those people who are using a longer distance service for a one stop hop.

When looking at economic cases and the value of people's time, various algorithms factor in a certain amount per minute of hour. Does the figure get varied for seated versus standing passengers, and should it get varied?  I would rather take a 100 minute journey from London to Chippenham on which I can get a seat and work or do something else useful than a 70 minute journey on which I'm standing for the first 30. 

Mathematician's logic suggest that if there is overcrowding east of Reading, but seats available to the west, that some trains should run a London to Reading shuttles even if services are thinned a little to the west.

Readers may not agree with my thoughts and the things they suggest could be looked at, but looking in this way certainly helps me understand the issue that GWR have.

Until you stop long distance peak time trains calling at Reading this problem will never go away. Something the new timetable, when it happens, should go some way to sorting?

In my college days services to the west in rush hours used to skip a stop at Reading and ran non stop to Didcot / Swindon / Newbury forcing pax to use other services. My home run on a Friday used to be local all stops Slough to Didcot, Red Dragon, Didcot to Swindon then Paddington - WSM from Swindon (first stop). Sunday return was Bristol - Reading then local service to Slough.

I once did a Bristol - Slough using all stops services, Bristol TM - Bath, Bath to Swindon, Swindon - Didcot, Didcot - Slough, took me about 5 hours.

The problem is that Reading is a major interchange in its own right. According to the figures, some 4 million change trains at Reading each year, and many commuters to stations to Didcot and Oxford further up the Thames Valley, and to stations on the Kennet Valley and Basingstoke branches will often change at Reading. As a Thames Valley commuter (albeit transferring to the North Downs line), I understand why many of my fellow Tilehurst/Pangbourne/Goring/Cholsey commuters who go onto London do so.

Since the franchises were combined in 2006, our stopping trains have been treated as an extension of stopping services east of Reading, so most stoppers take an hour or so to stop at many/most of the stations between Paddington and Reading before they get to Reading. Understandably many take a non stop train to Reading to halve this time, and change.

Back in the early to mid-1980s, when I commuted into London, the peak time service was mostly non-stop to Reading (some stopping at Twyford) and then all stations to Didcot - about 40 minutes to Tilehurst, my home station then. Only if you travelled later would you have to change to a stopping train at Reading.

Hopefully, when Crossrail/Elizabeth Line, finally opens fully in December 2019 (fingers crossed?), the Thames/Kennet valley locals will run non-stop from Reading to London, and there will be no need to change onto Inter City services at Reading. A nice Electrostar all the way - who would need to cram into a Hitachi (especially after reading some of the reviews here!)? However it looks like the reality may instead be Bi/Trimode converted 1980s train instead! You may therefore still have to put up with us.   

I sometimes wish that, for one day only, we actually operated a timetable from a specific date in the 80s with equivalent capacity, just to show how utterly inadequate it would be for the number of people travelling currently!

Yes this is another issue, I get Paddington staff want to make sure the station is safe and this is one way of ensure that, but its then making trains themselves unsafe.  Its getting to the point where maybe the old royal mail depot at Paddington may need to be converted into additional platforms?

edited to close quote box

...hmmm.  Not too sure about that last point.  The capacity of most terminal stations is determined by the ability to get the trains into and out of the station without (too much) conflict.  Now then, one of my big bugbears about modern signalling installations.  Automatic Route Setting (ARS) has a pre-programmed route within it for every timetabled service.  The ARS will not diverge from that, so when a conflict occurs, say due to late running, then the service concerned will be held back pending its booked path becoming available.  For example, if you watch the Open Train Times map for the Paddington approaches (https://www.opentraintimes.com/maps/signalling/d3_1) you will see many train services being delayed when actually alternative routes are free.  Now then, signallers are instructed not to intervene in such cases (its all about that blame game/money game) and things start to go awry.  In some cases it can take up to half an hour for things to get back on track (pun intended), only for it all to start over again.

Paddington, for example, has a very flexible track and signalling layout, but most of it never gets used to make the train running more efficient and timely.

So my point is, its not really platform capacity that's the issue, but station throat capacity not being used effectively.

End of ARS rant..... :P

What changes to passenger flows through the terminal platforms at Paddington, and on journeys to Reading, do we expect to see when the Elizabeth line opens?

How many passengers will no longer be transferring from Tube / SubSurface Railway / Bus / Taxi to trains starting at Paddington, but will instead be joining their train in the heart of London, the City, or indeed further east?

Will the big flow of Reading passengers currently using TfL services to reach Paddington then getting an InterCity express to Reading still do the same thing, or will they choose to stay on the train they're already on when they arrive at Paddington?

It may be that there's relief at Paddington and on the first leg of long distance trains coming from the works already in progress, and no need to instigate any more works.

