Whats happening on Sunday (Berks and Hants) ???

[whole diary]

[amiddl]

Confused just trying to check trains from Plymouth to Newbury on Sunday afternoon but website is giving me route vie Bristol (no direct) and cant find any engineering works - anyone in the know

[Nibat]

We have been notified today about some cock up by NR^» (Network Rail - home page) in their train planning system... again.   Might have something to do.

[amiddl]

Could be - all rather odd

[amiddl]

I rang customer service this morning and they have confirmed that their web site is not showing a  number of trains including the one I wanted to catch which is indeed running. This is due to the same problem.

[amiddl]

I am still confused - its still not showing trains. FGW^▸ (First Great Western) havn't put a message on their website to show there is a problem. I would have exepected that or for it to be fixed quickly.

If I didn't know what i know I would be travelling back from PLymouth via Bristol and taking neary two hours longer tomorrow or travelling back via South west Trains. I wonder how many passengers wil be taking the information as is???

[grahame]

... I wonder how many passengers will be taking the information as is???

I asked a similar question on another thread:

So ... question remains - "if there are 50 people on the 18:45 departure from Sxxxxxx to Sxxxxxxxxxx, how many of them found our about the train from National Rail enquiries?"  ... National Rail are a resource that must cost quite a bit to run, so surely someone has looked at how much of the market they're advising, and can tell us.

No-one answered.   Looks like no-one knows.  I would have expected there to be some stats - to make sure that the people who finance National Rail are getting value for money ...

[amiddl]

Its an interesting question especially with National Rail Enquiries feeding FGW^▸ (First Great Western)'s website as well. It would be interesting to see  stats on it.

With the growth of the web, mobile phone functionality etc I suspect more and more of us are relying on NR^» (Network Rail - home page) orginated web content for our train information .

[JayMac]

ATOC^» (Association of Train Operating Companies see - here) need hauling over the coals for this. It just isn't acceptable to have no information or ability to pre-book these missing trains.

Didn't we have some NRES^▸ (National Rail Enquiry Service) booking system down-time recently to improve things?

It is also very poor form of FGW^▸ (First Great Western) not to provide information on their website about the missing trains.

[inspector_blakey]

I had the impression from RAIL magazine that the issue was down to Network rail's train planning system rather than ATOC^» (Association of Train Operating Companies see - here), so I wonder if the mistake lies there instead?

I would have expected there to be some stats - to make sure that the people who finance National Rail are getting value for money ...

Seems like an obvious question to ask, doesn't it? "Where did you find out about train times are fares for your journey?" Oddly though it's not included int he Passenger Focus National Passenger Survey (I just checked) which remains largely fixated with the rather nebulous concept of "satisfaction" and very light on actual hard statistics. I wonder if they've ever considered adding a question along these lines into the survey.

[JayMac]

Point taken. Whoever is responsible needs a kick up the backside. And all parties affected (ATOC^» (Association of Train Operating Companies see - here), TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company), booking engines) should be informing the travelling public about the 'missing' trains and apologising for the inability to book onto them.

[Ollie]

Related link: http://railwayeye.blogspot.com/2010/05/nr-timetabling-tale-of-woe.html