If you effectively cut off a high proportion of the holiday / leisure activities that people can get involved with this summer [I am NOT saying there are not good reasons to do it], you are naturally going to squeeze a proportion of people's activities into the remaining allowed activities, even if many do nothing but stay at home. And if you then reduce the bandwidth of those remaining activities, you have a double whammy.
So it's zero surprise to see the JourneyCheck reports of overcrowding and trouble on certain trains / hotspots such as the train that gets into Weymouth at around 11:00 and the one that heads back at around 17:30. Figures suggest overcrowding levels (on new social distanced capacity levels) which make
ORR» commuter reports of around 150% on London and Manchester commuter runs look like light loads.
Here is a table of
GWR▸ stock types and passenger capacities with and without social distancing to current rules:
E&OE / some variations within individual classes tooA three car 166 to Weymouth, last year, had a capacity of 319 (including standees - less than pleasant all the way), but this year it's down to a capacity of 79. Not quite that simple, because the new capacity figures and seating arrangements seem to calculate based on individuals not bubbles/families which are the main trade on the train in question. Good to see the train increased to 4 cars ... if (probable) that's 2 x 165, it takes new age capacity up to 2 x 55 = 110. Might be sensible to use a castle (I believe
HSTs▸ have been to Weymouth in the past - are Castles short or long swing link?) and you step up to a capacity of 146. Still not brilliant, but bringing 300%+ loading down to just 150%+ ... or would you gain so many members of the rail enthusiast fraternity that you would be counterproductive?
Noting that Cardiff / Portsmouth trains seem to have dropped back to 3 carriages ... and are also coming up with some less dramatic overcrowding figures. Why have they been dropped back if the 3 cannot cope with current standards? We do know that 2 of the 2-car units are being used on the strengthened Weymouths ...
No conclusions - a juggling game and a note (away from the Heart of Wessex line) that there are also overloads on the St Ives branch, and from Bristol to Weston-super-mare for days out and getting back home afterwards. Perhaps the Heart of WALES people have it right by providing an unusable service on a line that would in normal travel times be well patronised by leisure travellers in the summer.
As responsible campaigners, we worked with GWR (FGW▸ as it was) to avoid overloading the summer Saturday peak to Weymouth in 2011 and from 2014, by encouraging traffic from Swindon / Chippenham / Melksham on a Sunday instead, and feeding it into the train that started from Westbury rather than the one from Bristol and Bath. For this summer, although we're encouraging moderate local use of the train services at quieter times, I have to say please do not try for a day trip to Weymouth. Sad, really, because it encourages those who know no better, or ignore the advise, to have a fun day out at the expense of the more responsible people who listen but do not travel there
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