Great Western Coffee Shop

Disruption at Bristol Temple Meads.

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service_disruptions/189267.aspx

And on the night FOSBR are holding their meeting to discuss the disruptions on the Severn Beach route, how ironic.

I've noticed that some of the track has been removed at St Andrew's Road, as well as some ground levelling. It's a bit further down on the right (facing SVB) where the (diesel storage?) block house was.

Anyone shed some light on the work that's going on?

cheers

rich

Marcus Alexander (spelling?)

has produced an audio guide for the Severn Beach line,further info on Radio Bristol before 10:00am

Evidently not just the Beach Line but also a few more according to what I've read.  Other lines covered include Trans Wilts and Heart of Wessex if I remember correctly.
I'm going to try to download it and give it a test drive on the Beach Line next week.

Indeed - https://windowseater.com/travel/united-kingdom/train/swindon-to-westbury-the-transwilts-line/ if you want a link

Severn Beach at https://windowseater.com/travel/united-kingdom/train/bristol-to-severn-beach-the-severn-beach-line/

Well I don't know about all the other Montpeliers, but my local one now has a brand new ticket machine!

(https://fosbr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/mtp_tvm.jpg)

Good that it's working....I'll have to check Redland Station out.  I see that the departure board is still awaiting the arrival of the, erm, departure board but everything else is looking ready.

The ticket machine at Redland was still showing "out of service" or similar message on Saturday. Maybe it's working this morning?

And on an only somewhat related note, I've noticed that the "Things to do locally" board at Redland mentions the ornate houses on "Freemantle Road". Freemantle Road is in Eastville, sandwiched between Fishponds Road and the M32. The road the board is referring to, with its high terraces (postman's nightmare!) is of course Fremantle Road. But I'm sure the tourists cope with this!

I'll have a look at Redland Station tomorrow on my travels if it dry enough for my intended plod around the Bath area countryside.
I can certainly confirm that Fremantle Road does indeed have high terraces, a friend of mine had a large flat there until somewhat over a decade ago but I have to admit to not spotting the spolling mistook on the station information board.

Update, Redland Station ticket machine still not in service yesterday but FoSBR sources inform me that the new ticket machine at Montpelier now has a rain shelter too.  Working ticket machine AND rainshelter?  Blatant oneupmanship! 

Indeed it has:

(https://fosbr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/mtp_tvm_with_roof.jpg)

Photo: Carol Durrant, FoSBR

Just spotted another new TVM, this time at Lawrence Hill:

(https://fosbr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/lwh_tvm_20220414.jpg)

With the new ticket machine at Redland Station still operating in "out of service" mode, I decided to go to nearby Montpelier Station to get a ticket on their new improved "in service" version.
Return tickets to Temple Meads were easy enough to order, including adding a railcard.  In fact the whole operation seemed straightforward and intuitive.
I noticed that you are able to collect prepaid tickets as well, which could be useful if it works.  My previous two attempts at collecting from the machines at Parkway and Temple Meads were total failures so I had to get them from the ticket offices as a result.
Anyway, here's a close up of the Montpelier machine.

Anyone know why the Severn Beach line is only running approximately hourly tomorrow with no second train to/from Avonmouth and the Weston to Severn Beach service split into two separate trains at Bristol rather than a through service?

Ignore me...bit of a blonde moment.  Obviously the strike action today is reducing the service for the whole of tomorrow, not just early doors.

I don’t see why it should affect all day tomorrow. All otger lines appear to be running properly late morning

A quick heads up.  There are reports on a Severn Beach Line Facebook page that there has been a problem with a level crossing between Avonmouth and SB today resulting in all services going no further than Avonmouth.  That's all I've heard but if you are thinking of going to Severn Beach today you might want to check first before packing your bucket and spade! 
 :D

On Journeycheck

Alterations to services between Avonmouth and Severn Beach
Due to a fault with barriers at a level crossing between Avonmouth and Severn Beach the line is blocked.
Train services running to and from these stations will be terminated at Avonmouth. Severn Beach and St Andrews Road will not be served. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.
Customer Advice
We are sorry for the delay to your journey this morning.