If a major issue with overcrowding is the continual use of ALL trains from London Paddington is the use of Intercity trains for 'short' commutes, then the easiest solution is to make these trains ticket only leaving Paddington.

Ticket barriers can be programmed to accept specific tickets only.

Finally, I'd much rather suffer overcrowding at a station, than on a train.

Some points dealing with responses to my post yeaterday-

I was not advocating a return to 1980s timetables, but to the pattern of services along the Thames and Kennet Valley lines west of Reading. In the intervening period we have had massive investment in signalling, trains and the reconstruction west of Reading with the flyover. Surely this means more capacity, with faster trains and reduced gaps between them, to accommodate this pattern? If stopping services east of Reading become largely Crossrail/Elizabeth Line, and the remaining Electrostar services non stop or limited to Reading, there will be more services that take half an hour or less to get to Reading, so this should take some pressure off the Inter City services.

If you could "ban" commuters from the Inter Cities at present, and confined them to the current slow stopping trains, this will cause increased misery to thousands. They just want to get home as soon as they can after a hard day at work. Why should they cram into a train that takes another half an hour to get to Reading, and which (from my limited experience of using them a few years back when I had to attend meetings in Ealing in the afternoon) are often already rammed full too. These are the "base load" of fare payers who provide a substantial part of the income that helps support less well used services elsewhere.

If you took out the Reading stops from Inter City services, what would happen to the considerable number of medium to long distance commuters who travel to work in Reading from Swindon and other stations west on each of the main lines converging on Reading?

As regards ticketing to stop use of fast trains, bear in mind that the gate lines at Paddington do not control entry to individual platforms - most gates admit to at least two platforms and some are not behind gate lines at all. I would have thought it would be almost impossible to control access on a train by train basis.

I do not think that Crossrail will make much difference to the number using Inter City trains to commute from Reading. The published times indicate 50 minutes to Paddington (still much longer than a fast GWR service), and about an hour to Farringdon and Liverpool Street. Much will depend on what the travelling experience on board the trains will be, whether commuters will switch. For most other destinations in Zone 1 I'd guess it will still be quicker to change at Paddington and use the Tube. It will make short distance commuting along the western end of Crossrail easier, but these passengers are not the ones vexing contributors to this thread. 

Nobody likes overcrowded trains, but it affects all users, be they Reading commuters or travellers going further west. At least the latter have part of their journey with less crowding....

GWR have indicated that their remaining service east of Reading will be a faster limited stop service - so the  problem should be alleviated if it provides a step change in the capacity for those who want to get home from London to our part of the world after a hard day's work.

   

You don't have to cram into a train that takes half an hour longer to get to/from Reading. You can take one that takes 31-37 minutes. 8 carriages long, around 450 seats and better standing provision.

But no, it has to be a long distance service because it saves less than 10 minutes.

I know I'd certainly prefer a better guarantee of a seat, or standing in a bright modern commuter train than cramming myself in next to a luggage rack or toilet on a long distance train. Isn't that worth trading less than 10 minutes for?

And once we have the timetables fully settled next year there will be even more fast electric commuter services between Reading and Paddington.

I do hope that when said timetable recast is done that more long distance services become set down only at Reading toward Paddington, and pick up only at Reading from Paddington. With a system to ensure compliance. And warnings and penalties for non compliance.

I would hate to guess what balance there will naturally be for passengers heading out from London to (or changing at) Reading. Will they prefer the continuity of a through train from central London?  Or will they hate those through trains because they'll see expresses whizz past overtaking them (even if they would not have time to connect)? Will they take next train out, or fastest train even if it involves a wait?  How will comfort and reliability factor in?   How about pricing / any difference in cost? Will we even need the rules and regulations you advocate, or can the balance be achieved with a carrot, not needing a stick?

If Reading were to become enforced pick up only on (some/certain) outbound expresses, would you not have the commercial stupidity of the very busiest section of the route (London to Reading) having to carry enough spare capacity for those who joined at Reading as the train headed onwards to be able to fit on in the required comfort?

Commercial stupidity?

Virgin West Coast don't see it that way, enforcing pick up/set down only at Watford Junction.

125 mph long distance trains for long distance passengers. 110mph commuter trains for commuters. What is so wrong with that?

I think Grahame and you are in agreement.  He was saying that the current situation is commercial stupidity. 

If there is evidence that certain long distance express trains west of Reading (i.e. the vast majority of their route) are empty because people who would have filled those seats were unable to board or were put off by not being able to board, then the current situation is commercial stupidity.

How do West Coast enforce their policy at Watford?

That's a key point - GWR have services which are nominally pick up only at Reading, but choose not to enforce the policy.

Want to ease the situation? Then put pressure on them to enforce it, but be under no illusions about the extra pressure which that will put on already packed local services in the evening peak.

