First Great Western train service

The trouble is that today's trains are too RIGHT-WING. Time for socialists to take them over. Make the customer matter - not profit.

Your gripe and upset etc at First Great Western is understandable but "Over-running engineering works" is highy likely to be the fault of the infrastructure owner, i.e: Network Fail oh sorry I meant Network Rail. Take the compensation and feel lucky you got any at all for that matter.

Actually if you are 59 minutes delayed it counts under 1 hour and still no compensation!

hi anna, it's not true that lateness is only measured if it's within an hour... with most of fgw's services, a train fails to meet it's target if it is over ten minutes late.

Beee zat Exeter Saint David's err beee zat Exeter Saint Thomas. I hawp yer pocket watch werr zet by Railway Time as her shuwd bee. Zer bee awser trains Exeter terr Waterloo by weigh ov Yeovil.

Since Sept last year, I've made at least one return trip from Devon to Paddington each week. So far, there's been one train cancellation (just before Christmas) and one serious delay (due to snow).

On both occasions, I still got to my destination. That's a success rate of, er... 100%.

The expectation of no failed journeys and no delays at all - I.e. perfection - on such a complex network is totally unrealistic.

What you could reasonably expect more of would be working amenities of a decent, civilised quality - I.e. toilets!

Leaving just 25 minutes slack time in a journey that long and that important seems rather foolish.

I sympathise with you, and I think it would be a wonderful world if every train was on time - I have been on some pretty horrific and protracted train journeys myself. Unfortunately that is a completely unrealistic expectation - there are some fairly systemic problems with the railway infrastructure, which hopefully Network Rail will eventually sort out. But when one train breaks down, or is late for whatever reason, it has a knock-on effect on everything behind it - and again that down to the infrastructure, and the sheer fact that trains run behind eachother! Another point is that mechanical failure is a simple fact of life - the day a perfect train is built which never breaks down, then I will eat my hat. Face it, you wouldn't expect to buy a car that never, ever breaks down - so why the general public think that trains should be exempt from mechanical failure is beyond me.

Asking what the company is going to learn from this particular incident is also a slightly unrealistic question. To them, this is just one incident of fleet unreliability amongst many others they have to deal with, and their answer to your question has shown that they are examining the general problem, and are working on ways to make their fleet more reliable. What more are you expecting them to do?

I've travelled on FGW trains into London Monday to Friday for 6 Months. The service has been pretty good. I do have a car but travelling to London by car would be stupidly inpracticle.

Problems that have caused my train to be delayed:

Tresspassers on the line, not FGWs fault.
A fatality at a station, more than likely not FGWs fault.
A fallen tree, not FGWs fault.
People leaving things on the line, not FGWs fault. (This could be solved by legelising Chav Hunting)
Signal Failure, not FGWs fault.
Damage to the train from a brick thrower, not FGWs fault. (This could also be solved by legelising Chav Hunting)
A freight train blocking the line, signal operators fault.
Mechanical Failure of train power car, yes that could be FGWs fault.

The fact of the matter is I've done about 100 trips to London in just as many days, covering over 10,000 miles. Don't go off complaining about trains always being late if you only travel on a train once every ten years. The world doesn't revolve around you get used to it.

some of the comments here are a bit unfair, leaves do slow trains down, because they form a slippy residue on the Rail head as does light rain/frost/snow meaning trains are more prone to wheel slip/spin, and take longer to brake from 60mph a modern electric train takes 3/4 of a mile to stop in emergency brake application. in good conditions, in poor conditions with out having all the passengers flung about the carriage is much harder. metal on metal makes it hard to get much traction anyway, its only because of the immense weight of a train that it can get good traction.

hot weather does cause the track to expand and become hard to use (it is only Mild steel so it can be bent into shape) cold weather (I don't know how but it seems to brake trains)

Last Late Western really suck, I have to get their trains everyday. they are falling apart, over crowded a three car train turns up to transport 600 or so college students (they know fall well turn up for the 16:21 service) monday to friday. they turn up late up to 2 hours late, and leaving nearly 800 people on a platform (totally Unsafe) to pile on a small train.

they are really bad and the worst train operator in the country with some of the oldest rolling stock, understaffed and they are under paid and over worked.

That's an unfortunate tale Anna but an all too common scenario with travel by FGW. I travel around London and SE daily for work and use part public transport/part car depending on the usefulness of rail connections. There have been many switches of franchise operators and varying levels of improvement to services. In fact 'First' used to run the trains in Essex and that was always a fantastic service into and out of London - reaching distant locations surprisingly quickly, with regular departures and shockingly reliable punctuality (literally within 5 minutes of scheduled arrival time tops). And in London itself, if one method of transport is ruled out for the traveller by last minute screw ups there's always an alternative route to take for those savvy enough. However, when travelling anywhere in the West it's become a necessity to rely on the polluting private car because I can't deal with the consistent lateness. Oh and yes as Railway_Bob demonstrates FGW staff are often entirely unsympathetic, but I have enquired with some FGW staff in the past who have told me this shocking service is the bane of their own lives and they can't stand the stress it causes everyone involved!