One of the barriers on the level crossing at St Andrews Road has been damaged by strong winds overnight. As the barriers cannot be lowered, we are not able to run any trains over the level crossing.

The busy nature of the road, that gives access to Avonmouth Docks, means it is not possible to close the road to allow trains to run. Network Rail are still working to source parts to repair the barrier, but the repair will be done overnight.

For the rest of the day services between Bristol Temple Meads and Severn Beach will terminate at Avonmouth and start back there towards Bristol Temple Meads.

From Bristol Post (https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristol-train-disruption-after-cable-7975824)


Looks like it was the same yesterday and the day before - in fact last departures from Severn Beach appear to have been at 13:00 and 15:00 on 24th December!

How long does it take to fix a signalling fault?  Can't things like pilot(wo)men be used to keep the service running?

Industrial action....

Taxis running, leaving Avonmouth when the train arrives and Severn Beach ten minutes BEFORE the train would normally leave.

Service on "The Beach" seem to be running hourly between Temple Meads and Avonmouth, passing each other at Clifton Down.   Flagged as "VVR" on Real Time Trains - not a code I have seen before.

It's not that new, but has got far more common. Officially:

But with the added note "VSTP is a mess.".

I think this is all part of the current practice of recasting much if not all of the timetable the night before. That's both a change (from the WTT), and also the basis from which changes are defined (so the TOCs can redefine cancellation).

Have you a link to that page, or a full list of all the codes you can copy here ... please ...? Thanks!

Apparently, buried cable troughs and a high ground water level are hampering finding out where the fault is, let along repairs.  Plus of course it's very much a secondary line.

This from Tom on RTT website 8th June 2021 https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/realtimetrains-website.189152/page-28
To tidy this off:

VST - STP schedule under VSTP arrangements
VVR - VAR schedule under VSTP arrangements, note that this does not discriminate between a VST that has received a variation, a WTT that has received a VAR. You can also get stacks of VARs on top of each other in VSTP world. Or indeed a totally new schedule that has come through as a VAR.
VCN - schedule CANcelled under VSTP arrangements, sometimes they come with the nightly service plan agreement for the next day's services which appear as a PG cancel too, but sometimes not.

tl;dr VSTP is a mess

(Way over my head!)

Mine too ... I have tried to come up with a complete list in "English":

As it is planned to be:
WTT - Working Timetable

Variations:
VAR - Varied from the working timetable well ahead of time
STP - Short term varied
VST(P) - Very short term varied
VVR - varied and then varied again

Cancellations:
CAN - Cancelled well ahead
VC(A)N - Varied and then cancelled

I do apologise if my rather rushed post this morning misled. I was passing on RTT's "official" explanations, assuming their wording obviously havd nothing to do with "The Railway".

There is accessible support information for the data feeds in the Open Rail Data Wiki (https://wiki.openraildata.com/index.php?title=SCHEDULE), but it isn't up to date.

The Schedule feed contains the WTT entries, which are there from one timetable change date to the next. There is an entry per service, indexed by UID number. Services added during the timetable's currency have STP entries. These are "targeted"  to be in place twelve weeks in advance, though obviously some happen much later than that.

Changes are made by added entries with the same UID, and these apply on stated days only. Adding a CAN entry means a service does not run on that day. Adding a VAR entry means the service runs, but with differences.

Very Short Term Planned entries come in a different data feed (called VSTP). They use the same format as in the Schedule feed; they are interpreted as overriding those. No more detail is offered by the Wiki. I think they were originally expected to all be new entries, i.e. equivalent to STP but too late for one. Now it seems they have discovered that the other entry types are also possible and are using them. The "V" in these means "Very short term", i.e. in the last 48 hours.

VST  new services added in the VSTP
Anything in the Schedule - WTT, WTT+VAR, STP, and I think STP+VAR and even VST, can be altered by VVR or cancelled by VCN.

