Great Western Coffee Shop

Chiltern now have a leaflet which lets you "see the Chiltern alternative".

It has a map with the Chiltern Line, WCML and Cotswold line on it.

It then lists off the LM (and VT) /FGW stations, and the "Chiltern alternative". The map even gives driving directions!

Chiltern must be cashing in with (a) the pathetic performance of the WCML and (b) Cotswold single track/ poor FGW service!

When Chiltern get to Oxford... well - let the battle commence! ;D

Is that going to be a serious competitor to the FGW services to London?  The route isn't any more direct and the rolling stock isn't as fast.  I'm confused, I'm sure Chiltern wouldn't be doing it if they were at a disadvantage.

You have to admire Chiltern they don't care who they upset.

They even leafleted Taplow a couple of years back extolling High Wycombe Beconsfield and Gerrards Cross as alternatives to Maidenhead Taplow and Burnham and the Marlow branch. This was when TV performance was in the 70s,

Re Oxford I think the main focus is on users from the proposed North Oxford Park and Ride station. They reckon they could get a good deal of the  North Oxfordshire, East Gloucestershire and South Warkwickshire traffic which currently uses Oxford and the Cotswold line. Also they might well be cheaper!

They are also hoping to scoop up the Japanese tourist to Bicester Village who could then go on to Oxford.

Lets hope they get the link it will give real competion  to FGW, if we are to have competition. More importantly it will  provide another valuable link in the rail network, if we regard railways as a public transport system available to the maximum number of people to make as many journies to as many destinations as they want.

cheaper fares, more and cheaper parking especially at the North of Oxford parkway station, better service, less overcrowding.  i don't think they are planning to make most of their money from the Oxford city centre to London market although I don't think their planned journey time is much worse.

And thanks to all the bad newspaper publicity a few years ago First has a pretty bad reputation with the general non-train-travelling public for being bl**y expensive and unrealible (rightly or wrongly it does)

This leaflet includes the Marlow branch! :D

The overall time-tabled journey time may be slower (including driving further). But once you add Cotswold delay time, and general FGW delay time; coupled with the cheaper fares, MUCH better service and better rolling stock; then people will be tempted.

Same goes for LM/VT on the WCML. The shoddy WCML upgrade will be testing LM/VT's passengers to the limit. They may have to get up a bit earlier, but at least they know they'll get to work on time. (and Marylebone is nicer than Euston to wait in the evening)

Obviously, Chiltern are no good for First Class passengers - since on Chiltern, "everyone is First Class!"

Sorry, but where is all this delay time? As I pointed out in Slack, in Across the West, that issue has pretty much been killed stone dead by FGW's current performance.

If the Cotswold Line service is reliable and punctual, almost no-one is going to bother with driving all the way over to a Chiltern station, whatever the supposed advantages.

And if anyone thinks First are just going to let Chiltern have things all their own way then you need to wise up. You don't go from being the Aberdeen area bus operator - First Group was born from an employee buyout of the old Grampian Regional Transport operation (general manager one Moir Lockhead) when buses were deregulated in the late 1980s - to an international transport conglomerate in 20 years by pussy-footing around.

I've noted previously that FGW are already more than competitive price-wise off-peak with the Go-Ahead and Stagecoach London-Oxford coach operations and will be more than capable of sticking up for themselves in the face of Chiltern if they feel the need to.

By the time the first Chiltern train runs - projected for May 2013 - the Cotswold Line redoubling will be long completed, and the new FGW DMUs will be available, so they will be ready for a fight if necessary.

On the other hand, Chiltern themselves say their aim is not to take Great Western route traffic and do make the not unreasonable point that Cambridge already has two rail routes to London ^ and rail^s market share of travel to and from London is double that of Oxford.

Chiltern will be encouraging people who switched away from the train after years of a diabolical services. It will take those passengers a long time to be won back. Of course, once such a passenger has travelled with Chiltern, they won't look back!

And whatever the current punctuality, with FGW I would always leave more time. It is FAR more likely for something to go wrong than on Chiltern.

Chiltern will also want to poach people off the Marlow branch, citing direct trains to London.

