Community passenger train along the Portbury branch

jules · Post by **jules** » Sun Sep 23, 2012 8:34 pm

When you think about it, the whole things seems a little odd. FGW aren't exactly renowned for giving rail journeys away, and I would like to know their real motivation for doing it in the first place (that's not me dreaming up some "conspiracy theory" by the way, just me being curious).

It's pure PR value. Doing "something" about Portishead is part of the new franchise.

AndyK · Post by **AndyK** » Sat Sep 29, 2012 3:02 pm

I've just got home from my morning's excursion. We arrived at Temple Meads for the 09:05 departure to Portbury. The train was formed of three coaches comprising a Class 150 and a 153. Although there were a fair number of passengers, the service was by no means full. There were a larger number of uniformed FGW staff than on most services but I think they were mostly there for the ride. Nobody asked to see our tickets at any stage.

Shortly after departure, an official walked through the train sticking destination labels on the windows. They read as follows:

Portbury/Henbury
Bristol Temple Meads, Bedminster*, Parson Street*, Ashton gate*, Pill*, Portbury Dock*, Bristol temple Meads.
or
Bristol Temple Meads, Lawrence Hill*, Stapleton Road*, Filton Abbey Wood*, Henbury*, St Andrews Road*, Avonmouth*, Shirehampton*, Sea Mills*, Clifton Down*, Redland*, Montpelier*, Bristol Temple Meads.
* Train does not stop - service for special ticket holders only.
The Servernsider

This was a surprise as I'd thought all trains were running to Portbury; in fact they were alternating between Portbury and the Henbury loop.

We had to wait in the loop before Ashton Gate for a coal train to pass hauled by a Class 70. The ride to Portbury was very enjoyable despite the view being impeded by trees for most of the way. Rather than terminate outside the dock gates as I'd been expecting, the train drew forward into the sidings where a Class 66 was visible awaiting departure with another coal train.

Naturally passengers were not allowed to alight, but we were allowed one-by-one into the front cab to take a photo through the windscreen.

On the way back I asked a FGW employee whether is might be possible to remain on the train for the Henbury trip. He said nobody really knew what the arrangements were but there probably wouldn't be any problem.

And indeed there wasn't. We stayed aboard for the 11:08 departure which took about an hour to make the circular trip. This service was much fuller than the previous one and most seats were occupied. Many of these passengers must have been expecting a trip to Portbury, but I didn't spot anybody obviously expressing disappointment. After Avonmouth we waited on the double-track section under the M5 bridge to pass a down service train, then ran non-stop through all the stations to Temple Meads (which might have caused consternation for some of the passengers waiting on these stations to catch the next up service).

On arrival at TM, there was a very large crowd awaiting the next Portbury trip.

A leaflet had been distributed on the train describing some of the future plans for Bristol's railways. I was surprised to see that a new station is scheduled to open in 2013 on the Severn Beach line at the Portway park-and-ride. I knew this was an aspiration but I had no idea it was an established plan.

All-in-all a most enjoyable morning.

mow · Post by **mow** » Sat Sep 29, 2012 3:31 pm

Some of the views from the trains today.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/16582147@N ... 035596443/

Robin Summerhill · Post by **Robin Summerhill** » Sat Sep 29, 2012 7:40 pm

AndyK wrote:I've just got home from my morning's excursion.

And I've just got home from my afternoon excursion (courtesy of Andy who provided me with his spare ticket

)

After going down to Weston for lunch, I got back into BTM just in time to hear an announcement for the 1509 departure. Going to platform 8 I found a five coach train with a lot of seats empty. Wondering a) why the Devil there were empty seats whilst a lot of us had been turned down for a ticket and b) whether I could go on this one rather than the 1609 I was booked on, I started a conversation with one of the FGW staff on the platform.

Unfortunately while this chat was going on the doors on the 1509 departure closed so question (b) was now superfluous to requirements!

He told me that they were alternating between the Henbusy loop and Portbury (like Andy I was completely unaware that the second route was being run), and also that they had managed to rustle up a couple more coaches from somewhere.

I didn't bother asking the supplementary question of "why, if you had a spare 2-car set, didn't you start off with that capacity and issue more tickets?" for two reasons - firstly, I wouldn't like to be seen to stifle initiative and b) its a question for the FGW management who organised this in the first place, not a bloke on the "coal face" so to speak.

If anybody from FGW senior management reads this, perhaps they can answer the question?

I happened to overhear a conversation on the way back from Portbury - a woman with a couple of kids had been sitting on this train since the 1209 departure and had gone round twice. The kids were getting bored by now, of course, and the run was somewhat spoiled by them squawking at each other, but I accept that I'm just becoming a miserable old git in my old age

She also mentioned that the media were about on the 1209 departure as well, so there may well be some coverage on local TV on Monday.

So, my overall impression. It was alright on the day, but FGW's organisational skills appear to leave something to be desired. May I suggest for the future:

1. If they want to do something like this again, can I suggest that they give the job to somebody with better admin skills? I am only an email away if they're stuck.....

