Great Western Coffee Shop

This is the 7.52am from Oxford. Yesterday it was about 15 minutes late and today 20. I can remember whole weeks where it has not arrived at Paddington on time.. zero percent puncuality!!

I asked FGW a while back for  the statistics for this particular train and was told in no uncertain terms that they would not take people away from "improving the train service" to provide me with statistics. Well it didn't work. The train is still as bad as ever.

FGWs solution to this particular problem is to remove it from the December timetable. So it won't be late at all after that. What then worries me is that I will already be arriving at Paddington 15 minutes later each day from December, and what if that new later train is late every day too?

I hope my boss in understanding!

Get in touch with your MP which I think is Teresa May, let FGW tell her they are too busy.

Thanks for that but she already knows all about my experience with FGW, including this one! :)

Well what is she doing about it then.


Try this one, a similar worked for me.

1. Have a clear credit card.

2. Have a 'safety net' credit card for other purposes.

3. Pay for your ticket (presumably for you its a season) by the clear credit card.

4. Keep a log of the journeys undertaken and the arrival times during the validity of the season ticket in your diary.

5. Ignore the late arrivals less than 10 minutes late, these are within the charter for being on time.

6. Work out possible journeys on your season ticket at 2 (1 out and 1 back) per day.

7. Deduct x/56ths of the cost of the season ticket and pay balance in full. (Assumption 4 week season, x being no of arrivals over 10 minutes late for the duration of the season)

8. Write to credit card company and enclose log of lateness, highlighting the services which comprise the x in 7 above, and state that you aren't paying the deducted amount (x/56ths) under the consumer credit act as that is the proportion of journeys you wished to make but the merchant had NOT provided the advertised service which you had paid for bringing their attention to the fact that although in your log an additional y services were late, they come within the allowance for being classified as being on time.

9. The credit card company, well mine did anyway, will note the disputed amount and place this on your statement as a disputed amount, will investigate and recover (as mine did) the disputed amount from the merchant.

I didnt have to fall back onto my "safety net" credit card.

I took that action as a result of the reclaims made by agents who paid by credit card, customers payments / savings into the failed FAREPAK last year.

If you know of a friendly solicitor put a word in their ear and sound them out as to whether it would work in your case but I say nothing ventured, nothing gained.

My case worked, I've had no comeback, my train was cancelled so I decided not to travel on my advance purchased ticket but a refund was not forthcoming even though the letter from the TOC confirmed the train had been cancelled. It was not FGW by the way.

She is doing all she can, but has the same problem as the rest of us, it's a bit like banging your head against a brick wall. In fact it's very like banging your head against a brick wall..

E.g. We tell FGW they need to improve reliability, they say it's improving, it doesn't, we tell FGW they need to improve reliability, etc, etc ,etc

Thanks for the credit card tip. My season ticket is up for renewal in December. If I have to renew it (I'm seriously tempted to start driving!) then I will use the tip!

31/10/2007

07:52 Oxford to London Paddington due 09:12
This train has been revised.It will no longer call at: Cholsey, Goring & Streatley, Pangbourne and Tilehurst.This is due to over-running engineering works.

Should be ROOM on it this morning with 4 station stops missed but whether it runs to time is another story.

I thought the Ghosts and Gouls were supposed to be out tonight, not last night.

31/10/2007.

Sussed it.

With all the chaos this morning due to overrunning engineering work at Pangbourne, the 0752 Oxford - Paddington left Oxford on time. With the 4 station stops between Didcot and Reading withdrawn this morning, the service was able to depart Reading on time, keep to time departing Twyford but as the pampered people of Maidenhead dont hurry themselves the service lost 4 minutes on station duties here which led to an arrival at Paddington at 0914.

Cant grumble at that, just af ter get the folks at Maidenhead not to dawdle too much when gettin on ther train.

Although I was fortunate enough to not have to get the train this morning, I can assure you that the people of Maidenhead do not generally dawdle. We usually get on the train (dead fast), and sit there for several minutes (most mornings) while we wait for a much more important (late running) long distance train to pass through the fast line before we get a green signal!  If however I am wrong and my fellow Maidenhead commuters chose this morning to get on the train really slowly for once (were you there then?), then I apologise!

johoare.

The above post was also made tongue in cheek by the way, was going to add at the end of the post ;-

Dont make me laugh and tell me you didnt use the train this morning.

Guess you had the last laugh on me this morning.

