See You would be no Better off with National Express!

[whole diary]

[dog box]

You are right to a point Smithy about less stock, meaning its got to be in service more, Its like running a fleet of Morris 1000s Which are prehaps covering 500 miles a day.
My Point is the stock has not has an F Exam for donkeys years, which should have been undertaken long before FGW^▸ (First Great Western) took over the Franchise, only now are First spending the necessary money on the stock.
also lack of train crew will be a thing of the past towards the end of the year looking at how many people they are employing at the moment.

[Doctor Gideon Ceefax]

Worth noting that the National Express bid did consider replacing HST^▸ (High Speed Train)'s with Voyager derivatives, similar to on the Midland Mainline.

Also worth looking at the number of strikes on Central Trains and Silverlink whilst they were in charge.

[swlines]

Don't forget the strikes on MML^» (Midland Main Line. - about) in it's latter few days!

[vacman]

Worth noting that the National Express bid did consider replacing HST^▸ (High Speed Train)'s with Voyager derivatives, similar to on the Midland Mainline.

Also worth looking at the number of strikes on Central Trains and Silverlink whilst they were in charge.

Indeed NX did plan to replace HST's with Meridian type units, NO THANKS!!! think we'll stick with HST's thanks!

[smithy]

... WESSEX Trains, spent sod all on the stock for a good number of years and FGW^▸ (First Great Western) are now reaping the benefits of this penny pinching.

you are wrong there the reliability under wessex was far superior than fgw.

the reason they are crap now is less stock meaning what we have has to work harder, simply has to leave depot each day to form service unless planned in for work, meaning entering service with known faults.
wessex as you say spent nothing on stock in terms of interior type stuff, but mechanical and electrical repairs were done so fgw are not reaping the benefits of penny pinching but have actually bought all this on themselves by not having a clue how to run and maintain dmu services.

Sorry, smithy, but I'm not convinced?

In my long-term (10 years+!) experience of commuting from Nailsea to BTM^▸ (Bristol Temple Meads (strictly, it should be BRI)), the local DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) have always been rather unreliable!  For example, this evening, the 1753 was an old (un-refurb) Wessex 150/2: doors A1/A2 were defective - and they had clearly been defective for long enough for FGW to arrange for printed posters to be placed on them, to that effect!  What I'm saying is, the mechanical and electrical state of these units is apparently down to years of 'neglect' - and that does go back to when they were run by Wessex! 

chris i am not trying to convince anyone just saying it how i see it.
i am not saying reliability was excellent under wessex but it was better than now.

i work for fgw and the unit reliabilty has gone down hill,in my opinion because of lack of knowledge/experience on dmu's.
the casualty mileage is less than it was basically meaning it takes less miles for the unit to break down.
the defective doors you mentioned could not have been like it long as a unit cannot leave a depot with doors loou,the printed poster is probably a new type one being issued to train crew like the new ones for toilet doors.

[grahame]

chris i am not trying to convince anyone just saying it how i see it.
i am not saying reliability was excellent under wessex but it was better than now.

I can confirm this - not in terms of the number of miles between failure but in terms of the percentage of services cancelled - at least for TransWilts Monday to Friday services.  In Wessex Trains days, the line had a bit of a reputation of its trains being cancelled quite often - to the extent that we set up a monitor.  And that monitor is still running.  The figures I calculated a few weeks ago are:

Wessex trains - last 3 months to 31.3.2007 - at least 2.7% cancelled
First Great Western - Dec 2006 - Dec 2007 - at least 4.5% cancelled
First Great Western - Dec 2007 to early February 2008 - at least 7% cancelled

I say "at least" as I have given the companies concerned the benefit of the doubt where their own recording / monitoring system was telling me "no report".  In each case the reports are for trains failing to serve Melksham.  So a Southampton to Swindon train that was terminated at Westbury shows as cancelled.

[12hoursunday]

Still could have been worse...First could be running it! 

Timmer as a moderator of this forum you really are a fool.

Do some research and you'll find that First (disregarding currently FGW^▸ (First Great Western)) are running some of the BEST rail franchises in this country. TransPennine Express Scot Rail and Hull Trains, and First GBrf continue to be awarded new rail freight contracts.

So judging by this I somewhat I have gut feeling they can't be all that bad!

We all know they have had problems down our neck of the woods, some of it inheriated, some of it their own making. Things do however seem better, cancellations/failure's down and more trains running right time. Let's hope that in a few months more people like yourself will be eating their just slice of humble pie. I for one think you will and can't wait for the told you so.

 

[John R]

Scotrail - benefits from huge amounts of funding from the Scottish government.
TP Express - joint venture with Keolis
Hull Trains - Open Access operator, with a simple 7 trains a day service, and again only part owned by First.

You didn't mention First Capital Connect, which has had its fair share of criticism since taking over from WAGN and Thameslink.

So all these franchises are different.

Having said that, I do hope we are in the position you say we will be in a few months, as it will mean that we will be enjoying a much better service (including Melksham?), which is what we all want.   

