Great Western Coffee Shop

I bumped into some very unhappy 'campers' at Melksham station this morning.   There's the same number of trains running as usual, but timings have been varied significantly due to engineering works ...

Yeah, I know - "you are advised to check online before you travel at the weekends ..."  and indeed some of my contacts did last night as they booked through trainline and were sold this journey:

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/latechange.jpg)

Problem being that there's no 11:48 today.

Far from a unique experience either - several other people said "but Trainline told me yesterday ..." or "but National Rail told me yesterday ...", and all I could really say was "it looks to me like something's gone wrong" and "please trust the times I'm giving you - my list has proven to be accurate so far this morning".

How long ahead do National Rail and Trainline put in engineering changes to their systems?  Should customers really have to recheck on the morning, or is this an unusual issue?

Strictly, should be t-12, but rarely is.

This is unusual, usually correct at t-4....

Airlines work to t-51.

What engineering work is there in the sky?!!

Can someone explain what all this means?

As a guess should all be correct 12 weeks (?) ahead ... but in practise more like 4 weeks ahead.    Could be days though!

Weeks is right.

As its used throughout the industry, it ought to go in the glossary?

Or in this case 12/4 hours.

With the potential of a significant incoming flow for the Comicon event in the town (of Melksham) yesterday,  we had meet and a meet and greet volunteer for each train arriving before 2 p.m. to point people in the right direction; with arrivals that we spoke to from Finland, Hungary and closer to home looking for the Assembly Hall and just finding an industrial estate, that was probably a good move.  And it gave a good chance to estimate the numbers on each train and to count (accurately) arrivals and departures - interesting learning for a Bank Holiday.  Later in the day, I picked up my wife from the station, and at the tail end of service she picked me up (having take a triangular trip that concluded with a train journey.

Here are the numbers.  I'm pretty sure that the numbers on the train into Melksham are fair estimates - but they should be read with some fuzziness.

into   on   off   time  destination
10   18   1   08:02 Swindon
50   23   3   08:37 Swindon
50   14   3   09:27 Westbury
60   35   4   10:29 Swindon
40   2   12   11:27 Westbury
40   22   2   12:19 Swindon
25   6   8   13:36 Westbury

130   6   45   16:26 Westbury

40   4   20   21:38 Westbury

Note that the numbers coming in to the event weren't great (perhaps 15 to 20) but there was a lot of outbound day traffic.  Even the late train carried 44 different passengers (that 40 is accurate as was on the train and went through to count) which rather indicates the call for an evening service.   The 130 on the 16:26 was also pretty accurate, as Lisa was on that train and reported from the 'inside'.   Relieved it was 2 carriages not one!

I'm guessing there is some additional flow in those figures due to the engineering work in the north Bristol area. Eg passengers for the north and South Wales connecting into diverted services at Swindon?

Frankly, little evidence of such. Considerable flow to and from football (Swindon Town kickoff at 13:30, but many other match journeys too), cricket at Lords, etc. ... and lots of days out.

Just joined the 08:02 Melksham to Swindon this morning. 4 got off, 20 of us got on and there were 41 up to Chippenham, where 22 got off and no more got on. By contrast to this relative busyness, Swindon station where I'm sitting to post this is very very quiet indeed.  Almost more people standing around observing the Cross Country trains coming in and leaving than travelling!

And I guess the 228 entries and exits at MKM over just 9 trains are very unlikely to have been so distorted.