I appear to have identified a problem during the course of my recent rail rover jaunts, and it has been confirmed (probably) on subsequent railway journeys. This is that the PA^▸ (Public Address) systems on some trains are either crap in the first place, or poorly maintained. Brief examples follow, the first involved a full and standing XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) train running south from Brum. I was standing to Cheltenham, which didn't exactly help my mood at the time

We were running exceptionally slowly between Bromsgrove and Ashchurch (not all the way - just between Spetchley and Abbotswood for those like me who know the route by the inch...) losing 13 minutes. When we got to Cheltenham I saw the guard and suggested that it would have been helpful if he'd made an announcement about it. He said he had - there was a level crossing failure. I told him that I didn't bloody hear it.... Hmmm...

A few days later I'm on another XC train from Reading to Brum and the guards announcements were barely audible. Then the train catering guy came on the PA and his voice was booming. As the guard came through checking tickets, it was clear that the bloke could project his voice very well. So I told him about this and, to cut a long story short, it turned out that one of the microphones on the train was crap. He stopped using it and used the other one(s) and his voice boomed merrily.

I was then on a Chippenham to Westbury 2-car class 165. The announcements were fine, and then at Melksham the family from hell got on -screaming kids, screaming parents screaming at screaming kids - you get the idea... I went to the next coach, and the announcements in there were virtually inaudible again. I did tell the guard outside Westbury station (he was there having a fag the same as I was) and he promised to make a note of it. Whether he did is a moot point because when I went back to the platform the DMU^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) we came down on was just leaving with another crew, but that's a different matter.

Whilst I don't doubt that there are some lazy surly buggers around in the ranks of train crews who don't make announcements, these discoveries put a different light on the matter, where some staff may indeed be making the announcements but they aren't being heard by the passengers. It is also difficult to see how an indivudual guard or driver is going to know that there is fault on his particular PA system unless one of the passengers says something and, as most of 'em just get on and stay in the same seat until they get off, they aren't going to know anyway.

Whilst I appreciate that an effective PA system is a long way down the priorities list behind getting trains to turn wheels so that they can get out into revenue-earning service, I wonder what views and experiences there are out there, especially from people involved in the daily repair & maintenance functions?

That's not how I remember things. In those pre-computer days I, working in the Divisional Paybill Office in Bristol as I was at the time, were were working for weeks beforehand doing the conversions the old-fashioned way. By hand. That is the reason why the date of 15th February 1971 is burnt into my memory!

It also might explain why I still convert back. I got some funny looks a few monrhs back in Sainsburys when I loudly said to myself; "How much!! I'm not paying 11 shillings for a time of peas...

The average speed figure for GWR was 62.72 not 52.72. However, this has now been amended to 63.14 because I checked the data again before I offered to share the spreadsheet with others and I found a mistake on the first day (showing timings from Bristol to Chippenham against a train from I used from Swindon to Chippenham).

LNER and Virgin both came out with high average speeds because of the nature of the journeys I took with them (Leeds to KGX, KGX to Darlington, Preston/ Wigan/ Lancaster to Euston)

As regards cancellations, there were two and a half! A train I had planned to use between Bradford and Ilkley was cancelled (so I didn't go), and XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) summarily cancelled a Newcastle-bound train at Birmingham on my last day (this was the day the weather broke, the OHLE was down north of York and I suspect that the crew booked to take it north from Brum were stranded somewhere, and there was also no guarantee that the train would get anywhere near its destination anyway.

The "half a cancellation" was due to a complete signal failure at Wigan Wallgate. I was at Manchester Victoria wanting to go to Rose Grove on a Southport to Blackburn via Manchester service that was stuck the wrong side of Wigan. However. local staff at Manchester conjured up a 2-car class 144 from somewhere and ran the Manchester to Blackburn section with that. This did rather confuse the automated train indicator information for passengers, as it was alternating between "on time" and cancelled" every minute or so!

This was my analysis and came about during the validity of a 14-day all line rail rover ticket in July 2018. The original objective was to revisit a number of my "old haunts" whilst recording the end of steam traction on BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) between 1965 and 1968, and to compile some "then and now" photos. They are now beginning to appear on my Flickr site (as an example:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/93122458@N08/45215021952/ ). The analysis was an "add on," not particularly scientific, but just a random sample of trains that I happened to use over the 14 days, and I suppose something of a post-retirement return to the data collection and analysis work that I did professionally for some 30 years!

What it does do, however, is to give a picture of what the average passenger may experience from the various TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company). There is a tendency for "familiarity breeds contempt" to kick in if one was to carry out a survey of passengers ie. if you asked a random member of the public standing on the platform at Bath Spa who the worst TOC in the country was, the most likely answer you would get would be "GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)." Do the same thing at Blackburn and the answer would probably be Northern; at Ludlow it would be Arriva Wales, and so on.

I thought that the comparison between GWR and XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) was particularly interesting, because I used their trains more than any other and they operate in similar environments (over relatively long distances with relatively frequent stops). It was suggested to me that XC might "look" better because of lengthy dwell times at some locations, although a cursory examination of the WTTs^▸ (Working Time-Table) will show that this is hardly unique, and many TOCs appear to shoehorn as many minutes as they can get away with into the timetable at the end of journeys to improve their timekeeping stats. Another matter I thought revealing was the relatively good performance by Northern Trains, who have taken much "stick" in the press since the timetable debacle in May. It appears that when they do manage to run trains they tend to run them on time!

Such a summary as this does of course not show individual train timekeeping performance, but if any one is interested in that level of detail, if they email me I will send them the spreadsheet.