On Thursday, I took a day trip to London to visit the Rail Innovation Exhibition. On Friday I recovered from the experience (see below!) and caught up on resulting "paper"work and here I am on Saturday writing it up. Or - rather - dictating it up into my computer, experimenting with speech recognition – so please excuse any “sillies” as I try this innovation.

The trip on Thursday should have been an easy one. Imagine ...

The 07:21 train from Melksham ending up in London at about 08:45 and across to the venue in the Queen Elizabeth II centre near Parliament at around 09:15 o'clock but it didn't work like that.

Return on a train about a 17:45 getting into Melksham at about a 19:10

But that is Utopia. The fare leads to a change of plan

Jumps in this blog:
• Booking and planning
• Melksham to London - 49 minutes late
• London to Melksham - 70 minutes late
• The exbibition
• The conference
• Summary and looking ahead

The Booking and planned times

And while those trains are in the timetable with the connections actually work and how much they cost is something of a moot point and left me to take services with fallbacks, and at a reasonable cost for something coming out of my own pocket. A fully flexible ticket on the trains I wanted with the ability to be able to drop back to a later train and perhaps go via a different route to come up to get back to Melksham which has alternative trains running via Westbury and Swindon was offered to me at £247.20, or £262.80 including a travel card. A bit more space in the main line train and complementary coffee and snacks - first class - and the quoted price goes up to £327.20 or £345.30 with Transport for London included.

I don't live in Utopia. I live in Melksham. And whilst I'm sure I could have found the money had it been vital to catch those particular trains and have that flexibility I prefer to save my money and use it for other things. Looking around at what was on offer through the very same booking site with Great Western I found a fare at around £64 from Melksham to London on the 06:32 train that's a 50 minute earlier start changing at Westbury and arriving into London Paddington 10 minutes ahead of the time of the ideal train. And that fare is a first class fare so it is the equivalent of the half the £327 (return) fare including multiple cups of coffee and a rather nice raspberry croissant.

Return leg fare? I found a standard class fare of £30.95 on the 18:36 from Paddington, with a change again at Westbury and arriving into Melksham at 20:21. So total paid around £94.00, plus £2.80 on Oyster for a single underground journey. I took advantage of the extra hour in London between my ideal and planned train to walk back from Parliament Square through the Royal Parks.

Read on - I'll be getting most of that back!
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The actual journeys

Melksham to London

I got to Melksham station at about 06:25 to pick up my ticket for the 06:32 having walked from home and first thing I noticed is that instead of saying on time on the board it says DELAYED. No more than that no reasons being given on the boards including the larger one which has plenty of Real Estate and nothing on the ticket machine to say it was delayed either which again has a big screen. A couple of other passengers were waiting and so for them and for myself I checked online with real time trains and saw that our train was sitting (held) in Swindon. No loud speaker announcements ... (there are no tunnel at the station, but there was a very loudspeaker on the help point which people could be reached through).

Nothing changed over a few minutes so I called up on the help point and spoke to a gentleman there who told me that the line had been closed at true that the line had been closed between Trowbridge and Bath because of ammunition found near the track at the request of the police. When I asked about my connection at Westbury, he told me that I could travel on the next train by the same route but that I wasn't allowed to go on the train to Swindon at 7:20 and catch the London train from there because an advanced ticket apparently cannot be used on a different route. If the train doesn't run it has to be used on the same route, however he rather contradicted that by telling me that arrangements were in place with south-western Railway to use their trains so that I could join a train at Yeovil Pen Mill if I wanted to do so and heading into London that way. Quite how I would get to Yeovil was not explained; there were no magic carpets in waiting at the station. Also told me that the line will be closed until about 07:30 which did give us some idea of what may happen and that it was worth waiting around however some passengers did leave phoning up for help getting on the buses things like that regulars who are familiar with the sort of problems we have in Melksham.



