Great Western Coffee Shop

following on from ... http://www.passenger.chat/27849 ... I have drilled down to my local station at Melksham

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/ont_20230904_mkm01.jpg)

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/ont_20230904_mkm02.jpg)

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/ont_20230904_mkm03.jpg)

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/ont_20230904_mkm04.jpg)

I am not impressed by the performance.  Of course, someone has to be bottom, but we come out close to the bottom even with the true cancellation figures  hidden.  Yesterday, I stood talking with people at the Food and River Festival, and the biggest reasons that people gave for not using the train were "I have a car", "Trains cost too much (to use)" and "It's unreliable" - the latter with tales of woe, and less than helpful alternative provision if any - typically spouses being called out to rescue!

What do I mean with "true cancellation figures hidden"?  Look at that 1st September log.   4 trains, all on time.  Was that good?   It shows up as good but the GWR timetable that's displayed at the station and is published for the season online shows 18 trains.   14 were removed from the timetable because of a lack of staff to run them.  And Joe Public in the park doesn't care if it's an industrial dispute, a lack of enough staff on the books, a failed train blocking the line, signal failure - it's. cancellation - a train that's planned to run when and where he wants to go that he's planned his life around, an is not running.

Edit - The station ranking graph is misleading - there are only 2616 stations in the database, but the graph scale goes to 3000, given the impression at first glance of there being some 380 stations with a worse performance.  Below is a copy of that graph to which I have added grey panels to help highlight the true data area.

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/ont_20230904_mkm03a.jpg)

That's shocking, and with only a few days attributable to industrial action.

.....and yet there are a few hundred stations where performance was even worse?
.