GWR reinstating trains tomorrow?

[DailyCommuter]

On Real Time Trains some additional services have appeared for tomorrow (Mon 7th), but not on the National Rail app.

Is there a way to tell which is right? Are these being reinstated and gradually filtering through the various systems?

E.g.

Realtime Trains | 0547 Didcot Parkway to London Paddington | 07/11/2022

Real-time train running information for 0547 departure from Didcot Parkway to London Paddington on 07/11/2022. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

Realtime Trains | 0456 Cheltenham Spa to London Paddington | 07/11/2022

Real-time train running information for 0456 departure from Cheltenham Spa to London Paddington on 07/11/2022. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[Jamiescott1]

Its all a mess today.
The 0606 from marlow was reinstated but gwr app said it only runs as far as bourne end whereas realtraintimes says it runs to maidenhead.
We got to bourne end and terminated. I told the driver what realtraintimes said and she said her diagram is bourne end only and she definitely wouldn't be going to maidenhead.
I cycled from bourne end to maidenhead and when I arrived at maidenhead the train that wasn't going to maidenhead was sat in the platform there

The gwr app is showing no trains from Paddington to maidenhead between 1605 and 2230. Whereas realtraintimes has almost a non strike timetable

 

[Doctor Fegg]

A service has indeed been reinstated on the Cotswold Line but not to the level originally shown on RTT - the first listed trains from Hereford and Worcester all eventually flipped to “Cancelled”.

It remains to be seen what’s happening this evening - NRE is showing the last departure from Paddington to the Cotswolds being at 16.00, but RTT is showing a service through the evening.

 

[Jamiescott1]

Tfl app has services from Paddington to maidenhead running throughout the evening whereas gwr have a large 5 hour gap with no services

 

[davetheguard]

There doesn't appear to have been any trains between Exeter & Newton Abbot at all today.

Apparently, when it was still a strike day, an occupation was booked. Strike cancelled, but occupation has still happened. So no trains between London & Cornwall; and no apparent rail replacement buses to fill the gap either!

 

[Jamiescott1]

Tomorrow shows a start time 2 hours later than today for the marlow branch

 

[DailyCommuter]

Doesn't look like GWR have reinstated trains for tomorrow yet, if they are going to

 

[30907]

Tomorrow shows a start time 2 hours later than today for the marlow branch

Seems GW had planned their service and staffing around an 0700 post-strike handback by the NR electrical people.

 

[Liam L]

Doesn't look like GWR have reinstated trains for tomorrow yet, if they are going to

From there website reduce service tomorrow https://www.gwr.com/strike

 

[317362]

I get and am thankful that a vast amount of retimetabing and replanning (and re re planning) has happened, I'm grateful for the quite good service Mon 7th (didn't show on the National Rail app, did show on RTT), however...I'm not really getting why today Tue 8th is so limited, currently on the only train out of Newbury this morning, a crush loaded 4-car 387 stopper. There's no room, but there also aren't any more trains in the Reading direction for 90 minutes. The main message is 'dont travel because there hasn't been a strike', but the service is way worse today.

 

[Birmingham]

I get and am thankful that a vast amount of retimetabing and replanning (and re re planning) has happened, I'm grateful for the quite good service Mon 7th (didn't show on the National Rail app, did show on RTT), however...I'm not really getting why today Tue 8th is so limited, currently on the only train out of Newbury this morning, a crush loaded 4-car 387 stopper. There's no room, but there also aren't any more trains in the Reading direction for 90 minutes. The main message is 'dont travel because there hasn't been a strike', but the service is way worse today.

Yes, it’s frustrating that the day-after-strike that didn’t happen service is worse than the would-have-been actual strike day!

 

[Doctor Fegg]

04.49 from Hereford to Paddington reinstated late last night - the only train running on the Cotswold Line in the morning peak today. I spotted it in time for Mrs Fegg to catch it (saving an hour of bus travelling time) but I can't imagine it was busy...

 

[30907]

Yes, it’s frustrating that the day-after-strike that didn’t happen service is worse than the would-have-been actual strike day!

Presumably today's crew rosters/stock diagrams were all on the assumption that services could not start before 0700 as after previous strikes?

 

[Jamiescott1]

Elizabeth line from reading / maidenhead seemed to reinstate their full timetable. Had a very wet and windy cycle to maidenhead station at 0530 down quiet country roads to catch the liz line into London

 

[Horizon22]

Yes, it’s frustrating that the day-after-strike that didn’t happen service is worse than the would-have-been actual strike day!

They’ve stick with their planned (amended) timetable rather than the rather arduous and messy job of ad-hoc reinstating trains of the fly outside of the usual planning process.

 

[sammyg901]

Chiltern Railways curiously managed to run commuter trains yesterday morning but nothing this morning. A full service running this evening though to bring all that fresh air back home again....

 

[infobleep]

Yesterday there were direct trains from Gatwick Airport to Reading but today there are none.

