It seems like only yesterday when you first said "Manana Manana" 

 
It's been a difficult summer weather-wise, and other factors such as the side effects of pending re-organisation, budgetary control, world events, and so on all have their effect.   And so standards slip, or feel like they are slipping, right across the board.  How much of the slippage in our region is just a refection of nationwide ills, and how much of the performance issue is more regional of local?

I went to Open Train Times, where they produce station performance rankings, and share with you a map showing where the stations in a particular area come in a ranking. I also took a number of stations starting with "M" across Great Britain, and had the site plot their rankings for the last 6 months.





I personally question the Open Train Times evaluation algorithm, as I feel it give too little weight to cancellations, and so too much wait to delays.  However - the shape of the curve, where things have got better and where worse, is very informative.

 

I don't think any of the operators is doing especially well at the moment, so this is not a GWR thing.  I think it's the 'new normal' until GBR is up and running when there might be more structure and therefore more accountability and control.  At the moment it's a mess organisationally and that feeds down to the operational side of things.

And when I say GBR is up and running, I don't mean in December when GWR moves under direct government operation, but when the whole GBR organisation steps out of the shadows and into the limelight.  Scheduled for next year still?


Happy to be corrected, but I think any service that skipped a station (including services that start/terminate short) are counted as a 'half' cancellation for the 'All Cancellations' figure.

 
Abysmal is polite.

How would the semi-permanent cancellation of the Padd to Didcot services be represented on here?  The services ‘operated’ but skipped Twyford, Maidenhead and Slough for much of the month.

 
GWR have now published performance figures for 4 weeks 26 July - 22 August 2026

Once again, depending on how polite you are, somewhere between awful and abysmal

Cancellations overall 7.02%

but certain lines did worse, eg
London - Cotswolds 10.16% cancelled
Outer Thames Valley 9.81%
North Downs 9.33%
London - South Wales 9.07%
Bristol Suburban 8.67%
South Wales - South Coast 8.51%
Plymouth and Cornwall 8.24%

Some of the cancellations were due to external factors, so not all GWRs fault (although how quickly they recover from an incident is really a function of control).   But worryingly some areas had over 6% cancelled that were totally due to GWR

However you look at it, a commuter doing 5 return trips (10 return journeys) shouldn't have to put up with 1 of those 10 cancelled

https://www.gwr.com/-/media/gwr-sc-website/files/publications/performance-report/gwr-performance-report-period-2705.pdf

Of the trains that did run, only about half (51.96%) actually ran on time, with one group not even managing 30% on time.

If you use the more generous within 3 minutes,  GWR didn't even get 7 in 10 meeting that spec, with the worst group achieving just a lowly 44.67%

Sometimes I try and encourage public transport use, but am I wasting my time when GWR seems so out of its depth and performs so badly, and seems to be getting worse.   This is not a bad day, it is ongoing for months.

Am I being unrealistic, or are these figures some accepted new normal ?

 

AIUI a Paddington to Great Malvern train that terminates short at Worcester Foregate Street will be flagged as a cancellation even though only a small part of the route and small number of passengers will be affected.

So, it’s likely to be much less than the figure you mention above (but still way too high!)

 
GWR have now uploaded period 03 performance figures

Cancellations are even worse than previous period in some areas
EF03 London-Cotswolds 10.38% cancelled
EF10 Bristol suburban 9.11% cancelled
EF13 South Wales - South Coast 11.3% cancelled

https://www.gwr.com/-/media/gwr-sc-website/files/publications/performance-report/gwr-performance-report-period-2703.pdf

If anyone commutes 5 days we're week (2 return journeys) then statistically going to have about 1 of their 10 journeys cancelled (1 in 9 for EF13).   
Nowhere near good enough in my opinion.

 

My last ride on an IET wasn't actually too bad (perhaps the scenery helped)- but that was comparing it with the awful ride qualities on the outward leg of that trip on a 197. BUT - there was a trolley on board the IET and I got a top notch cup of coffee from there, BUT (again !) the best riding train of that day's trip was the 166 to Cardiff. (I hated writing that !!!)

 

I thought that the official view was that IETs are so much better than the HSTs they replaced. And that only I and a FEW others felt otherwise.

