Great Western Coffee Shop

Since

- The castigation FGW got in the local and national press
- Feedback from the passengers
- The drubbing by the Transport Select Committee
- The replacement of Alison Forster
- Network Rail's replacement of the Airport Junction points
- The December 2007 timetable

FGW promised improvements - have they delivered?

My journey has got a lot more punctual (although the last week or so  it has been slipping a bit and has been late again).. The timetable however has not improved, and I don't think it will.. I travel Maidenhead to Paddington daily..

My journey - WOS - PAD daily

Has it got better - theoretically yes.

Train arrive according to the timetable - however they still take as long as they did before hand!

SDO = less tickets checks = more free loaders in first who know they can get away with not upgrading

I pay more for the privalege due to no discounts

However I can recognise the surrounds of Evesham station very well - next week if I get the 1721 I will see if I can make Tesco, pick up the shopping and get back before the train leaves - its tempting to try it

Tee hee! Why don't you fix a camcorder to your shoulder, and film the race from your seat to Tesco, and back again! ;D

Sounds like the stopper between Southampton Airport and Poole... waits 14 minutes at Southampton Central, then 19 minutes at Brockenhurst....  ;D

One question FGW can never answer is why the xx:00 ex Padd misses the Malow brance by 30 seconds, and the Maidenhead service during the day is now slower than in the days of the Mk1 DMU due to all the stops the service makes

That's why the connection is on the xx:45 ex Padd

Could be that the xx:00 trains from Paddington are not timetabled to connect with these trains. Try taking the xx:52 it will give the 8 minutes required for the connection, the timetable booklet will tell you time you need to allow!


That one's easy! Twice as many trains running now than 15 odd years ago whilst the track speed is the same. Add that to the thousands more trying to board these trains and you'll find that no way on this earth will you be able to do it quicker! ;)

Sorry but the xx:51 off of Pad do not call at Maidenhead, getting this service although quicker requires 2 changes.
The service with the connection is the xx:45 off of Pad.

By getting the xx:51 you change at Slough, and connect with the xx:45 off of Pad anyway.

If we are just talking about the local services, I've no idea if there are twice as many trains running compared to 15 years ago, but I was commuting into London from Maidenhead then, and there were certainly a lot more fast trains then than there are now.. It'd be nice to have them back..

That's still a saving of 6 minutes!!!  ;D

Who thinks that a third fast track (i.e. a fifth track) should be done at the same time as Crossrail?

That would allow the expresses from London to Reading to go at 140 mph, AND leave space for more/faster semi fast services (the ones that stop at Reading).

After Crossrail comes in, FGW won't have the capacity to stop much between Reading and Paddington (except perhaps Slough), as the slow lines will be full of Crossrail trains.

Mookiemoo, if you can't get to Tesco I'm sure you could get a drink and snack at the Railway Hotel.


My concern is all this padding masks problems. When the issues are masked there will no longer be the impetus to fix them.

My last trip (Pershore - Paddington) had the best part of 30mins padding and the train was still 10 mins late (oops sorry, was on time).

The week before last my son had a 25 minute wait on a windswept Pershore station but arrived on time. Did FGW arrive on time, yes. Was the service better, no. So the problem is now hidden.

Additionally while a significant amount of money has been invested on improving the rolling stock I'm not sure the preference of long distance vs short distance are understood, hence the real differences of opinion over the refurbished Mk3s.

However Grand Central don't seem to hit the mark ....... http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/734571/grandcentralguignol.thtml

I can't see them surviving. Apart from their disastrous unreliability, the payments to NE to carry their passengers in lieu of their own services, their business model must be under severe pressure from the rise in diesel prices.

I'd say GC are doing it quite cleverly - they're just issuing replacement all operator replacement tickets, also valid on their services. So while they pay XX into the pot, they also get some back through ORCATS. They cover some of their other losses through the profits on GC only tickets.