My take on this is that the 48 hour cut-off was the last time a train schedule could be sensibly altered, as at that point the schedule was turned into train plans (allocate stock and crew, plan station movements, etc..). Any later change or cancellation was dealt with operationally, as a deviation from the current timetable. But a new train was still worth adding, so that everyone at least had a UID to work to. Since it wasn't in the train plans yet that wasn't a constraint; and it would have to be improvised into existence in any case.

If that was how it worked in the olden days - say five years ago - now the TOCs have a need to change the schedule very late so as to make their cancellations vanish. Thus they are now using these new entry types, for which the new codes are appearing in RTT (where they were invented, I think). This evolution is not reflected in the documentation available (of course much of that was not intended as public).

Another evolution: The VSTP feed is updated in real time; the Schedule feed is only updated overnight. Logically, there should be nothing in the Schedule feed that is new and applies within the next two days. However, the Wiki implies that may happen, so I guess realtimeness has been spreading throughout the system.

I think it's more like this:

WTT - in the timetable as published (may be planned to vary with date)
STP, VST - added to the timetables since the WTT
VAR, VVR - changed since introduction
CAN, VCN - planned cancellation (so won't appear in the current timetable)

VST, VVR, and VCN are late changes and may not be reflected throughout the system

Good to see services running from Severn Beach again today - first train left at 06:01 and scheduled hourly, through there's at least one 2 hour gap - late cancellation due to crew issues.

GWR on Twitter

GWR clearly think the River Avon had a promotion...

Meanwhile:

Sourve: gov.uk (https://check-for-flooding.service.gov.uk/target-area/112WATAVN1)

Looks like a couple of trains were cancelled this morning; all appears back to normal now according to Realtime Trains...

Update: gwr.com says normal service after 13.00. Looks like they may be making use of the CFN turnback.

Not quite: my parents went off to Oxford for the day and found, when they got back into Temple Meads at about 1630, that they could not get a train to Sea Mills because the bridge there was being checked over.

They obviously opened the line at some point because 2K54 (1810 Weston-s-Mare - Severn Beach) got through to Severn Beach but its return 2K57 (2001 Severn Beach - Bristol Temple Meads) is, as at 2130 still at Avonmouth from which it should have departed at 2010! The line is again closed from Shirehampton to Clifton Down as I write this and the Clifton Down turnback is again in use. Screenshot attached from OpenTrainTimes.

Online sources give tide as being due at 14.08m @ 2108hrs.

Dave

Edit @ 2210hrs: Just come back from Sea Mills where I noted that the high water mark was only about 1ft above the section of path that runs under the bridge on the station side. High tide forecast at 14.28m @ 0926 for Thursday morning (23rd February) according to https://www.tidetimes.org.uk/port-of-bristol-avonmouth-tide-times-20230223

GWR are running a shuttle service between BRI and CFN this morning, at approx 26 min intervals.

I had a look under the viaduct at Sea Mills on the weekend. Presumably these girders are supposed to brace it during high tides. I can see why NR might be a bit worried!

(https://fosbr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/sea_mills_viaduct_20230226.jpg)

Looks pretty ‘non-structural’ to me! :o

Especially the bit stuck in the mud in the foreground...

Indeed. I've stated here before my fear each time I've walked under the bridge following the Avon Walkway path on the mudflats, as there is much corrosion evident all around. If you are in a train, you obviously don't see the state of the pillars, so travel completely unaware.

Presumably as a first measure, NR could install a speed limit over the bridge, but would that help at all?

If not, any work to the bridge would obviously mean the closure of the line beyond Sea Mills (and possibly beyond Clifton Down, as would Sea Mills be able to act as a station with works so close by?). It would be ironic if that happened on the day Portway Parkway opened!

I am not a signaller, but my understanding is that (without some sort of pilot working) trains can only be turned back at Clifton Down and Avonmouth.

My assumption is that the bracing girders were added some time after the bridge was originally constructed. As such, they could presumably be replaced if (and it may be a big 'if') the columns are in a reasonable state. From the look of the girders, it would possibly be better to remove them to prevent damage to the columns when they inevitably collapse.

Seamills, the bridges, from across the river. Photo from 2008.

