Letter from First Great Western
Received a copy of a letter today from Alison Forster Manageing Director at First Great Western which was sent to Don Foster MP.
The text is below.
The reality of course is that the number of carriages has not been increased. They have in theory simply been restored to what Wessex provided. And of course on most days these "extra carriages" fail to materlialise and we end up with fewer carraiges than Wessex provided.
The letter also says that First Great Western inherited overcrowding problems from Wessex trains, which is ridiculous. Whilst there were occassional problems with Wessex when trains were cancelled, the service they provided to commuters was far more reliable and had far more carriages then the First Great Western service.
To say that "the trains that have lost out are outside of peak time and are not been too badly affected in terms of overcrowding." is just a great big lie.
Dear Mr Foster
Thank you for your letter of 28 November 2006. I am sorry that Mr Dunn has experienced overcrowding when using our Cardiff to Portsmouth route (travelling between Bristol and Bath).
There have been problems with overcrowding on some of the services we inherited when we took over the Wessex franchise in April. As you know we have made a commitment to improve this for the future and we have introduced four more class 158 trains with the advent of the December 2006 timetable. These trains are being used to augment existing services on our network.
We have also split two of the proposed 3-car class 158 sets into three 2-car class 158 sets. Although this has resulted in the loss of a carriage from some trains, the trains that have lost out are outside of peak time and are not be too badly affected in terms of overcrowding.
The major benefit has been the ability to strengthen key peak and off peak services as well as creating standby sets in case of train failure. They are mainly being used on the line from Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff, and I have provided a list of the trains that have received stock increases below and highlighted the two particular services that Mr Dunn has mentioned:
1230 Cardiff to Portsmouth Harbour 2 extra carriages (2 to 4)
1600 Cardiff to Westbury 1 extra carriage (2 to 3)
1630 Cardiff to Portsmouth Harbour 1 extra carriage (3 to 4)
2030 Cardiff to Portsmouth Harbour 2 extra carriages (2 to 4)
0600 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff 2 extra carriages (2 to 4)
0650 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff 2 extra carriages (2 to 4)
1222 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff 1 extra carriage (3 to 4)
1622 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff 2 extra carriages (2 to 4)
The new carriages have also provided other benefits, including enabling us to strengthen the summer services next year from the winter fleet, albeit in a limited fashion.
The text is below.
The reality of course is that the number of carriages has not been increased. They have in theory simply been restored to what Wessex provided. And of course on most days these "extra carriages" fail to materlialise and we end up with fewer carraiges than Wessex provided.
The letter also says that First Great Western inherited overcrowding problems from Wessex trains, which is ridiculous. Whilst there were occassional problems with Wessex when trains were cancelled, the service they provided to commuters was far more reliable and had far more carriages then the First Great Western service.
To say that "the trains that have lost out are outside of peak time and are not been too badly affected in terms of overcrowding." is just a great big lie.
Dear Mr Foster
Thank you for your letter of 28 November 2006. I am sorry that Mr Dunn has experienced overcrowding when using our Cardiff to Portsmouth route (travelling between Bristol and Bath).
There have been problems with overcrowding on some of the services we inherited when we took over the Wessex franchise in April. As you know we have made a commitment to improve this for the future and we have introduced four more class 158 trains with the advent of the December 2006 timetable. These trains are being used to augment existing services on our network.
We have also split two of the proposed 3-car class 158 sets into three 2-car class 158 sets. Although this has resulted in the loss of a carriage from some trains, the trains that have lost out are outside of peak time and are not be too badly affected in terms of overcrowding.
The major benefit has been the ability to strengthen key peak and off peak services as well as creating standby sets in case of train failure. They are mainly being used on the line from Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff, and I have provided a list of the trains that have received stock increases below and highlighted the two particular services that Mr Dunn has mentioned:
1230 Cardiff to Portsmouth Harbour 2 extra carriages (2 to 4)
1600 Cardiff to Westbury 1 extra carriage (2 to 3)
1630 Cardiff to Portsmouth Harbour 1 extra carriage (3 to 4)
2030 Cardiff to Portsmouth Harbour 2 extra carriages (2 to 4)
0600 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff 2 extra carriages (2 to 4)
0650 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff 2 extra carriages (2 to 4)
1222 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff 1 extra carriage (3 to 4)
1622 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff 2 extra carriages (2 to 4)
The new carriages have also provided other benefits, including enabling us to strengthen the summer services next year from the winter fleet, albeit in a limited fashion.
posted by www.loial.co.uk at 3:53 AM
1 Comments:
My comments to Ms Forster's letter are:
You are not naive and having had a presence in the area for several years prior to the franchise extension should have been well aware of any over crowding issues on former Wessex services.
With that in mind you could/should have planned an increase in capaciy accordingly? Even passenger figures for Oldfield park show an increase in excess of 50% in 6 years.
Further what is the point of adding extra carriages to some of the non-peak services quoted in the letter.
And finally, to blame maintenance issues is rather rich. Since April 2006 First has had responsibility for maintenance of Wessex Trains stock, so if the maintenance is lacking, either your suppliers (eg Cardiff Canton & others) have failed to maintain the stock to the set schedule, or First have had no procedure in place to audit maintenance work. In addition, with the DMU servicing facility at St Philips Marsh not being ready, steps should have been taken to get trains serviced elsewhere on a temporary basis, rather than appearing to sit on one's backside and not do a lot, then bleat about maintenance problems which could have been avoided.
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