The North Wales Coast has seen a considerable improvement in train lengths on some days this summer. On Saturdays most of the Llandudno services have been running as four-car sets, whereas in previous years you were lucky to get a three car. The Conwy Valley has also had a good year. Take these lines out and the company-wide rating would probably drop even lower, not just because of the Valleys but because of the 230 debacle and the number of 150s on the Marches.
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Transport for Wales - lowest satisfaction rating
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All of my TFW and ATW journeys have been on the North Wales Coast, but I agree here, the 197s are comfortable and punctuality is usually alright.
Markdvdman
Member
Well I was on Swansea to Pembroke Dock service to get off at Llanelli and it was single 153. Truly not going to win any awards for that suffice to say it was rammed and when I got off at Llanelli, a lot were getting on. It did not help that the following Carmarthen service from Hereford was 8 mins late and a 150! They need to sort it or lose customers, but then the 20mph zone in Wales is a joke.....
A suggestion to TfW chiefs if I may…
Appoint a public facing, media savvy individual to be your spokesman. Be honest and straightforward with the public.
Put your hands up re the problems, explain why they are happening and what is being done on a daily basis to mitigate them (150s from Milford to Manchester are clearly unsatisfactory and were never in the plan, but staff work hard to provide some sort of service for the public and although the services are crowded, relatively few passengers are stranded) and then point to the many positives coming up in the next few years.
Convince the public that TfW is on their side.
Right now TfW are seen as anonymous and uncaring. A public facing campaign can change a certain amount of this. And as taxpayers, we deserve honest explanations.
Appoint a public facing, media savvy individual to be your spokesman. Be honest and straightforward with the public.
Put your hands up re the problems, explain why they are happening and what is being done on a daily basis to mitigate them (150s from Milford to Manchester are clearly unsatisfactory and were never in the plan, but staff work hard to provide some sort of service for the public and although the services are crowded, relatively few passengers are stranded) and then point to the many positives coming up in the next few years.
Convince the public that TfW is on their side.
Right now TfW are seen as anonymous and uncaring. A public facing campaign can change a certain amount of this. And as taxpayers, we deserve honest explanations.
Most of the services between Shrewsbury and Birmingham are 4 car services. Whilst these can be very busy it is rare to see a 4 car jam packed. This usually only happens when there is a big event on at the NEC or a football match, then they should really be 6 cars. There’s only a select few a day that should ever be a 2 car.
Whilst 197’s do have 18 less seats per 2 car, I don’t think this will really alter much in reality. For most of the rest of the network additional carriages will bring an uplift in capacity for those busier services. From what I have seen the only uplift for Shrewsbury - Birmingham is the 7:30am from Shrewsbury is to become a booked 6 car197. The 3:30pm is already currently a booked 6 car but rarely is 6 so this should become more reliably a 6 car.
The reduction to 1 toilet per 2car is awful as far I’m concerned.
Regards the Cambrian and ERTMS, it has been hotly debated as there are currently 24 158’s and only to be 21 ERTMS 197’s. Those 197’s will supposedly remain strictly to Cambrian diagrams and not be swanning off to Cardiff, Manchester or Holyhead as the 158’s all currently do as part of their booked work. A potential timetable was released at one stage recently which showed an hourly service for Aberystwyth to Shrewsbury with more of them being 4 cars so I shouldn’t worry too much at this stage about the number of ERTMS 197’s.
I’m not sure the 158’s reliability is that bad or where you had this information from? 158’s do fail and as they’re so old getting parts for them is becoming more and more difficult.
As for the buses, when ever I’m working a service and it’s getting terminated for what ever reason there’s almost never a replacement bus ready they’re always having to try and source one and sometimes can’t. Which leaves me very little to tell passengers who are already unhappy that I’ve told them the servicecisnt going forward. It would be lovely if there were standby buses ready to go. So again, no idea where this information has come from.
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I very much agree, at the moment things are not always great and that can’t be ignored but equally it can not be changed right now.
The work TFW is putting in is astronomical and I would be genuinely interested to know if any other TOC’s are doing anything like TFW.
Once it’s all said and done, I think TFW could well be one of the best in the country, with more frequent, reliable and pleasant journeys. The MK4’s are here to stay (but maybe with different locos) which is amazing too.
