Hot trains

[whole diary]

[a-driver]

By contrast, I've just travelled on the 19:57 PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains)-OXF^» (Oxford - next trains) and set 166214 has two carriages out of the three with a working system - but the windows were open so most of the benefit was lost.  I reached out for my trusty carriage key and resolved the problem though.

I've done the same thing.  Walked through the train to check the temperature, expecting to have to open windows and ended up locking windows on 2 vehicles because the air con system was working.  I've even had passengers trying to close windows on some services!! 
The trains were nearly empty at the time so I'm wondering how effective it is when it's heavily loaded??

[Worcester_Passenger]

On Tuesday July 8 I travelled on the 10:06 from Foregate St to Paddington, operated by a 180, unit number 106.

The air conditioning in the coach (C) that I was travelling in was obviously unwell - it was cycling on and off every 3 seconds. I pointed this out to the train manager, who apologised and said that he couldn't do anything about it (understandably).

I also reported this via the 'contact us' page on the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) website. I've just (Tue Jul 29 - three weeks downstream) received an anodyne reply.

My feeling is that the 'contact us' form is pretty pointless - but that if a number of passengers have flagged up issues with the air conditioning on specific vehicles during the day, then it means that maintenance effort can be usefully targetted.

A question then - should I be sending this sort of comment and, if so, where should it go to? Perhaps FGW could have an email address airconditioning@firstgreatwestern.co.uk (or even hot_train@firstgreatwestern.co.uk!).

And for understandable reasons, I'm not going to bother sending that one via 'contact us'.

[paul7575]

I pointed this out to the train manager, who apologised and said that he couldn't do anything about it (understandably).

The onboard staff can enter the fault in the defect book carried on the train. (One in each cab.)  I'm pretty sure he only meant he couldn't do any faultfinding or defect rectification.  I don't really think as a passenger you need to do any more than tell onboard staff - surely we should not have to duplicate their responsibilities?   Is this really what the contact us form is for?

Paul

[SDS]

There is also an app on company blackberrys (ies?) which you can submit faults to maintenance controller straight away.

Think its called defect logger. Its original purpose was for onboard staff to submit faults on the fly so that priority faults could be planned for at end of service.

[bobm]

A question then - should I be sending this sort of comment and, if so, where should it go to? Perhaps FGW^▸ (First Great Western) could have an email address airconditioning@firstgreatwestern.co.uk (or even hot_train@firstgreatwestern.co.uk!).

I have sent details of faults, like power sockets, to their twitter account.  They have always been acknowledged but of course I don't know if they were fixed.

[IndustryInsider]

I must admit, I almost fainted aboard 166205 earlier!  Not due to the heat, as the lovely summer temperatures have taken a slight dip over the last couple of days, though still quite mild and muggy, but due to shock that the whole unit had Air-Con that was working beautifully and all windows were locked shut!  All three carriages! 

[Timmer]

I must admit, I almost fainted aboard 166205 earlier!  Not due to the heat, as the lovely summer temperatures have taken a slight dip over the last couple of days, though still quite mild and muggy, but due to shock that the whole unit had Air-Con that was working beautifully and all windows were locked shut!  All three carriages! 

Just goes to show that it can work.