Great Western Coffee Shop

The boss of the West’s rail services is warning people not to travel by train on Sunday because they won’t have enough staff - because of the World Cup final and sunny weather.

GWR apologised, and warned passengers there would be ‘significant disruption’ to services in and around Bristol and from Bristol to London on Sunday, with fewer trains which will be more packed than usual.

And the company gave a long list of reasons why there would be big problems on the railway to the city this weekend, which included a football match taking place in Moscow between France and Croatia.

A statement from GWR said they were lifting ticket restrictions, offering refunds and warning people to travel before the disruption hits on Sunday.

“Due to a number of factors including on-going engineering work; the World Cup Final taking place; the continuing good weather, and the start of the school holidays in some regions, there is a reduced number of available staff,” a spokesperson said.

Dear Chris

e have just issued the media release below and are emailing customers who we know are planning to travel on Sunday to give them advance notice of a revised timetable.  I wanted you to be aware, in case you were travelling, and to spread the message as widely as we could.

We would much rather operate our full timetable, but having assessed the situation, we think it is better to consolidate and offer customers advance warning of the changes, rather than aim to run all our services and find we have to make cancellations on the day.    We are working now to cover as many trains as possible and the revised timetable will be available from our website tomorrow.

Please do let me know if you have any queries or questions, I will make sure we check the inbox over the weekend to provide a prompt reply.

Mark

Press release

Friday 13 July
Train operator warns of significant disruption this Sunday

Great Western Railway is warning customers of significant disruption to services this coming Sunday and has lifted ticket restrictions to enable people to travel before the disruption hits.

Due to a number of factors including on-going engineering work; the World Cup Final taking place; the continuing good weather, and the start of the school holidays in some regions, there is a reduced number of available staff.

GWR is advising customers planning to travel on long distance intercity services on Sunday 15 July that a revised timetable will be in place with a significantly reduced number of trains in operation. Long-distance services – including routes between Paddington and Bristol, South Wales, Oxford and Devon and Cornwall will be most affected, with some changes to suburban services in the West. Trains that do run will be extremely busy.

Local stopping services in the Thames Valley are expected to run as normal.

Passengers are advised to travel as early as possible, and to consider switching their travel plans to alternate days. To help with this, ticket restrictions have been removed from services on Saturday 14 and Monday 16 July, so that customers with tickets for Sunday, including Advance fixed train tickets can travel on other services. Ticket acceptance has also been agreed with CrossCountry trains.

GWR Managing Director Mark Hopwood said:
“We will have managers and volunteers throughout our network to help at stations and on board, but unfortunately we will not be able to deliver our planned timetable of services; and the trains we are able to operate will be extremely busy.

“I would encourage customers to travel on a different day if they are able to and we will happily offer refunds to those who choose not to travel.

“We are very sorry for the inconvenience this disruption will cause.”

Full details of the revised timetable will be available online from Saturday 14 July for customers to check journeys before they travel.

Those who choose not to travel will be entitled to a full refund on their unused ticket (the GWR £10 administration fee is also waivered). To claim a refund please click here.

We would much rather operate our full timetable, but having assessed the situation, we think it is better to consolidate and offer customers advance warning of the changes, rather than aim to run all our services and find we have to make cancellations on the day.    We are working now to cover as many trains as possible and the revised timetable will be available from our website tomorrow.

Mark

Due to a number of factors including on-going engineering work; the World Cup Final taking place; the continuing good weather, and the start of the school holidays in some regions, there is a reduced number of available staff.

Such words could, and should, have been issued from the MD on many weekends since the turn of the year!

Has he finally got the message?  Or is it that this Sunday is expected to be even worse, despite England not playing?

Such words could, and should, have been issued from the MD on many weekends since the turn of the year!

Has he finally got the message?  Or is it that this Sunday is expected to be even worse, despite England not playing?

All the excuses are known knows that could and should have been mitigated with advance planning.

However, at least Mark Hopwood is acknowledging GWR's inability to do the basics, and by extension, his own incompetence.

I'm hoping the press go to town on him. Unfortunately (or fortunately for MH) the fourth estate is busy looking elsewhere today, distracted by an mouthy orange blimp from the US of A and a balloon caricature of him.

Actually, perhaps GWR decided today was a good day to bury bad news.

................how about a Hopwood blimp floating over Paddington?  :D

You couldn’t make it up...World Cup disrupts scheduled train services and we’re not even in the flippin’ final!!!

What a sham and a disgrace. I can’t even believe GWR are using the World Cup as an excuse, that’s just plain embarrassing for a service sector led company to admit to. Shocking and quite frankly shameful.