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willnotadmit
New Member
Was that last Wednesday afternoon by any chance? Because the same thing happened to me
Markdvdman
Member
No it was Friday but I am not surprised in the least!
That is a good service, surely. No 230 has failed all day.
funnily enough I had a look on the TFW app to see what was going on with the Blaenau line a week or 2 ago. I know it was suspended for whatever reason for a few days. I believe it said "Severe delays" but no mention of a replacement bus service and nothing on the alterations/cancellations pages.
Realtimetrains wasn't listing any booked buses or trains for those days either down the Blaenau line. As it happens a bus was operating but who would know!
markymark2000
On Moderation
Sadly most TOCs don't put buses into journey planners for emergency/late notice works. TFW is one of those. To be fair, you're lucky if TFW uploads the correct bus timetable for Pre planned works and even when I have messaged them to inform them of major issues (no buses were showing on a Saturday afternoon after 3pm) and yet they still didn't sort it. The team just has no care for this sort of thing.
Travelmonkey
Member
Tfw really is a be carefull what you wish for TOC, it is kinda ironic most people want rid of the private TOCs & their respective parents (Arriva or Go ahead for example) but tfw a "publicly owned" operator is failing with the basics while spiraling with ambitious projects that are long game the short term is kneecapping them.
irish_rail
On Moderation
In my limited experience of TFW, Cardiff Central seems problematic. As a passenger I find it very confusing, lots and lots of platform alterations, sometimes poorly communicated, confusing signage, and the announcements being in Welsh first (which by the way I do support), but probably doesn't help the majority of travellers.
Markdvdman
Member
New on the BBC:
www.bbc.co.uk
Does not say much but a sorry state of affairs in Wales. People are complaining about the new 197s, only 2 carriages, yet TFW on Twitter say they were built to expand and add carriages. Of course, I predict it will not get a lot better as really, 2 car sets should be a thing of the past for any busy line!
Transport for Wales: New trains target delayed by Covid, bosses say
Fewer than a third of all Transport for Wales train journeys are being operated by modern trains.
www.bbc.co.uk
Does not say much but a sorry state of affairs in Wales. People are complaining about the new 197s, only 2 carriages, yet TFW on Twitter say they were built to expand and add carriages. Of course, I predict it will not get a lot better as really, 2 car sets should be a thing of the past for any busy line!
Well, you see the real problem is actually that all of these over-zealous plans were set in motion by TFW when it was a private operator under the Keolis-Amey banner. When Covid hit and they didn’t want it anymore the Welsh government took it under public ownership.
So the public ownership side of it hasn’t caused these problems but is stuck with them. James Price has already said that everything been done in such a short time frame is a mistake and this should all have been done over something more like 10 years.
The only things I can think off the top of my head, that the non-privatised TFW have done is acquire more MK4 rolling stock and class 67’s to operate services between Manchester and Swansea. Which is great as it’s a better passenger experience than any of TFW’s units and it frees up 197’s to bolster other services.
Additional to this they’ve made kids travelling adults travel free.
People are complaining about the 197’s but sometimes it seems like complaining for the sake of complaining.New on the BBC:
Transport for Wales: New trains target delayed by Covid, bosses say
Fewer than a third of all Transport for Wales train journeys are being operated by modern trains.
Does not say much but a sorry state of affairs in Wales. People are complaining about the new 197s, only 2 carriages, yet TFW on Twitter say they were built to expand and add carriages. Of course, I predict it will not get a lot better as really, 2 car sets should be a thing of the past for any busy line!
Though there are certainly some things to complain about, I don’t think anything will get changed at this point. When I finally got a 2 hour trip on one to Cardiff, I was pleasantly surprised by how nice it was to travel on (a bit bumpy at times, but that is partly due to the fact they are designed for well kept CWR tracks). The toilet provision is a big let down as is (for conductors) the 2 part access ramp (how on gods earth did that happen ♂️).
It is intended that only the very lightly loaded services will run as 2 cars but many services operated by 197’s are planned to be 4,5 or 6 cars, which will ultimately be a very nice capacity increase.
As I have said above in this post, the Welsh government have now acquired more MK4 rolling stock which is planned to take over 50% of the Manchester - Cardiff services which frees up more of the 197’s to be able to have more coaches on other services.
It’s difficult at the moment as TFW still have a lot of rolling stock to bring into service and a lot of rolling stock to go off lease which means they are operating a large number of traction types (10 all in all) which most can’t be inter worked together.
