Great Western Coffee Shop

Waiting in the rain will be a thing of the past with the opening of a new shelter at a tiny railway station. Transport operator First Great Western's decision to put up the shelter at Avoncliff near Bradford on Avon follows a regionwide vote.

The shelter has been designed by the Avoncliff Community Group - made up of local people who keep an eye on the station. Volunteer supporters, rail user groups and other community representatives along the length of the Bristol to Weymouth Heart of Wessex line were asked to vote on which projects should receive funding, with the Avoncliff shelter coming in the top three in the Community Wishlist programme.

See http://thisisbath.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=180730&command=displayContent&sourceNode=232315&home=yes&more_nodeId1=163047&contentPK=21017496

Photo of the new Avoncliff shelter :

(http://www.raildocuments.org.uk/jun08photos/020608avoncliff.jpg)

Fantastic Chris!  For all the money ATW spends on the new updgraded Merthyr line - not one seat is at MVL or QYD!

More to the point, there is no sign of the half hourly service which was promised once the ^18m of investment was completed.

Going back to Avoncliff, the foliage in the shelter makes it look quite well established.

     http://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/search/4298050.It___s_plain_loco_near_Bradford_on_Avon/

  This is a clip from this weeks Wiltshire Crimes reporting on building work at Avoncliff.    As usual the report has inaccuracies the most obvious being 100 MPH speed.

  As we all know it is 70 mph and trains stopping at Avoncliff will be doing about 30 at the most.....    It never ceases to amaze me at the stupidity of Joe Public and Railways not many folk would dream of walking across a motorway with tools and building supplies ???

  Darwin Award for those involved

Where do they make this up from??

The only Bristol to Plymouth express trains are operated by Cross Country and on run on selected weekends when the mainline is shut.


On a side note, My local paper mentioned that the 12B and 12C bus routes failed to stop at a bus stop due to poor access. I'm not surprised considering the former doesn't exists and the later doesn't go past that particular bus stop! I'm sure Z^e might know what i'm on about if he ever reads the Herald Express!

Ok so the story may be inaccurate about the exact line speed and the route of the trains involved (but it is true that FGW expresses to PLY travel at over 100 mph, they just don't do it through AVF  ;)), but full marks to the local rag for picking up on the story and reporting it. It doesn't matter where a train's travelling from and to, when it hits you the consequences remain much the same.

If they're using an authorized foot crossing that's cretinous enough, but if they're just swanning across a mainline railway carrying their building materials that's lunacy, and criminal lunacy to boot given that railway trespass is an offence.

But they are diverted via Bath at weekends currently, so it isn't not an unreasonable statement. Who knows whether or not the photo was taken on a Saturday?

that is not the only act of stupidity around same area.

i have personally witnessed a young woman wrestling pushchair (complete with kid)shopping bags and a dog on lead across the foot crossing near BOA when a cardiff bound 158 s heading towards her.the 158 had just left BOA so not going that quick and could of stopped but the point is she had a complete disregard for the dangers,just imagine if the service was late and running fast so not calling at BOA she could of been toast and took the child with her.

Hello everyone,
I'm new here, although I have been reading this forum for some time this is my first actual post. Hopefully the first of many :)

I have a question that I have not been able to find an answer to:
Does anyone know if Avoncliff is still a request stop?

All references to it ever having been a request stop seem to have vanished, but I'm unable to find any information that definitely confirms such a change.

I sometimes travel there from Pewsey for an evening out, and upon return will catch a train that gets me back to Westbury in time for the last connecting train back.

When I last used the service I played safe and requested the train to stop anyway. When on board I asked the train manager about this and she said that this particular service used to be a request stop and now isn't. But she did not know if this applied to other services.

I hope this doesn't seem like a trivial question. On the one hand I don't want to distract the driver needlessly by requesting, if they're going to stop anyway. On the other hand, if I didn't signal to the driver and the train went through I'd be stranded!

Many thanks

By no means a trivial question. I wasn't sure and I've been here a fair old while. So I checked.

Avoncliff is no longer a request stop.

It has a roughly hourly service Mon-Sat in each direction made up of services to and from Weymouth and/or Westbury, with the odd additional service to/from points beyond Westbury. On Sundays, the service is less frequent but all services timetabled to call at Avoncliff will stop. There are no longer any request stop services. Here's a link to the current timetable:

http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/~/media/PDF/Timetables/May%202013%20timetable/GW13M_TT25_WEB.ashx

Hope that's of help to you. And on behalf of the Coffee Shop team may I extend a warm welcome to the forum Godfrey Tables. Lurkers who take the plunge are more than welcome.  :)

Thank-you bignosemac for looking into this, and your warm welcome.

And apologies for not posting into the correct part of the forum, as I've just realised that seeing as the majority of services are to Weymouth and not Portsmouth I wrote this in the wrong place. Woops! :-[

Confirmed from personal experience on a trip to the Cross Guns a couple of weeks back.

Although it's not a request stop, the platform is so short that the conductor will only open a single, "local" door at the front of the train. That obviously doesn't make a lot of difference to you if you're joining the train, but if you're alighting then you need to be at the very front door.

Fixed that for you.  ;)

In case anyone looks at this after 8 September 2013, the current timetable can be found here (http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/~/media/PDF/TicketsAndTrainTimes/TrainTimes/CurrentTimeTable/NormalPrintVersion/GW13M_TT25_WEB.ashx). Avoncliff remains a scheduled stop. Only Dilton Marsh needs Jenny Agguter's underwear on this route.