The only consolation is that GWR are at least giving everyone advance notice that they could face an unpleasant journey or no journey at all.

You couldn’t make it up...World Cup disrupts scheduled train services and we’re not even in the flippin’ final!!!

What a sham and a disgrace. I can’t even believe GWR are using the World Cup as an excuse, that’s just plain embarrassing for a service sector led company to admit to. Shocking and quite frankly shameful.

The only consolation is that GWR are at least giving everyone advance notice that they could face an unpleasant journey or no journey at all.

I am sure I read somewhere that staff have to give five days' notice whether they are available to work - if so many may have made themselves unavailable in the hope/expectation England would be in the final.   On that basis who is in the final wouldn't be an issue.   Not that that will help the hapless Sunday traveller.

The roster for Sunday was done on Tuesday. This means traincrew would have had to make themselves unavailable prior to England playing Croatia. This contingency plan was prepared well in advance with GWR obviously expecting a larger than normal number of traincrew being unavailable.  A number of crew have since made themselves available to work but obviously GWR can’t predict numbers so they’ve had to plan for worse case.  From what I’ve heard, there was a lot of uncovered work, significantly more than previous Sundays 

For whom does the railway exist to serve?

For years it has been known that FGW/GWR struggle to cope with Christmas and Easter, apologists for the railway blame this on customers choosing to go on holiday at holiday times, and state that not much can be done.
In recent years, other bank holidays have been badly affected by extreme overcrowding with advice not to travel

HM Treasury.

No one blames this on the customers. It’s all down to a lack of investment that’s never kept up with demand. Paddington has had 16 (now 15) platforms since the 1930’s!  It’s now at the stage where it is at capacity and barely able to cope with demand. A one or two minute delay to any train will just snowball because there is no room to recover it. Going forward there is no plan to significantly increase capacity so, whoever runs services out of Paddington will always struggle in times of extremely high demand.

Given that three of the four factors quoted could well apply the following week is this the tip of the iceberg?

If we were to move to the routine publication of significant updates to the Sunday timetable on Saturday (morning) rather than during the early hours of Sunday morning, it would be a good step.  We have a long way to go to a timetable that's stable from 12 weeks in advance but should remember that a long journey starts with a single step, and we should applaud that step in the right direction and encourage following steps along the same lines rather than this being just a blip of improved information for the one weekend only.

If we were to move to the routine publication of significant updates to the Sunday timetable on Saturday (morning) rather than during the early hours of Sunday morning, it would be a good step.  We have a long way to go to a timetable that's stable from 12 weeks in advance but should remember that a long journey starts with a single step, and we should applaud that step in the right direction and encourage following steps along the same lines rather than this being just a blip of improved information for the one weekend only.

[snip]

GWR needs a new broom swept right through it.

We’ve been saying that for years. First have had long enough inflicting their low level of customer service over the years. However, I don’t see a better alternative out there.

Not sure if these are "last minute cancellations" or weren't due to run anyway but I note that the 13:00 & 15:30 from Bristol to Paddington and the 16:27 & 18:00 from Paddington to Bristol are not running tomorrow

Northern is warning of train chaos on Sunday after a large number of staff booked the day off to watch the World Cup final.

The company says it may have to cancel many services as it can’t persuade crews to operate them.

According to workers’ contracts, they don’t have to work on Sundays if they give enough notice.

Last week when England made it into the last four of the World Cup, Northern was inundated with requests for time off – around about.

It’s thought that many staff booked the day off with a hope the Three Lions would be playing in the final on Sunday.

A spokesman for the company said they are working to try and get as many people working as possible to minimise disruption, but urged customers to be aware and plan ahead.

Northern will be running an amended timetable across much of the north west of England with many services in Cumbria, Lancashire and Greater Manchester, likely to be cancelled.

I said a couple of months back that I expected driver shortages to mean cancellations to some degree until at least the autumn, especially affecting those depots (predominantly HSS ones) who are able to chuck in their Sunday’s.  The World Cup will have only made a bad situation worse this particular Sunday.

Traditionally the number of drivers who wanted to give their Sunday’s away were roughly matched by the number of people who wanted to work additional ones making it unusual to be so short that trains had to be cancelled.

The reason that general equilibrium has shifted slowly but surely over recent years is down to a couple of reasons.  Firstly most drivers have seen their wage increase to a level where a larger percentage don’t need the traditional wage ‘top up’ working a Sunday gave them. 