Happy to say I have no idea whether things are better recently as I have only done one journey by train in about 8 weeks. Since a parking space is now reliably available at the office, I can leave home at 7:15 and be at my desk at 7:45, compared to leaving home at 7:15 and getting into work at 8:20 by train. Cost by train is ^8.50 ticket plus ^4.50 parking (I don't travel the same route regularly enough to warrant a season ticket for either unfortunately) plus 50p for fuel to and from the station, compared to a full week of commuting down the M4 for ^50. Free parking at work helps, of course.

I think this is the fundamental problem with getting people off the roads (apart from there being no capacity on the trains) - I can do the same journey in 50% of the time, for 75% of the cost, and even if the M4 is jammed solid once a week, it's still more reliable.

Unfair article. It is not GC's fault really.

What about W&S? how are they doing?

No.

It's a fair article - the problem IS of GCs doing but it is also partially of DMLs doing. Lack of money transferring between hands = lack of work = less quality build.

And from the customer's POV, do they care who's fault it is?  All they know is that they are getting a dreadful service. To answer the point about issuing all operator tickets, as I understand it GC will get a fraction of the cost of an open single from London to York. Even FCC and NEAnglia get some allocation of such a ticket as it's valid on FCC to Peterborough and NEAnglia from Liv St.  So effectively they receive X for a ticket from the customer, and then pay around 2X for an open ticket on which they get diddly squat back. Not good economics.

The only way they can possibly survive is if diddly squat x all the farebox on the ECML gives them enough revenue no matter how c**p their service is. (Which is an ORCATS raid).

I really do hope they succeed, but I can't see it. The TV program last year did show them as a very amateurish bunch, and their website reinforces that view.       

ooh I'm jealous now. I'd love to be able to drive to work...

I attempted to use GC today to go to York on the 08:04 ex KX it was cancelled instead they swaped our tickets for the 08:00 NE the only problem was the GC ticket chap on the concorse at KX swapped my ticket for another GC ticket which as I was in a rush to catch a train 4 mins earlier than planned I did not notice until we were under way so had to pay the excess fair  >:( so now I have the pain of claiming the excess back from GC

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They carry on going the way they are at the moment then I don't think many people will continue using GC either. Sad to say it appears that its one problem after another for this new rail company. People want reliability and if they don't get it they will go somewhere else, even if that means being crammed into a busy NX East Coast service.

Background link on Grand Central from the Save The Train Forum.
http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=4658.msg8502#msg8502

It will take along time for people to start using them. If they hold firm, get the problem sorted, allow positive reviews to spread, then people will go back.

The question is? Can they afford to - will people come back quick enough.

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You could argue that FGW/other lines need the stock more.

All GC are doing is clogging up the ECML.

Until several junctions are re-done, each extra service will cause more problems.

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Their website is bad.

College of mine who still had his GC tickets had the misfortune to use GC for our return from York, he said there was a Strong smell of rotten eggs in most of the coaches, this used to be a problem with Mk3 coaches where the batteries boil dry from over charging or lack of topping up, the on board staff did not seem to know how to use the PA system at one stage holding a conversation between the buffet and guards van, all in all he was not impressed with the service, we have recommended to out team organiser not to book anyone on GC services

I notice that they are now offering carnets of 20 tickets. Anyone like to invest several hundred pound in a carnet at the moment. They obviously need the cashflow, which is a very good reason not to buy one!

P.S. Apologies, we've hijacked this thread from the original subject somewhat.

Its just nice to know that FGW aren't all that bad after all  ::)

They have improved a great deal of late I'm glad to say.

Back to original thread as far as Taplow goes our offpeak service from the December 2007 timetable is remarkably better. This is probably because the trains start and teminate at Reading rather than the previous weird situation where the up trains started from Oxford and the Down trains terminated at Reading. With asymetrical stopping patterns as well. Also the Down Oxford stopper which formed a later Up Taplow working was only abourt 4 minutes behind the Reading terminator at Maidenhead so if there were any problems it would be late at Oxford for its Up journey and thus late at Taplow on the return.

Not so sure about peak will have to ask User group members.