The situation may of course be eased by the "thousands" of extra seats which GWR promised, but are not delivering, due to the dozens of short formations on long distance trains every day.

We have the same discussions, time and time again regarding the usage of trains by Reading commuters, most pro and cons have already been mentioned in this thread.

It would not be possible to fit all Reading passengers or those connecting at Reading on to a half hourly 8/12 car service that are already full and standing, mostly being used by those heading to Maidenhead and Twyford. Even then the 17:18 is only a turbo. (Watford currently has 7 semi-fast services per hour)

The introduction of 12 car fasts to Reading/Didcot and the possible travel changing habits of those using crossrail should alleviate the problem slightly.

In answer to Grahams question, we just don't know, and even then some may prefer a fast service into Paddington and change onto Crossrail whilst returning on a direct service, or even catching a slow direct train to work whilst trying to get home via the quickest method possible!

I have said it before, yes I do think they should have p/u only at Reading on a handful of the busiest (but not all) fast services. Policing cannot be done at Paddington or Reading but onboard, by a team of inspectors that choose one train at random, and then perhaps go back to London and choose another peak train. No, this would not eradicate the problem immediately but those being caught would think twice about doing it again and by publicising the number of passengers caught/fines involved should deter others over time.

Out of interest, how many choose not to board the 16:30/16:33 departures off Paddington but wait for the 16:36 instead.

Then best be prepared for some seriously unpleasant scenes on board these packed trains. I understand where you're coming from, but in my experience it's far better to stop a situation happening, than allowing it to be created and then trying to deal with it when it's already (forgive the expression!) in train, or spilling onto the platform at Reading?

Why not run these trains from Platform 1 at Paddington and have the inspectors, in numbers, front and centre inspecting tickets before boarding, preceded by loud, repeated announcements and prominent signage regarding the trains in question? A couple of BTP standing nearby would also be useful.

I reckon a few days of that highly visible policy would help and put off all but the most determined.

I get that there's no silver bullet, other than providing sufficient capacity of course.

Why not just run some trains that don't stop at Reading? I agree Reading commuters should not be on all long distance services. The rest of the country subsidises London commuters by a ratio of 7x per head. Plus they will have crossrail, another massive investment bestowed on them.

Not a bad shout, but then you have the issue of Reading being a major junction, at which many people change for onward travel to the Westcountry/Wales etc, what happens to them?

Quote from BNM-

"You don't have to cram into a train that takes half an hour longer to get to/from Reading. You can take one that takes 31-37 minutes. 8 carriages long, around 450 seats and better standing provision."

We might almost be saying the same thing! The problem is currently that there are very few such trains running to these times (I think just 2 an hour max), and these are either HSTs ot Turbos doing the Oxford line runs - which I would class as Inter City services. If GWR did provide a lot of 31-37 minute trains non stop or limited stop to Reading using Electrostars at peak times, then they would, I am sure, relieve pressure on Inter City services. There are already some services that do not stop at Reading

Perhaps it is symptomatic of the problem that you cannot now get a separate faster trains Reading-Paddington timetable to check the trains!

I was thinking of one or two of the south Wales services missing out Reading and Didcot - was this done in the 70's ? At peak times of the day there are probably enough people travelling to try this and increase journey times to south Wales.

As Adelante_CCT posted above, we keep repeating this discussion. Which raises the question - why does this topic exercise so many people? Including me...!

Firstly - some contradictions I have noticed.

One of the things people seem to want to keep is the concept of the ‘walk up railway’ - that is, it is not necessary to book a ticket for a specific train.

The corollary of this is that historically there is no access control to individual trains (with some minor exceptions, traditional Pullmans for example), even if there is access control to the platforms. This means that if lots of people willingly want to squash themselves onto a train - why stop them? That's what 'walk-up' means.

There are two ways to limit access to trains - one is procedural and the other physical. Procedural implies labelling the trains as ‘pick-up’ or ‘set-down’ only for certain intermediate stations. Any regular traveller will know after a day that a particular train which is nominally non-stop does in fact stop at Reading - and board anyway. Revenue control staff have at the most 20 minutes to work through a crowded train - whether they catch more than two or three chancers in that time is questionable. While the, judging by impressions given here, dozens of other chancers on every train will get off scot-free.
Procedural methods also increase the risk of friction between railway staff trying to enforce the rules and someone who knows that the train stops, has paid over £5000 for his ticket and really doesn’t understand the reason he should not get on this train. He is already tired from his day’s work, hot and sticky from the tube and now there’s this jobsworth trying to stop him getting home.

It really will not be an effective deterrent.

