https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq525jvxng2o

.....not a very Merry Christmas in store for their customers!

 

Indeed - and that matter - and also the idea of GWR's parent First looking to maximise income over expenditure in the shorter term rather than acting as guardians for passengers and the future has also been raised.  But I have the indication that the GWR folks are rail at heart, will be TUPEd over, and don't want to cross over with such a record.

 
I was going to vote "after the war" but that option was not listed.

 
I have voted - but I'm apparently in a significant minority. 

CfN. 

 
Is the correct answer "Never" because the franchise/operating contract will end before all the issues GWR faces (Old Oak blockade, rolling stock shortage, employment issues, partial electrification, etc, etc) are resolved?

It's tempting to be cynical and say that DfT, the Government, ORR and GBR may have no great incentive to address any matters in their control until the succeeding arrangements are in place so that they can demonstrate that the new order has achieved something?

 
I guess GWR’s ‘current’ woes could be fixed this year if it and the government agree on operating a reduced but more robust timetable before the year’s out. GWR must know what they can and can’t realistically run. My gosh, they’ve got decades of experience of never running a full timetable, particularly at weekends to look back on. Long term fix you are looking at least two years away.

 

I *did* wonder ... but people have started to vote.   I'm thinking to leave it alone - unlike the other poll that's running at the moment, I'm not thinking that the outcome of this one will be triggering an email to GWR.

 
This!


Christmas is fast approaching, and if the last few months are anything to go by GWR haven’t got a hope of being able to run the planned timetable over the Christmas and New Year period. It’s not too late to revise the timetable to give passengers more certainty.

I know, dream on…it won’t happen.

 
Hmm. 

The poll is somewhat skewed, in that it's asking in 'this year'. Bearing in mind that we're already nearly into December of 'this year', there's clearly no way that's going to happen.

I'd suggest changing the first two options to, respectively, '2025', '2026' ... 

CfN. 

 
From the Manchester Evening News

 
I can confirm that the NHS still uses fax machines, for confirming delivery and secure storage of controlled drugs, and probably for other purposes.
During a recent hospital visit, there was a panic when a bulk supply of controlled drugs were found to be missing. A trainee had locked them in a safe intended for patients valuables, rather than in the proper place. A trail of faxes confirmed the facts.

 
I like many others now have a halfway house.  Incoming faxes are turned into an email and arrive as a PDF attachment.  If I need to reply it is converted to a fax and delivered to the distant machine.

Back in the late 90s I had a Psion organiser and you could compose a message on it and using a bit of kit linked to your mobile you could send a fax while out and about.   I thought it was cutting edge doing so from a train!

 
The fact that fax has become so little used is an advantage for some purposes. It arrives at a place, not into an e-mail account, and prints itself. That avoids it getting missed in a flood of messages and not printed in time. If you want a bit of paper that can be given to someone else at that place and taken away that works. Its rarity even makes it stand out, which is helpful if it's an important form of authorisation (for example).

Fax did get used as if very secure and reliable in e.g. law, finance, and the NHS (where it may still survive). I don't think that was due to anything in the system itself, more that it was a "trusted link" - you knew the other machine was really in the office you thought it was.

 
I am reminded of "if it ain't bust, don't fix it".

I used to support a military customer base with high tech equipment that went into warships.  The equipment was specified, sourced, tested as the ship was built but by the time the ship entered service, it was already superseded old technology. It was known this was going to happen and a great deal of effort was put in at procurement time to ensuring the spares would be available over  planned 20, 25 or 30 year life.

Fax technology is old, but if it is doing the job and remains safe and appropriate and available, why not continue it?  We have far older technologies still in use on the network even a few remaining semaphore signals where in places it's not all that different from the Victorian times.

 
GWR still uses communication by fax as well.  To get short notice driver diagrams from the control office to the depot the driver is one example.  Not sure of the difference between that and a printed email?

What a silly article.

 
Andy Burnham metro Mayor for Manchester said he was surprised that Northern still use FAX machines,
which was stated by CEO Matt Rice at the emergency meeting of the Rail North Committee which took place on Wednesday 30 October 2024

Don't see a problem with FAX machines as long as they are reliable.

 https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/northern-slammed-unreliable-fax-driven-30255784

 

That presumably means that anyone from northern England heading towards Chester or north Wales will need to travel via Liverpool and the slow crawl down the Wirral.

We were due to be heading to north Wales today (though not from the north) and I'm fairly glad not to be doing it, given the general uncertainty, though sad to miss out on the festivities once we got there. Unfortunately my partner has gone down with a winter bug and we won't be travelling anywhere.

 
Northern are warning that those services which do run are expected to be "extremely busy" and have now expanded their earlier warning to include;

DO NOT TRAVEL ON ALL ROUTES FROM 16:00 Sunday 24th December

Currently 374 cancellations listed.

 
Tomorrow will be quiet.  Most folk will have travelled yesterday or today.

 
Not sure how that all fits in with this scenario however in the case of Northern Rail's services tomorrow, apparently managers were warned by the Trade Unions weeks ago that they wouldn't have enough staff volunteering to work tomorrow given it's not only a Sunday but Christmas Eve too so they should consider an incentive - but they ignored this and it was only midweek that they realised how dire things were looking and offered an additional £100, which was only taken up by about half a dozen people.

Hence tomorrow a lot of people are going to have a very difficult journey home for Christmas.

 

There was a Service Level Commitment which provided a description of services to be provided on Monday to Friday, Saturday and Sunday - now sure what it said about Bank Holidays and "Holiday Shoulders", with the franchise holders doing their best to maximise their net receipts after running expenses were taken off.  I don't know what detail was in them about replacement transport.

The SLC for Swindon to Westbury over a decade ago was notorious ... "2 trains a day shall run each way from Swindon to Westbury on Monday to Saturdays. On Monday to Friday one service must arrive in Swindon before 08:30 and one must leave after 17:30.    Some bright spark in the old First Great Western Intercity team that won the right to operate the line, previously Wessex Trains, noted that an arrival into Swindon at 07:45 and a departure at 18:45 was allowed, and that if a train ran from Swindon at 06:15 it could effectively form the 07:45 arrival, using a unit off the Stroud Valley line that wasn't needed there until around 07:50 from Swindon,  and that with a train as late as 18:45, it had done its day on the Stround Valley and could run back into Swindon at around 20:20.   I don't think they ever expected the 06:15 departure and 20:20 arrival to do much business, but they were save the cost of hiring a train for the line.

The Sunday SLC was worse - it said "2 trains shall run from Westbury to Swindon" and we were treated to a couple of years of a northbound service only, with an empty train running the other way.  One of the early victories for common sense put that train into passenger service.

We have come a very, very long way since those days.

 

Northern was taken into public ownership in 2020.

 
Is this was privatisation was about?

 
Northern have cancelled all services on the following routes tomorrow due to staff shortage and are warning against attempting to travel - no rail replacement transport being arranged.

They are trying to get their journey planners updated as some are still showing normal service.

Morecambe/Heysham – Lancaster
Blackpool South – Colne
Wigan – Stalybridge
Clitheroe – Manchester Victoria
Manchester Victoria – Chester
Manchester Piccadilly – Chester (Via Altrincham)
Manchester Piccadilly - Crewe

 
As no ticket gates look like they will never be installed at Sheffield
 maybe Northern should be more interested in staffing their trains correctly

 
Northern have announced a crackdown on persistent fare Dodgers in the Beeb article linked below.
It claims that modern ticketing technology can be used to identify and target offenders.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-67404476