Forum meet up 7 January to discuss GWRF (& Community Rail) consultations

[whole diary]

[ellendune]

Keep the franchise as it is now but trim off some of 'the fat'.

1. Remove the Brightons, plenty of alternatives on the Coastway line.

Seems sensible.

2. Curtail the Great Malverns at Worcester Foregate Street with terminators at Shrub Hill extended to Foregate Street to give connections to stations to Great Malvern and Hereford on LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise)  ? services.

Not so sure about this

3.Transfer the Greenford, Windsor, Marlow and Henley branches to Crossrail.

Greenford fits better with Chiltern

Crossrail have no diesel capability in the area so i see absolutely no benefit in this.  Sure to make the services more unreliable.

4. Maybe hive the Reading - Gatwick service off to a separate company/franchise 'Gatwick Link'.

Where will they base their very few trains?  Again few trains means less resilience. 

5. Maybe hive off the Reading - Basingstoke service off to SWT^▸ (South West Trains).

Could be a solution, but only if GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have no need for any diesels this far East.  SWT would have to base them at Salisbury which is still a fair bit away and current 158's and 159's based there are not the obvious choice of stock for Reading Basingstoke.  If Salisbury maintained and very few units for this service - the same resilience problem arises. 

In short the whole splitting franchise up into smaller chucnks reduces resilience. 

[martyjon]

3.Transfer the Greenford, Windsor, Marlow and Henley branches to Crossrail.

Maybe I should have added ; who will electrify them and reinstate through peak hour services to/from Paddington.

[ellendune]

3.Transfer the Greenford, Windsor, Marlow and Henley branches to Crossrail.

Maybe I should have added ; who will electrify them and reinstate through peak hour services to/from Paddington.

Where will they find the paths for those services?

[martyjon]

3.Transfer the Greenford, Windsor, Marlow and Henley branches to Crossrail.

Maybe I should have added ; who will electrify them and reinstate through peak hour services to/from Paddington.

Where will they find the paths for those services?

They won't, they'll use the paths that GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) can't use due to more than the usual number of trains requiring repairs at the same time / shortage of train drivers.

Seriously though, with all the hype about the 1000's more seats promised for peak hours would Crossrail really miss a couple of paths from / to Reading in the peaks in exchange for a Henley - Paddington and a Bourne End Paddington. A Slough - Paddington and vice-versa could be started back / extended to Windsor and a Hayes & Harlington - Paddington and vice versa return could be rerouted Greenford - Paddington and vice versa.

When I was at College in Slough there were 2 through morning services Windsor - Paddington, 1 non stop to Ealing Broadway then Paddington tother being all stops with likewise albeit in the reverse direction evenings. The Greenfords ran to Ealing Broadway with the unit recessing in a siding between the down relief and up main lines whilst the driver changed ends. That meant the driver leaving the cab at one end and walking along the ballast to tother end cos there were no corridor connections between a 'bubble-car' and a 'driving-trailer'. Even on the 3-car 1st generation units used in the TV there were no corridor connections so if one had a weak bladder one always used to ensure one seated oneself in the middle car of a 3-car set as that was a non motorised vehicle and the only one of the set which had a toilet which was located between the First Class compartment and Cattle Class.

[grahame]

From late last night

In Exeter today, dropping younger family members back to Uni ...

Hopefully in DIDCOT by 13:00 today for the Coffee Shop In Real Life meet up to help with best responses to the GW^▸ (Great Western) Franchise public consultation?

I have snipped who I'm quoting above because I wanted to remind EVERYONE.

I note lots of "crew shortage" cancellations today.   What doesn't come up on our map is lots of trains still running so that you can make it unless you're right down at the far end of the patch!

[Adelante_CCT]

Sadly I will be unable to join  , however as ellendune below, I have stated my thoughts in each relevant thread.