If physical access control to individual trains is required then, apart from using an extended Platform 1 at Paddington, holding lounges as used at airports are the obvious solution. I can just see the Secretary of State for Transport signing off a large sum of money to rebuild the required stations to permit such a solution for a couple of dozen longer distance trains a day... And Platform 1 is a non-starter: even if the track layout permitted it, allowing time for turnaround a maximum of 2.5 trains per hour could use it. That will make a big difference.

Lounges? Or more electrification?

I don’t see there is even a problem if people willingly want to stand in a train if it reduces their journey time home - the 10 minute faster train journey might make a half an hour difference to the arrival time at their front door depending on how connections to buses or other trains work. They may stand for 25 minutes to Reading, but they’ve probably already been squashed into a tube train for the 20 minutes previously, so there’s no big difference. The vestibule of the grown-up train is, on balance, probably more comfortable…

Other posters have raised the issue of the effect this standing has on people travelling further. It certainly makes for a less comfortable journey - but only during the peak periods. The key concept to remember is the railways supply public, not individual, transport. Part of the deal is you rub shoulders with the other punters.

The real issue is that of numbers.

Taking all the travel modes into account, rail, car and bus, more people travel to Reading to work than travel from Reading to work elsewhere. This has been the case for some years, the Reading Borough Council's Sites and Detailed Policies Document, dated 2008, states:

There is clearly some imbalance in flows, especially to and from Paddington, but taking all the flows into account (five rail routes meet at Reading, six if one considers the Oxford and Swindon flows separately) the number of inbound and outbound passengers in each of the morning and evening peak periods is roughly balanced. Stand on Station Approach and just watch...

Some 17 million people start and finish their journeys in Reading every year to which must be added the 4 million who change trains. This must be seen against the 3.5 million who use Didcot, the 6.5 million using Oxford and the 3.5 million using Swindon. Comparisons are sometimes made with the situation at Watford Junction and Milton Keynes where ‘pick up only’ and ‘set down only’ is used to try to segregate the long and shorter distance flows. The situations are very different, both in the number of long distance trains stopping and the size of the traffic flows. Watford Junction has 8 million entries and exits and 600,000 interchanges each year. Milton Keynes has 6.8 million entries and exits (one third of the number at Reading) and 462,000 interchanges (a factor 10 lower). Procedural methods to separate the flows have more chance of success with these lower numbers.

The demands on the services are significantly different.

The counterpeak flows west along the Thames Valley to Reading are significant - one only has to stand on the platform in the morning watching the number of people disembarking to realise this - but the to-London flows in the morning (and the reverse in the evening) are, of course, larger. The oft repeated image of the stereotype Reading commuter uniquely insisting on fast trains to London is untrue - any commuter from anywhere would like a fast train to London, it's just that there are a lot of them using Reading.

To serve all these disparate flows is difficult and the timetable is a compromise. The additional capacity offered by the IETs, the 387s and, closer in to London, Crossrail will be welcome, but it will be impossible to give everyone what they would like. But they might get what they are prepared to pay for...

How do you arrive at the 7X figure? And 7X what?

Some three quarters of the capital cost of Crossrail has been, or is being, raised by from businesses in the area affected by Crossrail within the GLA area by a mixture of infrastructure levies and increases in rates and future farepayers. From a  https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/4863/letter.pdf (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/4863/letter.pdf)  Freedom of Information request:

A far simpler solution would be to run non-stop through Reading and then stop at Reading West/Tilehurst. RPIs would be posted at both of these stations and penalty fare all those who alight.

As for pax waiting at Reading to board, an announcement would be made for pax to join the next available service for Reading West/Tilehurst so that they can then join their chosen service.

How would that work?

Some £850 million have been spent on supplying Reading with three parallel platforms fed from the Down Main to permit closer headways to be used on the Down Main (DM). Stopping expresses on the single Down Main at Tilehurst will simply return the position to the status quo ante, delays will be programmed in. Admittedly the West of England trains will have left the DM at Reading but Cross-Country trains which have reversed or started from Reading frequently (not always) use the DM as far as Didcot East so the reduction in the number of trains is not as great as one would think.

Stopping expresses at Reading West is also a bad idea, as the half-hourly Basingstoke and the Newbury stoppers also call here - if there are clashes then the times of one or both of these services may have to be changed as well as those of the southbound Cross-Country trains. Quite apart from potential delays to the, approximately hourly, southbound container trains.

And why make the journeys for those people who board at Reading more difficult? Why try to solve a perceived problem by adding a change and a lengthening a journey for people who have have nothing to do with it?

How to win friends and influence people...?

That's going to be a bloody awful journey for hundreds of people.

Ironically that service is one today that does have catering - if you can reach the buffet.

