Great Western Coffee Shop

Reference (perhaps a figure I should not have seen) to ticket sales down 5% last year on the TransWilts. And I noted it quoted with a word of disappointment.

But hang on. 55 days with the majprity of services replaced by buses (which here in Wiltshire are felt to offer inferior experiences to trains).  Lots of other engineering and short term changes ranging from weather to lack of crew, and still the occasioal one car train in the peak that could not cope right up to June.  Far, far worse than the previous year.

I recall Mark Hopwood picking out the TransWilts as one of four lines that had really drawn the short straw last year on general reliability - even before the peak of the engineering decimation.  I can report a far better start to 2019 (from 5th Jan, at least, when trains actually ran properly) so this year should be better.

5% a disappointment?   No - with 55 extra days of engineering last year, that was an extra 15% of days that most trains did not run.  Even before you look at inadequate staffing levels to run the service on many other days, extra train breakdowns / shortages not previously seen.   No - the 5% drop should not be seen as a disappointment - it should be regarded as a miracle that the drop off wasn't well into double figures!

55 extra days?

Is that 55 more than the previous year, or just 55 in total?

How many days of rail replacement were there in 2017?

Stoppage days purely for the Newbury and Westbury blockades added up to somewhere between 50 and 60.

Looking back to prior years, we have had other major replacements of the local trains - but often with Cardiff to Portsmouth services becoming Swindon to Portsmouth. Box tunnel closures did also hit us but that wasn't 2017 - it was a year or two earlier - a quick search suggests 2015.

I would estimate (I may be 20% out) that a further 12 to 15 days were lost in 2018, and that 12 to 15 days were also lost in 2017.  I can be less sure of the numbers on the latter as I would need to trawl back; a good spring 2017 followed by an autumn breakdown as we hit crew shortages. Issues so severe right up to last summer (2018) that the CRP cut certain promotional day out trips based on our risk assessment.

Nope, sorry - I wrote "extra" and I meant "extra".   Educated guesses might be 15 days in 2017 and 70 days in 2018.