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GWR train 'forced' to reverse back to Swindon


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Interesting MSM article on a GWR service that was diverted to assist passengers from a cancelled service but got so busy they decided the best course of action was to miss out the additional stops added causing some passenger consternation.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10056495/Passengers-launch-mutiny-force-train-REVERSE-service-failed-stop-Swindon.html

 

Of course this is the media version, does anyone have the actual events that occurred?

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23 minutes ago, Mark Forrest said:

Fairly sure I was on a rail tour in the early 90s that was due to pick up at Swindon but went through without stopping, can't recall what happened on that occasion. 

It probably didn't stop at Swindon mate

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2 hours ago, Mark Forrest said:

Fairly sure I was on a rail tour in the early 90s that was due to pick up at Swindon but went through without stopping, can't recall what happened on that occasion. 

 

I was on a tour with 'Tangmere' back in 2004 which was supposed to drop off passengers at Staines on the return leg but didn't. In the end it stopped at Sunningdale and passengers for Staines had to go back by service train.

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I was there (sort of*). The service provided by GWR yesterday was an utter, utter, utter disgrace. There were NO trains from Bristol Temple Meads, Bath or Chippenham to Paddington between the 1700 and the 2000. The 1730, 1800 and 1830 were all cancelled, and the 1900 and 1930 never existed. I arrived at 1850 and sussed out the only way would be to get the 1931 XC to Bristol Parkway and join a Swansea to Padd there. However... they were diverting Penzance/Plymouth to Padd trains via Bristol TM as the B&H was blocked (pre planned) somewhere and they announced at 1915 that 1A59 1518 Pnz-Pad would stop additionally at Bristol TM (and Bath, and Chippenham, and Swindon) so I caught that.

Then at Swindon, now about 8 late we got held and the reason given was a train ahead had suffered numerous alarm activations and would return to Swindon for POLICE attention. After a few minutes 1A59 got the road to run past bi-directional on the down road from Swindon station to Bourton where it regained the up, we passed 1A58 1418 Pnz-Pad at caution and conditions on there were horrendous, there were c50-60 people stood down the aisle of each coach, the vestibules had 10-15 people crushed into each.

1A59 got past the scene 20 late, 1L92 behind got through with only about 4 mins of delay. 1A58 had changed ends when 1A59 passed and it eventually returned to Swindon, then changed ends again and pined at Reading 104 late. I estimate there were 1200 people on board, the next Bristol to London (the 2000 ex Bristol, starting there vice Taunton) was only a five car so I imagine not many cleared by that.

GWR management should resign, starting with Hopwood. The media should be all over this, there was NO engineering at all at any location between Bristol and London yesterday, all lines were open.

 

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I understand this was a classic communications breakdown.  It seems that 1A58 was issued with Special Stop Orders for Chippenham and Swindon but these were ammended by Control several times and the messages got confused.  As a result it sailed through Swindon on the Up Main.  Seems neither signaller or train crew were aware only the passengers.

 

Relaying such instructions to a train in motion is not straightforward.  There is no provision to transmit SSOs to the TMS screen in the cab and drivers are not permitted to have active mobiles in the cab whilst in motion.  Control can contact the Train Manager who can relay a message to the driver using the internal comms whilst the signaller could use the GSM-R radio to contact the driver.  But in this case it appears the signaller wasn't advised of the SSO as he routed the train through Swindon on the UM rather than platforms 1 or 3.

 

GWR have been experiencing train crew shortages on Sundays for a long time and are working to negotiate new agreements.  Not an excuse but an explanation.

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According to what seems to be a reliable report on the RailUK forum, the decision to non-stop Swindon (i.e reversing the special stop order) was taken while 1A58 was stopped at Bath Spa.  According to that account, the train crew were informed but for some reason the message did not get through to the passengers.  It's possible that the idea was to get Swindon-bound passengers to de-train at Bath Spa and take a later service in order to relieve the crush on 1A58, but that needed to be communicated to the passengers in order for it to work, and for some reason that didn't happen (though you'd have though the train crew might have noticed that no-one was getting off).  Why on-train announcements either weren't made, or didn't get through to the passengers, isn't clear (apparently the PIS on the class 800s can't be updated once the service is under way, so it seems likely it was still showing the original timetabled stopping pattern - i.e. before the special stop orders were issued, and then later partially or fully rescinded - the whole time).