Secondly the rate of pay for a Sunday is ‘only’ time-and-a-quarter which is the same for working a rest day during the week.  More and more drivers therefore can earn the same by working an extra day in the week and having the Sunday off than they would if they just stick to their roster.

Sunday’s in the working week is the longer term solution, but as we know is a over two years away at least.  The only short term solutions are going to be very costly.  You could either pay more than time-and-a-quarter so that drivers are more attracted to Sunday’s, or you negotiate a one-off payment to buy the local conditions off the drivers at the depots that can currently opt-out.

Both options might leave you shorter during the week, and the second one would need more time consuming union negotiating (and be seen by some to be unfair), so I would favour the former.

Finally, all new drivers now being employed are not able to opt-out unless cover is available, a suggestion Broadgage and maybe others have made.  Though I fear it will be at least five years before that will make any noticeable difference.

GWR are saying on Twitter that the revised timetable should be available this evening as it’s still being worked on.

UPDATE: GWR are now saying on Twitter that our team are inputting the services in overnight, so the revised timetable will be available tomorrow morning.

So no change to all the other Sundays then,...

Sun, 15 July 08:27 London Paddington to Cheltenham Spa due 10:43
Sun, 15 July 08:30 London Paddington to Swansea due 11:51
Sun, 15 July 10:27 London Paddington to Cheltenham Spa due 12:45
Sun, 15 July 11:18 Cheltenham Spa to London Paddington due 13:30
Sun, 15 July 12:22 Swansea to London Paddington due 15:40
Sun, 15 July 13:33 Cheltenham Spa to London Paddington due 15:45
Sun, 15 July 14:22 London Paddington to Cheltenham Spa due 16:47
Sun, 15 July 16:22 London Paddington to Cheltenham Spa due 18:40
Sun, 15 July 17:30 London Paddington to Swansea due 20:50
Sun, 15 July 17:33 Cheltenham Spa to London Paddington due 19:45
Sun, 15 July 18:51 Swansea to London Paddington due 22:14
Sun, 15 July 19:30 London Paddington to Swansea due 22:58
Sun, 15 July 19:32 Cheltenham Spa to London Paddington due 21:45

And I think I caught those in mid-upload.  Some added.  Will come back in an hour or two as I expect we'll have a fuller picture by then.

Here we go, here’s a list of what not running tomorrow, just posted on the GWR website:
https://www.gwr.com/travel-updates/live-network-updates/disruption-information

Perhaps there should be a quid pro quo...

Looking at the list provided, afternoon and early evening IC services out of Paddington are decimated with services to Bristol particularly affected putting pressure on already busy long distance services that are running.

Paddington today is not going to be a pleasant place to travel from. I hope and I’m sure GWR will have plenty of staff and free refreshments on the main concourse.

07:22 Reading to London Paddington due 08:28
08:27 London Paddington to Cheltenham Spa due 10:43
08:30 London Paddington to Swansea due 11:51
08:30 London Paddington to Reading due 09:31
08:45 Exeter St Davids to Paignton due 09:45
10:27 London Paddington to Cheltenham Spa due 12:45
10:57 London Paddington to Penzance due 16:11
11:10 Bristol Temple Meads to Brighton due 14:48
11:10 Bristol Temple Meads to Taunton due 12:13
11:18 Cheltenham Spa to London Paddington due 13:30
12:22 Swansea to London Paddington due 15:40
13:00 Penzance to London Paddington due 18:30
13:22 Gloucester to Cardiff Central due 14:42
13:33 Cheltenham Spa to London Paddington due 15:45
13:37 Penzance to Exeter St Davids due 16:54
13:53 Taunton to Bristol Temple Meads due 14:58
14:00 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads due 15:56
14:22 London Paddington to Cheltenham Spa due 16:47
14:57 London Paddington to Penzance due 20:23
15:00 London Paddington to Taunton due 18:01
15:02 Liskeard to Looe due 15:31
15:07 Cardiff Central to Bristol Parkway due 15:56
15:10 Bristol Temple Meads to Weston-Super-Mare due 15:43
15:34 Looe to Liskeard due 16:02
15:47 Brighton to Bristol Temple Meads due 19:09
16:00 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads due 17:58
16:10 Plymouth to London Paddington due 20:25
16:10 Weston-Super-Mare to Bristol Temple Meads due 16:45
16:10 Liskeard to Looe due 16:39
16:13 Penzance to London Paddington due 21:40
16:22 London Paddington to Cheltenham Spa due 18:40
16:30 Bristol Temple Meads to London Paddington due 18:24
16:42 Looe to Liskeard due 17:10
16:48 Reading to Redhill due 18:06
17:00 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads due 18:56
17:18 Reading to Gatwick Airport due 18:35
17:30 London Paddington to Swansea due 20:50
17:33 Cheltenham Spa to London Paddington due 19:45
17:35 Liskeard to Looe due 18:04
18:10 Bristol Temple Meads to Portsmouth Harbour due 20:52
18:15 Looe to Liskeard due 18:43
18:22 London Paddington to Cheltenham Spa due 20:45
18:39 Westbury to Swindon due 19:21
18:43 Redhill to Reading due 20:07
18:51 Swansea to London Paddington due 22:14
18:56 Taunton to London Paddington due 21:53
19:00 Bristol Temple Meads to London Paddington due 20:53
19:17 Gatwick Airport to Reading due 20:35
19:30 Bristol Temple Meads to London Paddington due 21:25
19:30 London Paddington to Swansea due 22:58
19:32 Cheltenham Spa to London Paddington due 21:45
19:42 Plymouth to Penzance due 21:40
19:55 Swindon to Westbury due 20:35
19:57 London Paddington to Plymouth due 23:40
20:00 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads due 21:54
20:15 Liskeard to Looe due 20:44
20:50 Looe to Liskeard due 21:18
21:30 Moreton-In-Marsh to Great Malvern due 22:24
22:17 Reading to Gatwick Airport due 23:48
23:03 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads due 01:06

