More dangerous overcrowding to the Westcountry

[whole diary]

[TaplowGreen]

Surely the cost of walk-on fares doesn’t alter at all?  Very expensive if you involve London or Reading or places like that, but still pretty reasonable if you are going from, say, Taunton to Exeter, which is probably more likely to be the sort of journey involved to go to see Aunt Hilda on the spur of the moment.

Expect hellish conditions on many trains on Thursday afternoon, Friday morning and most of Monday with the usual ‘jam tomorrow’ caveat that more capacity should be available for Easter next year onwards.  That’s provided GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) can train up enough staff of course, their recent track record not exactly inspiring confidence.

I was thinking that too re: staff........if Aunt Blodwen or Uncle Ivor are expecting a visit this Easter they may well be disappointed. As GWR can't manage anything like enough drivers for Welsh services at the best of times, Easter is likely to be hopeless........and if they happen to have relocated along the Cotswold Line, heaven help them!!!

[TaplowGreen]

Just seen a tweet on the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) feed, apparently over 100 people, mostly with seat reservations, were denied boarding on the 1903 from Paddington this evening.........GWR don't learn, do they?




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[Timmer]

Hopefully they all managed to get on the extra 19.32 Penzance service.

[bobm]

According to Realtimetrains the 19:03 left from the unbarriered platform 1 which would have caused problems of its own.

I’ve been keeping an eye on the Taunton departure boards and it is the first train in either direction today to be reported “full & standing”.  Admittedly the message is down to the individual train manager reporting it but earlier departures seem to have been better.

[IndustryInsider]

Just seen a tweet on the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) feed, apparently over 100 people, mostly with seat reservations, were denied boarding on the 1903 from Paddington this evening.........GWR don't learn, do they?

Hopefully they all managed to get on the extra 19.32 Penzance service.

Is the 19:32 additional a new thing?

Certainly things were far, far better than I was expecting this afternoon and evening.  Virtually all long distance trains ran, with reasonable punctuality.  I saw two IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) 10-car trains running around with one half locked up (but that was early afternoon before it would have been too much of an issue), and one 5-car IET on a Swansea service, the 18:45 out of Paddington I think, that didn't look like much fun.  Heck, even the Cotswold Line survived largely unscathed with the 15:52 PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains)-MIM making it all the way and the 16:22 running.

Busy, and far from perfect, but not the meltdown I was fearing and predicted I'm very pleased to say.  Fingers crossed for tomorrow morning and Monday.  Let's hope the recent GWR disaster has been largely sorted in time for the next big getaway!

[IndustryInsider]

I’m hearing that most of Plymouth’s guards will not be turning in tomorrow due to disciplinary action taken against a colleague.

[CJB666]

Yet there are reports that GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) trains are running half-empty with coaches locked and out of use.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5671377/New-InterCity-trains-running-ghost-services-half-carriages-locked.html

On some trains from London to south Wales and southwest England, five carriages were shut off to passengers because Great Western Railway did not have enough staff on board.

The trains, which were purchased in a £5.7billion rail revamp, saw their maiden voyage in October of last year begin with age-old complaints - including delays, no available seats, broken aircon and tickets costing £200.

Great Western Railway described the closed carriages as 'isolated incidents', but The Sunday Times report four trains were run in this way during an eight-day period in April.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/passengers-crammed-in-as-gwrs-5-7bn-ghost-trains-close-half-their-carriages-nlgw8w3cd

One passenger, Rachael Claridge, was travelling with her family from London Paddington, to be told they should board one of the front five carriages on the train, because the other five were not open.

They all ended up sitting on the floor whilst other carriages were locked empty.

[IndustryInsider]

Trains to the West Country haven’t really been affected by this, yet.  Though it’s happening far too frequently on Bristol/South Wales trains so I’m glad the national press is picking up on it.

[CJB666]

One of the comments on the Mail report opines

"[redacted], Swansea, United Kingdom, about 2 hours ago

These Hitachi trains are not fit for purpose, the seats are too hard, handles stick out into the aisles and you bump into them causing injury at high speed, the luggage racks are too small and will not accept standard size suitcases, you have to unplug your charger if the passenger by the window needs to leave their seat. My wife and I tried to board one of these trains in April and our pre-booked seats did not exist? After boarding the train and finding other seats we were also told that due to staff shortages there would be no food or drinks available for the entire journey from Swansea to London Paddington....GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) is a disgrace."