When all of the old stock is gone and all of the. We stock is in play, it should be a significant improvement in capacity, along with better reliability and more services too.
I’ll just say that TFW have had an immense recruitment drive the last few years to ensure there are enough staff for all of this as well.
Once it’s all finished, if TFW aren’t providing a better service with significantly less overcrowding, then I would be happy to say it’s a failure and they may not be fit for what they are doing.
But i certainly hold out hope that the people of wales will have a better rail network in the next few years.
Snow1964
Established Member
New on the BBC:
Transport for Wales: New trains target delayed by Covid, bosses say
Fewer than a third of all Transport for Wales train journeys are being operated by modern trains.
Does not say much but a sorry state of affairs in Wales. People are complaining about the new 197s, only 2 carriages, yet TFW on Twitter say they were built to expand and add carriages. Of course, I predict it will not get a lot better as really, 2 car sets should be a thing of the past for any busy line!
Clearly TfW created an own goal by publishing an aspiration for changing majority of their trains (95% modern trains within 5 years) then meekly saying we quietly moved the targets, when at 5 years turns out to be only 29%
Blaming Covid 18 months after all restrictions ended, rather than explaining why they have failed to catch up is a PR shambols
They have also gone about it wrong way by putting 197s out as 2 coaches on the main lines as it has created wrong image and got negative comments, so they have tarnished their new product.
Cambrian359
Member
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- 17 Jun 2018
- Messages
- 303
I don’t think it will be a failure, I do however think they will be a victim of their own success and because of this the longer trains will be just as full or fuller than before and on that basis the general public will probably see it as a failure, despite the extra capacity. And there will be no more money left in the bank to buy more carriages to lengthen existing sets,again this will be viewed as a failure by the general public .
Well Covid really knackered things up, pushed everything back by years and still continues to make somethings difficult. But sometimes I do fear it’s seen as a get out of jail free card by many companies. TFW probably included.
I agree, I think it will be a success, and I’m looking forward to when it’s all done.
I remain hopeful that if capacity became an issue again then there could be a good political case for having more middle coaches built to supply work at the CAF factory in Newport.
markymark2000
On Moderation
Yes, the wonderful, no expense spared MK4s. Still in everyone elses livery, as of when I last actively checked, still boasting other TOCs logos. A bugged seat reservations system showing reservations for other TOCs services. Half of the time, the sets aren't working either. When they work, they are well loved but otherwise, they are a laughing stock. Grand Central managed to relivery two coaches on their leased 221, and yet here we are 2 years in and still trains are in their old operators livery. They've spent long enough sitting around, why hasn't something been done? This is the sort of thing I'd expect if a cowboy started open access routes, not a professional, GOVERNMENT OWNED train operator.
That's not advertised enough and far too many people are still buying child tickets (and to be fair, I would probably do it too as it's so easy for forget that this is thing).
I hope some issues get sorted. The last 197 that I went on, the PIS couldn't handle the reversal at Chester (North Wales - Shrewsbury service) which is rather poor considering the amount of services which do this. We were at Gobowen and it was still announcing 'we are now at Flint'. The rest of the PIS isn't amazing either with the welsh first while in England and long pauses. How are sets signed off when there is such large errors with the PIS?
The last plan I saw (granted there's now a review happening) had two car 197s working the Shrewsbury-Holyhead legs of the Birmingham trains. To go ahead with that would be madness.
Likewise the plan for the Llandudno - Liverpool service was for two car units to Chester, then combining with a two car unit from Cardiff to run as a four car set to Liverpool. So the busiest leg would have two coaches. Hopefully that hare-brained idea has been shelved in the review.
Well I’m pretty sure they’re now TFW branded and don’t have any of the other TOC’s logos. Why does the colour of the body shells upset you so much ? My understanding is that the ex-GC sets had recently been re-painted and refurbed. The black sets look smart and have TFW branding so not much chance that people get confused about who the operator is. The EX-LNER sets look a bit older but the colours fit more in-line with TFW’s brand colours. But ultimately, they’re tidy and all of the sets are very comfortable to travel on and the extra sets will provided more capacity to the fleet.
I think everyone can agree their availability to begin was chronically poor, but the issues have been and continue to be dealt with so their in-service rate is certainly improving.
