2024 - Service update and amendment log, Swindon <-> Westbury

[whole diary]

[Timmer]

Due to flooding between Westbury and Swindon fewer trains are able to run on all lines.
Train services running through these stations have been cancelled. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.

That needs rewording. There is NO flooding between Westbury and Swindon*. This line is now being used for SW services which are no longer going via Bristol. Normal half hourly Bristol to London services resumed along with South Wales services diverted but now no longer stopping at Bath Spa.

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) should be more clear and say why there are no Tranwilts services.

*On the railway line at least. Flooding elsewhere in Wiltshire.

[grahame]

Due to flooding between Westbury and Swindon fewer trains are able to run on all lines.
Train services running through these stations have been cancelled. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.

That needs rewording. There is NO flooding between Westbury and Swindon*. This line is now being used for SW services which are no longer going via Bristol. Normal half hourly Bristol to London services resumed along with South Wales services diverted but now no longer stopping at Bath Spa.

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) should be more clear and say why there are no Tranwilts services.

*On the railway line at least. Flooding elsewhere in Wiltshire.

GWR have scored in my view 2 stars out of 5 in terms of how they are handing this in Melksham

+* They get one star for their honesty in admitting the whole service is cancelled rather than pretending thoughtout the day.

+* They get another star for providing a minibus instead

-* They do NOT get credit for failing to stop the trains that are going through. If they have added Pilning and Avoncliff to places IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) can stop, why the heck not Melksham?

-* They do NOT get credit for charging £18 single from Swindon to Westbury online today. I know that they will accept "via Melksham" tickets via Bath in these circumstances (£10.50 on the 06:11 "peak" train, £9 for all the rest of the direct service), but public information and charges should reflect that and not be reliant on people knowing a ticket that is not available

-* It's all very well having replacement buses, but nothing at the station tells you their times.  I wait to hear that hardly anyone is using them - because hardy anyone knows about when and where they are, and advise to ask at the Help Point, given online, means they expect you to go to the station and likely have something of a wait.

Not a star - but a pedanticisim When the departure board says "cancelled", why does it then list "calling at" stations. Surely the whole point is that it is NOT calling at ...



"No trains through Melksham today due to flooding". Funny (peculiar) - looks like a train to me!



Edit - to add regular direct fare information

[eightonedee]

Not a star - but a pedanticisim When the departure board says "cancelled", why does it then list "calling at" stations. Surely the whole point is that it is NOT calling at ...

To be fair Grahame, there will be people turning up looking for a train to the other intermediate trains, so I think it is correct to list them (albeit perhaps headed "this would have been the train for.....").

Otherwise I heartily endorse your comments!

[grahame]

Not a star - but a pedanticisim When the departure board says "cancelled", why does it then list "calling at" stations. Surely the whole point is that it is NOT calling at ...

To be fair Grahame, there will be people turning up looking for a train to the other intermediate trains, so I think it is correct to list them (albeit perhaps headed "this would have been the train for.....").

Otherwise I heartily endorse your comments!

Hence not s star either way, but a pedanticism. I would agree "would have called at" or "no longer calling at".

When the water is receded, the panic is over and we can look back at lessons, there are things to be take up with GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), Network Rail, the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) and our MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) and candidates for next time.  In the wide game of things, so much could be done without breaking an arm, a leg, or the bank!

18.7% of households in my ward don't have their own vehicle - for sure, that's below the 23.5% average for England but lookin across to the next ward it's just 8.1% ... but it's still nearly a quarter who rely on the bus, train, taxis and perhaps lifts.  http://grahamellis.uk/blog1099.html . Perhaps a good thing to ask our MP and candidates about.

It's not uncommon for our line to be used for South West diversions and it costs them 20 minutes anyway when the Berks and Hants between Reading and Westbury is closed.  Logic is to allow them to take another 15 minutes and call at intermediate stations (they have to slow right down anyway to go round the corner at Melksham) and update the departure board overnight to reflect it.  Cheaper than providing buses?

[TaplowGreen]

I don't disagree that Melksham should have a service (and as you have pointed out, road replacement has been arranged), but wouldn't stopping fast services in the way that you suggest simply create the congestion that suspending the Transwilts is intended to avoid?