This won’t be happening for much longer, LTV and West crews have agreed new terms & conditions which will see Sunday’s as part of the working week, something that has been discussed for a long while.  HSS crews will soon follow.

I don’t think that’s the case, they’ve agreed to ‘harmonisation’ which includes a commitment to working rostered Sundays unless cover can be found, but Sundays are not yet in the working week.

Can someone do a comparison of today against the last 4 Sunday’s to see the difference in planned trains. It seems to me that today just seems like a normal GWR Sunday service.

Or let me know where I can get the data?

Paddington to Plymouth/Penzance is much worse, virtually wiped out, and on top of that all lines are blocked between Exeter and Totnes due to late finishing engineering works so the belated advice to "travel early" was a waste of time.

With so many services cancelled, why are they running 5 car IETs ?
Could not HSTs or 9 car IETs have been used instead ?

Thanks ... looks like my Weymouth trip is on.

With so many services cancelled, why are they running 5 car IETs ?
Could not HSTs or 9 car IETs have been used instead ?

Thanks ... looks like my Weymouth trip is on.

... and aborted at Westbury.  "Frequent posters" documentation to follow when I have calmed down a little.

Facilities on the 10:30 London Paddington to Swansea due 13:48.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.
Will be formed of 5 coaches instead of 10. Service full and standing

Can someone do a comparison of today against the last 4 Sunday’s to see the difference in planned trains. It seems to me that today just seems like a normal GWR Sunday service.

Or let me know where I can get the data?

That’s sad to hear Graham.

Look forward to finding out why. From what I can see there are no cancellations on the Weymouth line today but that doesn’t mean to say things can happen at the last minute.

UPDATE: I can see why now  :(

Can anyone help me with the source of data? Network Rail API or open source?

Recent time trains may help - http://www.recenttraintimes.co.uk

Unlike previous Sundays, because today’s timetable has been ‘rewritten’ trains scheduled to run have been removed from the system so sites like Realtime Trains aren’t showing them as would normally be the case with ‘cancelled’ showing next to the listed train making it harder to see what’s run and what hasn’t.

I’m sure there are a few that have either put off or cancelled their journeys today Graham, but I suspect the vast majority have little choice but to travel today for various reasons.

I’m sure there are a few that have either put off or cancelled their journeys today Graham, but I suspect the vast majority have little choice but to travel today for various reasons.

Absolutely agree (and with TG’s follow up comment), though even if only a few are persuaded that does make the situation slightly more manageable for GWR and slightly more bearable for passengers that are travelling.  I believe Tesco have used the appropriate slogan...

Lots of "full and standing"s today.   And that's after the GWR publicity machine has tried to turn their potential customers away too!

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/ands_20180715.jpg)

It certainly isn’t the case.  Sunday’s in the working week hasn’t been agreed by any drivers yet and will be 2021 at the earliest which can’t be described as ‘soon’ in anyones language!

It certainly isn’t the case.  Sunday’s in the working week hasn’t been agreed by any drivers yet and will be 2021 at the earliest which can’t be described as ‘soon’ in anyones language!

One of your union reps thinks otherwise.... I can’t remember his exact words when it comes to Sunday’s but there’s been changes, it may have not been necessarily in the working week but some sort of commitments to work them which is why HSS drivers aren’t signing up to it.