2. The person who actually organised this would probably be better off not applying for the post of Hospitality Manager for Wadworths .....

andy hole · Post by **andy hole** » Sat Sep 29, 2012 8:22 pm

Was a Great trip upto Portbury (A friend managed to get me a ticket!) was on the 16:09 trip and there were quite a few empty seats and it was 2 150s and a 153

mow · Post by **mow** » Sat Sep 29, 2012 8:25 pm

BBC Points West covered it this evening.

nickt · Post by **nickt** » Sat Sep 29, 2012 8:37 pm

I was quite pleased when I got to BTM this afternoon to be able to get a ticket from Vicky Even though I was supposed to be on 9.05 oops. I didnt realise the Henbury trip was also occuring but she said I could just stay on for the other trip. A few seats left. Great trip but got a bit narked when the token for portbury line was mentioned, suddenly the carriage was full of experts on tokens

By the way while we were stopped waiting for token to be collected and crossing to close, the Vulcan flew over which changed converstion briefly.. ( think it was meant to be flying over Filton airfield ). Would be good if First were to have open day or weekend for looking around and under BTM. Hint hint.

Western venturer · Post by **Western venturer** » Sun Sep 30, 2012 8:33 pm

I was on the 12.09 and really enjoyed the trip.. I have done the Portbury line before with 2 pairs of 37s but went along for the ride but also needing Holesmouth Junction on the Henbury/Avonmouth loop. Bonus was getting the Up Relief behind Parsons Street Station..
Not seen it mentioned but as we went through the gates into Portbury the 153 suffered some damage to the side where I think the coolant is put in.. some of the VIP faces looked a bit disturbed when the gates scrapped along the side....
Have to say thanks to First Group for putting this on.. Special thanks to Jane and Vicky for all their hard work..

mow · Post by **mow** » Sun Sep 30, 2012 9:11 pm

There didn't appear to be any foul ups at the gates with the 09.05 run to Portbury. But perhaps someone hadn't checked the clearances.

The bonus for me, was the run along the airfield at Filton.

Has anyone else taken photos? I saw plenty of the usual lineside suspects with cameras.

Robin Summerhill · Post by **Robin Summerhill** » Sun Sep 30, 2012 10:11 pm

Western venturer wrote: Special thanks to Jane and Vicky for all their hard work..

Just to add some further clarification to my post of yesterday.

I have no doubt that a considerable amount of time and effort went into this project on the part of FGW staff. However, standing back a bit and looking at the wider picture:

1. Many people who post on here had their application for tickets turned down.
2. On the day, there were empty seats on at least the 1509 and 1609 departures, as I saw them with my own eyes.
3. I posted an example yesterday of somebody I overheard saying that they had gone round twice
4. It appears that nobody (or at least nobody who posts on here and, if any group of people ought to have somebody "in the know" on such matters, then we should), had any inkling that the Henbury loop was also included in the itinerary, until they turned up on the day.

I just wonder how many people had their applications for tickets turned down so stayed away on the day, and what they would have to say about the trains running with empty seats.

No matter how positive a spin anybody puts on it, and no matter what hard work was done by FGW staff in organising it, something clearly still went very wrong.

Western venturer · Post by **Western venturer** » Sun Sep 30, 2012 10:34 pm

I can only speak for myself..I had a great day.. I applied for my tickets like everybody did.. I would have been at home had I been turned down.. I got a ticket.
It has to be said some individuals didnt make life easy for the staff..those people who "demanded " to be set down at Temple Meads (thus missing out the Up Through line) and gave Jane a hard time were out of order I think.. they should have been made to stay on till the trip finished..
As somebody has said, its not everyday a TOC organises a free train.. I think they should be applauded not criticised.

carpetcone · Post by **carpetcone** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 12:53 am

Western venturer wrote:I can only speak for myself..I had a great day.. I applied for my tickets like everybody did.. I would have been at home had I been turned down.. I got a ticket.
It has to be said some individuals didnt make life easy for the staff..those people who "demanded " to be set down at Temple Meads (thus missing out the Up Through line) and gave Jane a hard time were out of order I think.. they should have been made to stay on till the trip finished..
As somebody has said, its not everyday a TOC organises a free train.. I think they should be applauded not criticised.

You're saying that whinging passengers forced FGW to stop a train at BTM when it was supposed to go through non-stop?

Empty seats, now why doesn't that surprise me? Was that down to greedy people applying for tickets then not bothering to turn up, or maybe that FGW organisers had given them to businesses who also couldn't be bothered?

I just hope FGW don't start sending me C*%p by any method!

Western venturer · Post by **Western venturer** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 7:21 am

Why would they change the route to a platform road when it was booked on the Up through then?? There were 3 or 4 who were insistent they didnt want to do the Henbury loop and wanted to get off. I agree things could have been handled better in some situations that occurred but these things happen..

Robin Summerhill · Post by **Robin Summerhill** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 10:58 am

carpetcone wrote: Empty seats, now why doesn't that surprise me? Was that down to greedy people applying for tickets then not bothering to turn up, or maybe that FGW organisers had given them to businesses who also couldn't be bothered?