How were they able to arrange for the trains to run yesterday but not able to do so today? This isn't meant as a criticism. I'm just wondering what the techie reason for this would be

Just to add I was surprised to find trains running to Garwick Airport yesterday but given they were, I was surprised to find trains weren't running to Gatwick Airport today.

 

[RailWonderer]

The hourly Oxford fast still has not returned, only the hourly Cotswold service. You either have a 50 minute gap at Oxford or you take the local to Didcot and change. I was told at Oxford that the service will be reinstated tomorrow (he said hopefully) but it should have been done today. Everything just feels disorganised and you cannot plan a GWR journey in advance anymore.

 

[infobleep]

Someone should do some research into which companies were able to reinstate services and when and look at the reasons behind it.

It may be that some companies have fewer services so it's easier to deal with. Equally others may not have as many planning staff.

I don't know how GWR compares to others in this respect.

 

[Birmingham]

Someone should do some research into which companies were able to reinstate services and when and look at the reasons behind it.

It may be that some companies have fewer services so it's easier to deal with. Equally others may not have as many planning staff.

I don't know how GWR compares to others in this respect.

That would be very enlightening. It makes a mockery of some operators’ generic statements when others were able to do exactly that.

They’ve stick with their planned (amended) timetable rather than the rather arduous and messy job of ad-hoc reinstating trains of the fly outside of the usual planning process.

Yes, that’s quite obvious. Presumably because today’s service was judged to be ‘good enough’ as at least all routes were served, rather than the planned strike day skeleton service. But it’s not really on that having been able to do so yesterday, they decide not to do the same today.

 

[Horizon22]

That would be very enlightening. It makes a mockery of some operators’ generic statements when others were able to do exactly that.


Yes, that’s quite obvious. Presumably because today’s service was judged to be ‘good enough’ as at least all routes were served, rather than the planned strike day skeleton service. But it’s not really on that having been able to do so yesterday, they decide not to do the same today.

I'd argue they weren't really "able to do so" yesterday and certainly not in a reliable manner; comparing what was running with what any journey planner or even passenger information screens was telling you was completely out of sync.

Better to run a reduced, but reliable service than attempt to run an increased, but unreliable service. That's pretty standard contingency practice these days - it allows people to at least plan accordingly.

 

[Birmingham]

I'd argue they weren't really "able to do so" yesterday and certainly not in a reliable manner; comparing what was running with what any journey planner or even passenger information screens was telling you was completely out of sync.

Better to run a reduced, but reliable service than attempt to run an increased, but unreliable service. That's pretty standard contingency practice these days - it allows people to at least plan accordingly.

Considering most of the network would not have been served on Monday (nothing in Devon & Cornwall, Cheltenham/Gloucester area, nothing to Worcester/North Cotswolds), I think what they did yesterday was rather worthwhile.

 

[infobleep]

Considering most of the network would not have been served on Monday (nothing in Devon & Cornwall, Cheltenham/Gloucester area, nothing to Worcester/North Cotswolds), I think what they did yesterday was rather worthwhile.

I am inclined to agree here. Maybe they could have not run trains to Gatwick Airport, given Redhill services were running. Of course the Redhill services weren't me t to be running either

Obviously I prefer it when they do run, so I'm happy they did run.

As I said a comparison as to why some could run more services today than others would be interesting. It might be possible to learn from it in some way, which would be positive.

They’ve stick with their planned (amended) timetable rather than the rather arduous and messy job of ad-hoc reinstating trains of the fly outside of the usual planning process.

So I take it, it will have been a messy job for South Western Railway to reinstate all the services for today. Of may be it is simply that South Western Railway could run more services to start with.

 

[Horizon22]

So I take it, it will have been a messy job for South Western Railway to reinstate all the services for today. Of may be it is simply that South Western Railway could run more services to start with.

Should be fine today - planners have had two days to work on Wednesday is why pretty much every TOC has gone to a normal service and why pretty much no TOC did a normal Saturday service. It takes time.

 

[TurboMan]

Someone should do some research into which companies were able to reinstate services and when and look at the reasons behind it.

It may be that some companies have fewer services so it's easier to deal with. Equally others may not have as many planning staff.

I don't know how GWR compares to others in this respect.

I understand it was also a matter of trying to upload a huge amount of information over a short period of time to various Network Rail systems, which unsurprisingly struggled to cope with handling more data than they were designed for.

 

[infobleep]

I understand it was also a matter of trying to upload a huge amount of information over a short period of time to various Network Rail systems, which unsurprisingly struggled to cope with handling more data than they were designed for.

Thanks for the info and @Horizon32 too.

How many systems do they upload to, if it's ok to ask this and do you or anyone know how large such a change update would be in size?

Not all TOCs are back to normal today. Avanti isn't.

Do staff have to manually input each service to their own system, if it's from a standard timetable or can they bulk lost it in? I mean bulk load it and finalise it but bulk lost it and then make amendments as needed?