The Bristol Railway Archive

A nightmare day for all rail travellers.

Various sources on SWRG:

From the FGW Website :-
The following services have been cancelled this morning;
0702 Bristol to Southampton,
0604 Bristol to Weymouth,
0630 Cardiff to Portsmouth and
0617 Westbury to London Paddington.

and now 1022 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff

Also 14:30 Cardiff to Portsmouth (fault on train). This list could be
huge by the days end!!

14:24 BTM - Cardiff caped,14:44 BTM - Cheltenham caped and attach to a Cardiff
service. Reason: Lack of sets! Im sure itll get better!!

FGW are now in such a state that Glenda Lamont, 'Director of Customer
Excuses' has issued the follwing statement. Basically what it is
saying is, 'now we've left Canton and St.Blazey our depot staff have
no idea how units work so we cant fix them. And of course we are to
tight to lease enough units'. Read on:

Train Service Disruption û Monday 11th December 2006
I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to all customers
affected by the disruption to our services on Monday morning.
Unfortunately we had to cancel a number of trains at late notice.
This was due to mechanical difficulties on these trains,
which had not been addressed by our former supplier.
Although our
maintenance staff worked hard through the night to rectify the
situation, we were still short of trains to run
the morning peak service. Unfortunately, there may still be a
residual impact on services this week, although we will deploy
standby road transport to mitigate against this.

Cancellations for tomorrow morning are starting to appear on the FGW
website now with the 05:29 Gloucester to Westbury being the first.

2B21 20:20 ex Exmouth is also cancelled due to unit failure.

And it's carrying on today:

From Glen Batten on SWRG:

"06:47 Frome-Cardiff is a single 143. Wedged full with would-be pax left behind
at Bath, Oldfield Park and Keynsham. At this rate, guess who won't be renewing
his season ticket next year? Driven to the road after 10 years almost
continuous commuting on this corridor. Thanks, First Group!"

The service on the Bristol - W-s-M route is none to clever either. It will be interesting to see what happens when the Class 150's go back to the leasing company.

Wessex Trains recognised the growth of services, particularly on the Cardiff, Bristol, Southampton route and converted the 158s into 3 car sets. An excellent move.

FGW talk about increasing the number of passengers but are reducing the number of trains and their capacity. Someone somewhere has got it badly wrong.

My fears are that FGW will offer a rail service on a par with their bus services - expensive and unreliable.

stationcat wrote:The service on the Bristol - W-s-M route is none to clever either. It will be interesting to see what happens when the Class 150's go back to the leasing company.

I think eight 150's have already gone to ATW. Reports elsewhere suggest that up to five 153's have also gone and three or more 158's will go to Reading for storage when things settle down.

Actually travel in and out of BTM was much better for me today. Instead of a 143 each way on the BTM to GCR route we got a 158 but standing on Temple Meads this evening there seemed to be an awful lot of people waiting for their two coach train to arrive. No more 153's available to attach to a 2-car unit at peak times?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/6174969.stm

One quote got a superb response from Nat on SWRG:

"What a quote: "We can't put on extra (trains) we can only shuffle round
what we've got and we have to be careful not to rob Peter to pay Paul"

Interpretation: We've just put four 153s in store at Eastleigh and four
158s in store at Reading. Also given eight 150s to Arriva Trains and
sent at least one 158 to Scotland. Basically we are to tight to lease
anymore stock to provide you a service, so please do sod off and buy a
car.....

N"

Also, from Bob Bunyar on SWRG:

"The lunch time news today on BBC Points West was at Oldfield Park station
for this mornings commuters.

It showed a Class 143 arriving 'jammed solid'. Thirty passengers waiting
were refused entry onto the train and had to wait for the following which
was SWT's 158 on Salisbury - Bristol working. Again this appeared to be full
with standing passengers.

It was also reported that yesterday, tuesday, a male passenger collapsed on
a jammed solid train and had to be taken to hospital.

I have emailed FGW with my comments about the new timetable. My reply
basically states that "FGW have tried to accommodate as many of the 9,500
suggestions received from customers in the timetable". That must mean very
few I guess!

With regard to overcrowding their Spokesperson, Adele Wheeler, said that
"within the first few weeks of the changes passengers will amend their
journey patterns before settling into new routines. There have also been a
number of journeys where the rolling stock used was not what was planned due
to failures but its being brought under control" One can only say, what a
joke!

According to this Adele Wheeler the 2006 timetable is now final and we have
to wait until December 2007 for anymore changes."

He also suggests that we "bombard FGW and the DfT with
emails and letters of their disatisfaction."

There's no point in writing to FGW, as they'll send an automated, meaningless reply, and some travel vouchers. They don't give a flying ****, in other words. I want to go right to the top, to someone in government, or in charge of the rail regulators (who don't seem to be paying attention).

