184
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All across the Great Western territory / Across the West / Re: IETs into passenger service from 16 Oct 2017 and subsequent performance issues
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on: June 29, 2019, 09:54:12
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Latest installment of the mess that is 1B46 last night. I hesitated to post this, as the poor GWR▸ employee on the ground was clearly doing his best and even gave me a £5 drinks voucher (I must have developed a very good disappointed face); but he had been put, far from atypically, in an impossible situation by his superiors, and they deserve having this posted where Mark Hopwood can read it.
Started off with two very bad signs. First, Murco had decided to run their rush-hour-wrecking Theale to Robeston oil empties (this path doesn't work and should be retimed), which had entirely predictably made it quarter of an hour late. Secondly, it was in the worst possible 5+5 formation: First Class in carriages 4, 5, 6, and 7 (this really should be avoided).
So obviously, I didn't want to sit in carriages 4 or 7, as the horrible composite design just means that you continually get passengers traipsing through between Standard and the end vestibule. I also did not want to sit in carriage 6, as all but a handful of the seats are backwards. So carriage 5 it had to be.
We then got the predictable fun of the staff trying to direct Standard Class passengers towards the ends of the train, morons who don't listen trying to enter the kitchen. There was also the minor annoyance of a noisy pram, made worse by even noisier older sibling. (A second noisy pram then joined at Bridgend.) But the design defect of putting the accessible space in the end carriage is a fairly minor one to my mind – I can be head down in a book pretty quickly.
We then got the textbook example of hiding in the kitchen. Yep, no First Class trolley on a main peak train on a Friday night. Stunning. So I banged on the door at Bridgend, in the hope of getting a packet of nuts and buying a gin and tonic. The poor guy in there turned out to have been left on his own, was in some despair at quite how busy a train this was west of Cardiff, and had basically given up. He couldn't sell me a gin, as he'd cashed up early; so I made do with the explosive sparking water, specially shaken up by the gremlins in the bottling plant.
I'd clearly managed to incite a minor outburst of anarchy (aka queuing at the kitchen door accompanied by assorted tutting) from the other First Class passengers from Cardiff at this point. Oops.
To the guy's credit (or at least to my disappointed face's), I was pleasantly surprised to be handed a £5 drinks voucher somewhere one side or other of Port Talbot. A nice gesture to set right a fairly rubbish journey.
So I'm really only posting about this performance issue to draw attention to the inadequate performance of the people who roster the catering staff: 1B46 1445 Paddington to Swansea is clearly understaffed, and this underlies the continual failures to provide the advertised service on what becomes a very busy train west of Cardiff. The staffing levels may be just about okay if it were a 9-car, rather than a 5+5 – perhaps the easiest zero-cost solution for GWR would be to swap the sets diagrammed for the 1415 and 1445.
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185
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All across the Great Western territory / Fare's Fair / Re: Permitted Route in Kent ??
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on: June 29, 2019, 09:14:19
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I would suspect that in cases like this where it's patently reasonable, but very difficult to work out whether it is permitted or not, the chances of anyone challenging it on the ground are vanishingly small (even more so, seeing as South Eastern types are unlikely to know where Warminster is).
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186
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Journey by Journey / Bristol (WECA) Commuters / Re: Bristol Temple Meads Station redevelopment
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on: June 28, 2019, 22:21:41
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Confusion seems to reign on this one.
Imagine you have stepped off a service from London via Parkway at TM‡ on platform 15 and have climbed down the staircase to the subway and are heading along the subway, past the toilets on the left you come to some 4/5 steps up to a plinthe where you have the option to then turn left for more steps up to platform 4 or right for more steps up to platform 3. If you were to knock a hole in the wall which forms the 4th edge of the plinthe opposite the 4/5 steps you would find a flight of steps which takes you up to another wall which if you knocked a hole in that wall you would find you are out on the station forecourt.
When was this closed? The masonry on the outer wall looks old.
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188
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Journey by Journey / London to South Wales / Extra Stop at STJ
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on: June 24, 2019, 11:24:35
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Odd one this morning. The 0629 Swansea to Paddington was announced as stopping additionally at Severn Tunnel Junction (I got off at Cardiff; so no idea whether it actually happened, or was just some sort of glitch). I can't see any evidence of any sort of disruption. Anyone got any idea what this was about?
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189
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All across the Great Western territory / Across the West / Re: Where's my train/carriage ? Wonder no longer..check scrolling displays
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on: June 22, 2019, 11:24:08
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Don't rely on the scrolling information to find your carriage. Twice on last three journeys to London I have found myself at the wrong end of the platform for my reserved seat as the information has been wrong.
The one that seems to happen particularly frequently (at least on the up Capitals United) is that the information screens decide that First Class is at the rear of the train, which turns out to be wrong about half of the time; interestingly, when the information screens decide it is at the front, they are invariably right – so I deduce that they must default to the train being in reverse formation, which is very strange.
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190
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Sideshoots - associated subjects / News, Help and Assistance / Re: Quick Reply - where's it gone?
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on: June 18, 2019, 07:22:12
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Sorry, ChrisB, but I agree with grahame on this one: the Coffee Shop forum has never had such a feature. The two options are (and have always been) 'reply' or 'reply with quote' - and members with long memories will recall my ongoing requests that 'reply with quote' should only be used sparingly. No, it definitely existed and has just disappeared.
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192
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Sideshoots - associated subjects / The Lighter Side / Re: What would YOU put into railway / travel room 101??
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on: June 16, 2019, 22:37:05
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2) Human beings announcements
Most of all at Cardiff Central, where you get that irritating shouty "not for passenger use" man deciding to negate TfW's entire Welsh language policy by interrupting the Welsh-first announcements and shouting exactly the same thing several times in English only in a thick Cardiff accent. That guy definitely belongs in Room 101, or failing that a ticket hut in Coryton or one of those branch line stations. Whilst we're putting Cardiff Central's staff in Room 101 or ticket huts on branch line stations, those pointless customer-be-damned orange bibs on the Valley Lines platforms are ripe candidates for redeployment.
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194
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Sideshoots - associated subjects / The Lighter Side / Re: Does anyone know of a bus station that they actually like?
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on: June 14, 2019, 09:22:40
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For local transport I have never favored a full on bus station on street bus stops work much better provided there is a decent central turning area or the routes cross town.
Cardiff's bus station was well sited, next to Central Station and at one end of the town. Couldn't really be any better, and avoided buses clogging up the city centre streets. So of course they knocked it down and built offices instead a couple of years ago... But just along the line in Port Talbot, they've just spent £17m on an incredibly windswept bus station next to the railway station, but are keeping the old bus station at the other end of town running as well. From what i can work out, only the routes that parallel the railway use the new bus station, with passengers having to change at both bus stations if they are coming from the train and are heading inland up the Afan valley. Having said that, with the bus service up the Afan valley strangely not continuing over the top into the Rhondda, it wouldn't really be very useful even if it did go to the right bus station.
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195
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All across the Great Western territory / Your rights and redress / Re: Unmanned gatelines
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on: June 14, 2019, 08:36:53
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I was led to believe that manning gateline is a Health and Safety issue. If there are no staff there they have to be open, in case of fire if nothing else.
Presumably there is a fire alarm that can be activated by passengers in case of fire or other emergencies? That would probably ensure that either staff would suddenly be able to attend the gateline, or that the fire brigade would come with cutting equipment to saw off the gates and release the passengers.
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