As an aside, To be honest I’m glad that TFW aren’t wasting money are repainting them as that money would be better spent elsewhere.
It’s in another thread how during the Dinmore tunnel block they’ve had some more work done to them but I’m not sure if that was to improve reliability.
I see it advertised a lot but I think it’s poorly integrated with the likes of Trainline.
Not sure on the PIS but I’m not sure how a set reversing would cause it to go backwards as it’s worked off the head code and GPS. I doubt that it’s common for it to do that. Either set up incorrectly or a fault. I’ve known 158’s to say next stop gobowen when heading to Aberystwyth from Shrewsbury, just reset it and good to go again.
I can’t remember the time table exactly but that doesn’t sound great, hopefully see something change !
markymark2000
On Moderation
It looks shoddy. Same as how GWR are still plodding about with First Great Western liveried turbostars, it just looks shoddy and like there is a lack of care. Use your own livery, not everyone elses.
'was'. I don't believe that there has been a full day of faultless service yet and that is just on Manchesters (By fault, I am referring to fault of the train of course) and most definitely not on full timetable including the North-South Wales services.
From working, I know that know that not many people are making use of this offer so it can't be that well advertised. It's also not overly helpful as the website says you need to pick up your free child ticket off a conductor or at a ticket office. That's not helpful for when it's rail replacement buses for example.
I really don't know but as soon as we left Chester, it announced next stop Flint and then at all subsequent stations we got to, it announced 'we are now at Flint' and no one resolved it so not sure if it was as easy as reset it and try again but it wasn't done. Given the number of reversals that take place on the TFW network, I don't think it's very good for it to struggle with them.
If you think it looks shoddy that’s fair enough but again, they’re in good condition and I think the black in particular looks very good, especially when it’s paired with the Black 67 (67020 maybe?). I was in Devon earlier this year and I agree to a point, when you had a FGW with a GWR it looked shoddy but if it was in its own then not too bad, but looked a bit old and unkept where as the GWR livery looked gleaming new.
I’m sure there have been days when all sets that started the day finished the day with out issue.
I’d be surprised if there’s been a day where every diagram has been covered.
I’m sure there would be someone far more knowledgeable be able to answer and possibly what all of the other sets are up to.
I mean, I’m a train conductor and you don’t even want to know how many times I explain the free tickets and how they can get a refund for the ones they’ve purchased. 95% are Trainline tickets though.
Rail replacement buses are a different ball game all together. People get on with no tickets what so ever.
Obviously can’t say for sure but that just sounds like an unfortunate fault that you encountered. If it was a bigger issue I’d be certain to have heard conductors complaining in the mess room about it.
Sorry going back to your earlier point, I do actually think the announcements leave a lot to be desired and need changing because its just too much.
DelW
Established Member
- Joined
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- 6,027
I'd prefer fleets to look tidy and in their current operator's livery too, but I also don't think it's a good use of any available money to spend it on repaints that aren't otherwise needed. Down here on my local SWR line we still have trains running around carrying their original paint job at 18 years old and 6 years after the operator changed.
Certainly logos need to be changed expeditiously to avoid confusing passengers, especially those with named-TOC-only tickets, but rushing to repaint mk4s that have only recently been painted seems like a poor use of resources.
As for sending sets out with PIS errors, if the alternative is to fail the set, send it to depot, and cancel the service, then I think most passengers would rather it ran with a dodgy PIS than not at all.
Thought i would post about my latest experience with TFW here.
TFW performance certainly is still very poor, 5 years on after they took over from ATW. Yesterday i had a day trip to Manchester taking the 0549 Port Talbot Parkway to Manchester and 1630 return. Both of which are meant to be MK4 (although im aware 1 of them is likely to be a Sprinter at the moment due to the full MK4 diagrams not being complete). The 0549 was a pair of 153s which i will admit wasnt as bad as i feared, very quiet leaving Port Talbot not surprising at that hour of the morning but clearly not enough capacity once it reached Shrewsbury onwards. The return journey on a 150 was appalling and especially bad until Crewe not helped by Avanti cancelling their 1615 service from Manchester and the TFW taking their passengers to Crewe. But had it ran as a 4 car as booked it would have been a lot better with double the seating and standing room. So whilst it was mostly Avanti at fault in this particular instance of overcrowding it wasnt helped by the fact TFW short formed and had a train not suitable for long distance.
i had very cheap tickets in the TFW sale (£45 return from PT to Manchester is amazingly cheap, id usually expect to pay at least £70-£80 with an advance and over £100 for a walk on fare) but that still doesnt excuse the poor quality of the service. I feel really sorry for any first class passengers who had to put up with this, but at least they should get a refund. Amazingly the services ran to time, must be plenty of padding in the timetable as the up journey actually got to Manchester 6 minutes early.
