Great Western Coffee Shop

Flagging this one up ... the single line section of the route being used for West Country main line trains this week is struggling to cope.  The 11 out of 18 local trains withdrawn each day, and still problems.    Not really a surprise as this section survived the Beeching Era as a single track freight route with a couple of trains passing over its otherwise-sleeping tracks each week, and with junction designs and signalling reduced to minimum cost which goes alongside restricted capacity.

The section was singled at the same time as Swindon to Kemble was singled.  With blossoming local passenger traffic, the need for a robust diversionary route for the now-more-frequent west country trains, the new freight traffics from Southampton to the north, and from the Somerset quarries eastwards and northwards, perhaps it's time to redouble this section too?  Plans are afoot for an HS2 track construction plant at Westbury ... I don't know how incoming materials would arrive, but the natural outbound direction for the trains of track panels would be via Swindon.

I think there should be a very robust case now for re-doubling the Bradford Junction-Thingley Junction stretch of line.  Another similar example was the Probus-Burngullow section in Cornwall, which was singled during the early 1980s, and re-doubled in 2004.  No way the new half hourly service being implemented from December 2018 (hopefully) would be possible if that had stayed single track.

There are other ways to increase capacity on such single lines (I have previously helped Grahame with identifying some of those) by adding additional signal sections so that at least trains can follow in the same direction at closer headways than present.  Railways overseas adopt this as a solution and have a timetable that has 'flighted' trains.

The lack of capacity on the single line can also have a knock on effect on the Swindon to Bristol line and the Westbury to Bristol route.   More than once this week a Bristol bound service has been sent on the reversible line through Thingley to get past another train waiting to take the route through Melksham.

Bob, thats good.  At least they are using it.