Mark

(https://i.postimg.cc/C5CZBdjG/seamills-rail-bridge-full.jpg)

This picture, taken around 1963, shows the girders in a better state. I wonder if they've been painted since?

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Harbour_%26_railway_bridge%2C_Sea_Mills%2C_Bristol_c1963_Scans487_%2810430682163%29.jpg)
Gillett's Crossing from Bristol, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Considerably less load bearing mud back in the day !
With regard to speed restrictions for the use of the bridge,as it happens all services departing Sea Mills in the direction of Shirehampton ,acceleration to line speed takes place after crossing the structure and those in the direction of Clifton have already slowed to station approach speed before the bridge.

The load that a column can take is partly determined by it slenderness (broadly ratio of height to width). If this ratio is high then the column can buckle under load.  The effective height of the column can be reduced by installing cross members. This is most elegantly shown in the 'scissor arches' under the tower of Wells Cathedral.

I presume, therefore, that these steel cross members were installed to strengthen the columns.  It may be that if the only traffic is DMUs these are not needed any more (I assume the freight goes via Henbury).  However they would be fairly simple to replace. 

I seem to recall a 5mph limit over the bridge, that being some 10 years ago.


The rubbish trains between Brentford and Sita arrive loaded via Henbury, but the empty trains return via the Severn Beach line. I assume that saves a change of direction at Hallen Marsh when more lightly loaded - but still heavy.


It is now. :)

A Facebook page for the Beach Line reports that services seem to be suspended at present due to high tides.  There a couple of pictures of the bridge over the confluence of the river Trym with the Avon where the water level isn't that far short of the track.
Another website showing arrival and departures at Montpelier for the line is showing no services at present either...which is curious as services could surely still turn back at Clifton Down Station, giving a partial service?


Edit:  It's just dawned on me that there's RMT industrial action today.....flood tide came at a helpful time in that case!

If you've got 40 minutes to spare, this video might interest you. It's a driver's eye view of one of the Great Railway Journeys of the World - Bristol to Severn Beach! To be honest I think the passengers get a better view.

It's a bit frustrating to see all that space where the second track could be! Things get a bit nauseating north of St Andrews Road - I don't remember the track being that bad, but the camera keeps wilting and the picture seems to develop a visual migraine. But all good fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikQjyKV1Nkc

Source: South Gloucestershire Council (https://sites.southglos.gov.uk/newsroom/environment/council-calls-on-government-to-fund-flood-defences-to-protect-severn-beach-rail-branch-line/)

Yes, the whole thing is jerky and looks like it’s been recorded in one frame rate and rendered at another, but the bit from St. Andrews Road is very odd, almost as if it’s a camera fault or perhaps a rendering glitch?

I may have commented before that, for an island nation, we don't seem very conscious of tides and how they vary. Tide forecasts and warnings have a very narrow audience. Obviously it's different in France ...

To say how big tides will be over a wide area you need a coefficient, used to scale up (or down) the average tide height at each place. I have seen different ones used here, so we do not appear to have a standard definition. There is (of course) a standard French one, with extreme values of 20 and 120. Next Monday or Tuesday this month's peak (at spring tide) will be 118 - not far short of the maximum. This is the highest tide for ten years, and that made it national TV news in France.

Local tides depend not just on the global and regional factors captured by a coefficient valid for the whole Atlantic and channel costs of France, but on all sorts of local ones too. So the tides at Sea Mills may not be the highest for ten years - but expect something of that order. 

The reports of issues near Avonmouth correlate reasonably well with the equinoctial spring tides...

https://ntslf.org/tides/hilo?port=Avonmouth

Perhaps this data needs to be fed into Journeycheck!

I know about the tides, but I am not conscious of them of a day to day basis perhaps because I live in north Wiltshire on the 125m contour line.  Even if all the ice sheets melt and the sea rises by 70m I am still not sure that I would need to be conscious of them here!

I'm around 80 metres AMSL so would need a boat to get to the station. On the plus side, we would both find the value of our homes increasing significantly.

Here comes the sea. Bristol this morning, video from Twitter.