Think what it will be like when it is a 5 car DMU !
Apart from the risk of short formations for the usual reasons, Is not the plan for most services to be 5 car West of Plymouth ? Coupling and uncoupling at Plymouth so as to be 5+5 between London and Plymouth.
This might even work passably well under favourable conditions, but I cant foresee spare units being kept on standby in case it is busier than normal.
If a single 5 car unit is diagrammed west of Plymouth, then I predict that is exactly what will be used, no matter how busy.

A quick look through the current Monday to Friday timetable and an early suggestion for what we'll get with the 2 services an hour suggests a rise from just over 20 to just over 30 Great Western trains each way between Plymouth and Penzance.  This increase in services should be factored in when considering what loadings will be like in Cornwall, together with the plans to have the services more evenly space - gone will be the 80 minute westbound gap in the late afternoon.

Of course, many of the Cornish trains are units, some become longer Castles, and there's the XC factor so a lot of what we're talking here is going to be pretty hard to forecast with just the armchair observer's tools of the forum.

You may be right in that a more frequent service will make up for half length trains.

However ISTR that they said that about the Voyagers ! In fact voyagers were too short from day one, are still too short, and are generally accepted to have been a failure.

So have lessons been learnt from the voyager problems ? It would appear not. "lets build another batch of short DMUs for long distance services"

And it must be said in addition to the new shorter IETs, the existing west country services are routinely short formed despite all the promises made about extra capacity from cascaded Turbos, and shortened HSTs.

Bad news on a Friday....

For the record, the above train now running through to Penzance.

Well I can answer my own question, and the answer is very few indeed. Currently sat in coach 3 of 8 on the 16:36 along with about 5 others.

No tales of woe about Maundy Thursday's  services from Paddington to Devon/ Cornwall being overcrowded this year then ? Perhaps schools breaking up for Easter this year a lot earlier than normal has made a difference ?

.... let's see what happens on Monday..

I travelled from Paddington down to Cornwall on the 10.03 on Good Friday; it was rammed. I'd guessed it might be busy but as I'd just come off a 12h flight I didn't fancy messing about, bought a first class ticket and nabbed a seat pretty quickly after the platform was announced. Other first class passengers were not so lucky, though they managed to get a seat by the time we'd left Plymouth. Standard class travellers overspilled into first and were standing in the first class aisle up until St Austell.
Obviously the refreshments trolley had no hope of getting through, so they handed out bottles of water and biscuits after a few hours.

We also travelled back to Pz from Paddington after our 12 hour flight but on the 12h03.
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=18792.1545 post 1554

   https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/1121071950170873861

No shortage of negative comments about Virgin in reply to that post

I had a similar experience in reverse on Easter Monday. Did the 14.44 Penzance - Paddington 8 coach HST (a relief (remember them) of sorts, actually the 16.57 Plymouth to Paddington extended to start from Penzance). I enjoyed going to the buffet just after Plymouth - just as well I didn't try and go any later as you couldn't move after Exeter - the train was full and standing with, Tiverton Pwy, Taunton, Castle Cary, Westbury, Pewsey, Newbury, Reading and Paddington still to go. Due to the conditions we lost about half an hour, arriving in Paddington at about 9pm. According to the Train Manager on the PA (who had declassified first class to absorb some of the passengers) most services from the West Country had been like this on Easter Monday. Still it was nice to have an HST (even though the timings, at over six hours, were slower than their loco-hauled predecessors of thirty plus years ago).

The train manager also told us about the Delay Repay scheme, anyone tried this? I'm looking at it now, however it seems that I have to create a new login for Delay Repay even though I've already got a login for the GWR app? And I have to provide the Delay Repay site with proof of my E-ticket when it's there anyway on the GWR app?

KM

To be honest you will find those conditions on most Penzance/Plymouth - Paddington services on any given Sunday (assuming that drivers can be found for them) - 9/10 car IETs may ease this a fraction, but the lack of additional services in the new timetables to address the overall problem is shocking.

The more significant uplift should come in December, when service goes up to every 30 minutes in the Peninsular, and every hour express up to London with extra (every 2 hour) trains running semi-fast, in place of what's basically an hourly service on which some make a scattering of stops at present.

Mind you - that news is Monday through Friday. Any questions I have about weekend services have been met with a deafening silence ... just a whisper that the weekdays are done first (and there is limited discussion) and then - perhaps - we just get what we're given at the weekend.  Having said which there has been good movement over recent years to brining all round, and morning, Sunday services where they were previously missing.

...on the Sea Wall at Dawlish, on splashy days?

LTV and West recently harmonised their terms and conditions to become GWR drivers, this now includes a commitment to working Sunday’s.
On HSS, existing drivers can remain on the old terms and conditions.  Any new drivers to HSS side will be known as GWR drivers and will therefore have a commitment to working Sunday’s. Lack of drivers on Sunday’s will soon be a thing of the past. 

