Metropol

3 letter .com?! That must have been expensive.

So. Two bits of news for National Express Dundee.

First, they've repainted one of the Wright Eclipse Gemini's in a fabulous vintage Dundee Corporation Transport livery to help advertise the transport museum. Said Transport Museum finally opened in temporary premises beside the NX Dundee depot and it's lovely at weekends seeing loads of vintage buses driving around the city.




Meanwhile, they've also released their new name and new livery. NX Dundee is to become "Xplore Dundee" and go back to a green livery (although sadly not the Corporation one). I can understand the wish for a rename. The NX Dundee brand is tainted by the poor service that went on under the previous boss. The new boss has stated she wants to start afresh and hopefully this'll help. Course they also need to drop their ticket prices, replace more buses (we've still got so many old Travel WM clunkers) and have their drivers less miserable. Perhaps then they'll be able to properly complete wtih Stagecoach Strathtay who have a very good rep, with endless new buses, happier staff and cheaper tickets.

http://nxbus.co.uk/dundee/news/its-a-fr ... for-dundee

There are suppose to be big changes around 14 September up there on the travel Dundee network. Also a number of mid life buses are being transferred up from the West Midlands, to help replace all crap.

Brighton's three main bus companies, Brighton & Hove (Go-Ahead), The Big Lemon and Compass will accept ITSO across all three companies with the single card from tomorrow.

FGW RMT members on strike Sun 23rd August and Saturday 29th August - Bank Holiday Monday 31st August.

Just to annoy cwathen

Alexia wrote:FGW RMT members on strike Sun 23rd August and Saturday 29th August - Bank Holiday Monday 31st August.

Just to annoy cwathen

TBH, I wasn't going to mention it this time but since you have, in all seriousness what do you think more strikes will achieve?

From where I was standing, your last strike simply didn't work and certainly wasn't worth the 2 days pay you lost for it. The company haven't moved an inch hence you're back in this position again, and whilst the action caused disruption, I wouldn't say FGW were exactly brought to their knees by it. Despite some of the funny things I saw like it apparently taking 5 managers to dispatch a train and their emergency training clearly not extending to using ticket machines as there was no attempt to protect revenue at all (and I missed the buffet being open too), the bottom line is that trains still ran. Most of the network still had some sort of service (or at least could be worked around), and the main routes did maintain a regular (if less frequent) service during the strike. I managed to get up to Cardiff and back for a meeting during the strike, mainly using FGW trains, with no real issues other than a slightly extended journey by having to change at Bristol Parkway rather than Temple Meads.

Two things I'd be considering before throwing away a further 4 days pay:

* If you compare the planned emergency service on your earlier strikes over pay (the ones that were cancelled) to what they ran last month, it was a step change forward. Presumably they managed to train more people to run the emergency service. How many more do you think they've got trained up by now? Consider also that fewer trains run on weekends and bank holidays anyway, the level of disruption may not even be that high.

* Although 'bank holiday travel chaos' makes for a good headline, you are likely to piss off a lot more people striking on a weekday. Weekday commuters are paying the highest fares, know the timetable inside out and so will notice services that don't run, and will rely on specific services existing. Weekend and bank holiday travellers are all paying off peak/cheap advance fares, are far less likely to be regular travelers and so won't necessarily notice how much the service is reduced by since they won't know what it's normally like, and are far more likely to have the flexibility to travel on alternative services without too much fuss.

Unless ASLEF join you and you force a total shutdown, I don't think another strike is going to force their hand, all you'll get out of it is a smaller pay packet.

Differences this time:

1) Fleet maintenance staff are also striking. If the trains don't get watered, cleaned, refuelled and have essential checks done, they don't run, replacement staff or no replacement staff.

2) It's a weekend, so the management substitutes are less likely to give up their weekend to cover trains. Besides, TSSA have also balloted on action-short-of-a-strike, with the likely outcome that they will also vote against any "extra" duties, comical or otherwise. Non-union staff that aren't rostered are not obligated to work Rest Days, and as Sunday is outside the working week, non-union and ASLEF / Unite staff can "chuck in" their Sundays without repercussions. How many will choose to do that remains to be seen, but there will be pressure on Drivers from other staff to show solidarity. The drivers weren't exactly happy last time that their trains were being crewed by inexperienced pencil pushers.

3) Reading Festival Weekend - trains in and out of Reading will be heaving. Management on trains and on stations won't relish trying to control that amount of people and luggage.

4) Notting Hill Carnival Weekend.

5) Several football fixtures are scheduled, including Man Utd v Swansea, Reading away at Brentford, Swindon v Sheffield, Wimbledon v Exeter, Plymouth v Newport County - all of which would normally involve a sizeable number of fans travelling some or part way on FGW routes.

As for progress on the issues, you're right, nothing has shifted on either side. But a lot of this is largely arbitrary for the time being - the latest rumours circulating are that electrification of the GWR route has been pushed back a further two years. The new trains, built or not, won't be able to run until 2019 at current predictions.

are the GWR trains the electric only version of the IEP not the bi-mode?

Pete wrote:are the GWR trains the electric only version of the IEP not the bi-mode?

GWR are getting 5- and 9-car versions of the bi-mode Class 800, and 9-car versions of the Class 801 Electric Multiple Unit.

Virgin East Coast are getting 5- and 9-car versions of both 800 and 801.

GWR are also looking at getting Hitachi ATrain-300s for bimode operations to replace the HSTs on London - Newbury - Westbury - Taunton - Plymouth - Penzance corridor (lekky to Newbury, diesel thenceforth). In addition to this, they will have 365s and 387s for Thames Valley ops.

Isn't the East Coast line wholly electrified though, and don't East Coast only have electric trains? If both of my points are correct, what's the point in giving them trains that can also run on diesel if the feature will never be used? The only reason I could think of would be if there was some sort of power failure in the overhead electric supply, with the bi-mode trains allowing service to continue as normal, but surely this would be such a rare event that it's not worth it...