I know number of regular passengers who use Melksham station on the 07:20 train in the morning and speaking with them. I was advising that it was likely that the train for Swindon and Worcester was likely to be run at about 07:35 rather than 07:20 being very careful to say that that was just my opinion and I wasn't speaking for the railway. In turn they were helping me advise other people who were there and explain to people about the ammunition found near the track and the police asking for the line to be closed. In practical terms, perhaps knowing what was going wrong and why wasn't as much used to people, but it did give them some assurance that there was a reason and perhaps they could get some clues from it.

The Keynote was Lord Peter Hendy who is the Minister of State for Rail telling us all about how railways are doing and admitting the need for improvement and innovation for a brighter future. See later in this article for more details of what he said there's a degree of irony in some of the things he was saying compared to some of the things that were experienced just in the up journey let's move on now and have a look at the down journey.

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London to Melksham

I remember promise when the IT trains started to run from London that All trains in the rush-hour would be at least nine carriages long either 2 5 carriage trains couple or a nine car train however that promise seems to have slipped away and we had just a five car train on the 18:36 from Paddington to Plymouth. It was not until 18:25 the train was actually called and a flood of people headed towards the barrier from the lawn which is the waiting area at Paddington. The turnstiles were unable to cope and the staff opened the barriers and people flooded unchecked onto the train. To discover that reserved seats weren't available because it was the wrong length train; they'd expected nine carriages, had just five and people just sat where they could. Except of course they weren't actually enough seats to go around so the ailes of the train were also crammed with people ... in particular those who actually couldn't rush onto the train and probably were more need of the seat those of us who got seats. Again having the online stuff available to me and looking through the various data sources I had been able to find out which platform train was going to be called onto and so I was standing near the barrier before it came in.

The train manager was very apologetic about the conditions and the catering lady on the trolley was very apologetic. She couldn't get through and service with any drinks because the aisles was blocked. Advice was given to passengers headed for Taunton, Exeter, Newton Abbott and Plymouth that there was another train half an hour behind with lots of space on it and they were invited to leave the train at Reading if they wished and catch another train which was going to be running rather faster than hours because we had a lot of intermediate stations to serve. Very few people took this offer up.

As we called at Reading, Newbury, Hungerford, Bedwyn and Pewsey the train lost a few more minutes each time because of the numbers of people having to push past others and fight to get off the train in the very limited space we had and by the time we reach Westbury, we were about 15 minutes late. We were due in at 19:58 but actually got there at 20:14 minutes - by by which time my 20:06 connection through to Melksham had left. Good on the station staff at Westbury that they had held the 20:13 Bath and Bristol train for connecting passengers for Trowbridge and Bradford-on-Avon, Trowbridge these days being the nearest county town to London that has no through service to there.

I spoke to one of the station staff at Westbury asking about my train and connection to Melksham and was told sorry we had to let the connection go which I understood and I was also told to wait for the next train which was going to be a 21:20 that's over an hour later rather than what is often done which is putting people into a taxi.

And so 70 minutes late into Melksham 21:30 rather than 20:20 which in turn was rather than 19:10 which would've been my best train on a flexible ticket had it been on offer at a sensible price. My understanding is that the lower cost advanced fares are sold to help fill spaces on trains which are otherwise quiet and I find this quite a surprise when we were full in standing on the train of London. There was me 140 minutes behind what I would like to have been and I will bet I would've got a seat on that earlier train from London too - they certainly would've been standing in the aisles.

70 minutes late I suppose that's good news in that I can claim the whole of my £30.95 fare back and the fact that I'm holding home a little bit later didn't really matter because I wasn't expecting a keynote speech from Lisa like I was from Peter Hendy. Lisa was very understanding about these sorts of things. It's almost a regular of travel.

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The Exhibition

The "Railway Innovation Exhibition" for suppliers, looking forward with a big feature "First of a kind". Dozens of exhibitors from supplier organisations all pitching to - well - there probably to ingratiate themselves with the organiser and Department for Transport who were sponsors. Few buyers and one exhibitor who I mentioned his bare stand commented that there was little point in bringing much along as it was an opportunity to meet colleagues and competitors rather than potential customers. Reassured that our forum was not a buyer, we had a good chat about the exhibition and I have totally forgotten - if I even knew - what his product was.