WHO DO I WRITE TO?

More fun from SWRG, posted by Lizardgen:

Doing well ?????

Just a selection of trains which were cancalled on Friday Afternoon!

1400 CDF-WEY Cape BTH
1452 PAD-OXF
1500 PLY-PAD
1519 PGN-EXM Restart EXD
1704 HOT-TWY
1721 WEY-BRI
1726 GTW-RDG Restart RDH
1737 MAI-MLW
1740 GLD-RDG
1815 PAD-SWA
1833 BNE-MLW
1844 PAD-BNE
1849 MLW-BNE
1903 BNE-MLW
1919 MLW-BNE
1930 BNE-MAI
1933 BNE-MLW
1948 MAI-BNE
1948 PAD-CNM Restart RDG
1949 MLW-BNE
2003 BNE-MLW
2007 BNE-MAI
2020 MAI-MLW
2030 PAD-OXF
2120 MLW-MAI
2122 PAD-OXF
2141 RDG-BSK
2220 BSK-RDG

Also Short Formed Was:
1520 EXD-EXM 1 v 2
1544 BNP-EXM 1 v 2
1550 EXM-PGN 1 v 2
1622 FIT-WSB 2 v 4
1622 FIT-WSB 2 v 4
1634 PLY-GSL 1 v 2
1640 WSM-FIT 1 v 2
1700 CDF-WSB 1 v 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1720 EXM-BNP 1 v 2
1725 GSL-NQY 1 v 2
1732 WSB-BRI 2 v 4
1741 WSM-FIT 1 v 2

What or who are SWRG? Does anyone have a web address?

now you know the Tories buggered up the railways and that private is definitely not the best way to run the nations railway system if only this poxy government would take it away from the amateurs and give a new BR the money and let real railway men have a fresh start. please note the GNER are going bust good the greedy private sector thought that they had a licence to print money oh dear me I am weeping for the shareholders so please help them by donating to their destitution. oh the shame.

stationcat wrote:What or who are SWRG? Does anyone have a web address?

South West Rail Gen - A Yahoo Group mailing list/website where railfans post the goings-on in the SW area.

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/SWRG

South West Rail Forum - The same theme, but the site for discussion.

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/SWRGF

traveled on the 1322 fgw from temple meads to Salisbury today (Friday 22 Dec) only a two coach unit so every seat full, and then we are told to move in more as there are more to get on, like a B****y rush hour tube. The catering trolley assistant ends up in the rear drivers cab and cannot emerge for the whole journey to Salisbury, no room to get out, the guard cannot get through to check the tickets. At Westbury people are going crazy because they cannot get off it is so packed. What a way to run a railway. FGW should loose this franchise if they cannot do better than this, i hate to think what the rush hour trains were like.

From SWRGF again:

"Traincrew Insider,has said today that as of the 15th,a revised Timetable will be
introduced,early indications are that all Branch Lines in Cornwall will be Rail
Replacement Bus Services,the Exmouth Branch will be hourly,as with the
Paignton,the Barnstaple will be two hourly,the Units will be sent to keep the
Customers happy in the Bristol Area,big up to the Lib Dem MPs in Devon and
Cornwall.

The downside is staff still have to be paid ,no trains to work,no revenue
collection as always happens,no policy,and the buses are ú300 a time,now how
much would it cost to lease another couple of STORED Units?.

He also said no additional staff were at SPM to repair the Units ,when
maintainence was pulled out of Canton."

This has to be the best one yet!

lizardgen wrote:

0745 PNZ-PAD is 153372 vice HST till PLY where 57/6 will continue to Bristol and
set swap to an HST

martin407 replied:

Nice one ! ! ! ! ! Have a good journey Penzance passengers, you'll really get to
know tha passengers standing next to you on THIS journey...


One coach instead of eight...oh to have seen the looks on people's faces!

James wrote:This has to be the best one yet!

lizardgen wrote:

0745 PNZ-PAD is 153372 vice HST till PLY where 57/6 will continue to Bristol and
set swap to an HST

martin407 replied:

Nice one ! ! ! ! ! Have a good journey Penzance passengers, you'll really get to
know tha passengers standing next to you on THIS journey...


One coach instead of eight...oh to have seen the looks on people's faces!

While it is laughable, it's hard to imagine that there would be 8 coach loads worth of passengers actually at Penzance! A 153 will probably still be running half empty.

But still, every day First do the impossible..... make Wessex look good!

On their web site the blame the bus-substitution of services on the cornish branches as line problem, however when you read the text its cos they don't have enough units.

I understand from another forum that first have been "yellow carded" by the dft.