That is good news about drivers, but the next problem is train managers and buffet trolley staff. Travelled on the 14 April Sunday 0805 Penzance- Paddington the other week,  composed of 2x5 coach IETs. All fine to Plymouth, then no buffet staff. Passengers not well pleased and by Tiverton were getting cross. Train manger in back set advised passengers needing drinks to move forwards to the front set, buy drinks then come back to seats at Taunton. This was done, but no buffet trolley in front set either. Grumpy passengers return and berate Train Manager, who then discovers there are NO STAFF ATALL in the front set, so all passengers and TM are moved to front set and back set is closed off as regulations require that no passengers can sit without a staff member being present. SO, not much point running 2x5 car units if there aren't buffet or TM staffing availble!

One of the alleged advantages of down grading from a buffet to a trolley was that the trolley would pass ones seat and thereby negate the need to take belongings to the buffet.
Yet now it is suggested that passengers should leave the train at a platform and join the other portion in search of the trolley. Some improvement !
And whose crystal ball forecast that "the trolley will be in the other portion"?

And as for the "regulation" that requires a train manager in each portion, this is so far as I know a trade union requirement not an actual regulation. Other multiple units run without a union member in each portion.

Think the GWR agreement for 2×5 car is member of staff in each so "lead customer host" in charge of the set without TM in it. Presumably ticket checking does not occur in the non - TM set ? ::)

These new IETs look nice, can run on electric and offer greater capacity (when all sets can be utilised). But the lack of a staffed buffet, and the lack of a gangway between units* will come back to haunt GWR for years.

* yes, I know 125mph and all that, so why even have 5 car units...?

Yes. Travelling to a very important meeting at the Railway Inn at Westbury earlier this year, the announcement at Paddington (several times) was that Weekend First upgrade was only available in the rear unit. Next time I will know what that means . . .

The good news is that I am going to be getting £17.05 from the Delay repay scheme! The bad news is that there is a delay to the Delay repay scheme and I am still waiting to be paid the money. I have been advised to phone again next week after the Bank holiday.. Maybe there should be a Delay repay delay repay scheme!  :o :P

KM

https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/live-police-overcrowded-train-plymouth-2927994

Shortformed IET overcrowded on the exodus from Cornwall, it was delayed at Plymouth for police attendance and ran non-stop between Plymouth and Paddington.

Now calling at Reading to set down only.

..and also no mention on Journeycheck that it was shortformed.

As the deckchairs say,


Hmm...

*T&Cs apply.  Not that train.

Some years have passed since I wrote the above.
And there DOES seem to be a great rush to "scrap as many existing trains as possible" in order to return to the default position of "there is no spare rolling stock"

Another victory for my crystal ball.

As far as I know, using 12-car 387s for crowd busting at Cardiff events is still the plan and now possible with the Severn Tunnel electrification.  Not that there will be any large sporting events or concerts for a while.

Will enough 387s be available to run extra 12 car services in connection with special events in Cardiff ?
Prior to the pandemic reducing travel, I recall many short formed 387 commuter services due to "more trains than usual needing repairs"
That suggests to me that the 387 fleet is not quite sufficient for day to day services, without any spare units available for special events. Would they reliably have 6 units (two 12 car trains) for special events.

The majority of events are at weekends - although agreed not all.   That should mean there are 387 units available.

Indeed.  And, since the Dec timetable change, I can hardly recall any short forms on weekdays 387 services either.

And the Friday night internationals are a thing of the past too, which fans hated because of having to take time off work, and the difficulty of travelling home afterwards.

Not as much as the Welsh Rugby Union hated them!

Yesterday I travelled from Paddington to the south west and had an entire carriage to myself until Taunton. It was probably a once in a lifetime experience, recorded here for posterity.

Full marks to the railway for its handling of the journey. Zero marks to the idiot passenger who removed her mask deliberately to sneeze into her hand before putting her mask back on again.

Overcrowding.....not something we've seen for a while.....earlier service cancelled?

12:04 London Paddington to Penzance due 17:12
Facilities on the 12:04 London Paddington to Penzance due 17:12.
This is due to overcrowding.
Catering is reduced throughout.
Additional Facilities Information
Due to overcrowding issues, there is no Catering available in the front 5 coaches of this service.

The number of through services to Penzance has been increased back nearer to normal in the last timetable change - but there has always been a gap between the 10:04 and 12:04, with the 11:04 only going as far as Plymouth.  From 14:04 they then run hourly to Penzance up to and including the 18:04.    Other services run only as far as Plymouth at 13:04, 16:37, 18:37, 19:04 and 20:04.