[grahame]

I don't disagree that Melksham should have a service (and as you have pointed out, road replacement has been arranged), but wouldn't stopping fast services in the way that you suggest simply create the congestion that suspending the Transwilts is intended to avoid?

No  - and there's a precedent when the Portsmouth - Cardiff service becomes a Portsmouth - Swindon service.   So it's not exactly rocket science research!

Obviously, road replacement would be useful if its times were published. 

[TaplowGreen]

I don't disagree that Melksham should have a service (and as you have pointed out, road replacement has been arranged), but wouldn't stopping fast services in the way that you suggest simply create the congestion that suspending the Transwilts is intended to avoid?

No  - and there's a precedent when the Portsmouth - Cardiff service becomes a Portsmouth - Swindon service.   So it's not exactly rocket science research!

Obviously, road replacement would be useful if its times were published. 

Sorry, hadn't done any research, it was just a question.

Agreed GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) should certainly publish times of road replacement.

[grahame]

No  - and there's a precedent when the Portsmouth - Cardiff service becomes a Portsmouth - Swindon service.   So it's not exactly rocket science research!

Obviously, road replacement would be useful if its times were published. 

Sorry, hadn't done any research, it was just a question.

Agreed GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) should certainly publish times of road replacement.

Good questions - worth re-iterating the answers from yonks back and doing a sanity check that the answer still hold water, though I'm not sure if "holding water" is the correct way to say if got today.   Smiley (previously) added to lighten the answer.

Removing a round trip local train saved GWR / NR^» (Network Rail - home page) about 40 minutes of single line availability in a 2 hour period and two awkward flat junction transitions, and two "line turnarounds".   Then adding in a Melksham stop would cost 8 of those single line minutes and not add back any awkward flat junction transitions, nor those line turnarounds.   The extra minutes would slow the whole journey to the South West by a few minutes, possibly even meaning that an extra IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) was needed - but then 3 IETs are not running of days of diversion via Melksham because the trains that are normally nonstop Reading to Taunton are run as semifast anyway and take the place of the also-canned 3 or 4 unit Taunton / Exeter / Paignton service.

Sorry to get so technical - lived this stuff for years.   

[brooklea]

Perhaps I’m missing a solution that is blindingly obvious to others here, but to me it seems that stopping diverted IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) at Melksham must have potential to add congestion to the system.

The TransWilts service is, by and large, operated by a single train so it cannot delay itself whilst occupying the single line. But once you start diverting multiple trains in both directions, there’s potential for trains to present at both ends of the single line simultaneously, forcing one to wait, and thus delaying everything else caught behind it.

Were you to be planning and timetabling these diversions, as would be the case for Portsmouth to Cardiff becoming Portsmouth to Swindon for engineering works, you’d create a plan which avoided more than one train needing to occupy the single line at a time, but ad-hoc diversions for unscheduled line blockages would have to fit as best they can around the rest of the service. (The irony of this statement, when the solution is to take out the TransWilts services, is not lost on me, but I can sort-of understand why it is as it is).

I guess that other arguments against using diverted trains to substitute for the TransWilts may be that the regular service is so sparse that the diverted trains are unlikely to match well with the published timetable, so intending passengers will still be turning up at the station at the scheduled times, and requiring some form of alternative transport provision. In addition, if the diverted trains are truly substituting for the TransWilts you are looking at additional stops at Swindon, Chippenham, Trowbridge and Westbury, as well as Melksham, which is going to eat up more line capacity.

That’s not to say I don’t think diverted IETs should stop at Melksham, but it is ‘complicated’.

[TaplowGreen]

Perhaps I’m missing a solution that is blindingly obvious to others here, but to me it seems that stopping diverted IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) at Melksham must have potential to add congestion to the system.

The TransWilts service is, by and large, operated by a single train so it cannot delay itself whilst occupying the single line. But once you start diverting multiple trains in both directions, there’s potential for trains to present at both ends of the single line simultaneously, forcing one to wait, and thus delaying everything else caught behind it.

Were you to be planning and timetabling these diversions, as would be the case for Portsmouth to Cardiff becoming Portsmouth to Swindon for engineering works, you’d create a plan which avoided more than one train needing to occupy the single line at a time, but ad-hoc diversions for unscheduled line blockages would have to fit as best they can around the rest of the service. (The irony of this statement, when the solution is to take out the TransWilts services, is not lost on me, but I can sort-of understand why it is as it is).