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9 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

According to what seems to be a reliable report on the RailUK forum, the decision to non-stop Swindon (i.e reversing the special stop order) was taken while 1A58 was stopped at Bath Spa.  According to that account, the train crew were informed but for some reason the message did not get through to the passengers.  It's possible that the idea was to get Swindon-bound passengers to de-train at Bath Spa and take a later service in order to relieve the crush on 1A58, but that needed to be communicated to the passengers in order for it to work, and for some reason that didn't happen (though you'd have though the train crew might have noticed that no-one was getting off).  Why on-train announcements either weren't made, or didn't get through to the passengers, isn't clear (apparently the PIS on the class 800s can't be updated once the service is under way, so it seems likely it was still showing the original timetabled stopping pattern - i.e. before the special stop orders were issued, and then later partially or fully rescinded - the whole time).

According to many GWR staff on WNXX, the service was never booked to stop at Swindon.  It was the SSO that may, at one point have included Swindon but those SSO were amended several times en route.

 

the fact it was signalled straight through a middle road suggests any plan to actually stop hadn’t been fully communicated for whatever reason

 

not sure that requires Hopwood to resign, mistakes happen, we are all only human 

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From what I have read (also on RailUKForums) the train was routed through a platform road at Swindon but did not stop because the earlier SSO there had been rescinded at Bath, partially at least at the request of the Traincrew due to severe overcrowding. Clearly the message did not get through to a number of passengers, although why the train could not still have stopped to set down only is unclear. Whatever happened, issuing and advertising SSOs only to later change them is asking for trouble, given that passengers may not always hear, or pay full attention to, on-train announcements. 

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On 05/10/2021 at 07:57, black and decker boy said:

According to many GWR staff on WNXX, the service was never booked to stop at Swindon.  It was the SSO that may, at one point have included Swindon but those SSO were amended several times en route.

 

the fact it was signalled straight through a middle road suggests any plan to actually stop hadn’t been fully communicated for whatever reason

 

not sure that requires Hopwood to resign, mistakes happen, we are all only human 

I don't think they can amend the stopping pattern on an IET on route, on 1A59 it just kept saying the next stop is Reading and the Train Manager was doing announcements to cover the SSOs put into that.

 

Hopwood is a joke and the buck has to stop somewhere. The previous time I tried using GWR there was also a three hour gap in service without good reason, and that was Saturday 25/09 from Bristol to Bridgwater when they caped the 1356 at 1415 (no guard) and the 1455 was already cancelled, no traincrew. They have totally failed to manage the situation regarding crew availability on Mondays to Saturdays, cancellations have been horrendous and usually announced some time AFTER the train should have gone and typically leaving passengers stranded on remote stations with no/little information and certainly no alternative but to stand there listening to endless recorded "Safety", "security" or "penalty fare" announcements. The amount of cancellations during the summer was so high that well over 50% of trains I intended to catch did not run at all.

 

Sundays are outside the working week for drivers, and I suspect guards as well and GWR has done nothing meaningful to address that, either by negotiating them into the working week or giving proper incentive for staff to work them. We might not like the EMR service on Sundays but at least it's "reliably thin" so passengers can plan around it, GWR is just "cancel it as we go along". And don't get me started on the condition of the fleet, breakdowns and short formations are the norm on "West" services and (not all their fault) there is no recovery to a full/fully formed service in sight on IET worked routes. 

 

How bad does it have to get before Hopwood resigns?!

 

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37 minutes ago, fiftyfour fiftyfour said:

I don't think they can amend the stopping pattern on an IET on route, on 1A59 it just kept saying the next stop is Reading and the Train Manager was doing announcements to cover the SSOs put into that.

