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January 31, 2008
Comparing a different part of the country
I'm training this week in Beeston, in Nottingham, with a view from my training room over the station. I'm struck by the number of trains that come through, the high proportion that seem to stop, and by how modern they look - they seem to make even our most modern "158" units look slighly vintage! I know I've read that FGW has the older fleet, but this really brings it home.
But some things are the same. One of my delegates commutes from Stoke-on-Trent by train, and was telking about how it works well when there are no delays ... but come delays and connections that miss, he gets stuck at Derby.
It must have been about 20 or 30 years ago that there was a tendency to start stringing semifast and crosscountry services together, end to end, to provide a better passenger experience for the people making longer journeys. I know I travelled on the Crewe to Skegness train once - not all the way, but certainly for a substantial time, and I've been on the Manchester to London Waterloo train and the Brighton to Exeter one too.
There are still some such services around - Norwich to Liverpool is one I can think of, and now there's Brighton to the Worcester area. But some are getting cut in pieces again for operational / franchise / reilability reasons; I'm certainly not happy with what I have heard about Cross Country trains terminating in Birmingham in all directions, and I wonder about hordes of luggage-laden Grannies souting around having arrived from Bournemouth and looking for the onward train to York.
The Crewe to Skegness has gone too - at least at the time of day that my delegate travels. For it used to provide a good service for passengers from Stoke-on-Trent to Beeston. It seems that as well as forward steps which have doubled the number of passengers travelling by train since the low point, we have taken a number of backward steps.
Posted by gje at 06:33 PM | Comments (0)
January 28, 2008
Fare Strike Day
It's the morning of More Train Less Strain's highly publicised train strike, and I note that First Great Western's services are on best behaviour. Of course there are many problmes that are outisde their control and there's an element of luck involved in where floods and fataliites occur but I'll bet they've got every available train out there strengthening services, with extra spare crew to hand in the areas where they expect to see the media. Let's face it ... if I were them, I would do the same thing
Only one set of cancellations this morning ... yes, you guessed it ... the 05:29 from Gloucester to Southampton is not stopping at Chippenham, Melksham or Trowbridge.
Posted by gje at 07:32 AM | Comments (1)
January 19, 2008
On truthfully advertising the case
I was putting together a web page about a Summer Ball at Bowood - and what's more natural to use than a photograph of Bowood in that item. How about a picture - perhaps stock art - of some guests at a similar event taken goodness only knows where? Well - I COULD have done (and I see it done elsewhere all too often) but it's not my style as prefer true facts and true pictures in advertising. I don't need to tell you where I took the photo, do I?
I recall a place I used to work as a trainer buying in a model to appear in their brochure / on their publicity shots. "Why?" I found myself asking - and she didn't act natural, was seated in a coat and with a handbag and it eas all very odd! Here's my approach - a real picture of a delegates on a course, to represent what we really do. Sure - the tables at which the delegates are seated aren't artistically clean. There's a cup of coffee at Sharon's right hand and a very obvious network cable from Patrick's laptop that distracts from the picture. But you also see the truth of how much desk space you get, the training notes, pens, and rest of the paraphenalia of a course.
In other aspects of life, too, I see pictures used away from their real environment to support articles and situations. Here's part of a picture that I saw used on the More Train Less Strain web site (I'm allowed to copy small extracts for critical review, by the way) which - sure - helps make a point. Yet my own approach would have been to use a genuine picture take in the Wiltshire / Bath / Bristol area showing their case and their overcrowding. I think I have one somewhere ...
Yep, thought so!
It's not only the pictures that can provide misleading advertising; I'm also concerened at some marketing taglines that I've seen employed, and even web site names. http://www.ihatefirstgreatwestern.blogspot.com/ is a catchy URL, and it provides a very powerful hit ... but does the lady who writes it really HATE the company? No - that's putting it rather strong. And I know it's lost her some potential supporters who have been put off by the apparent mindless negativity (I say apparent because once you start reading past the word "hate" you see there's a lot to it).
This article has strayed a long way for the campaign for a decent, appropriate, train service across Wiltshire. But I do want to leave you with a genuine "TransWilts" picture from Save the Train (perhaps a name that itself needs changing now that we're having to campaign for the return of a servuce that was lost through culpable neglect) ...
Posted by gje at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)
January 16, 2008
Another slap in the face from First Great Western
Last night ...
1. Local trains take off and 125 put on to come through Melksham in their place
2. 125 rerouted again to B&H
3. Local trains NOT reinstated - road transport arranged instead.
Sometimes I get the feeling that we get draw a short straw every time.
In the short space of an hour or two, First managed to change what was a sensible reaction to flooding and weather conditions and could have been a PR victory with a 125 stopping at Melksham for - I believe - the first time (I was all ready with camera) into another indication that, seemingly, they don't give a monkey's.
Posted by gje at 07:49 AM | Comments (0)
January 14, 2008
Asda - an opportunity that can be used or squandered
With strong indictations that First Great Western, the Department for Transport, and Wiltshire Council are working together to give us a service that's much closer to what they have identified as "appropriate" later in the year, the new Asda superstore that's proposed to sit right beside the railway, and at a position where railway land is wide enough to build a good platform on former siding land, gives us a golden opportunity to improve the travel interchange AND come up with a good store to the benefit of the community.
Unfortunatley, Asda's initial proposal and planning application seems to have been written on the basis of "let's see how little extra infrastructure we can get away with"; it ignores the railwayalmost totally (it does mention staff travelling to work by train), it provides bus stops on the already overcrowded A350, over which it provides just a flat crossing (lights, more delays), and a walkway right alongside the A350 which will be dengerous if unfenced, and unpleasant if fenced. Traffic surveys were limited - VERY limited - to carefully selected times that don't show the road at its worst, and growth figures used in the forecast which seem to indicate a dramatic drop in travelling in the future, or a lack of belief by Asda in the expansion shown in the Regional Spatial Strategy. Curious, that ... so WHY do they want to build a store if they only see low growth in the next 12 years? It adds up to ""how little can we do .... hoe much can we leave a problem for the county to sort out at their expense?"
Anyway - I still hold that I would WELCOME a store with appropriate access and links, and I am adding my inputs to the District Council file in the next day or two. Please look at My draft submission and let me know of any comments you have on my suggestions
Posted by gje at 07:22 AM | Comments (1)