Great Western Coffee Shop

Read this and weep. Prehaps we'll see a MTLS East Coast branch ;D

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23457587-details/To+hell+and+back+from+King%27s+Cross/article.do (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23457587-details/To+hell+and+back+from+King%27s+Cross/article.do)

Frankly, I would look at who is in charge, but maybe that's just me being cynical.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bowker_%28British_businessman%29

Sorry but you would be a lot worse off with National Express........its a good job they didnt win our Franchise for sure...was this lot not the penny pinching shower behind Wessex Trains??

I was thinking more of the fact that they are run by the guy who used to be the Chairman of the SRA.....

It was bound to happen. GNER were a top railway company, streets ahead of all the other TOCs so anyone who took over was going to find it hard to match the service provided by GNER. Still could have been worse...First could be running it!  ;)

i know what you mean about penny pinching shower although i have worked for both and found wessex were more interested in running a service and looking after staff.
we will never know if they could run the greater western any better than first but i suspect it would be pretty much the same with the only difference being first have a habbit of making big noticable cock ups and then publicly blame others say atw for instance.
this is why i feel fgw get lots of bad press they should stop all these clowns going on the local news trying to blame everything but themselves.

I would take it that the Newpaper (reporters are the world's best at spin) have picked up on a bad day for Nex East Coast.

I'd admit that National Express have a hard act to follow, GNER was the best Inter-City TOC but I doubt First would run East coast any better than Nat Exp, however with the repution that FGW have built for themselves (and First) over the past 2 years I can't see First winning any franchise's untill FGW is running BETTER than other TOC's

Try looking up what National Express wanted to do if they had won the Greater Western Franchise , i still reckon that most of the reliabily issues on FGW West stock is due to the fact that National Express whilst trading as WESSEX Trains, spent sod all on the stock for a good number of years and FGW are now reaping the benefits of this penny pincing.

you are wrong there the reliability under wessex was far superior than fgw.

the reason they are crap now is less stock meaning what we have has to work harder,simply has to leave depot each day to form service unless planned in for work,meaning entering service with known faults.
wessex as you say spent nothing on stock in terms of interior type stuff,but mechanical and electrical repairs were done so fgw are not reaping the benefits of penny pinching but have actually bought all this on themselves by not having a clue how to run and maintain dmu services.

I think you could be very right there smokey. Looks like First have wound the government up so much over the FGW franchise that it could be a long time before they ever get awarded another franchise. If I were First it would make me get the FGW franchise working properly at any cost because in the long term it could seriously jeopadise them ever winning another franchise.

Going back to the DMU issue which is being discussed here, its great to finally see more and more refreshed 'West' fleet running on FGW. They look good both inside and out and I hope from a maintainance point of view they are proving more realiable too.

As Wessex was run by NX as a management contract, doesn't that make the "penny pinching shower" behind it ... the DfT?

I thought it was a franchise?

Some interesting links :

2000 Shadow Strategic Rail Authority announcement of new Wessex franchise. Note the SWT services that it would have included.
http://www.dft.gov.uk/press/releases/sra/2000/2000b/wessexfranchiseannouncement

2002 Strategic Rail Authority announcement of intention to create a new Greater Western rail franchise by no later than 2006, with quote from then SRA Chairman and now head of National Express, Richard Bowker.
http://www.dft.gov.uk/press/releases/sra/20022/2004b/sraannouncesnewfranchisefort1533

2004 National Express press release regarding the two-year franchise extensions signed for Great Northern and Wessex Trains.
http://www.nationalexpressgroup.com/nx/ic/rns/rnsitem?id=1076687216nRNSM4219V&t=popup

Sorry, smithy, but I'm not convinced?