By the way when I used to work in Slough, before the advent of the turbos, trains serving Maidenhead from Reading and Paddington were
more often than not a 6-car DMU (2 x 3-car sets) and there was even a 7-car combo (4 + 3) that ran through to Paddington from Westbury. When they started to introduce the turbos, 2 cars replacing 3 cars I thought then that they (BR(NSE)) were brewing trouble for the future. What is the stock used normally for your 0851 service, a 2-car turbo, 2 x 2-car, 1 x 3-car, 2 x 3-car a 2 + 3 car or is it a case of whatever is serviceable and had received its overnight drink when the stock is due off depot.

Anyway, onto CROSSRAIL, you pampered people will so-oo-oo-oo-on
have brand new electris trains, a spanking new Maidenhead depot with all the latest technology to house the trains and then you will all be moaning that you get a seat every morning, the trains all run to time and you all miss your little daily lottery to see who can be closest in guessing the number of minutes late the service is daily and finally the bookworms wont be able to concentrate on their reading on the journeys because its so quiet.

Well its such a nice pm where I am in Yate I think I'l toodle off upstairs have a wash and then dawdle over to the pub and sit in the smoking shelter with mates (I dont smoke myself) and have a nice pint or four of best ale.

Regards.

Martyjon.

Cool, I should have guessed it was tongue in cheek too!!

It's usually an adelante which is very claustrophobic and trys to make all us standing people fall over as it crosses the tracks.. Occasionally it's a three car turbo which is usually a lot emptier than the adelante so I can only assume people closer to OXford have a choice of trains (most likely Reading) so don't get on it when it's a turbo..

As for crossrail, I've been commuting for 20 years, and crossrail has been talked about for most of them. So yes I agree it sounds like we'll really benefit, but I'll wait until it really happens!

Oooh, a few pints sound nice... Pity I've got to work so no pub visits for me.

Lucky I'm working at home as I was in Bracknell this morning (hence the non commuting day!).. lovely...

Arrived at 0915, according to my information, this morning after departing Oxford 4 down.

johoare.

Ah, Adelantes, I hate them but your comment regarding the tendancy to want to make the passengers fall over is interesting.

I noticed the same phenomenom about the second time I travelled on one. Its not particulary the track condition that gives rise to the tendency to make the passengers fall over, its more the engines being used as brakes.

Next time you are on one and you are unfortunate to have to stand, note the coincidence of an increase in engine noise (revs) and the tendency for you and the other passengers to be thrown forward as opposed to fall down.

The Adelantes are the only trains that I have come across which use their engines power by dropping down through the gearbox for braking assistance. This is akin, when driving your car, to using a lower gear when descending a steep hill.

Now you've learnt something reading this and next time your on an Adelante you can tell all your fellow passengers of why the train tries to make them all fall down.

It actually arrived at Paddington at 0931 19 minutes late!

5 late from Maidenhead

Disappeared off my screen at 0915.

I'll keep a watch tomorrow.

Yep 19 minutes late. Most of those were spent sitting just outside Paddington.. So a 25% punctuality rate this week so far. Not good! I hope FGWs statistics don't come from the site you were looking at if you think it got it at 9.15 though!!! I wonder what will happen today!

Only 4 late today - very impressive!

1L19 was early as well.

Arrived at 0916, according to my information, this morning after departing Oxford 3 down which had increased to 8 down departing Reading.

So for this week then thats a 40% punctuality rate.. And that's been pretty much the norm since this train was introduced nearly a year ago. Hence this topic!

To be fair though, the line from Reading - Paddington is running at full capacity at that time of morning so delays are inevitable.

Unless Notwork Derail has some plan to increase capacity its going to be a problem for a very long time.

I don't think my boss will appreciate that excuse! Anyway it won't be a problem soon. FGW have kindly added 15 minutes to my journey daily from December by removing this train. And that's before delays.. So half an hour late each day then!

05/11/2007.

NOTE johoare TONGUE IN CHEEK.

Left Oxford on time but the pampered commuters at Maidenhead took their time the sque-e-e-e-eze on board this morning and delayed the service so that it left 2 minutes down and arrived Paddington, according to my screen, at 0915.

I am a cheeky devil aren't I.

Ha Ha. I think I'd have guessed that one was tongue in cheek even if you hadn't have told me!!  Let's hope for a better week commuting wise this week then!

Must've been ok this morning, watched it on my screen and was 2 minutes late leaving Oxford but this was recovered and left Twyford on time but was 2 minutes down on leaving Maidenhead (AGAIN) but as the crucial last two minutes of its pending arrival at Paddington approached I was called away from my screen and when I returned at 0918 it was gone (arrived). Doh.