 

Hopwood is a joke and the buck has to stop somewhere. The previous time I tried using GWR there was also a three hour gap in service without good reason, and that was Saturday 25/09 from Bristol to Bridgwater when they caped the 1356 at 1415 (no guard) and the 1455 was already cancelled, no traincrew. They have totally failed to manage the situation regarding crew availability on Mondays to Saturdays, cancellations have been horrendous and usually announced some time AFTER the train should have gone and typically leaving passengers stranded on remote stations with no/little information and certainly no alternative but to stand there listening to endless recorded "Safety", "security" or "penalty fare" announcements. The amount of cancellations during the summer was so high that well over 50% of trains I intended to catch did not run at all.

 

Sundays are outside the working week for drivers, and I suspect guards as well and GWR has done nothing meaningful to address that, either by negotiating them into the working week or giving proper incentive for staff to work them. We might not like the EMR service on Sundays but at least it's "reliably thin" so passengers can plan around it, GWR is just "cancel it as we go along". And don't get me started on the condition of the fleet, breakdowns and short formations are the norm on "West" services and (not all their fault) there is no recovery to a full/fully formed service in sight on IET worked routes. 

 

How bad does it have to get before Hopwood resigns?!

 

I thought (re) privatisation was going to fix these issues, because the profit motive is always there to prevent these types of mistakes?

 

At least, that is always the reason given down under. Are you sure you aren't mistaken?

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59 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

I thought (re) privatisation was going to fix these issues, because the profit motive is always there to prevent these types of mistakes?

 

At least, that is always the reason given down under. Are you sure you aren't mistaken?

Privatisation has largely failed to deliver over here, crucially since many companies reached the end of franchises where they carried a commercial risk and went onto direct awards effectively paying them a % to just run services; GWR has been the longest standing example of such a deal since their franchise ended in c2014. They are not unique in this and other operators including franchised operators have their woes (EMR, ScotRail and West Midlands Trains for example are each embroiled in a self inflicted crisis delivering Sunday services) but GWR has it worst and has failed to get any kind of grip meaning there not even "jam tomorrow" for the optimists. There are a number of other factors afflicting GWR which include but are not limited to diverse traction types which not all crews have knowledge of, low morale among staff leading to high sickness levels and disinclination to do overtime, disastrously poor management of fleet maintenance resulting in their various fleets being right at the bottom of reliability tables by a shocking margin and a general culture of "can't do" across the whole company. 

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On 04/10/2021 at 21:40, Mike_Walker said:

I understand this was a classic communications breakdown.  It seems that 1A58 was issued with Special Stop Orders for Chippenham and Swindon but these were ammended by Control several times and the messages got confused.  As a result it sailed through Swindon on the Up Main.  Seems neither signaller or train crew were aware only the passengers.

 

Relaying such instructions to a train in motion is not straightforward.  There is no provision to transmit SSOs to the TMS screen in the cab and drivers are not permitted to have active mobiles in the cab whilst in motion.  Control can contact the Train Manager who can relay a message to the driver using the internal comms whilst the signaller could use the GSM-R radio to contact the driver.  But in this case it appears the signaller wasn't advised of the SSO as he routed the train through Swindon on the UM rather than platforms 1 or 3.

 

GWR have been experiencing train crew shortages on Sundays for a long time and are working to negotiate new agreements.  Not an excuse but an explanation.

SSO after a train has passed the previous station should be communicated to the driver by the signaller, stopping the train if necessary to tell the driver. The situation on 1A58 was 100% GWRs own creation, the reason it was stopping additionally was the THREE HOUR gap in what should be a half-hourly service on a busy InterCity route at a time of peak demand. Chopping and changing SSOs is a recipe for confusion and the control should have anticipated how busy the train would be even before the SSOs- giving passengers, train crew and signallers different messages all adds to the impression of a company managed by gross incompetents, correctly so in the case of GWR. 

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27 minutes ago, fiftyfour fiftyfour said:

SSO after a train has passed the previous station should be communicated to the driver by the signaller, stopping the train if necessary to tell the driver. The situation on 1A58 was 100% GWRs own creation, the reason it was stopping additionally was the THREE HOUR gap in what should be a half-hourly service on a busy InterCity route at a time of peak demand. Chopping and changing SSOs is a recipe for confusion and the control should have anticipated how busy the train would be even before the SSOs- giving passengers, train crew and signallers different messages all adds to the impression of a company managed by gross incompetents, correctly so in the case of GWR. 