However pious Chiltern may be about not poaching other operators' traffic, it's clear from these leaflets and the previous newspaper ads that that's exactly what they are up to at present, especially if commuting into London in general is falling off and they want to maintain their market share as best they can.

Do we really want people driving from places with railway stations to different stations? It makes no sense at all.

And you seem curiously ungrateful about, or unwilling to acknowledge the turnround in punctuality. A glance at the FGW website at pretty much any time of day now will show that the biggest problem these days is short-formed services which suggests a rolling stock fleet that is still stretched to the limit. EG at present there are four alterations, three of which are short-formed West DMUs and the other is what, judging by the trolley catering note, is a 2+7 HST instead of a 2+8 on a Cheltenham service.

I agree with Btline in so much as the 'once bitten, twice shy' feeling that experiences on the Cotswold Line last year might have prompted will cause damage to the FGW image that will take a while to repair - especially with the occasional traveller. If they know driving to a Chiltern station is a safe bet then they will be prepared to drive. I overheard a conversation between two very well-to-do ladies in first class on the first off-peak up service a few weeks ago (just before the HST was taken off the service) bemoaning the fact that we were 10 minutes late and that the train runs 30 minutes later than it used to. 'But it's always late!' was the gist of the conversation, before one of them extolled the virtues of the Chiltern service - with her only complaint being the lack of 1st Class. Next time they turn up for that train and a grubby turbo turns up, I doubt we'll see them again for a while!

However, FGW does have an ideal chance to repair the damage by the positive image the redoubling will have. They should make the most of it with a massive publicity drive. That combined with the actual fact the service has improved and is set to improve further as a result of the works will hopefully win back much of the custom.

Let's hope the arrangements for travel during the works are satisfactory, and that they don't over-run.  Lets not have "West Coast II: the revenge of the over-running engineering works!".

Both btline and willc are both correct.

Chiltern does have a better image than FGW particularly for reliability and punctuality. It's been hard won when they first took over the line was at the bottom of league and much reviled. But with their investment in redoubling and new trains (first new trains after privatisation?) they deserve to be successful.

Chiltern is blatently poaching FGW passengers and yes it does seem silly as willc says for people to drive from one town with a station to another with a station. But that's the way DaFT and the ORR have set it up, they want competiton between TOCs, the fact that people drive further and thus pollute more to get to another's TOCs staion that's Ok. It's called joined up government.

Yes FGWs punctuality has improved enourmously in fact I'm glad I no longer commute as I won't be getting my regular 5% discount on my annual ticket I had every year from 2000 to 2005. In fact even with fare rise I was paying less when I finished than in previous years.


But as industry insider says it takes a long time to win back a lost reputation and also the Cotswold line will be subject extensive engineering works over the summer. The proof of the pudding will be how the punctuality improves once the redoubling is complete and becomes fully operational. Although as he says there is still the problem of the overstretched train fleet.


I hope Networkrail have learnt the West Coast lesson, however I fear that they might have gone too far the other way with less work scheduled for each blockcade so overall the work takes longer and needs more blockades to complete.

An interesting conundrum. Which is worse an overunning blockade but the work gets done in one hit or two separate blockades where half the work is done in each?  Something to ponder.

I agree that it is sad that people have to drive more to get to the station, but as other posters say - it's called privatisation, it's called competition. Chiltern Railways are the biggest success of privatisation, causing two large TOCs to get their act together.

Remember, even if punctuality and reliability improve (so it is slightly nearer Chiltern's), and the service becomes hourly, there will still be many Turbos - longer distant passengers might prefer to drive and use a Clubman. Those First Class ladies will probably find out that a Clubman is the same standard as First Class in a Turbo.

NB: Chiltern's main "poaching ground" is the WCML, where little/no extra driving is required.

I'll say it again - it has improved and it is near Chiltern! Those recent numbers speak for themselves. And even Chiltern's trains have been known to break down. They enjoy the luxury of a long franchise - if they had got five, six or seven years like most of the others, their whole business strategy would be different.

And it's wrong to say the route was at the bottom of the league and reviled when they took over. Before Chris Green's time at Network South East it may well have been, but NSE had spent lots of money on new Turbos, smartening up Marylebone, resignalling and ATP - Chiltern were dealt a pretty good hand to build on, which they have done, along with a core section of route they have pretty much to themselves, with only W&S and the odd freight amid the flow of blue and white DMUs - a rather different scenario from the GWML and WCML.