[Timmer]

In GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s defense they didn't order these trains Dft did. Lessons from ordering 4/5 Voyager trains for XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) were clearly not learned that this length of train is just not suited to IC^▸ (Inter City) services. Gosh GWR struggle to crew one train net alone two joined together. Farcical situation forcing them to give up HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) too soon until 9 car sets became available. These should have been built first not the five car sets.

[IndustryInsider]

Indeed, a phased introduction of 5 and 9 car sets would have been much more sensible than just all the 5-cars first.  Was there a reason other than Hitachi being able to say it had delivered more sets more quickly?

[martyjon]

In GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s defense they didn't order these trains Dft did. Lessons from ordering 4/5 Voyager trains for XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) were clearly not learned that this length of train is just not suited to IC^▸ (Inter City) services. Gosh GWR struggle to crew one train net alone two joined together. Farcical situation forcing them to give up HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) too soon until 9 car sets became available. These should have been built first not the five car sets.

Why defend GWR, GWR were told what stock they were getting by the Dft and didn't hold their hand up and ' say wait a minute but .... '.

Why defend GWR, GWR hasn't come out and said, ' its the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)'s fault for .... '.

Why defend GWR, GWR didn't hold on to HST's and say, ' we'll release them at OUR convenience not yours .... '

Why, because if they'd gone against the DfT's dictates then there would be no chance of them retaining a future in any GWR franchise renewal.

Remember in the days when Alison Forster was MD things went ' t*** up ' caused by too tight turn-arounds at termini, mainly Paddington in an attempt to generate the funds necessary to enable the committed payments to HMG to be made which eventually resulted in the keys of the franchise to be handed back and the situation the franchise is in today.

I predicted the situation where the franchise operator would be facing a situation of having to hand to HMG £ millions in the latter years of the franchise and not being able to honour that commitment and in this case instead of monies being set aside out of the operators profits in the early years of the franchise, they paid dividends and eventually the parent company had to go to shareholders to raise millions through a rights issue what five years ago and haven't paid a shareholder dividend since.

If there are / were other factors involved then could not a reduction of the payments been agreed between the DfT and the franchise operator then HMG would of got something rather than NOTHING out the franchise or would the unsuccessful franchise bidders have cried FOUL in the circumstances. 

[stuving]

Indeed, a phased introduction of 5 and 9 car sets would have been much more sensible than just all the 5-cars first.  Was there a reason other than Hitachi being able to say it had delivered more sets more quickly?

It was set out that way from the start. Remember that the 9-cars were then going to be electric ones, so having the 5-car bimodes first would be more flexible on both counts. How much it would have taken to change the order when the extra engines were added I couldn't say - but not very much, since the vehicles are now pretty much the same however coupled.

In addition, when seen from a few years in advance, the whole production period doesn't look so long, does it? (7 months for 5-cars, then 5 months for 9-cars.)

[broadgage]

Before these new shorter DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) replaced full length HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train), there was a general view on these forums that they would be wonderful, and that busy services would be full length, and that a trolley was better than a buffet.

Now that the wretched units are in regular use we hear regular reports of half length trains, or of full length trains with half locked out of use, and of no catering.
All very Voyager like, as predicted by my famous crystal ball.

The newspapers contain many reports regarding the hard seats, the lack of luggage space, and the absence of a buffet.

Supporters of FGW^▸ (First Great Western)/GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) seem to have changed their tune a bit, from "they will be wonderful" into "They are not wonderful, but that is because the government specified them"

[IndustryInsider]

We need to wait for them all to be in service before making any judgement regarding capacity in my opinion.  Half of the train locked out is not the fault of anyone other than GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), reliability has been acceptable in my opinion and is likely to get better.  5-car trains on services booked to be 10 has been higher that I would have expected but not unduly so (though combined with the number running around with half locked gives an unacceptable service). 

Seats in my opinion are ok, I would prefer slightly softer but I suppose the could always be replaced, and the improved legroom and number of table seats is most welcome, though first class is a definite step backwards.  Luggage space seems to be ok, the overhead racks are especially spacious, but end of carriage racks could have been slightly bigger.  The fact the reservation system is still not working properly is disappointing, but when it does it will be a big improvement.  I would say a trolley is more suitable than a buffet rather than better, though I remain of the opinion they should have a buffet for the WoE routes.

Some of the negative comments are clearly from people like yourself that had already made their minds up beforehand, but doubtless some others will be disappointed with certain aspects and some impressed with some of the improvements over the HST^▸ (High Speed Train) fleet.

On balance I would give them a 7 out of 10 rating as a train, which could rise to 8 or 9 if and when a few issues are resolved.  The overall service offered by them is only worth 4 or 5 out of 10 for the other reasons I’ve mentioned though.