I think suitable under garments are still required at Yetminster, Chetnole and Thornford :-)

Three pairs of red boxer shorts, then - quick, 'while stocks last'! - See http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-PAIRS-MEN-S-RED-THAI-SILK-BOXER-SHORTS-30-32-MEDIUM-/180576429614  ;) :D ;D

Are you gonna model them at the next Forum meet up then,Chris ??

Could I leave a deposit on them?

Many thanks for the update, Four Track, Now, and thanks for the additional information inspector_blakey.
Sorry I didn't reply sooner, not sure what happened to the last couple of months...

Does anyone know where I can find references to historical timetables? The reason I ask is that I was just consulting Wikipedia to look at passenger usage for AVF over the years (wondering if the increase was partially or wholly responsible for the change?) and I noticed that the article is now slightly out of date, as it still refers to AVF as a request stop. I've searched google for old FGW timetables to try and pinpoint when the change occurred for the purposes of updating the article, but all references seem to have been removed or refer to current timetables. I'm probably missing something obvious...

Thanks again for any help.

Not any more.

23rd May 2011 comes to mind, although I'm not sure why because I thought timetables changed on sundays and that day wasn't!

While I am obviously reluctant to acknowledge the existence of any railway-related forum other than the Coffee Shop ( ::) ), I can offer the following suggestion that it was indeed with effect from May 2011 - see RailUKforums (http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=45809).  :-[

Thanks FTN

Goodness! I didn't realise it changed as long ago as that

Nor did I until Chris offered the link to "another place".

An aside issue ... I know that some forums have rules about not linking to other forums, nor even mentioning them.   We don't.  There are different twitter feeds, facebook groups, and forums out there and I hope that our members feel as free to discuss what's on Railforum or Wnxx as they do to discuss what The Daily Mirror is saying about rail travel or what they see for themselves at Readng or Avoncliff.

And that, grahame, is a very fair, civilised, friendly, and helpful attitude, and one of a number of reasons why the Coffee Shop stands out above others.

Well, that was the reason I joined. I'm not the most extrovert person in the world and despite spending most of my life online because of my job, this is to date the only forum I've ever actually joined. Not bad considering its taken me 16 years!

I thought the email that was sent out to people who had signed up but not yet posted was a really nice touch, and it was that, that got me off the fence.

At the risk of thread drift, may I add my compliments to yours, GT? I have been slapped down a time or two, with justification, but I have learned a great deal here, and had the pleasure of the company of some of the other members of the forum, over appropriate refreshments.

This forum is made by its members ... thank you, Godfrey Tables, For Track Now!, other gentlemen and ladies, for your contributions; it wouldn't be the same without you.  I'm writing that (as I've already posted upstream in this thread) on behalf of the active admin and moderator team - and that also to add my personal "Thank You" to them - in alphabetic order: bignosemac; bobm; brucey; chris from nailsea; inspector_blakey; johoare; lee; nickf; phil; sion bretton and timmer.

Thread drift?   We can do a tun back onto line here, I'm sure.   Did you realise that Avoncliff is a great favourite of at least two of the 'behind the counter' team ... and I can certainly envisage some Saturday or Sunday outings next year to the Cross Guns or the cafe across the canal from there.  It may have become a compuslory sop for safety reasons, but the way passengers have grown it's probably not worth calling it a request stop ... every train should have people to drop off or pick up!

Did someone mention a trip to a pub by train?  http://www.crossguns.net/ (http://www.crossguns.net/)  I'd be up for that!  ;D

Could I also echo grahame's comments?  This forum is what it is because of the people who post on it.  Everyone brings a different perspective to the conversations with experiences from life and varying expert contributions from those who work within the industry.  Us mere admins/moderators just keep the wheels turning occasionally.

Did somebody mention "Drink!"?

I'll get my coat...

That may have been typed after grahame had enjoyed a couple of pints of the excellent real ales available in the Cross Guns ...  ;) :D ;D

It's interesting to see how a delay can percollate through the network ... I'm sat in a train for Manchester from Paignton, and it's all due to problems in the Avoncliff and Freshford area, as you might guess ;-)

The 14:33 and 14:50 from B-o-A were cancelled, and the 15:03 gradually got later ... then went off the board ... they appeared in real life and left at 15:18.  It dawdled at Bradford-on-Avon, pulling up and stopping twice, and they took a leisurely meander to Freshford, left at 15:30 - I make that 21 minutes late.  Once past Dundas it ran faster, and we got into Temple Meads at 15:54 ... still some 20 late, and I was just in time to catch a punctually-departing Manchester train.

We crept through Stapleton Road; we nearly stopped at Filton Abbey Wood; we had time to admire the station at Yate, and we crawled though Cam and Dursley ... we're still 17 minutes down approaching Stockport.  And the holdup?   The dawdle in the Avon Valley put that local late, and it was preoceeding ahead of us all the way to Gloucester.

I have just overheard the train manager helping a lady who's got a connection at Piccadilly.  Seems that's going to miss and so the ripples of the delay on a line the lady's probably never ever heard of spread.

Reports of overcrowded trains missing out Avoncliff (but still calling at Freshford, where VIPs live  :D ) and of leaving passengers behind at Bradford-on-Avon because they can't get onto the train.  Also reports that the 5 car standard schedule is to be dropped when extra MetroWest services start next May.  "Usually reliable sources".