Great Western Coffee Shop

I though stop-skipping was the Scottish disease these days?


At 22 late, there will be a Cardiff to London just 8 minutes behind, so I guess there is some sense in this

Only partially true, a 27 minute turnaround at Paddington along with a 12 minute stop at Reading didn't help

Helpful in massaging the performance figures too.

Any missed stops or early terminations will soon be classed as 'cancellations' for the new performance figure percentage metrics.  Missing stops often helps the next service that train operates depart on time, and therefore reduces the amount of time it takes to recover from any disruption.  It's a double-edged sword, but in many cases is the best way of minimising delays for the majority of people.

This is what applies now, under the Cancellation and significant lateness metric (CaSL). A train is counted as being a CaSL failure if:

It is cancelled at origin.
It is cancelled en route.
The originating station is changed.
It fails to make a scheduled stop at a station.
It is significantly late (ie it arrives at its terminating station 30 minutes or more late).

Any train which is a CaSL failure also fails PPM. So therefore even if a train which has missed stops arrives at its destination on time, it is still a PPM failure.

SWR and SWT before them also skip stops or divert trains occasionally. It seems to work in my favour in the morning when the train skips stops and against me in the evening when a Waterloo to Guildford train via Epsom diverts via Cobham giving me another hour wait for the next one.

The title of this thread immediately grabbed my attention, so I am slightly disappointed to find out that it does not, in fact, refer to designated station calls where everyone gets out for a spot of communal exercise.

Some of the London stations are favourite to be missed out during disruption, just so their precious high speed services are not a few minutes late due to the more consistently busy London stopping services actually having to pick up passengers ::). Certainly in the last 2-3 months there have been a few times where everything has had to use the Up Main between Southall West crossovers and Acton West crossovers, so the Southall and Ealing Broadway stops have been cancelled (although sometimes they still call). Last month I actually ended up getting affected when GWR cancelled the Southall stop on the 1344 at only 7 minutes late (and told no one at the station!) simply because it was diverted onto the Up Main. The HC and GWR Hayes & Harlington services were already cancelled due to wind blowing something onto the OHLE, and it was a 30 minute wait until the next train. Luckily the 1415 was on time and actually stopped on the Up Main, and more importantly the TfL Rail staff got the driver to wait while everyone made it around over the bridge. While I'm not the biggest fan of TfL, I am looking forward to their takeover of services as I'm certain they'll be more stubborn at not having the London stations missed out in disruption.

Having said that, we've been lucky that GWR used DMUs when the H&H services couldn't use EMUs on the two occasions with OHLE issues since January, first in the bay platform then the one around Ladbroke Grove. Surprised they simply didn't cancel them (especially as the EMUs are still running to DMU timings so time from extra stops gets gained easily).

Was at Parkway this morning, 10:03 to PAD (the up Red Dragon) 21 mins late due to a fault on this train and only 5 carriages. Probabaly couldn't join the 2 units together at Swansea. Arrived from Carmarthen on time left SWA 31 late and was announced as then to run non stop to PAD.

Whilst at BPW almost every service was delayed, those that weren't were either starters at BPW or XC services but XC did not escape some late running.

On my return through BPW a 5-car 800 came into pl 4 and reversed back towards the Stoke Gifford Depot.