^Appalling^ rail service slammed

[whole diary]

[Tim]

I really don't understand what planet some commuters are on some times.

Those who pay the least complain the most.  It is a universal rule.

[Toiletdriver]

Time for a driver to stick his oar in!
Commuters, spread your travel FFS^▸ (for goodness' sake (a more polite definition))! I had the misfortune of doing "office hours" recently and to listen to the whinging and moaning due to having to stand for a whole 10 minutes

Modern technology, work 0600 to 1400, or 1100 to 1900.
Thank God no more 9 to 5s until July!!!

PS I stand for 20 minutes even with empty seats, as I don't pay. Shame some other staff stay sat down.

[JaminBob]

Have we become apologists for FGW^▸ (First Great Western) all of a sudden?

No, I haven't. Fair enough things aren't perfect, but equally I think there's a balance to be struck here. I'm utterly baffled by why even a local rag would think that second story was newsworthy. Complaining about standing on a six-minute commuter journey made at the height of the rush hour seems a little precious in my opinion. Especially when the alternative bus service would be dearer and take much, much longer, with no guarantee of a seat either. I don't think this case is indicative of any huge failings on FGW's part (although there may very well be others that are), it's just someone who wants to complain for the sake of it.

This isn't just about standing for a few minutes, its about being crammed in, people all down the aisles, in the bit between the cars and squashed against the doors. How can you justify a crappy two car bus thing for the 17:30 from BTM^▸ (Bristol Temple Meads (strictly, it should be BRI))? We used to have that big loco thing, which is still all just sitting about in the sidings.

I don't care about excuses, this is typical rail industry bollocks, shuffling crappy stock from here to there, SW always seems to be last in the 'cascade' line. Its not about new routes or new services, just a few more carriages. Its nuts. Just buy some. Just sort it. I don't care about leasing agreements, and franchise terms and clearing this and that to work here or there. We're talking about getting a few more units to tack on the end of things running anyway.

Thankfully i have an alternative, the bus isn't much longer door-to-door and the bike is fine when the whether is ok. But the poor sods going from Yatton or up to Abbey Wood are a bit stuck.

Utter crap. This is why costs are spiralling and tickets prices soaring, everything takes so long on the railways, everything is so complicated and having this poisonous monopoly controlling 99% of Bristol's public transport is choking the city.

/rant. 

p.s i'd work 11 - 8 if they'd let me. They won't. 80% of people don't get the choice either

[dog box]

jamin bob as you seem well versed on the whole situation and arent interested in so called crappy excuses ...please answer this question where is the additional rolling stock going to  actually come from?
The loco stock was a temporary measure and couldnt be introduced around Bristol  as Bristol Crews dont sign the Traction.

[Trowres]

Well I do hope the rail industry (and DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)) will come up with some answers soon before the rail industry (again) loses the credibility that it's the solution to anything outside London.

[JaminBob]

jamin bob as you seem well versed on the whole situation and arent interested in so called crappy excuses ...please answer this question where is the additional rolling stock going to  actually come from?
The loco stock was a temporary measure and couldnt be introduced around Bristol  as Bristol Crews dont sign the Traction.

Your making excuses. I don't care where it comes from. China? France? The old intercity coaches sitting just outside Temple Meads?

All I heard in the second sentence was blah blah blah blah, rail industry claptrap, blah blah blah. Sign? What? Get a new crew then.

/edit language suggestion.

[grahame]

Administrator's note ... this topic was temporarily moved from public view for consideration, as the content was getting a bit strong / adversarial.  However, after that consideration I have moved it back into view, and I'm leaving it available for further comment.

There are, undoubtedly, some services which are unfit for the purpose of being a common carrier of passengers who want to travel.   If you're denied access because you can't squeeze on at Trowbridge, or denied travel because there isn't a train at all at Melksham, then clearly the rail industry is not providing that service.

It is not, however, possible simply to put more trains on the track tomorrow.  Those who complain at overcrowding would also complain at an accident caused by a driver who didn't know his train.  And I doubt whether they would want to pay the full price of extra services up to a London Underground frequency. Never the less, in parts of the South West including my home town, the rail industry and the governing bodies above us have, in the last 10 years, failed us.

There *is* a brighter side in the current review of stock levels and I'm more hopeful now than I would have been 3 months ago.   The playing field is set to be more level as far as the South West is concerned since the change of government last year.

[grahame]

P.S.   See http://csre.co.uk/  for your Chinese railway stock and I've seen comment that these folks are talking with a number of rail companies.  I also understand that talk may turn into actions sooner rather than later - though I don't think you'll see them in Temple Meads.   What you might see is them running elsewhere in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom), allowing other stock to be cascaded to Bristol.   And before you say "we don't want handdowns", remember that you yourself asked about the old coaches in the sidings at Bristol!

[Doctor Gideon Ceefax]

The complaint about overcrowding is of course valid, after all commuters pay a hell of a lot of money to often stand for ages forced against each other. It's easy to say 'well it's only ten minutes', but after a full days work, people are often knackered, tired, fed up and so forth, and the last thing they need is that. Not everyone works in an office sat on their arse all day. So I completely sympathise with the commuter, who just often sees everything as inefficient.

