Terence Eden’s Blog

Great Western Rail's Contempt For Customers

@edentfgw gwr NaBloPoMo rail travel · 7 comments · 700 words · read ~673 times.

Moribund train company Great Western Rail currently have a two month backlog of complaints. I think that this breaches their agreement with the Office of Rail and Road. In an ideal world GWR would be forced to improve, or be stripped of their franchise. I've spent an utterly miserable month commuting between Oxford and London on GWR's over-crowded and decrepit trains. I was delayed around 21 times in a single month. That's close to 80% of all journeys that I caught arriving late. An…

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Are @FGW Deliberately Trying To Confuse Their Customers?

@edentfgw trains · 4 comments · 2,000 words · read ~434 times.

Train companies in the UK are uniformly awful. Because they are privately run but endure no meaningful form of competition, we get to see just how hostile corporations are to customers when left to their own devices. I am a long-suffering passenger on First Great Western. The line between Oxford and London regularly suffers from delays. According to their own statistics, journeys on that line miss their punctuality targets 20% of the time. So, I've taken to emailing a complaint to them…

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