I don't believe Chiltern had anything to do with FGW getting their act together. FGW was in a big hole across the entire system when Andrew Haines took the reins. He brought in Mark Hopwood with the specific brief of sorting out the performance and it's clear he is keeping up the pressure on that front now he is the md. As for Virgin, they were stuck with West Coast rebuilding, so were on a hiding to nothing in terms of performance while Network Rail sorted out the mess Railtrack left behind.

Rolling stock-wise, it is to be hoped that someone within FGW resists the temptation to fit out those new Thames Valley DMUs in suburban style and instead equips them specifically for Cotswold and Oxford off-peak and contra-peak work, with 2+2 seats a la Clubman, so the Turbos can be concentrated on Oxford stoppers and Thames Valley suburban work. The 2+2 bits of 166s are perfectly acceptable - and would be even better with wide seats instead of the standard shells that were used - it's just that the whole train should be like that.

Industry Insider, I trust you have reported that overheard conversation to the higher-ups - not the sort of thing that tends to get factored in when basing decisions on the 'average' number of passengers using a train. It was full and standing again from Charlbury on Wednesday morning - it wasn't even half-term this time.


No they don't. They just want the maximum amount of premium payments coming in from the franchisees and a cut in the amount of money the Treasury pays out for the railways.

"But as industry insider says it takes a long time to win back a lost reputation and also the Cotswold line will be subject extensive engineering works over the summer. The proof of the pudding will be how the punctuality improves once teh redoubling is complete and becomes fully operational. Although as he says there is still the problem of the overstretched train fleet."

Precisely - which is why, as I've said elsewhere, I try to avoid the Cotswold line even though I live in Hereford

Even though punctuality has already improved out of all recognition since the horrors of January last year? What will it take - five years of flawless performance post-redoubling before you believe FGW and Network Rail can actually deliver?

What will it take? A TOC that takes it's customers seriously - that doesn't treat the (Cotswold) line as an also ran with their "Turbo will do" mentality. FGW has become a commuter focused service (which you fully support) which is why the long distance travelers get a poor service and when the choice presents itself go elsewhere. You can quadruple the tracks, if FGW attitudes don't change, people will not be queuing up to spend several hours on the next Turbo with roll of the dice punctuality.

Although I agree with willc that FGW's performance has improved greatly over the past year in particular, stebbo and industry insider are right it takes a long time to regain a lost reputation.

How long have Chiltern had their franchise 1n years? Plus look at the money they've invested with doubling from Princes Risborough to Anyho plus extra signals to give more paths, new tains with more on order.  I worked with someone in the 90s who travelled in from Haddenham before redoubling and his view of the railway was unrepeatble, whereas I was travelling into Paddington with no problems arriving at 07:56 on 13 and getting the 08:00 Hammersmith most days.

Even though the TV off peak service through Taplow now runs immaculately throughout the day,  I'd probably look on the web to see how they were running and would  probably catch the train before I needed to particularly if I had a connection at Reading particularly if there were the slightest hint of any problems. 

A lost reputation takes years to regain. Also success breeds success, so as long as Chiltern can keep up to scratch, FGW will still be playing catch up for a long while. 

Exactly, it will take a long time to re-gain the passengers.

And an hourly service will be great - but what happens when the Turbos come.

Ok, HSTs are too much for off peak Cotswold services - but they are more appropriate than Turbos!

Back to the argument that the Adelante would have been lovely for several of the off peak services. I see one is still lurking in the background at Old Oak Common today...

But they haven't actually lost that many, despite what some of you seem to believe. This morning 50 or so people joined at both Moreton and Charlbury on the 08.52 from Malvern, and about the same again from Kingham and Hanborough combined - hence a very crowded Turbo between Charlbury and Oxford. No, it wasn't comfortable, but it hardly suggests a route that is losing custom. Not everyone can be bothered to drive miles and miles to catch a train - nor, in the case of the groups of holidaying teenagers off to Oxford and London, can some of them drive anyway.