However it is not as simple as it all seems.

With regards the loco and coaches kit, it was hired out from a freight company, EWS^▸ (English Welsh & Scottish Railway Ltd, now known as DB Schenker Rail (UK^▸ (United Kingdom))), along with the drivers for it. The guards were Great Western staff, who had to all be trained up on it. Because the guards in question generally work the 1980's power door unit type stock, they would have had to have full training, as it is a completely different way of working, a computer example might be training windows users on linux.

As for getting 'new crew', the training period for guards to become competent is between three and six months, not including the recruitment process, which includes psychometric assessments and stringent medicals. There is no easy way to speed this up, although granted it can take ages from applying for a job, to actually starting it, but the mechanics of recruiting guards or indeed drivers can hardly be cut down, after all do you want to take someone with a criminal record for money offences, or who keeps putting passengers lives at risk due to not having the required concentration, or who has a condition that can cause them to collapse whilst doing safety critical duties? And what possible economic sense would there be to recruit new staff to work on 1970's designed coaches, with a 1990's designed engine for one or two lines?

New stock, the question being who is going to fund it? And even if such stock comes about, it will take a good while to build, then test before the training of staff can begin. If we take the example of the class 172, which is probably the most suitable design of unit for the services in question, then orders were placed for the stock in late 2007 / early 2008. The first units were delivered in July 2010, and the majority will be expected to be complete later this year. Over the pond in Ireland, the Irish railway decided to order units from Korea / Japan. The order was placed in 2005 and it was until 2007 before the first units were in service. Buying from China or whoever is unlikely to be much quicker.

Is the railway too slow and complex with regards leasing agreements and suchlike? Almost certainly yes. You won't find many people, be it commuters, the general taxpayers, railway staff, or railway managers in favour of the current set up. But then the public have systematically voted for governments who are happy to keep the system as it is. With this current administration being very much about cutbacks, the chances of railways benefiting under them are extremely slim.

I personally believe the only two solutions are either very long franchises (i.e. like Chiltern) or full nationalisation. Either way both are highly political, and would meet with opposition from either the multinationals or the unions, either option certainly would take ages to bed in, a load of lawyers would get very rich on public money, not to mention other massive costs, even if it was ultimately successful, but regardless of this, this is far beyond the remit of this thread, and becomes another topic altogether.

Are commuters getting a poor deal? Absolutely. But blame successive governments who have perpetuated this fragmented nonsense. After all the Train Operating Companies, don't exist to run trains, they exist to make a profit by running trains. Whether or not you think that is a good or bad thing is entirely up to you, but it's worth bearing in mind at all times, and of course Wrexham and Shropshire, who certainly had a superb customer focused ethos, couldn't translate that into enough cash...

[broadgage]

Whilst it may be unreasonable to expect a seat for very short journys, they should at least provide enough standing room, and seats on longer trips.
I appreciate that staff cant be recruited overnight, and that building new rolling stock takes time, but there does seem to be a lack of urgency regarding overcrowding.

However longer DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) dont need any more staff than shorter ones.
From time to time one does hear of trains sitting idle whilst passengers are denied even standing room.
If staff lack the required training for a different type of train, does anyone consider providing this training ? Or do those in charge just shrug their shoulders and say "its rush hour/bank holiday/weekend, stop complaining.

There seems to be endless disscusions, meetings, consultations etc. but very little action.
In some cases train lengths have been reduced.

[Henry]

 Obviously quite an emotive subject, we all have our own thoughts/horror stories depending upon which part of
 FGW^▸ (First Great Western) land we live in.
 Personally, like a lot of people who commute, my window of travel is quite limited.
 Most of my travel is Paigton/Newton Abbot/Dawlish and Totnes, so most of the stock from Exeter Depot.
 Only lived in this neck of the woods for 20 years so perhaps the knowledgable will tell me when
 the last time 'brand new' stock was last obtained in this region.

 My thoughts, FGW seem to be 'robbing Peter to pay Paul' relying on electrification to cascade stock to this region.
 There does not seem to be many spare units at Exeter Depot, My 0824 Newton Abbot - Paigton was 30 minutes late
 in the week, and consisted of a single unit which was obviously full.
 Next Paignton not for an hour so thank God for the number 12 bus.
 Fortunately retirement is not too far away.
 

[dog box]

Think the Pacers were probably the last brand new stock to hit Exeter and that was the first time around circa 1985. The problem is The Rail Operator is told to run this amount of trains with that amount of specified stock by the DFT^▸ (Department for Transport). we all know for right or wrong reasons the initial years of the great western franchise were under specified with the amount of stock .
Most train operators would love to replace all this worn out ex br stock, problem is if that happened DFT would find it extremely difficult to micro manage and remove a franchise from a TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) which owned its own stock..

[Doctor Gideon Ceefax]

Again we are back to the problem of fragmented private monopolies with government interference. First Group for the record actually own some of their own HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) outright. However part of the reason you see these trains on wholly unsuitable routes stopping at every lamp post, is again due to the lack of suitable stock.