But - that comment aside - I found some of the stands very informative. I can appreciate the need for depot IT stock management systems, devices to scare deer away from railways, and the provision of rail coating and monitoring to maximise adhesion, applying product that will do minimal damage to the environment as it washes off, will last long and can be recorded and analysed for effectiveness.

Customer Information

Some of the gaps - classically - illustrated by my journey experiences today. And I know what I am doing! Add to that route planning, fares, etc. And where can I get mobility help, a cup of coffee, or call up a taxi for the final mile if there's no bus available?

There were a number of companies (almost too many sharing their products) that are using data to try and address this issue and the results seems to be a mess of a whole lot of options and possibilities but yet still not addressing the ,000 question of things like well how is that going to work when we try and put the fair system into it as well and have a system where if you train is delayed? You can catch the bus instead and it will help with your ticket transfer.

Most people seem to be using the Darwin data feed or when you speak to them admit to having a look at the BODS bus open data feed but not integrating buses with trains very much if at all which is a great shame because people want to travel from a to B and that's often a combination of types of data needed. And they laugh at you when you ask about fares or handling disruption and re-routing you on a disrupted journey - the sort of thing I was doing in person at Melksham Station a fe hours earlier for someone headed to West Wales.

This market place is in its early / embryonic years. Lots of people coming up with different competing partial solutions with a mess of different looks and feels and features. For regular and confident users for whom it can answer the right questions, that's good. But not everyone is confident, not everyone is regulate enough to learn how to navigate and tune the system, and people are likely to have "off piste" questions which may be answered via the data available, but aren't solved in the combinations on offer - or if they are, not obviously.



Rail Data Marketplace

Good to touch base with the Rail Data Marketplace team and show them our use of their data. It's interesting how the back room teams who produce the stats (the ORR ones are the same) appreciate the odd "thank you" and to see how their work is in use. I keep an eye on the Rail Data Marketplace - really useful information of feed through onto our own websites and ho help us tune pages based on information in there - for example offering the 10 most popular destinations from your current location on the menu.

Seats

New seat designs and materials which everyone seemed very excited about - hoe much the actually improve things we'll have to see. I was told that they're coming to the first class carriages on the Portsmouth - Cardiff main line, and I found myself wondering if they mean the former 1st area. They were telling me how important comfortable seating is on long journeys such as this, and I found myself wondering if they knew just what a small proportion of journeys on the line are all the way!



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The Conference

Short, mainly intended I would suspect to be motivational, but very interesting to hear what (Lord) Peter Hendy had to say. He started his 10 minute keynote by saying what a good job it was that the event was Thursday not Wednesday, as he had been in The Lords voting until 01:00 that morning and would not have done a good speech - "it's a lot for a pensioner" and that does raise the thought as to whether he's perhaps a bit old for the job - or if he DOES have the energy to do what's expected of him, is it merely a figurehead role? He went on to talk of the 200 year celebration of passenger carriage in mechanically powered trains; good but still a look back? But then he went on to talk about it all being about connectivity and that it's there for passenger, and it was refreshing to have this confirmed from the top.

Peter went on to talk about the first of a kind program and how that should be making things simpler inclusive and stress free for everybody but both of the people who use it and the people who operate it and he spoke of the need for real reform. He said that the current performance was not as good as it should be and that the current system has an unfortunate blame and passed the buck culture which he would like to see ended with people taking responsibility for all various areas looking to see a diminished fragmentation of the systems where things get passed on from one place to another.

He told us that a big consultation on the structure and direction of Great British railways and how all that works is imminent being the civil service. He couldn't give us a date he said but imminent means fairly soon and they will be looking for customer groups and individual passengers and the whole industry to input. He told us of a huge appetite to invest on improving the systems for the future and spoke about GBRX which is the I don't know expansion development section of great British Railways let us have a look and see what that is.