An hourly service will also spread out the loads, eg the 09.55 would surely be quieter than it often is, were it not for the current two-hour hole in the timetable after it runs.

And as I posted in the Portsmouth to Cardiff thread about new units, the plan is to use some of the new DMUs on the Cotswold Line, precisely to address the issue of the gap between HSTs and Turbos in quality and capacity - hopefully Lord Adonis's return to his desk next week will see news of the order being confirmed at last.

As ever William this proves nothing except that all you and your fellow travelers are worth is a Turbo as far as FGW is concerned.

Your statistics are only worthwhile if you can state
1) How many got off at Oxford vs Paddington ie long distance vs Park & Ride,
2) How many people traveled to London from typical Cotswold stations west of Moreton, particularly Evesham / Worcester / Hereford etc

This is information nobody knows within the industry let alone anyone outside.

You really don't know & can't know the full picture - whatever you may think.

An inside source said to me today that it is FGW's intention to revert back to HST operation from the May T/T for all the trains that Turbo's have quietly replaced over the last few months. I won't hold me breath, and it will need some tightening up of the HST diagrams leading to better use of them resource-wise to achieve, but that's what I was told!

Will be interesting to see that.

When the Newquay HST runs, an extra HST is required. Depends whether they cancel the 0640 Bristol - Paddington I suppose!

Good - get rid of those Turbos please!

Esp on the first off-peak train of the day.

They probably will cancel the 0640 and for a longer time period as the London-Newquay HST is running for more weeks this year I believe.

Well if FGW have seen sense, certainly in the case of the 6.48/8.52, then it is to be welcomed. Just a shame that they behaved in such an underhand way when they made the change and then ignored all protests and responded to the gross overcrowding during the February half-term with lots of waffle about average loadings and using less fuel. The CLPG has been lobbying them very hard on this, plus many people have complained individually too.

As for the HST fleet, does anyone know when the ex-EMT/NXEC set is due to arrive from Brush? Last suggestion I heard was May.


No, I'm sure in the age of computerised yield analysis that FGW and the industry generally are utterly incapable of tracking changes in travel patterns, say, for example, first class tickets between Worcester and London...

And they also still use charming, old-fashioned techniques to measure loadings like the conductor taking a passenger count using a hand-clicker, which was done on the 8.52 one day recently.

You always bang on about park-and-ride (or walk-and-ride in mine and many others' cases) v long-distance, but what exactly do you mean? What is someone travelling from Malvern or Worcester to Oxford doing - I would call that a pretty long journey, covering 50-60 mlies. There were probably around 150 on board that train arriving at Moreton. And the majority joining at all the stations I mentioned, except perhaps the one beginning with H, were going to London - as they always are. I've spent long enough standing in the queue at Moreton ticket office over the years at various times to get a good feel for the split of tickets sold.

Of course lots of people got off at Oxford yesterday, maybe 80 plus, so those going on to Reading, Slough and London were all seated, but it was still a very full 166, so in the region of say 220 going beyond Oxford on that unit, plus another busy set carrying all those joining at Oxford - all adding up to a well-filled HST.

And if my observations of loadings are as worthless as you suggest, why should I or anyone else set any store by your and others' assertions that almost the entire business community of Worcestershire and Herefordshire has abandoned the Cotswold Line - or are the people sitting in first class on trains arriving at Moreton or leaving westbound a figment of my imagination too?

Of course FGW has become a commuter-focused railway - no wonder when lots of people now commute from places like Bristol and Bath to London, thanks to the journey time reductions that HSTs brought - the same effect applies at the eastern end of the Cotswold Line. It's a better bet financially than relying on business traffic from small cities like Worcester and Hereford. It's not that I support it, I'm just stating the obvious - we're not living in 1976 any more, with HSTs sprinting from occasional stop to occasional stop. People now expect frequent services from places far outside the old-style commuter belt and FGW and other train operators, such as Chiltern and Virgin, deliver them.

Yes - you know how many people traveled on a specific train - tell me how many drove from places whose closest station is on the Cotswold line to go to London by either Chiltern or Virgin - you can't. How on earth can you know how many people there are like myself who use alternative services? You don't so any figures you state miss the point.


Easy - there is no Chiltern/Virgin alternative so they/you are a captive market, given the parking system you describe in Oxford.