As for train lengths getting shorter, this started in BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) with sprinters being brought in to replace locomotive hauled stock, but at a greater frequency. The worst example of it though being the introduction of Voyagers, which may in themselves may be suitable to supplement a core intercity network, but to outright replace HSTs and six / seven car loco hauled trains, has been a disaster.

And yes there are far too many focus groups and meetings and whatnot, where nothing much happens... But it's all a question of money, and thus becomes political...

[grahame]

There seems to be endless discussions, meetings, consultations etc. but very little action.

Don't I know it! I've been campaigning for an appropriate TransWilts service for longer than I care to remember, and there have been so many cases of meet, discuss, build up hopes, missing the annual deadline, carry on as before and it has been utterly frustrating. And many times, I have questioned the motives  of the negotiators, and the use that's made of consultation responses.  Are the negotiators talking to phillibuster the campaign?  Are the consultation results just used to tick a box that says "we have consulted"? It's very difficult to be certain of acts of bad faith, but there are some things, looking back, where I have to say "that was no co-incidence".   And it's very difficult to say "that consultation was ignored" just because our suggestions we're taken up.  Many ideas that come from consultations are ideas that are directly opposite to each other, and many of them are impractical - what do you expect when you ask people who are expects in their own fields to comment on some totally different field.  I may enjoy watching films on TV, but don't expect me to make practical suggestions as to how to administer the making of TV films.  Nine out of ten ideas I give you won't work, and the tenth will be so biased towards my own viewpoint that it would upset others if implemented.

I wrote an article a while back entitled something like "is the future or railways linking Labour constituencies?".   That was under the previous government, and was looking at how some places / regions of the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) seemed to do far better than others.  It was asked as a question; the Labour party is far more big city / urban than rural, and rail travel has a far stronger case carrying large numbers of passengers between city centres, and from the suburbs of mega-opolises such as Glasgow and London in to the centres than it does serving the hamlets and villages in remote valleys far from the madding crowd; you need crowds to make the train cost effective and make the business case for tuning it.  But the question was a good one and, sure, it did look very much as if there was a bias. Alloa - population 19000; Ebbw Vale, around 33000; Galashiels, 12000. Tavistock also 12000. Portishead, 20000, Melksham 24000, Falmouth 22000. But just a bias, not a completely open door on Labour areas, nor a completely shut one on what are now "parties of the coalition".

That's a history / background, if you like.  Yes - there have been seemingly endless meetings, etc.; it's been something of a campaign, with the parties who would be able to help having other priorities.

Have you come across the difference between "marketing" and "sales"?   Marketing is an enabler - a setting of the ground so that you're in good position, known, ground prepared, ducks more or less in line.  There's been an awful lot or marketing going on for the past few years.  Sales is the conversion of the position achieved through marketing into a real deal.  And we are, I think, now in a position to make that sale and working hard on it.   Yes - that means a few more meetings, a few more consultations as things are fine-tuned and detailed costings and business cases are put together - to "industry standard" and not just our own deductions from public available data.

The case for an increase in rolling stock in the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) area is currently being reviewed / sold - you'll have noted threads and comments about Adalante units, for example.  And the case also includes the looking at extra stock to supplement the fleet of 14x and 15x unites based in the "West".

The element of that with which I'm personally concerned is the Swindon to Salisbury service - currently two southbound and no northbound through trains a day.  It's a line that connects the major towns and city of Wiltshire - gone are the days that the area was predominantly rural, with 70% of the population now living in towns (and the five largest of those on the route). Road connections are congested (which, ironically, tells us there's a flow to be provided for) and buses are great over a few miles, but can't make the journey in a time that's economically sensible when you start looking at the distances between Chippenham and Salisbury, or Trowbridge and Swindon.

We're not so much marketing now, we're now studying and selling.  TransWilts is part of the South West case - and there are other cases in the same package which I don't know enough about to comment on.  But I can tell you that all the elements of the package are now being supported, and enthusiastically, by a far wider breadth of organisations than I have even see involved before. That's partly because of a shift in government (and thus the politics), partly because of a shift in global conditions and people's attitude to them, and partly because of growth in both the populations of the towns served, and the growth in rail travel over the West area as a whole which has exceeded, substantially, the figures that were estimated when the franchise was let.

So - in summary. Yes - it has taken a long time. Yes, it seems endless. But perhaps we can soon start talking about an extra carriage on that train from Weston, catching the "quarter past seven" from Warminster direct to Swindon (arrive about quarter past eight), or returning back to Salisbury from Chippenham after a day at Wiltshire college, on the direct train at about a quarter to four.

[paul7575]

If staff lack the required training for a different type of train, does anyone consider providing this training ?

Of course they do - when posters say such and such 'can't be done because crew don't sign the stock' - they really just mean it can't be done overnight. If needed drivers and guards would have to be trained. 

But there are issues with having unusual stock in an area - they'd have to train sufficent crew for all eventualities, without training so many that they'd never become familiar with the stock.

SWT^▸ (South West Trains) seem to manage OK with the single 158 used on the Lymington branch during the week - their Bournemouth based drivers must spend most of their time on Desiros.

Paul