I guess that other arguments against using diverted trains to substitute for the TransWilts may be that the regular service is so sparse that the diverted trains are unlikely to match well with the published timetable, so intending passengers will still be turning up at the station at the scheduled times, and requiring some form of alternative transport provision. In addition, if the diverted trains are truly substituting for the TransWilts you are looking at additional stops at Swindon, Chippenham, Trowbridge and Westbury, as well as Melksham, which is going to eat up more line capacity.

That’s not to say I don’t think diverted IETs should stop at Melksham, but it is ‘complicated’.

Thanks - that's sort of what I was getting at, but you have a much finer grasp of the detail!

[grahame]

It's complex (you're right). "Reductio ad absurdum" and adding any train and any stop adds to congestion.  With trains turning up at unscheduled intervals at both ends of the single track, yes, you'll want to get them through as quickly as possible - but that was not quite my suggestion. Like there are two-track plans for London to Reading, and an almost routine plan of what to do in the event of Swindon to Parkway being closed, so there should be an almost routine plan (perhaps there is?) for closures between Reading and Westbury.

Diverted trains typically/often call at Swindon (for bus to Pewsey) and at Westbury; extra stops at Chippenham and Trowbridge have happened at times and are on the double track.  Only the Melksham stop is within the bottleneck.  In the long term, the proper solutions are:

1. Make the railway fit for use in all weathers, not just the "fair weather railway" it feels like at times these days.

2. Redouble (most of) the line from Chippenham to Trowbridge so that the bottle neck is eased; look at examples of the Cornish main line where there are 2 trains an hour each way including some very long distance stuff (Edinburgh and even a service from Aberdeen) and the same number again Falmouth shuttles using a short stretch too.

It's all a matter of scale. Logic when the Berks and Hants is closed east of Westbury may be to extend a London -> Bristol and beyond service to the South West every 2 hours, and run a London -> Exeter service every 2 hours via Westbury. I would, happily, justify the changed train times at Melksham in these circumstances; for though passengers I would ask for direct tickets to be openly sold as if the normal routes were being taken.  Looking not only at "via Melksham" tickets where internet prices were doubled yesterday, but also "via Newbury".

P.S. Putting a number on things -  a Melksham stop on alternate IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) would add 4 minutes per cycle; removing the local train saves 40 minutes per cycle.

[grahame]

I know "no news is good news" but ...

[grahame]

10:58 Weymouth to Chippenham due 13:17

10:58 Weymouth to Chippenham due 13:17 will be terminated at Westbury.
It will no longer call at Trowbridge, Melksham and Chippenham.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

14:00 Chippenham to Weymouth due 15:57
 
14:00 Chippenham to Weymouth due 15:57 will be started from Westbury.
It will no longer call at Chippenham, Melksham and Trowbridge.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

[grahame]

A bright and sunny morning here in Melksham, and a hope that the new week will bring us a reliable, running train service. 

I'm noting that GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) are adding extra stops into express services to overcome shortages / cancellations caused by infrastructure problems.  May I commend them on this, and ask that they extent this practise elsewhere in the - hopefully rare - event of local service cancellation due to infrastructure problems.

08:15 Penzance to London Paddington due 13:29

08:15 Penzance to London Paddington due 13:29 will call additionally at Newbury.
This is due to a fault with the signalling system.

[grahame]

 

06:13 Bristol Parkway to Westbury due 07:28
07:45 Westbury to Swindon due 08:34
08:45 Swindon to Westbury due 09:26
09:46 Westbury to Swindon due 10:34
11:05 Swindon to Westbury due 11:47
12:17 Westbury to Swindon due 12:59
13:15 Swindon to Westbury due 13:57
14:19 Westbury to Swindon due 15:01
15:14 Swindon to Westbury due 15:59
16:23 Westbury to Swindon due 17:08
17:36 Swindon to Westbury due 18:20
18:37 Westbury to Swindon due 19:21
20:13 Swindon to Westbury due 20:58
21:16 Westbury to Swindon due 21:58
22:30 Swindon to Westbury due 23:11

Facilities on the 22:30 Swindon to Westbury due 23:11.
Disabled toilet facilities are not available.
This is due to a fault on this train.

Edit - adding in the working that brings the shuttle train onto the line in the morning.