In my long-term (10 years+!) experience of commuting from Nailsea to BTM, the local DMUs have always been rather unreliable!  For example, this evening, the 1753 was an old (un-refurb) Wessex 150/2: doors A1/A2 were defective - and they had clearly been defective for long enough for FGW to arrange for printed posters to be placed on them, to that effect!  What I'm saying is, the mechanical and electrical state of these units is apparently down to years of 'neglect' - and that does go back to when they were run by Wessex!  :(

I personally don't think NX would have done any better with this franchise, after all, NXEC has deteriorated FAR quicker than FGW did, people forget that Wessex was heavilly subsidised so could afford more units, under Wessex there was more overcrowding in the far southwest than there is now, Wessex used to diagram a single 153 on the Falmouth for the SUMMER MONTHS! and a 150 in the winter! also a single 153 on the Newquay in the summer, most paigntons/Exmouths were 2 cars, most of them are 4 car 142's now. Local fares are far cheaper now. The worst thing about FGW is the "Lack of traincrew" excuse which leads to most cancellations!

You are right to a point Smithy about less stock, meaning its got to be in service more, Its like running a fleet of Morris 1000s Which are prehaps covering 500 miles a day.
My Point is the stock has not has an F Exam for donkeys years, which should have been undertaken long before FGW took over the Franchise, only now are First spending the necessary money on the stock.
also lack of train crew will be a thing of the past towards the end of the year looking at how many people they are employing at the moment.

Worth noting that the National Express bid did consider replacing HST's with Voyager derivatives, similar to on the Midland Mainline.

Also worth looking at the number of strikes on Central Trains and Silverlink whilst they were in charge.

Don't forget the strikes on MML in it's latter few days!

Indeed NX did plan to replace HST's with Meridian type units, NO THANKS!!! think we'll stick with HST's thanks!

chris i am not trying to convince anyone just saying it how i see it.
i am not saying reliability was excellent under wessex but it was better than now.

i work for fgw and the unit reliabilty has gone down hill,in my opinion because of lack of knowledge/experience on dmu's.
the casualty mileage is less than it was basically meaning it takes less miles for the unit to break down.
the defective doors you mentioned could not have been like it long as a unit cannot leave a depot with doors loou,the printed poster is probably a new type one being issued to train crew like the new ones for toilet doors.

I can confirm this - not in terms of the number of miles between failure but in terms of the percentage of services cancelled - at least for TransWilts Monday to Friday services.  In Wessex Trains days, the line had a bit of a reputation of its trains being cancelled quite often - to the extent that we set up a monitor.  And that monitor is still running.  The figures I calculated a few weeks ago are:

Wessex trains - last 3 months to 31.3.2007 - at least 2.7% cancelled
First Great Western - Dec 2006 - Dec 2007 - at least 4.5% cancelled
First Great Western - Dec 2007 to early February 2008 - at least 7% cancelled

I say "at least" as I have given the companies concerned the benefit of the doubt where their own recording / monitoring system was telling me "no report".  In each case the reports are for trains failing to serve Melksham.  So a Southampton to Swindon train that was terminated at Westbury shows as cancelled.

Timmer as a moderator of this forum you really are a fool. ::)

Do some research and you'll find that First (disregarding currently FGW) are running some of the BEST rail franchises in this country. TransPennine Express Scot Rail and Hull Trains, and First GBrf continue to be awarded new rail freight contracts.

So judging by this I somewhat I have gut feeling they can't be all that bad!

We all know they have had problems down our neck of the woods, some of it inheriated, some of it their own making. Things do however seem better, cancellations/failure's down and more trains running right time. Let's hope that in a few months more people like yourself will be eating their just slice of humble pie. I for one think you will and can't wait for the told you so. ;D

 

Scotrail - benefits from huge amounts of funding from the Scottish government.
TP Express - joint venture with Keolis
Hull Trains - Open Access operator, with a simple 7 trains a day service, and again only part owned by First.

You didn't mention First Capital Connect, which has had its fair share of criticism since taking over from WAGN and Thameslink.

So all these franchises are different.

