Here is the letter that Leslie Huckfield wrote.

Cancellation of 0603 Train from Great Malvern to Paddington by First Great Western

On Friday 09 September, First Great Western cancelled the train from Hereford to Paddington, which stops at Malvern at 0603.
I was told on the station that this is the second time this has happened this week.

First Great Western do have not a good record of operating timetabled services between Hereford and Paddington and if there is a problem, these services may not operate further than Worcester.

Services between Hereford and Paddington

Good luck Leslie - hopefully there's a solution just waiting to be found.

Dear Priya

Thanks for this. I was not intending to use this service on the morning about which I complained, but there were other passengers who were obviously severely inconvenienced.

Can you please kindly let me know how many times this service has been cancelled or failed to run for each month of this year? I look forward to hearing from you.

With thanks and best wishes - Les Huckfield

-----Original Message-----

First Great Western
Customer Services Team
FREEPOST
SWB40576
Plymouth
PL4 6ZZ

Tel: 08457 000 125
Fax: 08456 008 363
[First Great Western Railway problem reporting email]

www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk

Ref: 6179279

Dear Leslie Huckfield

Thank you for your email that we received on the 9 September. I was very concerned to learn of the disruption to your journey from Hereford to Paddington. I understand how frustrating this can be and I am sorry for the inconvenience this has caused to you.

I would like to investigate this for you and see whether we can offer you compensation. To do this, I need you to send in your journey tickets,exact journey time and I will look into it for you straightaway. My address and contact number are at the top of this letter and it will help if you could quote the reference 6179279 in future contact.

Thank you again for your email and I hope to hear from you very soon

Yours sincerely

Priya Surendran
Customer Services Advisor

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I've only used this line occasionally, but the Great Malvern train I took from Oxford to Worcester last week was cancelled after Worcester because it had been delayed along the line.

While I am grateful for this information, it doesn't answer my question about the "complete running" of services.

Please may I have information on the number of times this year when this service operated only between Paddington and Worcester instead of between Paddington and Malvern or between Paddington and Hereford as scheduled?

While I am grateful for this information, it doesn't answer my question about the "complete running" of services.

Please may I have information on the number of times this year when this service operated only between Paddington and Worcester instead of between Paddington and Malvern or between Paddington and Hereford as scheduled?

Leslie,
The statistics will be measured at the final destination of the service (ie. at London Paddington) so the information they have given does cover the part of the journey you are interested in. So the cancellation rate you are looking for is 7 out of 161 services (so 95.6% of services run to the destination). This is poor, as the targets across First Great Western are 99% and above.
http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=265

However there is some good news. The route from London to Oxford and Worcester has for many years been acknowledged to be particularly unreliable as it has many sections of single (one-way) track but money has recently been spent sorting this out by reinstating double track and this work has only just been completed.

There are details of this project here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotswold_Line#Improvement_plans
"Network Rail completed the redoubling 20 miles (32 km) of track from just east of Charlbury to Ascott-under-Wychwood, and from Moreton-in-Marsh to about 1 mile (1.6 km) west of Evesham by 22 August 2011. This will improve reliability, enable non-stop operations and allow an hourly off peak service to run on the line."

Paul. While I am grateful for the information, with respect, I still don't think that this answers the question.

What concerns most local people in the Malvern area is that often, when Paddington originating trains are delayed, they will terminate at Worcester rather than Malvern. It's the number of trains which are supposed to be Paddington-Malvern-Paddington but which actually turn out to be Paddington-Worcester-Paddington which concerns most local people.

I am very familiar with operating problems on the line between Honeybourne and Oxford. My Dad was a train driver between Worcester and Paddington.

I look forward to hearing from you with further information. With thanks and best wishes

You're totally right, services are frequently curtailed at Worcester. This is still true after the North Cotswolds double tracking. I also asked FGW why journey times to Hereford hadn't improved after the project and they said it was something to do with timetabling between the Birmingham- Hereford trains - I don't really buy that though as those trains are hourly at the most!