Indeed.   Mind you, people are coming back to the trains.  I was near Melksham station when the 13:39 to Westbury called today and observed (as best I could) 8 off and 6 on.  Not exactly masses, but this is one of the quietest services in the day,  and we would not have been unhappy with those numbers this time last year.

Still no sign of the Golden Hind ( sorry 0505 Penzance- Padddington) re starting. So impossible at present to be in London before mid-day at present ( 1134 to be precise). And of course  still no sleeper accommodation. :-\ :'(

"Recent passenger surveys show that only a very small percentage use the sleeper service. Most passengers would prefer one of our improved faster daytime services.
Others would prefer an at seat sleeping service"

I suspect that the survey has already been done, in secret of course so as to produce the correct result.

Not good logic.  Only 1 in 1150 journeys on the UK rail network is to or from Taunton ...  That's 0.09% - so let's close Taunton Station ....

We asked 200 Bentley owners around Rock:

"Which do you prefer?
a) A slow overnight sleeper train which is often late or cancelled?
b) A fast daytime ride in one of our new IETs, which could make it from Cornwall* to London in under 3¾ hours^†?

*From western side of Albert Bridge
^†If it didn't stop on the way"

I guess there were no questions about catering in this survey?

No need, the survey to justify the removal of buffets, and the de facto removal of catering was done years ago.

 ::)

FGW tried dodgy surveys once and got a big slap from Cornwall Council, Cornwall LEP ,  Visit Cornwall, the Bishop of Truro and the rail travelling Cornish public. Don't mess with Kernow!

Of course Penzance and Plymouth are different places and two hours apart.  Personally (i.e. an insignificant sample) I would happily catch an early train / late train if I were headed to / from Plymouth, but prefer a sleeper if headed for Penzance.

Breaking all the rules of statistics and logic in a most horrid way, I have added up all the journeys in Cornwall from Main Line stations and imagined the Royal Albert Bridge on the right of this diagram.  My point is that actually only a tiny proportion of traffic going in to Cornwall is going to the far end.  I expect RichardB could give us far better figures - of 100 people on an average train, how many are going to ... Truro, West thereof, etc.

(http://www.wellho.net/demo/stacker.php)

P.S. These diagrams might be far more realistic for lines such as Barnstaple, Exmouth, Newquay and Gunnislake where journeys within the branch are limited in numbers.

Devon branches - diagrams at http://gwr.passenger.chat/23869

Cornwall branches (inc. Gunnislake) - diagrams at http://gwr.passenger.chat/23868

Breaking all the rules of statistics and logic in a most horrid way, I have added up all the journeys in Cornwall from Main Line stations and imagined the Royal Albert Bridge on the right of this diagram.  My point is that actually only a tiny proportion of traffic going in to Cornwall is going to the far end.  I expect RichardB could give us far better figures - of 100 people on an average train, how many are going to ... Truro, West thereof, etc.



Absolutely correct. This is why London trains stop at nearly every station in Cornwall and why the feeder branch lines are important. Penzance is not the main destination!

Has the definition of "Full and standing" changed under Covid. A train was announced into Reading yesterday as "Full and standing". Probably Worcester train about 10:15, I was going in the other direction and not paying full attention.

Not sure but there were some shortforms from London Paddington yesterday following an early morning fatality in South Wales.

"Full" may have changed ... don't think that "standing" can be any different.   But I would not be surprised if the term "full and standing" is being (mis)used to indicate a train at or beyond it's socially distanced capacity, knowing that GWR are monitoring against that new "full" limit.

Being bashed by a Bishop is a new twist.

Think that might be a comment for another type of forum  :o !!

Since they four tracked Filton Bank and he “retired” our Tony has had far too much time on his hands.   

Anyone from the Forum catch a train to the South West yesterday?

I heard that there were 40 mile queues on the Southbound M5 near Bristol and was wondering if the trains heading for Devon and Cornwall were similarly loaded?

Not sure about yesterday, but observing a few long distance services [in both directions] at Langstone Rock, Dawlish Warren this morning (Saturday) [whilst waiting for the passing Midland Pullman], both XC and GWR services appeared to be very heavily loaded. The local Paignton-Exmouth services were pretty much standing room only.

Our eldest son travelled on the SWR 2007 service from BSK - 8 cars WAT>SAL, 6 cars SAL>YVJ and 3 cars YVJ>EXD - and it was extremely busy although apparently numerous pax were standing in the vestibules rather than sit next to somebody else.

Was near junction 16 of the M5 and said to partner,we'll get on the M5 and go down just one junction to J17.

Just managed to spot the traffic going very slowly south,quick detour back down A38 to the Mall(cribbs causway)

That was approx 13:00pm

Just to confirm the other reports on the M5 yesterday, family were delayed over 1 hour between Bristol and Exeter (where everyone turned off onto the A30). Onwards to Plymouth was clear.

