Thames Valley performance slumps

[whole diary]

[willc]

The first FGW^▸ (First Great Western) Passengers Charter performance stats since the new timetable have come out, showing that just 64 per cent of Thames Valley services were on time (within five minutes for this service group I think) over the four weeks from December 10.

See links below:
http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=265
http://www.oxfordmail.net/display.var.1963326.0.third_of_trains_running_late.php

[grahame]

Interesting that comes out today.   I've been monitoring reported cancellations and short running since late last month, and for the first time in the whole of the monitoring period, my program at

http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/running.php

is reporting that over 99% of trains have actually run their full journey, measured over the last 48 hours.   So they're doing far better at the momemt that they have been doing.

[IanL]

The passengers charter data mentioned above only includes trains into Paddington before 10am and leaving after 4pm. This is not ideal but it is easily available and comparable from month to month.

In fact this measure has been deteriorating since the summer during the flood times it stood at around 79%, and has steadily dropped to 64%.

This data does not include two particularly bad trains which are frequently cancelled, the 0837 Worcester FS to Paddington because it arrives at its destination after 10am and the 1551 from paddington which is an important peak train from Oxford onwards, this latter train is frequently cancelled but then runs as a replacement for the 1731 stopping service...the cynical would suggest that they cancel the train that doesnt appear on the stats but run it as the 1731 which does appear in the stats.

[John R]

Graham

The figures were published last week, and in another post I noted the 7% cancellation rate for the Bristol area services. This appeared consistent with some analysis of Wessex services I was doing for the first couple of days that your reporting was live, which showed a cancellation rate of around 10%. Though as nobody responded to my posts I stopped as they obviously weren't of interest.

[willc]

Got to say that since New Year, the 08.37 off Worcester seems to have shrugged off the cancellation curse, at least when I've been using it. The main problem now is it getting held for 10 minutes at Evesham, awaiting the 06.30 London-Worcester, which seems to struggle to run on time beyond Oxford, though fairly regular delays to the 6.52am halts train from Worcester may play a part.

And while the 15.51 cancelled then reinstated at Oxford as the 17.31 scenario may be a pain, I'd rather they run a 125 as the stopper than the solution in days past, when, without selective locks, Thames Trains and then FGW^▸ (First Great Western) kept trying to cram all the passengers off the preceding three-car Turbo (banned from Combe and Finstock's two-coach platforms), plus all the halts train passengers, into a two-car Turbo, which for some strange reason didn't have enough space for them.

Although Adelantes had more space and selective locks, while the halts train was running through from London, the shenanigans involved in emptying the preceding Adelante, moving it to the sidings, then bringing in the stopper, emptying that, then bringing back the Adelante and loading it were a tad time-consuming.

Occasional observation of FGW website during recent days suggests a drastic fall in reports of problems overall, particularly crew shortages, which with the holidays over and crews presumably taking on more overtime, perhaps indicates how much FGW has been relying on this happening to keep services running. Any thoughts from the professionals out there?

[Lee]

Graham

The figures were published last week, and in another post I noted the 7% cancellation rate for the Bristol area services. This appeared consistent with some analysis of Wessex services I was doing for the first couple of days that your reporting was live, which showed a cancellation rate of around 10%. Though as nobody responded to my posts I stopped as they obviously weren't of interest.

Please do continue to provide such info. Personally speaking, just because I dont comment on something, that doesnt mean that its not of interest to me.

[grahame]

Please do continue to provide such info. Personally speaking, just because I dont comment on something, that doesnt mean that its not of interest to me.

Further statistic on that.

I sent a link to a new web page out to quite a wide circulation list yesterday, with a request to people to circulate it further as appropriate. I got half a dozen responses.   How many people to you think read it? Well - I have a counter set up on the number of times that each of the IMAGES is called up (so that search engine hits aren't counted) and it's over fifty in less than 24 hours.

Moral - people DO read, even if they don't actually write an tell you! 

[grahame]

And a further statistic ... the performance page that I set up has had a somewhat muted welcome - I've not been too sure how busy (or otherwise) it has been, so I just had a look in the logs.

It has been visited over 1200 times in a couple of weeks, from nearly 300 different places.

(Page in question - http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/running.php)

[Chris from Nailsea]

It has been visited over 1200 times in a couple of weeks, from nearly 300 different places.

Apparently, one visitor was an Andrew Haines, from Swindon ...