Great Western Coffee Shop

We have all seen and no doubt suffered from the dreaded short formed trains of late. A large number of us know the rationale for the short formations. What I would like to know is who makes the decision to short form the train?

GWR will be providing the driver and crew.
Hitachi or the leasing group will be providing the train.
Network Rail the track and undertaking any possessions of the asset.

We keep hearing that all these players are working closer together. So who makes the decision to short form the trains into service? I'm assuming that the DfT has signed off on this strategy of service as rationale for the short forms are problems with the GWML upgrade and fleet delivery.

I would presume that GWR make the decision, based on what trains are available.
They hopefully try to use the short trains on the less busy services, but recently short formations have become the norm on many services including busy ones.

I assume you are referring to the IET stock, although you don't specify this.

Hitachi have a contract to supply x sets of IETs every day, in various formations (5, the odd 9 & 10 currently)
If they fail to supply enough sets (for which they would pay a penalty - usually deducted from GWRs hire fees), then GWR have to decide whether to cancel one set's daily service or split one 10 set into two 5s to be able to run all the services. You may agree that is is better to have two 5s running around short-formed than cancel one set's services.

I also suspect that politics comes into it a bit.

If say a government minister is expected to be on a train, then it is almost certain to be full length even if this results in other short formations. Likewise if reporters or news crews are expected to be on board.
It is often alleged that services known to be popular with MPs receive special attention.

Before the present failures, I favoured the Golden Hind, the 18-03 from Paddington as this was popular with MPs and was therefore much less likely to be cancelled.
There certainly seemed to be a policy, that if the train due to form the 18-03 failed to arrive on time at Paddington, that an alternative set was to be used, even if this meant cancelling another service.

When the far west services are downgraded to DMU operation, I suspect that the Golden Hind will see the odd reduction to 5 cars, but probably less often than other services.

Also, as Hitachi are the maintainer & supplier of these IETs, a minor fault that in the past might have meant the service still ran but without full availability of on-board services, for example, might now be refused and if Hitachi don't have another serviceable spare, would result in being one set short for the day.

Probably also because, Fridays excepted, it is the last train of the day from London to stations in Cornwall apart from the sleeper.

I doubt I'll shake you from this regularly aired belief, Broadgage, but in all my years on the railway I have never heard of any special attention being paid by the train operators to pamper for MPs who are just travelling on trains. Dozens of them do, every day.  If an MP is travelling in a media/publicity capacity, then yes, special measures are taken (as they are with royalty, the PM etc.).

The reason the 18:03 is given any priority over others is simply that it's a popular train with lots of important people on it, and it has a Pullman.  Quite correct for it to be put at the top of the priority list!

I can confirm the lack of routine special treatment. I have certainly seen / travelled with MPs who were not receiving any different attention to the regular passenger, and indeed were unrecognised amongst the crowds. And it's been good to see both our previous and current MP using the train.

To clarify, I was not suggesting that a train gets special treatment because AN MP happens to be on board, there are hundreds of them and the TOC would not normally even be aware that a particular MP was on a certain train.

What I AM suggesting is that a train known to be regularly patronised by multiple MPs probably DOES get special treatment.

If the cancellation or short formation of a certain service regularly produces multiple letters of complaint from MPs, whilst the cancellation of a different service seldom or never produces such complaints, then that suggests that special attention would be given to the train regularly used by multiple MPs, or other public figures.

In the run up to the 2015 General election I was politely asked to vacate my seat on a FGW service from Bristol Parkway to Swindon. The reason? Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and his entourage were boarding and presumably didn't want to mix with the plebs while travelling.

Interestingly, as I was being turfed out, a Tory party funky was placing reservation labels on a number of seats. These were Virgin Trains labels making me wonder whether they'd nicked a load!

I did consider standing (well, sitting) my ground, but quickly weighed up the situation realising I'd very soon be 'chatting' with Special Branch if I didn't move.

Bob.  Monday to Thursday the last connection for Cornwall is the 1903 off Paddington, change at Plymouth for all stations to Penzance on a Sprinter.

So we don't know who makes the actual decision on a short formation? All the recent ones must have been passed through the DFT thought right?

I doubt it.  To do that they would have to have someone sat in Control at Swindon full time. No I don't think so.

However I would be surprised if they hadn't set the broad policy that short formations should be used to manage the present crisis issues (did I say crisis surely not ;)) 

The DFT may well have given some sort of general agreement regarding short formations, many of which can be blamed directly or indirectly on DFT trains delivered late, thereby impacting training, and then not working properly when they did arrive.

However I cant believe that DFT make decisions as to which individual trains are short formed. By the time a civil servant could make a decision, the train would have long since departed.

Agreed - I was talking about through trains.  Added to which the 19:03 has a habit of losing time and either delaying the connection at Plymouth or finishing the journey by taxi or coach leading to an even later arrival.

Added to which if you cancel the 18:03 you end up with a set short at Long Rock overnight which almost certainly means at least a cancellation between Penzance and Plymouth the following morning.

Ultimately, GWR will make the decision on short forms with the daily allocations.  For example, if a set is going to make a depot - Paddington - Bristol - Paddington - depot working, that’ll be prime candidate for a short form.  They aren’t going to hold 2 5-car IETs back just for that working. 
Basically allocations will be done to maximise the number of seats available throughout the day with emphasis on the key busy peak services.

The short formations go against their reliability scores which are already terrible. So there must be something fundamental driving the short formations or just reclutance that they won't be penalised.