Now I read that SW Ambulance Service have just declared a critical incident... I wonder if the sudden influx of visitors is already causing issues.

I suspect that more people were driving to the West Country and avoiding the trains.

Why did the road traffic delays result in the ambulance service declaring a critical incident ? I could understand this in extreme hot or cold weather, but in mild weather ?

You’ve misunderstood. It’s my speculation that the influx of visitors, i.e. vastly more than our resident population, that may be the issue.

Yep that's the issue - everyone taking staycations rather than flying off to Benidorm etc

The M5 southbound had an even longer stretch of slow traffic than that.  I travelled down to J14 (Falfield/Dursley) at the same time yesterday and the overhead signs warned of a 2 hour delay.  Down as far as J14 was fine; after that was bad.  A lot of traffic left at J14 and switched to the A38 so I expect that was bad as well.  Fortunately I was leaving at J14 and heading west rather than south, to visit Sharpness Docks - a pleasant spot for an outing and not busy.

Local radio was reporting jams from J14 to J24 (Bridgwater). A303 was also a "car park" over much of its length where there is only 1 carriageway and on the approaches to those lengths.

Agreed, I did misunderstand it.
The critical incident was not related to traffic congestion.

 ::) 1004 Pad to Penzance 5 coaches instead of 9 today. Wouldn't fancy that on a Friday in late June. Not surprising if people are choosing to drive if they have Covid / social distancing concerns.

Looks like it’s actually a 10-car (802011/022), despite JourneyCheck saying otherwise. Can anyone confirm?

Last minute amendment.  Now 2 x 5 but with no seat reservations displayed on the train.

Good work from GWR.  It’s important to prioritise services like that one.

I joined this train at Plymouth. It wasn't busy.

Numbers are still well down on what you’d usually expect on the vast majority of services, but are steadily building and will obviously leap upwards when the summer holidays start…though that should coincide with the removal of social distancing requirements.

Let's hope we don't have usual summer Sunday crew shortage/mass cancellation farce, especially if the numbers "leap upwards" as you suggest they will. This summer could be make or break.

Last weekend didn't bode well, let's hope GWR has got its act together.

The boss says plans are in place to mitigate shortages. 

We’ll see how robust those measures turn out to be, especially when it really counts from mid-July onwards.

I'm not clear as to whether GWR and the unions ever managed to sort out the issue of Sunday as part of the working week, however the line from some on this forum was that the new drivers that were being hired a year or two ago had Sunday as part of the working week in their contracts which in itself should largely resolve or at least largely mitigate the issue.

Is this the case?

Yes - Sunday’s are still not part of the working week, all has gone very quiet there, but all new driver contracts from a couple of years ago require them to work ‘committed’ Sunday’s unless cover can be found. 

That was also already the case for many drivers, but there is still a large percentage on the books that predate that arrangement, and there will be for many years to come - though through natural wastage it will lessen year by year, but is a long way off being ‘largely resolved’.

Training/route learning has obviously been affected by the pandemic, but that should be partly countered by more people wanting to work Sunday’s due to less extra shifts being available in the week.

Then there’s a similar situation with the Train Managers.

So, the Lord giveth and taketh away.

Well, as you say, "The Boss" has a plan, so I'm sure there's no need to worry............ ::)

No need to worry, but every need to pull all the stops out to try and keep the cancellations to an absolute minimum.  I hope those that can have an impact on that will do so, including, of course, the boss.

Indeed. After all, he's accountable.

Where a service is cancelled. road replacement is increasingly offered.
Bus crews expected to pick up the slack, so it's OK for them to work Sundays.
Years ago the senior drivers never/rarely worked Sundays or lates, but newer drivers were rostered Sunday as a normal part of their duty, and normal pay as part of that, so nothing extra for weekends.  Lates attracted a minute premium after 7pm!
Seen as a cheaper option to running a rail service perhaps

  :o 1204 Paddington to Penzance departed today with over 1000 passengers on board  !! If GWR can do this why do LNER persist in compulsory reservations for all services ?

In all but exceptional cases I remain in favour of a "walk up, no reservations required" railway.

When a service is expected to be overcrowded I would restrict or even eliminate sales of discounted tickets. The original idea behind discounted tickets was to fill otherwise unused seats, not to make an overcrowded train even worse.

Does anyone know why this train was so busy ? previous service cancelled ? It was not even fine weather.

Presumably it was full length, 1,000 passengers on a 5 car would be a challenge.

None of the London to Cornwall trains were short formed today.  However, the previous train terminated at Plymouth and the following one was cancelled - both due to crew shortages. 

On a summer Saturday long distance train with lots of ‘staycationers’ it matters little what the weather is like.