And today 1F22 arived at paddington at 0913.

1 minute later then planned ;)

Yes, things are looking up this week. The train was on time and it was a turbo so I got a seat for once (I guess the people joining at Reading chose an intercity above our turbo!).. So a good day all round..

07/11/2007.

6 minutes down on leaving Oxford this morning but this was pulled back by Twyford but AGAIN lost time departing Maidenhead 3 minutes later than scheduled. My screen showed an arrival at Paddington at 09:14, 2 minutes down.

Also noted it was a 3-car turbo this morning.

Yep, just about on time in Paddington. It was a turbo, they just forgot to tell us.. so it was busier than usual. I guess that is why it was busier, cos the Reading people only found out as it arrived that it was a turbo, so got on anyway. It didn't really lose any time at Maidenhead today, it actually arrive two minutes late..

However FGW (I assume?) have just disgraced themselves totally. At very short notice I had to unexpectedly rush back to Maidenhead to pick my children up from school. I got the 14.30 out of Paddington. This got to Hayes on time and then crawled all the way back from there to Maidenhead finally arriving 12 minutes late. I did phone up FGW from the train, but the very helpful lady there knew nothing more than I did, and the train driver obviously didn't either as he made no annoucements.

The result, I was ten minutes late for the first school pick up I do, to find my child wandering up and down the road wondering what he should do next. I am NOT pleased about that.

If anyone knows what happened please could you let me know? If not I'll ask FGW and add the reply here when I get one!

5 Late from Slough and 11 late from Maidenhead.

Yes, thank you. I was there... crawling along... so I kinda know the late timings....

But does anyone know the reason for the delay? FGW certainly didn't at the time!

I know you know, was just giving you all the info I am able to retreive!

Sorry, I wasn't having a go, honest.. I'm just very frustrated that I could get no info from FGW as to whether I needed to frantically phone round friends to get someone to pick him up, and by the time I'd finished talking to FGW (not their fault at all, they spent a long time looking for non existent info), it was too late anyway, so he just kind of had to hang around wondering why no one had picked him up...  And still there is no apparent reason for us to have crawled all the way back from Hayes!

Not a definite answer so don't take for granted, but trains were being cautioned through Burnham due to reported trespassers, this is a possible cause of your delay.

2N44 14:30 Paddington to Oxford was delayed after trains were put on stop due to Thames Valley Police being in pursuit of a male on the line at Burnham. Stopage was brief but caused a small backlog of delays...

There you go, FGW staff being helpful again  ;)

OK thanks for that Ollie and oooooo.. That explains it. But shouldn't the driver and/or FGW customer services have been told about this?

The driver should of known as appears trains were initially stopped by an emergency broadcast. This sort of information would take a while to filter through to customer services so unlikely they would of known at the precise time it happened.....

So the driver should have told us? Oh well.. A little bit of information always helps..... :)

Well yeah, I think he *should* of...!

But the driver chose not to? Do the drivers like to withold information? I know they have to suffer the late trains the same as the passengers (bored of being a customer now, I'm gonna be a passenger again), so I have every sympathy with them but I really would have thought the driver would have told us. I know it was only 10 minutes. But that was ten minutes where my child was on his own wondering why he was on his own! I guess we'll never know...  Oh well, at least my child now has a plan as to what to do if no-one picks him up! That can only be positive!

21 minutes late today. We crawled all the way from Iver to Southall before finally being told, just before we speeded up again that it was due to track problems. I do suspect that someone somewhere may have know this fact before they let us all get on the train. A bit of information would go a long way in this instance. If I'd have known, I'd have brought some coffee and breakfast and got a later train because I was very hungry! On the plus side, I did get to read lots of my book this morning.

Looks like you got delayed around Airport Junction. You probably followed a late running train.

Well you could have knocked me over with a feather with that news.

The screen I was looking at, the National Rail Live Paddington Arrivals page showed the service ran to time, didn't even lose time at Maidenhead this morning and arrived on time at Paddington as did the other service I regularly monitor, the 07:10 BRI - PAD.

Late posting because I was called out to Newport last night and stood down at about 00:30 so by the time I got packed up and home it was 02:00 but I was still up at 06:00 but tired so I must have been seeing things this morning with regards to the punctuality of the 08:51 from Maidenhead.

Avin a early nite ternite.

It does worry me that the screen that you were looking at is the same one that FGW uses for it's statistics!! Perhaps no one (apart from the passengers and driver) knew that it was late today?

the 0710 is heading for it's first(?) 5/5 this week?