Mark


https://twitter.com/beardedjourno/status/1767482265930449047 (https://twitter.com/beardedjourno/status/1767482265930449047)

From National Rail


From GWR


GWR have also provided substantial customer advice - thank you

and another result https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-gloucestershire-68533039 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-gloucestershire-68533039)

*snip*

I'm trying to recall if previous to this I've read the (honest) attribution 'Sea flooding' as a reason for a railway line closing. It's a phrase that's not yet caught on when referring to flooding of the branch to Looe. With Dovey Junction though, the water is really close at hand there and even when the line doesn't flood the amount of wrack that collects by the station tells a tale.

The railway there is, though, built out of reach of ordinary tides and surges. At nearby Penhelig, below the railway and along the shore, traces of an attempt to build a road that was far too close to high water level if not actually beneath it, as can be seen in the photo below, perhaps the walls are the base of a short causeway, but even so, very vulnerable.

Mark

https://i.postimg.cc/1t4XHyfS/dovey-estuary-rails-1200.jpg (https://i.postimg.cc/1t4XHyfS/dovey-estuary-rails-1200.jpg)

I was alerted recently via x/twitter of a passenger receiving a penalty fare for boarding at Clifton Down station without a ticket.

Upon investigating, it became apparent that the Severn Beach line (with the exception of Severn Beach, St Andrews Road, Avonmouth, Shirehampton, Sea Mills and Stapleton Rd - i.e. just over half the stations on the line) is now a Penalty Fares line - and has been since January 2023.

I'd be very interested to know how aware other people were of this change:

• Did you know about this?
• How did you find out?
• When?

To be clear, I absolutely support better revenue protection on this line - ticketless travel has undoubtedly suppressed recorded passenger numbers over the years. I'm just trying to find out how well this change was communicated.

I sem to recall it got mentioned on this board when it started or soon after.
Posters must have gone up at every station that it applies to too

Ah yes - I see it here:


There are indeed posters - for example, at Clifton Down there is a poster near one of the three entrances, and at Montpelier there is one at one of the two entrances. In both examples these are unlikely to be noticed by anyone using the alternative entrances, and are not visible from the platform(s).

I wonder for how long they made these announcements on the PA? I certainly never heard one.

Putting beach*penalty (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/research.html?search=beach*penalty&submit=Deep+Search&sortby=matches&advanced=0) into the deep search box finds (as I write) four threads including the one Red Squirrel has located  :D

Ah, that's interesting... one of the other threads is not relevant, but I note that kempis was aware of the change - though a recent conversation with Mrs kempis suggested that she wasn't!

Shouldn't Lawrence Hill be on that list? I'm not aware of anywhere you can buy a ticket there, certainly not on the southbound line.

(It is probably a few months since I last used this station, so perhaps this has changed?)


Edit to clarify quoting - grahame

Just noticed the format of my reply has come out rather oddly. My reply concerned Lawrence Hill station, and whether it should also be on the list.

Yeah - quoting and formatting looked a bit odd (easy for that to happen with nested tags).  I have edited it for clarity to show as I think you intended. 

Lawrence Hill is a penalty fare station (see https://bristolrailcampaign.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GWR-Penalty-Fares-Map-From-23-January-2023-v2.pdf). I don't remember seeing a ticket machine there, but it is most likely to be on Platform 1 - so for passengers heading towards Temple Meads, it is only accessible if you can negotiate two flights of steps.

The GWR online page for Lawrence Hill Station says yes to there being a ticket machine there but no to prepaid ticket collection.  Could it be an older model there than the ones at Redland and Montpelier Stations that do.....when they work....provide this service?

https://www.gwr.com/stations-and-destinations/stations/lawrence-hill

due to flooding I presume at Sea Mills on Friday 20 September 2024.

Still think its a better option to use taxis(and instantly) than trying to resource coach's at sort notice

Clifton to Severn Beach, maybe ... Severn Beach back to Clifton I suspect that there would be a problem getting enough taxis for the morning commute.

Is there a logical (and planned) bustitution scheme in place using the interchange at Portway Parkway - shuttle train Severn Beach to Portway and Clifton Down to Temple Meads and beyond?

I should really read before I post ...