Dave

Thanks for this. That's exactly the point I was trying to make. If FGW can't get their act together, then another company should have the franchise.

If there's a track access issue between FGW and London Midland between Worcester and Malvern, there are procedures for sorting this out.

I don't think we should be fobbed off with misleading information.

Dave

Thanks for this. That's exactly the point I was trying to make. If FGW can't get their act together, then another company should have the franchise.

If there's a track access issue between FGW and London Midland between Worcester and Malvern, there are procedures for sorting this out.

I don't think we should be fobbed off with misleading information.

Leslie,

You say “I look forward to hearing from you with further information” so I think you may have mistaken my response for a response from First Great Western. I am just interested in railway developments and was pointing out that the reliability of the line should significantly improve with the recent investment as I thought this may reassure your concerns about the line which was the main point of your campaign. I was also commenting about First Great Western’s response to your original question specifically about the 06:03 from Great Malvern to Paddington.

On observation, have you sent a follow up email to First Great Western as I cannot see anything on the FixMyTransport site to indicate this was done? You added an update to this ‘campaign’ at 08:34 on 17th September but I don’t think this results in First Great Western being emailed.

Sorry if you thought you were being fobbed off with misleading information; I was just saying that First Great Western had answered your original question about how many times the 06:03 Great Malvern to Paddington had run as a complete service.

Paul

This is all getting a bit silly. In my original request and in subsequent e mails I have asked about FGW trains which don't run their full timetabled route.

In other words, FGW trains don't complete their full journey from Paddington to Malvern or Hereford but terminate instead at Worcester.

I hope you can see from the "Fix My Transport" site that others now support my request for a reply on this. If you are unable to respond I will press for information in other ways - which will not reflect well on FGW.

We all look forward to hearing from you.

Paul

This is all getting a bit silly. In my original request and in subsequent e mails I have asked about FGW trains which don't run their full timetabled route.

In other words, FGW trains don't complete their full journey from Paddington to Malvern or Hereford but terminate instead at Worcester.

I hope you can see from the "Fix My Transport" site that others now support my request for a reply on this. If you are unable to respond I will press for information in other ways - which will not reflect well on FGW.

We all look forward to hearing from you.

Leslie,
I have absolutely nothing to with First Great Western or the rail industry so cannot help you (as I explained clearly in my last message). I was simply pointing out that this issue may get better due to a reduction in delays following the very recent completion of the double tracking of the Cotswold Line. John Griffin says his train was cancelled due to late running.

Paul. Sorry. I thought you were replying for FGW. Kind regards - Les

Hi Leslie,

Sorry for the confusion. We can see how it arose and we're discussing ways of signposting who's an operator and who's a commenter a bit more clearly.

You may not be aware that your follow-up comment will not have gone to FGW - the 'comment' button just posts to this page. If you'd like to send a follow-up response, you need to click the 'email' button beside FGW at the top of this page, where they are listed as a 'contact'.

Again, this is something we've spotted is not terribly intuitive, and we are already working on making that clearer. Thanks for your patience while we iron out these details.

Myf, FixMyTransport administrator

Les,
No problem. I realised you had misunderstood the context of my reply. I hope you get the information you need, and of course more importantly I hope you get the improved rail service. I realise there are concerns (as highlighted by Dave Arquati) that there may still be problems, but I believe the rail industry is optimistic that the recent re-doubling of the track will significantly help.

First GWR have done nothing, not even an acknowledgement e mail. Both First GWR and many passengers seem to have adapted to the practice of many trains' not completing their journeys to Malvern and terminating at Worcester when they are running late.

These First GWR services between Worcester and Malvern are shown in other companies' timetables. It's only by looking carefully at which company is the service provider that I suspect many passengers simply avoid these services when they are supposed to return between Malvern and Worcester.