 

Forgive me looking from a West Wiltshire viewpoint on that. Apart from the 05:40 from Bradford-on-Avon to Paddington, the newest train that calls at any station in our constituency is  1993 vintage - 33 years old.

 
The 175s cannot be doing much for the stats with cancellations, late running, and short forms by taking 150s to cover.

 

I can't speak for the 387s, but the IETs are certainly ageing - very prematurely !! They are in far worse condition that the HSTs ever were at that age - in fact, I would say that HSTs were in better "nick" at twice that age.

 
Although the cancellations are total, and GWR caused (so difference between these numbers are caused by others).

However most passengers are not really interested in who the cancellation is caused by, they simply want a reliable service, and if there is a problem, it gets resolved as fast as possible, and what to do in meantime to get them to their destination explained clearly.

Yesterday I was at Bradford On Avon station and every couple of minutes was automatic announcement: "we are sorry the 09:48 to Portsmouth Harbour is delayed by x minutes.....".  Just robot mode hollow sounding apology, nothing to help or give reassurance to the waiting passengers.  No reason given.   Sort of feels symptomatic of attitude of customer comes last, operating convenience first.

Ok, BoA isn't the biggest station, so someone in control not entering a reason for PA to state, might be deemed low priority, but there is old adage look after pennies and pounds like look after themselves.  In blunt terms if management don't care about passengers starting at smaller stations then not looking after about half their passengers which isn't good enough.  Lose half the passengers and their jobs aren't secure, but they don't seem to get it.

 

"Ageing fleet"? The IETs have largely only been in service for 8-10 years, the 387 Electrostars much the same!

 

I would agree with you both.

The current GWR team have an aging fleet to deal with, and also what seems like a worsening infrastructure scenario - though that could be that they're ever more careful now on safety grounds.  It feels like the bridge at Limpley Stoke is closed and trains diverted via Chippenham on a weekly basis, for example, which does not help CDF -> PMH ... and the blame cannot be apportioned to GWR (First employees and contractors) on that sort of issue.

Where I (and others in WWRUG, for example) have noticed an issue is that GWR management is far less available and responsive than it used to be, with an extra layer of marketeers on filtering the technical team, and a very controlled approach of answering less / slower that they used to, and answering with answers that don't answer the question (if you get what I mean) but rather tell us similar / linked data that does not actually address the issue.

I and others are somewhat at a loss about what to do about this (if there is anything we can do).  We do not wish to be "squeaky wheels".   We do not want to shout issues in public, especially in those cases where things are getting slightly better.  And we want to be able to promote the services with them.  Of course, our failure on things like getting a CCIF grant, or the afternoon peak service at DMH replaced now that the original runs empty to aid reliability, or even to get a single call on 1st August in a Weymouth train for a special day out (and that WAS promised ...) is frustrating.

Is it "end of term blues?".  Is it that other newer things such as as the Oxford service, Newquay and Okehampton are now the fashion / focus?  Is it that they are far more ruled by DfT, not interested in anything except short term and impressing the new bosses?   Is it that born and bred train people are replaced more by bright and lovely people but who are new to rail, and perhaps look at costs and accounts and not passenger needs?  Is it an increased regulation and complexity that removes and flexibility and friendliness? I don't know the answer. 

 

Clearly not the complete picture. There are a number of significant mismatches between All Cancellations & GWR Cancellations in the data and they can only or largely be down to Network Rail. The seemingly daily PAD <> RDG infrastructure failures must be a major contributor to a pretty bleak report.

 
GWR have recently published latest 4 weekly performance
Covers 3 - 30 May 2026

https://www.gwr.com/-/media/gwr-sc-website/files/publications/performance-report/gwr-performance-report-period-2702.pdf

Cancellations 4.44%
with huge 9.89% on South Wales-South coast routes

Less than 3 in 5 trains on time (59.28%)
Nearly 1 in 4 not within more relaxed within 3 minutes
4.33% of those that ran, were more than 15 minutes late.

349 trains (about 12.5 per day) were shortformed below DfT agreed length

Anyone else think standards are clearly slipping now, in run up to their nationalisation.