Hope everyone has a useful discussion and I'm sure discussed topics/follow ups will be posted here which would be nice to read

[grahame]

Sadly I will be unable to join  , however as ellendune below, I have stated my thoughts in each relevant thread.

Hope everyone has a useful discussion and I'm sure discussed topics/follow ups will be posted here which would be nice to read

Totally understood - we're a forum of very busy people and it's wonderful to have contributions here.  Today is a rare opportunity and not in any sense a duty.   It has to be a rare opportunity exactly because we're all so busy!

[martyjon]

Hit POST prematurely in last post so last post continues ;

Mind you, them were the days when Windsor Central had 4 platforms, Slough had 7, Henley 4 (I think), Bourne End to High Wycombe was still open, one could travel direct from Paddington to High Wycombe, Banbury, Birmingham Snow Hill, Wolverhamton Low Level, Shrewsbury, Chester General and Birkenhead Woodside and some intermediate stations I haven't mentioned like Solihull. The Blue Pullmans were the newest toys then.

Mind you, much of the signalling in the TV, with the exception of the immediate Paddington area, was still semaphore and where there were colour lights, they were just colour lights bolted onto semaphore posts / gantries from which the semaphore arms had been discarded but still operated from mechanical boxes which had cut-down levers to indicate to the signalman that the lever operated an electrical signal light or point mechanism.

Paddington had two power signal boxes, Paddington Arrivals, on the south side and Paddington Departures. between platform 12 & 13. Most arrivals ran into platforms 8 - 12 and most departures went from 1 - 7. Local TV services shared the tracks with LU from Royal Oak Subway Junction to Paddington platforms 13 - 16, TV being platformed on 14 & 15.

[SandTEngineer]

Regretfully won't be able to make the longgggggg trip up from the far Southwest now.  I hope you have a good day.  Please let us know how it all went.

[grahame]

A healthy if select group at Didcot today - good to meet you all, Gentlemen. A lot of apologies for absence, but then  we're all busy people, and as far as general online forum meet-ups go this was one of the best proportion attended that I've seen.

A big "thank you" to readers and lurkers from a variety of background who were there - local authority, train operator, industrial rail industry and LEP^» (Local Enterprise Partnership - about) all represented.  Added to passengers, user groups and community groups too.   The purpose of the day was to get us all thinking, and to look at how to make effective inputs rather than (at this stage) to define what those inputs would actually be.    In each of the break-out sessions, individuals took notes and I look forward to seeing those notes and comments being posted on relevant threads.

The slide set is online at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/did_20180107.pdf .

The slide set end with a question - "should the Coffee Shop answer the franchise, or should we just act as an enabler and informer to help others answer effectively?".    The answer / general view is that the coffee shop should answer in general and principled terms, but leave specifics to individual groups and areas.    Those present today will be doing a "round robin" to work out these principles over the next 10 days, and we'll the be encouraging others to submit too - with reference to our principles should they wish to do so.

[grahame]

Some pictures from yesterday

Paul Johnson addresses the meeting in the keynote:


Thoughts on how to have inputs that you make taken with appropriate seriousness:


And a demonstration showing how things are changing - Swindon at 11 a.m. yesterday morning:

[bobm]

It was nice to note that the Coffeeshop has sufficient standing that Matthew Golton, GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s deputy MD, felt it worthwhile attending on a Sunday afternoon.

He was there very much to listen rather than put over GWR's view.  However he did point out that such is the glacial speed with which projects happen on the railway as a whole that it is only now that some relatively simple projects - such as the depot improvements at Exeter - are happening.  This despite being in franchise agreements for a number of years and being pressed by GWR with industry partners on a regular basis.

[TaplowGreen]

Some pictures from yesterday

Paul Johnson addresses the meeting in the keynote:


Thoughts on how to have inputs that you make taken with appropriate seriousness:


And a demonstration showing how things are changing - Swindon at 11 a.m. yesterday morning:

Dennis the Menace is certainly looking older - never thought I'd see him in pink trousers!!!