Sadly, this isn't a one-time occurrence.  Sunday afternoon trains from the WoE are always busy and therefore Control should never issue SSOs for them if diverted, they should always run non-stop between Taunton and Reading if the B&H is not available.  One result of this is that crews are reluctant to volunteer for Sunday working (on GWR almost all Sunday working is voluntary) so they don't have to deal with such situations but that becomes a vicious circle.   Management have tried over and over again to make Sundays a regular working day but the unions won't have it.

 

To describe GWR management as "gross incompetents" is offensive and unfair.  Mark Hopwood is considered to be the most competent manager in the industry (and that's by his peers) and he has put together an equally talented team at executive level.  But there are some situations which need careful handling to avoid making matters worse.  Sunday working is one of them and is being addressed but it takes time to win over the staff who will be most affected.

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1 hour ago, Mike_Walker said:

Sadly, this isn't a one-time occurrence.  Sunday afternoon trains from the WoE are always busy and therefore Control should never issue SSOs for them if diverted, they should always run non-stop between Taunton and Reading if the B&H is not available.  One result of this is that crews are reluctant to volunteer for Sunday working (on GWR almost all Sunday working is voluntary) so they don't have to deal with such situations but that becomes a vicious circle.   Management have tried over and over again to make Sundays a regular working day but the unions won't have it.

 

To describe GWR management as "gross incompetents" is offensive and unfair.  Mark Hopwood is considered to be the most competent manager in the industry (and that's by his peers) and he has put together an equally talented team at executive level.  But there are some situations which need careful handling to avoid making matters worse.  Sunday working is one of them and is being addressed but it takes time to win over the staff who will be most affected.

I agree 100% with paragraph 1, I'd certainly not volunteer for overtime under the current management climate.

 

I disagree 100% with paragraph 2! I'd sack the whole lot of them starting at the top, the business is failing at all levels and by all reasonable measures and other owning groups wouldn't touch the GWR team past or present with a barge pole. Can you name one single meaningful measure by which GWR could be rated above any other TOC? Mellors was perhaps worse fractionally worse whilst at GWR and now at SWR because he oversaw every single GWR fleet plummet to the bottom of the MPC/MTIN tables, and that includes ALL tractions they then operated; Class 143, Class 150, Class 153, Class 158, Class 165/166, HST, Class 387- the full set. Hopwood has failed to get a grip on ANY issue, instead of delivering on the promised timetable we have had a string of excuses and the only one I accept as being outside their control is the IET cracks. Non delivery of the significantly reduced weekday timetable is entirely down to GWR, and the Sunday situation is utter farce. At least EMR, and I suppose ScotRail to an extent, have taken sensible steps to tell intending passengers what to expect from them on a Sunday which allows them to choose other modes, although in the case of ScotRail the "no service at all" message is very damaging, but perhaps less so than GWRs weekly chaos. I doubt anyone on GWRs executive team other than Hopwood has even 10 years experience on the railway and none of them can blame 'legacy' issues as First Group has been wrecking that service now since 2006 and longer for most constituent elements. It's a source of black humour that the original 1996 GWT set-up promised to "empty the M4" whereas GWR has managed to overfill it- it's the often the sole option and the coach operators must love GWR. As a rail passenger I most certainly do not.

 

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3 hours ago, fiftyfour fiftyfour said:

I doubt anyone on GWRs executive team other than Hopwood has even 10 years experience on the railway.

 

A couple of minutes of research would have told you that this was not true.

 

GWR's Leadership team as listed on their website, with a little extra background from LinkedIn. 

 

Mark Hopwood - Been in railways since 1989 - As you said he has lots of experience. - 

Richard Rowland - customer service - Been in the rail industry since 2005

Ruth Busby - HR - Just over 3 years experience in the rail industry.

Duncan Rimmer - Finance - Joined BR in 1993.