No they're not a figment of your imagination but what you don't know is what percentage of the people making the journey to London they are. Finally myself & others know many who travel frequently to London who avoid the Cotswold line and neither are they a figment of our imaginations.

Finally, regarding the difference between long distance & commuter business models - commuter travel is pack'em in high density whereas long distance is lower density, room for luggage, decent catering. The revenue streams are different but both are very lucrative - one thing though, you can get a commuter to accept restricted space as the vast majority  are short distance but would prefer better accommodation, the reverse is not true of the long distance traveler who by and large will shy away from commuter stock Turbos that stop frequently. Look what they did to the luggage space on the refurbished HSTs - commuter mentality.

Just out of interest, what would your estimations be for that then, Andy? Using the four major morning business trains out of Worcester in the morning from the 05:36 to the 09:10 what potential would do you think there is per day? What percentage of those actually now resort to a different operator? And also what sort of journey time improvements do you think would sway them back on the Cotswold Line?

For comparison's sake the current journey times from Shrub Hill are 2h 22m, 2h 24m, 2h 14m and 2h 18m, compared with 2h 09m, 2h 01m, 1h 58m and 2h 12m for the same (or equivalent) services 10 years ago. Note that three of those are operated by HST's as opposed to just two of them 10 years ago.

The main problem here is that HST's are used on all routes as commuter services now. Your late morning holiday special from Penzance on a Friday afternoon gets to Paddington and then works a rush-hour commuter and business service back to Bristol for example. It's impossible to provide enough seats for commuters from stations like Swindon, Didcot, and Newbury and Oxford, whilst at the same time keeping loads of luggage space and tables for families using the very same sets to travel down to Cornwall on holiday. An attempt was made to make some sets high density and some low density, but even the low density ones had most of the tables removed purely so that the ever increasing number of long-distance commuters were kept happy and keep filling the FGW coffers with their high-value season tickets.

With the recession hitting hard numbers of commuters into the city are starting to tail off, but just stand on Paddington station overbridge watching the arrivals from 7-9am and you realise what a difficult juggling act FGW have to perform!

No - perhaps one year.

Why should FGW be demonised for prioritising commuters? if you run any business then your top priority is to look after your "bread and butter" the customers who are in the majority and spend lots of money with you, like i've pointed out before, most leisure travellers comment on how nice the HST's are! the only reason that luggage space gets used up so quickly is due to the total numties that put little ruck sacks on the big luggage racks rather than over head, or the selfish tw*t's that put one case on its side taking up a whole luggage rack shelf! the ammount of times i've seen luggage in the doorways etc and everyone moaning until I go in, take everything off the rack and re-stack it sensibly and what happens?....... a miracle.......it all fits in!

 commuter travel is pack'em in high density whereas long distance is lower density, room for luggage, decent catering. (http://commuter travel is pack'em in high density whereas long distance is lower density, room for luggage, decent catering.)

So that would be your description of a Voyager or Pendolino would it? Must be a different sort from the ones I have travelled on, with airline seats aplenty and even less window glass than a Mk3 - trains which have been pilloried in many another thread here. And a Chiltern Clubman isn't exactly long-distance express stock either, better than a Turbo that hasn't been touched in 16 years, but still an underfloor engine DMU, with 1/3, 2/3 doors.

At the time of day in question, I should think the numbers driving elsewhere are insignificant - Chiltern's fare advantage is nothing like as clear-cut off-peak and most people aren't travelling for work, so approach their journeys rather differently. If you travelled from Bicester North, you would find parking spaces very hard to find off-peak, while at Banbury, you will have a long walk from whichever of the industrial units in use as overspill parking still has spaces free by that time.

I never said that those of you who appear to prefer to drive elsewhere, then catch a train and have an overall journey time just the same or longer than using the Cotswold Line, were a figment of anyone's imagination - but there are many business people in Worcester who do still use the route.

But several people here constantly assert the numbers going elsewhere are not insignificant, so how about one of you enlightening us with your best guess?

I live in Worcester and sometimes travel to London via Birmingham to take advantage of Chiltern's fares and performance.  Not done it in a while though as FGW's performance has improved over the last year or two.