Having spent much of my working life turning other people's strategies into practical courses of action, I am aware that there are many more cock-ups in life then there are conspiracies.

If we're not careful we might end up dreaming up conspiracy theories here where none existed. Here's a scenario that stands every possibility of being something like what actually happened:

FGW senior management dream up this PR exercise as part of their franchaise-bidding exercise, and staff lower down the pecking order get the job of organising it. They get a crew and a train set from somewhere, a path from Network Rail, and then set about issuing the tickets.

The first point where I feel something went wrong was to ask people to apply for tickets on specific services, because what was happening here wasn't normal rail travel in the accepted sense of the word. People weren't going from A to B and booking their tickets in advance as normally happens, they were going on a round trip from A to A without a B to get off at. I'll hazard a guess that the majority of the people who wanted to go on this jolly weren't in truth particularly bothered about what time they went - it was simply a "day out"

This of course then led to people having their applications turned down simply because the service they chose was fully booked.

Faced with a greater demand than they had anticipated, the FGW staff at the coal face then foraged around for additional coaching stock. We understand that the train was strengthened to three coaches at this stage, so presumably a two-car set was all that was to be provided in the first place.

This allowed more tickets to be issued but, as many people had been turned down by now and the offer had been closed (online, at least), the only people likely to get the additional tickets were those who had been emailing Vicky - shall we say the awkward or persistent lot?

I can imagine a good deal of frustration on the part of Vicky and her colleagues at this point - all they were told to do was organise this outing, and now they were being overwhelmed by the totally unanticipated demand. Their email inboxes are overflowing with messages from people asking if train X is fully booked have you got a seat on train Y, and so on. I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of those emails were less than polite as well. Bearing in mind that they had their normal "day jobs" to do as well, I would expect them to feel that they had picked the shortest of straws in having to organise this one.

Now we come to the day of the bunfight itself. Inevitably, there would always be some people who had booked but couldn't make it - the car wouldn't start, auntie Flo has been taken into hospital, whatever. There might have been the odd one or two who had booked tickets but never ever intended to turn up, but I suspect they would have been very much in the minority.

On the "coal face" of the platform that morning, the platform staff could see that the trains were being over-subscribed. I don't know about anybody else, but nobody asked to see my ticket, so it is not impossible that people had turned up without a ticket on the off chance and were quite happy to sidle quietly onto the train if they got half a chance. As it was a free ride, the staff could perhaps see no reason to chuck them back off again.

The platform staff, seeing what was going on, perhaps got on the blower to somebody and found that there was a two-car set sitting idle all day, so steps were taken to get it attached to the booked three-coach train.

So now you have a situation where a 3-coach train has become a 5-coach train, now with 40% more seats available than originally planned but, in truth, no way to allocate those seats to anybody because the admin process of allocating seats had closed weeks ago. Also, bearing in mind that this was a free trip to anybody who was on the train, it removed any incentive for the staff to check tickets or indeed to throw anybody off once they'd done the round trip.

So that is how you would have a train running with empty seats and people going round twice, whilst others who had applied for tickets and were turned down sat at home and fumed, and then fumed even more when "erberts like me let the cat out of the bag about empty seats in a post on here last Saturday night

If I had been the poor sod charged with the organisation, I think that I would have done it like this:

1. At the booking stage, I would have told people that they would be allocated a seat on a first come first served basis on any of the trains that were running. They could specify a particular train if they liked, but I couldn't guarantee them a seat on it - it would just be a "first preference"

2. Once it became clear that demand was seriously outstripping supply, I would have got on to my managers asking for a strengthened train. And a strengthening that would have satisfied the demand, or close to it, not just "bung an extra coach on, then"

3. Bearing in mind that there will always be a few who won't turn up on the day, I would also have issued a few "standby" tickets to those who had just missed out, giving them permission to travel but only if seats were available on the day. If they wanted to come to BTM and run the risk of waving the train goodbye as it was full, that would have been their bad luck, but I would have done all I could.

Robin Summerhill · Post by **Robin Summerhill** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 11:07 am

Western venturer wrote: It has to be said some individuals didnt make life easy for the staff..those people who "demanded " to be set down at Temple Meads (thus missing out the Up Through line) and gave Jane a hard time were out of order I think.. they should have been made to stay on till the trip finished..

Now this is odd. Very odd.

The originally-advertised service was hourly, and to Portbury. On the day, it became alternate hourly to Portbury and Henbury. Each of those sections took up an hour - you certainly couldn't do both in 60 minutes.

If, to pick just one train, the 1209 had gone to Portbury, then at 1309 it should be back in BTM picking up the passengers for the 1309 service - not running on the Up Through. There would have been a platform full of passengers waiting for the 1309, and no doubt a lot of people on the 1209 who had booked other things to do in the afternoon so wanted to get off.

Had the train failed to stop at BTM, there would be one or two happy people who had never travelled on the Up Through before, and a couple of hundred others who were standing on the platform waiting for a train that never came, or on the train and missing their afternoon appointments.

If the service was actually booked to run though BTM non-stop then it would have compounded an already-existing cock-up quite severely.

There is a circle that needs squaring here