Phil Delaney - Commercial - over 4 years at GWR and over 10 years at the Trainline.com

Barry Milsom - Train service delivery and performance - Been working in the rail industry since 2002.

Simon Green - Engineering - started working for BR in 1989

Tom Pierpoint - Interim Business Development - over 7 years in the rail industry. 

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9 minutes ago, Kris said:

A couple of minutes of research would have told you that this was not true.

 

GWR's Leadership team as listed on their website, with a little extra background from LinkedIn. 

 

Mark Hopwood - Been in railways since 1989 - As you said he has lots of experience. - 

Richard Rowland - customer service - Been in the rail industry since 2005

Ruth Busby - HR - Just over 3 years experience in the rail industry.

Duncan Rimmer - Finance - Joined BR in 1993.

Phil Delaney - Commercial - over 4 years at GWR and over 10 years at the Trainline.com

Barry Milsom - Train service delivery and performance - Been working in the rail industry since 2002.

Simon Green - Engineering - started working for BR in 1989

Tom Pierpoint - Interim Business Development - over 7 years in the rail industry. 

Begs the question why is GWR in such deep difficulties then? 

 

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/gb-nr:BTH/2021-10-03/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=pax-calls&order=wtt&toc=GW

 

and that is on the severely reduced timetable for Covid on a day when there was no engineering on any route directly served from there....

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fiftyfour fiftyfour said:

GWR management should resign, starting with Hopwood. The media should be all over this, there was NO engineering at all at any location between Bristol and London yesterday, all lines were open.

 

Could you do any better??? I doubt it

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33 minutes ago, fiftyfour fiftyfour said:

So your option is to leave utterly incompetent clowns in charge and let the service spiral even further into decline? There is plenty of talent within the industry which could be put in there to shake things up, restructure the teams and root out the dead wood. GWR as a business is not beyond hope, they have a lot of very good staff at all levels, they have just had a once in a generation huge investment in electrification and new trains. Passenger confidence and in turn demand could be rebuilt if a reliable, efficient and value for money service could be delivered. The current team has proven incapable, and in case anyone is wondering I'm not basing this on 1A58 last Sunday, its been terrible for too long and I dread having to use GWR these days- should a TOC be provoking that kind of reaction from an enthusiast and natural supporter of rail?

 

 

 

Not at all. Everybody thinks they can do better than the people in charge when things go wrong and are quick to assume that they know all the answers. Don`t forget we are still coming out of a pandemic and that there are staff shortages and other related problems. Do we want headlines like the ones published in the Sun years ago saying "It only takes two weeks to train train drivers so why can`t we do it ". There was a national outcry. People are only human beings and EVERBODY makes mistakes . So before ranting and raving take into account all the circumstances involved.

Also don`t forget that an element of instructions/advice given out don`t apply to me and I am the only passenger that matters comes into play from a minority, and that the situation can change minute by minute.  

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Fiftyfour Fiftyfour:  I deduce from your comments that you are not employed by the company.  If you were, your views would be very much in the minority.  Mark Hopwood is greatly respected by staff at all levels and widely so across the entire industry particularly among those who have worked with and for him.  Today's GWR is a world away from the one Mark inherited in 2008 which then was by common agreement a basket case.   He has turned it around and staff morale is generally very good.  You get the occasional grumbles but that applies to any business in any field.  When he took over we had trains leaving Paddington late for no better reason than the driver decided to finish his cup of tea and paper at his pace; "The company doesn't give a shi7 about me so why should I bother" is how Mark described it to me adding, "You can't condone such an attitude but you can fully understand it, treat staff like that and don't be surprised if they don't cooperate and get bolshie."  In his book, every employee is of equal importance in the running of the business - if they weren't they wouldn't be employed - and you treat them with the respect you expect for yourself.  He wouldn't dream of passing through one of his stations or travelling on his trains without stopping to pass the time of day with the staff, not as boss and employee but as equals, or as you would family and friends.  That is why he is seen as approachable and respected.  He's been on the railway long enough and done most things so he knows how things are done and others respect him for that.   That said, he doesn't suffer fools and if one of his executive team doesn't match up to the high standards he expects they are soon on their way!  I've seen him in full "hair-dryer" mode and it's not something you'd want to be on the receiving end of!  If he is as incompetent as you claim why was there real concern and worry among GWR staff at all levels that he wouldn't return from his secondment to SWR last year?  A secondment requested by the SoS as he was seen as the only person capable of getting a grip on that company's problems.  I'd refer you to the two-part interview with him in the Railway Magazine earlier this year to get an insight to the real Mark Hopwood.