Having said that, I do hope we are in the position you say we will be in a few months, as it will mean that we will be enjoying a much better service (including Melksham?), which is what we all want.   

I dissagree with your FCC comments, the only real criticism FCC had was introducing evening ticket restrictions out of London, which nearly all other TOC's had in place anyway! apart from that FCC seem to be performing quite well, Scotrail may recieve big subsidys but so to Cross country, who's performence is slipping, Arriva trains wales get huge subsidy but don't even come close to comparing with Scotrail, Kelios are basicly a sleeping partner in Transpennine and it's the First brand all over it.

I wouldn't say "all" the TOCs out of London have evening peak restrictions ... out of the commuter lot I'd say only Great Western Link, c2c and 'one' only had restrictions. All the former SR TOCs still do not have restrictions (only in morning peak are restrictions present), and FCCs imposed restrictions actually enforced more restrictions on GNER and MML!

I said NEARLY all, I didn't think FGW had evening restrictions out of Padd on local services???

Only HSS out of Paddington has restrictions in the evening peak.

Local or "slow" services are not restricted.

Fair enough - the NFM really doesn't give enough understanding to restrictions and there must be a misprint as I remember seeing a Reading stopper with a CDR restriction - but still, that basically shows that in fact very few TOCs have evening peak restrictions if they're not intercity. ;)

I am disappointed that you decided to resort to a personal attack against me as a person 12hourssunday to try and get your point across. I have a great deal of respect for your loyalty towards the company you work for and I'm sure First appreciate this.

I have never made any secret of not having much time for First Group as a company as I pointed out when I introduced myself to the forum last year:
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=249.0

As for eating humble pie 12hours, I sincerely hope that FGW get it right, not their sake but for the sake of their long suffering passengers who have had to put up with appalling overcrowding on some lines on which they operate over the last 15 months since THEY, along DFT, introduced one of the worst timetable changes (Dec06) in the history of the Great Western Mainline.

Reducing an already very busy line (Cardiff-Portsmouth) from three carriages down to two was a crazy decision in which passengers have had to pay the price through being rammed into two carriages or worst still being left behind. That's no way to run a railway and First admit that they got it wrong and are having to put right this wrong, even though they aren't the only guilty party in all this. They run the franchise, they signed up for it so they as the operator have to take responsibility.

If things don't improve, which I honestly believe that they will and we have already seen improvements over the past few months since Andrew Haines took over, then they deserve to lose the franchise and I won't be the one crying if they do.

Lets respect eachother's thoughts and opinions even when we don't agree with them and not get personal...there really is no need for it.

Yes- replace them (with 9 car Voyagers/Voyager clones)! Then we can have the HSTs for CrossCountry or the Mk3s (and an electric loco) for Virgin!

well said timmer.

i too work for fgw but these days i have very little loyalty to them as to be honest they are crap to work for and do not value their staff.
so i am baffled why 12hoursunday seems to be so loyal to them?

Baffled??.........prehaps he doesnt want to bite off the hand that feeds him

I work for FGW and don't find they treat me like crap? They dont like slackers which is fair enough as if your being paid good money then you shpuld do the job that your paid to do!

I think we're straying a long way from the origins of this topic here, and I'm not too sure that I'm comfortable with the way the topic is headed - nor with the insults and language that are staring to fly around. Have a look at the guidelines at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=1761.0 if you're in any doubt as to where the board's limits are.

The original topic says "You would be no better off with National Express" and I don't know the answer to that. I do know that under National Express, the services that I used were run on a shoestring, with little or no advertising - yet they were useful, used and increasingly used year on year.  Under First, those services that I used have been withdrawn, and I certainly do not feel better off.

However, First had their dictats from the DfT (and chose to pay their money to sign up to them) and the management at National Express has changed ... so how would we have done with the same crew staying in charge?  I don't know.

Let's move on, shall we - I'm going to lock the topic, but I'm sure we'll come back to comparisons of First's versus National Express's services in the future.