The last direct train from London to Penzance, the 1457, will now start at Exeter.  :(

Things must have improved. I caught the delayed (roughly) 2030 from Exeter and it was going through to Penzance.

The only time I’ve ever been glad of a late train. We caught the 2006 from Axminster aiming for the 2120 (ish) to Plymouth. We pulled in at platform 3 at Exeter at 2042 as the delayed Penzance train was approaching.

My car was in Plymouth for the weekend as I was out of Liskeard earlier than the first train from Cornwall on Saturday morning, which would have been a contingency with all the cancellations

I think they did, but because trains were removed from the system(s) Realtime Trains uses as it's source, usually a great help at times of disruption and cancellations, wasn't much use yesterday. So yes, I believe some further trains from London did make it to Penzance but we don't have a record of which ones did and which ones didn't in the end. It may have been that GWR were able to run more trains than expected at the start of the day. Hope for all those who were travelling that they were able to.

We talked about GWR's failings yesterday but XC weren't exactly covering themselves in glory yesterday either with some services starting or terminating short. Between them the South West really got a raw deal yesterday.

Actually XC diversions benefited GWR yesterday.  It enabled GWR passengers to use cheltenham, Gloucester and Swindon due to the multiple GWR cancellations with ticket acceptance in place.    One XC train even called at Chippenham.

I think they did, but because trains were removed from the system(s) Realtime Trains uses as it's source, usually a great help at times of disruption and cancellations, wasn't much use yesterday. So yes, I believe some further trains from London did make it to Penzance but we don't have a record of which ones did and which ones didn't in the end. It may have been that GWR were able to run more trains than expected at the start of the day. Hope for all those who were travelling that they were able to.

07:40 Oxford to London Paddington due 08:38
   - next train 08:40 - 60 minutes later

Commuters have been left "irate" and frustrated after Great Western Railway (GWR) cancelled the only train on its hourly service.

GWR resumed a limited service of one train per hour between Oxford and London Paddington earlier, but the 07:40 BST train was cancelled.

Passengers sent tweets which included: "Are you even trying any more?"

"The train was cancelled due to stock displacement, following crew issues on Sunday," said a GWR spokesman.

Commuters vented their frustration on social media.

GWR said a bus replacement service to Didcot was provided for passengers.

A spokesman apologised and said: "Customers were provided with a strengthened replacement bus service while engineering works continues, prior to the departure of the following train service at 08:14."

Maintenance work has been taking place at Oxford station since 29 June.

Engineers are currently replacing track, signalling and cables as part of maintenance works which will affect services between 7 and 23 July.

Once complete it will allow faster travel as well as a new half-hourly London Marylebone to Oxford service.

Great Western Railway said it would operate replacement buses between Oxford and Didcot Parkway, and a limited fast service between 16 and 20 July.

23:35 arrival 1C92 17:57 Paddington to Plymouth ran as two seperate trains. 17:57 Paddington to Plymouth and 21:37 Plymouth to Penzance. Connection maintained at Plymouth as it was the same set throughout.

More pressing questions are starting to be asked of GWR.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-44845472

It’s not totally GWRs fault. The contract terminology dates from 1999. The powerful union are resisting change.
I was at a beer festival with a member of train crew on Saturday evening and the resource manager called and offered him a huge bonus to work his unavailable Sunday. He had to decline as there wasn’t a chance of being under the alcohol limit by anytime on Sunday!

I was at a beer festival with a member of train crew on Saturday evening and the resource manager called and offered him a huge bonus to work his unavailable Sunday.

What a way to run a railway. How can you have any confidence your train will run when as late as Saturday night they are still trying to get staff to come in and work?

Agreed, but at least someone was still trying, right up to the last minute. Whats the betting upper management were at home with their feet up.

Well, I would suggest the exact words are key, given there’s a world of difference between an agreement for Sunday’s in the working week, as you confidently claimed in your post earlier, and just committing to work Sunday’s if cover can’t be found.

What has been agreed (as part of the harmonisation deal) is that LTV and West crews (under the new description of GWR Driver) will work their rostered Sunday’s unless cover can be found - many of whom have to do that already, and that existing HSS drivers (where the cause of the vast majority of the Sunday shortages lie) are ring-fenced unless they choose to take the new GWR Driver grade which LTV and West drivers have agreed to.  Not many will.  All new drivers will now be working under the new GWR drivers agreements.

The situation regarding Sunday’s in the working week will, for all drivers, as previously stated, not change until at least 2021.