[vacman]

Scotrail - benefits from huge amounts of funding from the Scottish government.
TP Express - joint venture with Keolis
Hull Trains - Open Access operator, with a simple 7 trains a day service, and again only part owned by First.

You didn't mention First Capital Connect, which has had its fair share of criticism since taking over from WAGN and Thameslink.

So all these franchises are different.

Having said that, I do hope we are in the position you say we will be in a few months, as it will mean that we will be enjoying a much better service (including Melksham?), which is what we all want.   

I dissagree with your FCC^▸ (First Capital Connect) comments, the only real criticism FCC had was introducing evening ticket restrictions out of London, which nearly all other TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company)'s had in place anyway! apart from that FCC seem to be performing quite well, Scotrail may recieve big subsidys but so to Cross country, who's performence is slipping, Arriva trains wales get huge subsidy but don't even come close to comparing with Scotrail, Kelios are basicly a sleeping partner in Transpennine and it's the First brand all over it.

[swlines]

I wouldn't say "all" the TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) out of London have evening peak restrictions ... out of the commuter lot I'd say only Great Western Link, c2c and 'one' only had restrictions. All the former SR^‡(resolve) TOCs still do not have restrictions (only in morning peak are restrictions present), and FCCs^▸ (First Capital Connect) imposed restrictions actually enforced more restrictions on GNER^▸ (Great North Eastern Railways) and MML^» (Midland Main Line. - about)!

[vacman]

I wouldn't say "all" the TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) out of London have evening peak restrictions ... out of the commuter lot I'd say only Great Western Link, c2c and 'one' only had restrictions. All the former SR^‡(resolve) TOCs still do not have restrictions (only in morning peak are restrictions present), and FCCs^▸ (First Capital Connect) imposed restrictions actually enforced more restrictions on GNER^▸ (Great North Eastern Railways) and MML^» (Midland Main Line. - about)!

I said NEARLY all, I didn't think FGW^▸ (First Great Western) had evening restrictions out of Padd on local services???

[Ollie]

Only HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) out of Paddington has restrictions in the evening peak.

Local or "slow" services are not restricted.

[swlines]

Fair enough - the NFM^▸ (National Fares Manual) really doesn't give enough understanding to restrictions and there must be a misprint as I remember seeing a Reading stopper with a CDR^▸ (Off Peak Day Return [ticket type] (formerly 'Cheap Day')) restriction - but still, that basically shows that in fact very few TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) have evening peak restrictions if they're not intercity.

[Timmer]

Still could have been worse...First could be running it! 

Timmer as a moderator of this forum you really are a fool.

Do some research and you'll find that First (disregarding currently FGW^▸ (First Great Western)) are running some of the BEST rail franchises in this country. TransPennine Express Scot Rail and Hull Trains, and First GBrf continue to be awarded new rail freight contracts.

So judging by this I somewhat I have gut feeling they can't be all that bad!

We all know they have had problems down our neck of the woods, some of it inheriated, some of it their own making. Things do however seem better, cancellations/failure's down and more trains running right time. Let's hope that in a few months more people like yourself will be eating their just slice of humble pie. I for one think you will and can't wait for the told you so.

I am disappointed that you decided to resort to a personal attack against me as a person 12hourssunday to try and get your point across. I have a great deal of respect for your loyalty towards the company you work for and I'm sure First appreciate this.

I have never made any secret of not having much time for First Group as a company as I pointed out when I introduced myself to the forum last year:
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=249.0

As for eating humble pie 12hours, I sincerely hope that FGW get it right, not their sake but for the sake of their long suffering passengers who have had to put up with appalling overcrowding on some lines on which they operate over the last 15 months since THEY, along DFT^▸ (Department for Transport), introduced one of the worst timetable changes (Dec06) in the history of the Great Western Mainline.

Reducing an already very busy line (Cardiff-Portsmouth) from three carriages down to two was a crazy decision in which passengers have had to pay the price through being rammed into two carriages or worst still being left behind. That's no way to run a railway and First admit that they got it wrong and are having to put right this wrong, even though they aren't the only guilty party in all this. They run the franchise, they signed up for it so they as the operator have to take responsibility.

If things don't improve, which I honestly believe that they will and we have already seen improvements over the past few months since Andrew Haines took over, then they deserve to lose the franchise and I won't be the one crying if they do.

Lets respect eachother's thoughts and opinions even when we don't agree with them and not get personal...there really is no need for it.

[Btline]

Worth noting that the National Express bid did consider replacing HST^▸ (High Speed Train)'s with Voyager derivatives, similar to on the Midland Mainline.

Also worth looking at the number of strikes on Central Trains and Silverlink whilst they were in charge.

Indeed NX did plan to replace HST's with Meridian type units, NO THANKS!!! think we'll stick with HST's thanks!

Yes- replace them (with 9 car Voyagers/Voyager clones)! Then we can have the HSTs for CrossCountry or the Mk3s (and an electric loco) for Virgin!