I'm worried.
If the franchise is about to be broken up, what is to become of this, our venerable First Great Western/Great Western Railway Coffee Shop?
Many an interesting question is raised in jest.
In spite of so many factors that can work against it, the forum was busy once again last month with nearly 2,000 posts with 9,100 users in 26,700 sessions viewing 168,000 pages. Over 95% of visitors were from the
UK▸ , and even within the remaining 4% or so the biggest group was "not set" which means that they're probably UK too!
Over the coming period where much will be discussed and perhaps change, I see little change in our direction, which has been a gentle widening away from the single
FGW▸ franchise to include connecting services and indeed other public transport links within our area. Looking forward beyond 2019 (or is that beyond 2022 or 2023) our options are open but I suspect we may wish to see only gentle development of the successful formula rather than radical change.
Politicians may need to be seen to be bringing change - whether that's combining three franchises into one as happened for 2006, or splitting the result into two which may happen in the next few years. The need to change in order to better match the demands of the future, and to grasp that nettle, is to be applauded; the need to change purely to be seen to be doing something or to follow some sort of unproven theory or dogma, or to get your name in the history books, is to be regretted. I don't see the need for change for the good reasons here, and I have no desire to test theory or dogma or to get our names in the history books this way.