On the plus side I did manage to get 2 new 197s whilst in Manchester including 050 on its first day in service i believe.
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TFW performance certainly is still very poor, 5 years on after they took over from ATW. Yesterday i had a day trip to Manchester taking the 0549 Port Talbot Parkway to Manchester and 1630 return. Both of which are meant to be MK4 (although im aware 1 of them is likely to be a Sprinter at the moment due to the full MK4 diagrams not being complete). The 0549 was a pair of 153s which i will admit wasnt as bad as i feared, very quiet leaving Port Talbot not surprising at that hour of the morning but clearly not enough capacity once it reached Shrewsbury onwards. The return journey on a 150 was appalling and especially bad until Crewe not helped by Avanti cancelling their 1615 service from Manchester and the TFW taking their passengers to Crewe. But had it ran as a 4 car as booked it would have been a lot better with double the seating and standing room. So whilst it was mostly Avanti at fault in this particular instance of overcrowding it wasnt helped by the fact TFW short formed and had a train not suitable for long distance.
i had very cheap tickets in the TFW sale (£45 return from PT to Manchester is amazingly cheap, id usually expect to pay at least £70-£80 with an advance and over £100 for a walk on fare) but that still doesnt excuse the poor quality of the service. I feel really sorry for any first class passengers who had to put up with this, but at least they should get a refund. Amazingly the services ran to time, must be plenty of padding in the timetable as the up journey actually got to Manchester 6 minutes early.
On the plus side I did manage to get 2 new 197s whilst in Manchester including 050 on its first day in service i believe.
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I agree they need to stop blaming Covid now. Yes it had an impact and its understandable it delayed things but enough time has moved on now things should be a lot better than they are currently.Clearly TfW created an own goal by publishing an aspiration for changing majority of their trains (95% modern trains within 5 years) then meekly saying we quietly moved the targets, when at 5 years turns out to be only 29%
Blaming Covid 18 months after all restrictions ended, rather than explaining why they have failed to catch up is a PR shambols
They have also gone about it wrong way by putting 197s out as 2 coaches on the main lines as it has created wrong image and got negative comments, so they have tarnished their new product.
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I agree with this, and it often seems that the GWR services that start from Cardiff Central regularly leave late because they get stuck behind other services in the same platform. I’d argue that Cardiff Central isn’t really fit for purpose these days, probably in terms of capacity, and how it’s managed.
Tomos y Tanc
Member
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- 1 Jul 2019
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- 917
Central is certainly not fit for purpose! We've had decades of talk about how it should be modernised, yet very little has happened.
markymark2000
On Moderation
If you look at it purely from a money perspective, the LNER ones probably aren't as bad but the Grand Central ones should be repainted. The LNER ones aren't as bad because at least it's the right colours, the main issue is probably the stickers. Random coach letter stickers on the outside of the train as well as various other things within the train which suggests 'this is an LNER train'.
What could be done though at a half decent price? The only thing I can think of is more signals so that trains can be closer to the platform to and maybe save a minute of delays (similar to platform 6) or mid point signals on P1/2/3/4 so that the full platforms are utilised better. And/or mid platforms crossovers to get trains from P1A onto the platform 0 line or from platform 2A onto the through line (and vice versa in this case). The platforms are long enough and all with BiDi signalling so why not make full use of them? Yes if it's a 10 car Class 800, it isn't going to work but generally with the 5 car or less would work well, especially if there is disruption.
Even though they're not 'on brand' at least the ex-GC ones are something close to presentable and were supposed to form the basis of a new Mk4 livery hence the 2 black 67s. The LNER ones, whilst closer to the right colours look shockingly scruffy now, with the vinyls looking really tatty. There were plans to have them repainted but they seem to have disappeared.
Envoy
Established Member
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- 3,154
The black is hideous & does not show up in the countryside and the ex-LNER livery is scruffy looking.
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