Well the 07.10 made it into Paddington early from what I can see.. The 8.51 however was cancelled today! So thats a 60% punctuality rate this week. An improvement on last weeks 40% though.. And things were looking so good at the start of  the week!

When I interrogated the Service Incidents page on the FGW website this morning it was showing ;-

07:52 Oxford to London Paddington due 09:12
This train will be started from Reading.It will no longer call at: Oxford, Radley, Didcot Parkway, Cholsey, Goring & Streatley, Pangbourne and Tilehurst.This is due to a train fault.

A look at the Paddington Live Arrivals page did indeed show this service as a Reading to Paddington service with the familiar word so frequently used by FGW CANCELLED showing against the stations from Oxford (inclusive) to Reading (exclusive) with the departure time from Reading as scheduled.

A refresh of this page at 08:30 showed the frequency of the use of the word CANCELLED had increased with the cancellation of the service throughout.

A quick shuffty back to the Service Incidents page confirmed this as below ;-

07:52 Oxford to London Paddington due 09:12
This train has been cancelled.This is due to a train fault.

Does make one think that after putting out a morning e-mail message imparting as part of that message ;-

First Great Western is pleased to report no problems affecting peak services this morning.

that FGW should be more cautious in future as past performances have revealed.

Brings to mind something of counting chicks before they are running around in the backyard.




 

Yes I agree. I saw on the National Rail website this morning that it had been cancelled from Oxford to Reading "because of a train fault". Being a canny commuter I knew that it was never going to run at all, so decided to work at home rather than get to work at least half hour late on the next train (which is really slow).. And I was right, soon enough it was cancelled totally.

18 minutes late today..

13/11/2007.

Any offers over 7 minutes late today.

Well the national rail arrivals board finally showed it as arriving at 9.42.. It did disappear off of the board a couple of times before then though. Think it was a bit of a difficult morning all round.. I wasn't on the train today fortunately.

So 30 minute delay  I think..

Certainly did, albeit left maidenhead 1 minute late  ???

No idea what happened to this train today. I had an important meeting at 10.30 which I just couldn't risk missing, so I drove.. I bet the train was on time because I wasn't on it!! :D

7 late

You will find that a more advanced system is used to monitor delays.

Live Departure Boards are nowhere near perfect.

A problem with the Live Departure Boards is they rely on monitoring points to be hit, and in some cases it will just give up and the train will drop off, even if it is late.

3 minutes late today.. So on time for the first time this week!!

4 minutes late today. So another "on time" day.. So yet another 40%  punctuality rate this week!

Monday 19th November - 8 minute delay

On time today.  ;D

Yes.. 9.12 on the dot.. I can't remember the last time that happened!!

No idea what time it arrived today (wed 21st) as I managed to miss it!!

13 minutes late

Yep. 13 minutes today. All of which were spent sitting just outside Paddington... Nice! Thumbs up to the train driver who kept us well informed though  :).   Does anyone know what time yesterdays train (that I missed) got in?

20% punctuality rate this week!

Well it was 3 minutes early today...

The only time this week though! Sad state of affairs!

2 early today  ;D

Yep.. 2 early Monday, 16 late Tuesday, 30 late Wednesday (so 44 minutes of my time so far this week!)

Today (wednesday) was such a total disgrace it needs a mention.. Not the late running trains bit though, it was the total lack of information which was a disgrace..

I was waiting for the 8.51.. It was due in about 9.10ish (time kept changing). The Customer services representative on the platform only had the information that was available to the rest of us (the arrival/departure boards) so was no help.. In the end, the 8.51 was swapped from platform 4 (it's normal platform) to platform 2. So off I went, on my own at first (as I found out when I got to platform 2), as no one else had noticed. No announcements were made the whole time I was at the station (about 20 minutes).. No one bothered to announce that the platform had changed. The customer service representative just stood there (although since her job appears to be reading the indicator boards and not much else, she must have noticed). Gradually a few other people noticed and joined me on platform 2.. Eventually, as the train pulled in, everyone else spotted it and had to sprint down the steps, under the platforms, and back up to platform 2. Whether or not they made it on to the train before we left, I don't know...

This lack of information makes inevitable delays even worse.. No one knew why the trains were late, and no one was telling us anything.

1 late today

And cancelled today! so 40% punctuality again this week!!

Well, one thing we can say for sure is that this train will never be late again as it's never going to run again..  Lets hope my new later train is on time more often than the 8.51 was.. I'm not optimisitic...