We then heard from Angie Doll on diversity in the rail industry, advocating for women in rail and how the railway can change to encourage greater female representation. Looking around the room, the audience was predominantly male. But looking at the five presentations, three were given by women, one by a man and woman in tandem and Peter Hendy's was the lone presentation entrusted to a male ... and isn't his boss at the DfT a woman? Is this political correctness gone mad with positive discrimination, because women are better, or a statistically insignificant co-incidence? Angie told us how she started as a Coffee Shop assistant and had worked herself up. Where I do agree with and support Angie is in her assertion that the job pool is men AND women and all should be encouraged to apply and take roles.

Maggie Simpson told us about the rail freight group, and telling us that GBR's passenger trains would only be 75% of the trains running. I wonder how the other 25% splits between freight and open access passengers, and indeed what proposition of the freight are railway engineering trains rather than outside carriage.

Luisa Moisio, Director of research at the RSS B told us about the well technology strategy however everybody needs to be working together for a purpose and to make for the reliable system and saying that we should not all be about firefighting but looking to develop better for the future.

Klara Ludinova and James Bevan the innovation leads at well innovation UK who were hosting the show told us of the competition first of a kind in 2023 and how so much of that there was looking else year at customer experiences they're talking about research projects which take the speech of a train manager and transform them into text display on screens in the train and they're telling us just how difficult that is to do with some of the gruff northern accent of train drivers and the poor quality of the sound in the cab. They were also very keen to be telling us about the seats which we are going to be seeing if you look at earlier in this note you will see on the trains from Cardiff to Portsmouth and having had a long and painful journey the other week in an IT all the way from Bath down to Penzance I think that's possibly a good idea.

And so ... the exhibition (see above); I left at around half past three having visited various stands looking at elements of the customer experience, and seeing the depth of range of other specialists. Quite a bit reminded me of things I have done with work; the big thing for me is collecting and making sensible us of all the data that's out there to make the journey easy to plan, pay for, tune along the way, and get you where you want to be, when you want to be there. The first stage of us achieving that is to note that it's an area which isn't brilliant at the moment and needs attention and - good for us - it no longer sound like a silly idea to think of the passenger experience. But we have a long way to go, as I was hearing all the talk, I thought of my experiences in the morning where prior knowledge and robustness got me through, and as I write this up I think of my landing back at Melksham over an hour late; good job I knew where I was going - no buses, no taxis, and just a handful of people who had got off the train. Not welcoming. We could do so much better - part of it is the system, part of it is the lack of innovation, and part of it is the lack of planning and running as a network to help people connect from one place to another.

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In Summary

A long day - 3 hours longer that in should have been thanks to the vagaries of the rail system with missing connections on occasional service, and passengers left standing and worndering what was going on - morning chaos and evening chaos too. List price fare for the ideal service - £228.90; actually paid - £97.70, but I expect most to be refunded because of the delays both ways and expect to finally have paid £34.80

Railways at the present time are for the robust and are not new customer friendly. The industry HAS noticed this ans is trying out all sorts of ideas in inovation, but that's far from the coal face. There is talk of a keenness to improve and invest, but the tired old trains, too short for the passengers, and a lack of information and staff give the impression we're looking at jam tomorrow rather than thought and investment to fix it today. There is good intent - but is that intent really for the passengers, or for the policital agenda, or for political correctness? Rail is complex - there is no magic wand - so we will see. A time of great opportunity, but great risk. We most move forward into our 201st year and not just rely on the past - there are elements of that such as the fare farce that are overdue for replacement. And - please - let's look at transport connections and not just rail. It's trains, and buses, and aircraft and ferries and taxis all connecting - and cycles and scooters for the last mile, with safe interchanges for all modes and up to date information.

Taking my home town of Melksham as a example, our train service of 9 each way a day should be 16 reliable clockface. There should be buses to and from the station to connect with each train. The station should be welcoming and information easy. And passenger journey numbers that have risen from 3,000 to 60,000 WILL rise to over 400,000 per year. Get these factors wrong and we'll have a fading rail service and county that's one great gridlock to at the expense of both the environemnt and the economy, and of our quality of life.

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All pictures taken on Thursday