Train troubles (From Malvern Gazette)

Train troubles

9:31am Friday 15th February 2008 in Letters

THE problems with our Cotswold Line London train service will not vanish as long as First Great Western is responsible for it.

This company is seemingly incapable of understanding the simple requirement that running a public service requires a desire to serve the public, not itself.

Timetables have been lengthened so that some trains are now booked to take three hours to cover the distance between Great Malvern and Paddington, much longer than in recent times, with long halts at passing loops such as Evesham. This is not to assist the travelling public to reach its destination, but to ensure that by weakening punctuality targets, the company is better able to meet them and avoid penalties. Even so, I recall few trains that have ever arrived on time in either direction.

Many of the endless on-board announcements (always repeated at least twice and sometimes thrice) tell us that we are held waiting for a late running train in the opposite direction. But whose trains are these? FGW's of course. Apart from the Heathrow Express which has dedicated platforms, FGW run all services into and out of Paddington. Yet they cannot announce a departure platform until just before the service is scheduled to leave, which often results in a late departure.

I can buy tickets on-line for trains in Germany which will tell me up to a year ahead precisely which platforms to use at the starting point and at any interchange stations. If you get ten minutes notice from FGW, you're lucky!

Not all the problems can be laid at the door of that government which starved the railways of investment funding and then botched the privatisation. FGW has had this franchise long enough to prove itself, but we have to face the fact that it has not a clue how to run a railway. It now claims to be aware of its shortcomings and to be recruiting drivers and putting in more rail-experienced managers, but of course this is all too late. Time to get off the line!

SIMON PAYTON, Peachfield Road, Malvern.