Meanwhile our friends at Great Western have added such places as Maidenhead, Tilehurst, Pangbourne, Goring, Cholsey, Filton Abbey Wood, Frome, Theale, Thatcham, Ivybridge, Radley, Worle and St Germans to the Intercity network...

It is Brighton Depot. The staff are being made redundant. A few were offered jobs in Euston (as it was still run by Virgin when the changes were announced), and a few will go to Southern. Bournemouth is currently safe, although at one point there was talk of SWT^▸ (South West Trains) taking over the service and splitting it, but that hasn't come to anything.

For those in the South East of England, the Cross Country network is becoming more and more restricted. There used to be services from Dover and Ramsgate to the north, then they were axed. Portsmouth actually had direct HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) to Liverpool and Blackpool at one point, and a 158 service as well, and that was next to go, and now its Brighton. Some of the Bournemouths used to go to Poole and there were extensions to Weymouth on summer Saturdays. Equally the old Connex Brighton to Rugby service has been cut back to Watford, in many cases forcing people to go via London. Personally I see it all as a backwards step, and yet Voyagers despite their faults arguably have actually made it more flexible to run these sort of services (no need to run locomotives round, and they can fit in bays).

Worth noting that it's not just Brighton that has lost the service, Gatwick Airport and East Croydon (both very important stops) have also been removed from the network. Quite how all this is supposed to benefit the average passenger I don't know. I suppose the argument is that it frees up paths for the commuter services into London.

Indeed changes to the Cross Country network have also seen the removal of Liverpool, relegating it from Intercity status to a regional station with a token Euston service. Anyone remember the daily Plymouth - Liverpool and Bristol - Liverpool services?

Worth noting that the National Express bid did consider replacing HST^▸ (High Speed Train)'s with Voyager derivatives, similar to on the Midland Mainline.

Also worth looking at the number of strikes on Central Trains and Silverlink whilst they were in charge.

Train companies have involved private security or similar with ticket inspections. It doesn't work. These firms generally employ largely unskilled people on low wages, who have less reason to use discretion or customer service. They also have little or no railway knowledge, and generally end up antagonising railway staff. Plenty of occasions involving them where staff themselves, let alone passengers have ended up being done, as they don't recognise the diagrams / passes. Plus it's a pain for the passenger to report issues with them, should they not follow correct procedure, as the train company would merely say, not our employees and pass you on.

A classic example of this was the use of Securicor employees on Manchester Piccadilly. Utter nightmare. I believe all ticketing is dealt with by employees of the train operating companies at this station now.

Plus like all contractors they are unlikely to have any real loyalty to the company or those who work in it, as they will receive no travel allowances or railway pensions. Cleaning standards improved greatly under SWT^▸ (South West Trains) when all cleaning was taken in house.

Contracting out to the lowest bidder might improve company profits, but passengers won't see that in the form of ticket prices lowering, and certainly won't see any sort of improvement in customer service. Most of the trains have guards anyway, if you take the ticket aspect away from them, they will still be needed for the trains to run, and instead of having knowledgable railway people being visible, they'll just be in the brake van dossing, whilst the security staff roam the trains, penalty faring everyone.

Personally I don't know why fare paying passengers are so against barriers. If it keeps the fare dodgers, and other assorted vermin off the system (muggers, druggies, violent drunks and so on) then good. Surely passengers should support this, as it helps to keep them safe.

A bit of inconvience queueing is better than having to put up with mindless thugs on the network.

The ticket barriers do have larger gates, so those with mobility problems or lots of luggage should be allowed through them. If there is an issue with staff not manning the larger gates or not letting such passengers through them, then this does need to be rectified.

Does this mean the Hull Trains 222's will go to East Midlands Trains, for this proposed Corby service?

There's a hell of a lot of inefficiency with men being taxied everywhere, but in part this is due to privatisation, as staff from different companies can't generally work each others trains unless an agreement has been made, so it means men being taxied to one location, even though it may have a depot for another company and spare staff.

Besides inefficient as it is, it's the train operators money, and it's better than cancelling services from the point of view of the punters.

Can turbos be used on any of the Wessex lines?

If so, I see no reason why 180's (if kept) couldn't deputise for turbos on some Bedwyn services. After all that would be a 125mph unit on the mainline, rather than a 90mph unit.

Of course if guards and drivers actually do anything, this could be the result.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/6962972.stm

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=476707&in_page_id=1770&ito=1490

Several years ago, when I worked suburban commuter trains, I got in a scrap with a youth who thought it would be fair to threaten another passenger after they told them to put a spliff out, then try and force his way into the driving cab to nick my phone when he realised that I was arranging for the plod to meet the train.

