Total Weekend Closure of Reading 14-15 October

[whole diary]

[John R]

Agree. GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) are unable to honour the booking, so you should have maximum flexibility as to what you want to do at no additional cost, whether that be leave earlier, change day, or cancel.

[Timmer]

What GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) put in their website should cover you TG and anyone else who chooses to travel at a different time because of this late notice shutdown:

Your train may not be running, including some late on Friday night, so we recommend you travel on alternative dates if possible. If you do choose to travel, please allow longer to complete your journey.

The more I look at what GWR have so far put out about this, the more I think they need to make things clearer for those who have already bought tickets. It really needs to say your ticket will be valid to travel before the weekend (Friday) and after the weekend (Monday)

How many people who have booked tickets are going to turn up next weekend expecting a through train to London or vice versa to find that's not the case because they aren't aware of things happening on the railways like most on this forum?

It's quite clear now that what was meant to happen two weeks ago during the last closure didn't.

Mark Hopwood needs to come out and apologise on behalf of the rail network for the way all this is being handled instead of leaving it to his front line staff to sort out passengers next weekend who were expecting a train to/from London.

Not a good way to end 'Customer Service Week'. Who on earth comes up with these barnpot ideas when customer well being is well down the priority list no matter what companies say. Profit always comes first.

[John R]

Another shining example of customer service from Mark Hopwood.  Never mind that we ran trains via Bicester only a couple of weekends ago, we can't be bothered to pull out the stops to do so again this time.  

I can only think it would be because of obtaining pilots for the running between Oxford and Marylebone. However, I'm sure GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) will be well compensated for this late notice work so could send an SOS to drivers offering to reward them handsomely for offering to pilot that weekend.

Out of curiosity, how much training would each driver need to learn the route between Oxford and Ruislip/Ealing? And could it be desk based?  I'm not thinking that every driver would need route knowledge. Just a small pool that could take over for the section between Oxford and Paddington. (Though I'm conscious that with a journey time of around 1 1/2 hours, each driver could only do two round trips, so that small pool wouldn't be quite that small to allow 2 tph to run throughout the day.)

[ChrisB]

Expensive. And to train means during wirking hours, so fewer available to do what you're already expecting them to do....drivextrains rather than them be cancelled. You can't have both

[IndustryInsider]

You'd probably need a couple of weeks to learn that route, especially if you were looking at learning Marylebone as well.  There was talk about it a couple of years ago, but I guess it's not going to happen now that there are only a limited number of possessions remaining before Crossrail and electrification works are completed, and it will not be needed often, if at all, after that.

[Timmer]

I would hope that GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) are planning blanket announcements about this closure next weekend across social media etc. Its not even on the front page of their website. If it wasn't for didcotdean flagging it up that it had been added to the reading2017 page we'd all be none the wiser.

Waiting until the revised times are uploaded to the journey planner before going public?

[Timmer]

If the Famous Five (as currently shown on the front page of the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) front page) were planning to go to London next weekend, I don't think they would be very impressed with their journey involving a rail replacement bus. Again, why some of us questioned why GWR were going ahead with a major marketing campaign before the new trains were in service.

[John R]

You'd probably need a couple of weeks to learn that route, especially if you were looking at learning Marylebone as well.  There was talk about it a couple of years ago, but I guess it's not going to happen now that there are only a limited number of possessions remaining before Crossrail and electrification works are completed, and it will not be needed often, if at all, after that.

Gosh that's much more than I would envisaged for a fairly straightforward route (assuming Marylebone wasn't needed). Clearly that wouldn't be possible given the short notice or viable. Out of curiosity why would it take so long?

[CyclingSid]

... and another example of NR^» (Network Rail - home page)'s positive contribution, it appears that the Future engineering work part of the NR site has now completely died. Never mind just waste time looking at multiple sites.

[IndustryInsider]

You'd probably need a couple of weeks to learn that route, especially if you were looking at learning Marylebone as well.  There was talk about it a couple of years ago, but I guess it's not going to happen now that there are only a limited number of possessions remaining before Crossrail and electrification works are completed, and it will not be needed often, if at all, after that.

Gosh that's much more than I would envisaged for a fairly straightforward route (assuming Marylebone wasn't needed). Clearly that wouldn't be possible given the short notice or viable. Out of curiosity why would it take so long?

I'm only guessing, but two weeks would equal about 16-20 trips in each direction which would be about right I'd have thought, based on other routes.  You wouldn't need to learn too much information about the stations, but it's quite a long route (about 70 miles if you include Marylebone) and although it looks easy, don't forget there are multiple speed changes and sections of bi-directional running.

[JayMac]

An alternative is to hire in pilot drivers to route conduct. That's what's happened for previous diversions via South Ruislip and Old Oak Common Junction.

[Timmer]

An alternative is to hire in pilot drivers to route conduct. That's what's happened for previous diversions via South Ruislip and Old Oak Common Junction.

Off them enough, even at this late stage and I'm sure you would have plenty of volunteers prepared to give up a weekend to provide GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s customers with a better service rather than leaving them short at Didcot/Theale to board a replacement bus to Slough.

[JayMac]

My freight driving friend would certainly do it again. And his home depot is Tyne Yard!

[ChrisB]

I suspect NR^» (Network Rail - home page) won't pay whatever figure is needed for how ever nany pilots.

Anything on at Wembley Chiltern might be running an intensified service for?

[Timmer]

I suspect NR^» (Network Rail - home page) won't pay whatever figure is needed for how ever nany pilots.

No let GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s passengers pay the price instead. Which leads me to ask the question, how long did NR/GWR know that they were going to close the line through Reading down for this entire weekend?