 

I will admit that I have had the pleasure of knowing Mark since he was about 13 (I'm around 20 years his senior) and consider him a close friend but that doesn't cloud my judgement.  Over the years we've had some "robust" exchanges where I've never held back from telling him what I think if I consider he's going down the wrong path.  Back when we first knew him, when he joined the Marlow & District Railway Society (of which he is now president) he would go out trainspotting at weekends and tell us what was wrong with the railway adding that when he leaves school he was going to join BR, become General Manager of the Western Region and sort it all out.  We laughed at him at the time, but here we are 35 years later and he's got that job (or it's modern equivalent) and true to his word he has sorted it out.  As a lifelong railway enthusiast (something his predecessor despised), he brings an understanding to the job beyond that of simple bottom line and profit. True, there are issues still to be tackled but many of those you describe and complain about are not in his power to tackle in the modern railway - often it's down to Network Fail,  train suppliers/owners or the DafT.  Personally, I fear things will only get worse under Shapps' brave new GBR regime with even more micro-management from generally clue-less civil servants.

 

There aren't many senior managers, if any, in the industry who can point to serving on the committee of a passengers' group before and whilst being a part of the railway industry.  Mark can.

 

The last word should got to Chris Green, widely acknowledged as the "best chairman BR never had".  He mentored the young MH and says he recognised his potential straight away.  He considers him by far the best manager of his generation (even surpassing himself) - especially his "people skills".

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This is VERY worrying. The Mark Hopwood fan club thinks he is great, he himself thinks he has "turned it around" and "has sorted it out" so the ills are blamed on Network Rail, ROSCOs, DfT or anyone else but themselves. I worked for the old FGW structure for six years until 2006 and left to work for another operator and I could see it was getting worse then- we were getting flak almost daily from the passengers and I watched the quality of the product take a nosedive despite our best efforts. You will always get a few awkward squad in any organisation but I don't recognise a "f*** 'em" culture among the train crews- conversely I'm constantly told "we used to sign those or we used to go there but they took that off us". GWR has chosen to create an inflexible workforce, it has not provided sufficient incentive to crews to work Sundays or come up with a deal that comes close to what they deserve to bring Sundays inside the working week, it has barely got enough crews to run a reduced service on the other six days of the week so even if Sundays were brought into the working week they would be chronically short on the other days of the week. The rolling stock on the West side needs sorting out; non air-con suburban layout 165/166 are a retrograde step on routes like Cardiff-Portsmouth, due to an assortment of management issues Laira is unable to field enough "Castle" HST sets for the small number of diagrams they run which leads to short forms across the business and on the sets they do kick out there are usually faults like air-con failures or sliding internal doors broken. At least on LTV services they have seemingly every single Class 387 ever built so even with their worst in industry reliability the rainbow of liveries are generally able to support the reduced service. 

It's sort of therapeutic to be able to vent my feelings on the GWR service here- on about 7 out of the 10 times I have used GWR over the last 6 months the only "safety valve" has been to say out loud "Oh for f*** sake!!" after checking a station screen or phone app and finding my journey is going to be very badly delayed or simply impossible on that day. That is the reality on the ground, Hopwood and GWR have a mountain to climb- if they think they are near the top then they are seriously deluded- now that we have passed through the pandemic, the significant crew training program instigated by the cascade of stock and the disruptive electrification program the business should be in a better place than being barely out of sight of base camp.

I grant you that things improved on SWR when Hopwood went over there, but when you start off with Mellors in charge even the surviving Chuckle brother would be an improvement. Conversely GWR got a bit better by most measures whilst Galton was temporarily at the helm.

A question for you- do you use the GWR service and do you think its all fine?

 

 

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