Despite the fact that when he was nicked he gave the police a load of mouth, and then a false name and address, I was taken off duty, and questioned at length as to why I used force to remove him from the driving cab. The company's attitude was 'Is there a better way you could have dealt with that situation?'. Short of either 1) leaving my passengers to fend for themselves (a no no) or 2) battering him round the head repeatedly, I couldn't think of anything. It's worth noting that neither could the company.

I later found out this particular piece of vermin was on bail for robbery.

Presumably we are supposed to let them go and sit in first, chat to them about their disaffection with society and get the passengers to contribute a whip round so that we can pay them a tidy sum, if they promise to abide by some 'behavioural contract'.

The really scary thing is, the more of these idiots I encounter, the more I find myself in agreement with the Daily Mail!

Northern rail appear to run 91 pacers!!

Not just great western, but all operators have this policy. Unfortunately a significant number of people will abuse the system if they have the chance, and it's the honest passenger who suffers. Some staff appear to refuse to use discretion, possibly because of fear of being reported to their managers, and possibly because of the amount of scum and liars they face day in day out, and unfortunately the 'trust nobody mentality' is the result of this.

A more flexible solution could be for the barrier staff to contact the platform staff and say that the ticket office is extremely busy and that a few passengers need to catch the train, and let them through. Then the platform staff could ask the guard of the train if he is willing to sell them tickets onboard, and if he is (and again if discretion is in use, he should be, because there is no evidence of fare dodging as the passengers have shown the willingness to pay), then they should be let on. A winning situation all round I should think, as the passenger gets where they want to go on time, and the guard gets some takings without working hard for them! Common sense?

Unfortunately part of life, if you don't 'look first class', you are likely to be targeted, due to prejudices, probably based on experience. It's not right, but it happens.

I've been a victim of this when I've been travelling off duty at weekends (usually on Virgin West Coast), and have had the misfortune of ending up travelling back when all the football supporters are being loaded onto the trains by the transport police, and normal punters are being sent into first class, with standard being fillled up by the usual bunch of casuals and troublemakers. Because I've got a skinhead (due to losing hair!!), I've been stopped and searched and been directed to the "animal coach", and I've been forced to whip out my staff pass and track safety card to ensure I travel with decent society!

Experienced staff can usually tell who should and shouldn't be in first due to the demeanour of the person, rather than the appearance as such. It's not 100% accurate, and hard to describe, but I certainly can tell from experience whether a punter is going to 1) have a valid ticket 2) pay an upgrade straight off, 3) piss around and argue but eventually upgrade or 4) require being sent down to standard or kicked off the train.

Those that have no right to be in there generally give the game away straight away, but unless you are 99.9% sure, never target someone individually, it could backfire and it also looks very unprofessional.

Problem is though, when XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) lose even more 5 car voyagers to Virgin, the Bournemouth services are going to be even worse! 4 cars will be totally unsuitable for that service, 5 cars can really struggle a lot of the time!

It might not make good business sense, as the passengers will always cram on like they do, but it's not a very pleasant trip, and it still seems silly that certain HST^▸ (High Speed Train)'s run around virtually empty whilst these trains struggle with the passenger loadings. The feeling of XC crews on this route is that doubled up Voyagers (or the return of HST's) is required...

A shame they don't think about doubling the things up on weekdays...

Actually I was thinking about this at Oxford the other day, very lightly loaded HST's terminate there, where as the Voyager behind them travelling up north is often rammed and standing.

I've often thought that a more logical idea would be to extend one of the Paddington - Oxford fast HST's all the way to Birmingham New Street, in place of the xx.40 departures off Reading, and use the released sets from this service to double up the Bournemouth services. In order to provide more seating capacity, and a faster journey time on the longer trips, the double voyagers could go via Solihull, whilst the extended HST could go via Coventry, where it will do a better job of taking the passenger loadings towards New Street than Voyagers. I realise that this may theoretically be impractical with regards to stock positioning, but would be a more suitable, as we are currently in a situation where we have lightly loaded 8 car HST's running around whilst, packed 4 and 5 car trains struggle. I've seen terminating HST's virtually empty whilst passengers have been told they are unable to board the Voyagers on a fair few occasions!

IC^▸ (Inter City) XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) and Virgin used to provide Paddington - Birmingham services, so it wouldn't make any difference who ran it, be it Cross Country or Great Western. The only possible flaw might be the loss of a few through services to Manchester from Reading and Oxford, and an HST taking up a full platform at New Street.

Virgin Trains have the right idea, their stations have manual announcements, and it's so much less intrusive than all this automated crap. My suggestion is those in charge of stations at Great Western to go and pay a visit to Rugby or Stafford, and see how much more pleasant it is.