Great Western Coffee Shop

Various articles on the West Coast Main Line disruption (links below.)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7816352.stm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jan/08/transport-rail-power-failure-euston

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/engineers-brave-freeze-to-repair-stricken-west-coast-main-line-1232060.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/4161906/Rail-passengers-face-another-two-days-of-disruption.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5469285.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797084

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1107445/Rail-bosses-blamed-rush-job-100-000-commuters-caught-travel-chaos.html?ITO=1490

http://www.transportbriefing.co.uk/story.php?id=5425

http://www.transportbriefing.co.uk/story.php?id=5426

http://www.birminghampost.net/news/west-midlands-transport-news/2009/01/08/west-coast-train-chaos-costs-businesses-38m-65233-22639028/

http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/2009/01/07/virgin-s-london-rail-links-disrupted-again-55578-22628649/

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2479978.0.west_coast_rail_route_disruption_caused_by_rush_to_upgrade_line.php

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23613310-details/100%2C000+stranded+as+rail+line+fails+for+third+time+in+week/article.do

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?100,000_in_rail_chaos_after_power_failure&in_article_id=463011&in_page_id=34&in_a_source=

http://www.nce.co.uk/news/2009/01/network_rail_denies_west_coast_main_line_delays_down_to_upgrade.html;jsessionid=95FFFCC182DBB8255CEDD46709EC5349

http://itn.co.uk/news/6bd80d6854302bea9fc310d16ec2ccc6.html

http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/Content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=4081&NewsAreaID=2&SearchCategoryID=2

http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.9397

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7817198.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7818748.stm

The Conservatives look set to reverse one of their highest-profile transport policy stances by accepting that the rail industry's structure should stay largely as it is. The change, expected in a policy document on the railways, reverses a stance taken in July 2006 when Chris Grayling, then transport spokesman, called for an end to the separation of track and train operations (link below.)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/93a79c4a-dd26-11dd-a2a9-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

Campaigners have welcomed the news that the restoration of the ^295 million Waverley rail link between Edinburgh and the Borders has been brought forward to next year (link below.)
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/edinburgh/Waverley-link-timetable-is-speeded.4850394.jp

Dozens of rail passengers and residents have formally objected to plans to install automated ticket barriers at York Station (link below.)
http://www.thepress.co.uk/news/4025600.43_objections_to_York_ticket_barrier_bid/

Workers at c2c are to be balloted over industrial action in a row over bank holiday pay (link below.)
http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/latest-east-anglia-news/Rail-workers-to-vote-on.4850502.jp

The train services from Bangor to London have been heavily criticised following the introduction of a new timetable (link below.)
http://www.theonlinemail.co.uk/bangor-and-anglesey-news/Local-bangor-and-anglesey-news/2009/01/07/new-bangor-to-london-train-services-criticised-66580-22617036/

East Midlands Trains response to the East Coast Main Line Capacity Assessment (link below.)
http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/ecml-cap_EMT_furthresp.pdf

A memorial service is being held to celebrate the life of a sixth-form student who was electrocuted at Burgess Hill station early on New Year's Day (link below.)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/sussex/7817375.stm

An investigation has pinpointed a problem with a railway crossing at Bunchrew, near Inverness, that has been at the centre of a safety row (link below.)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/7817369.stm

My goodness - I just looked up Bangor.  Estimated population 21,000 ... so it's a tad smaller than Melksham, where I live.  And yet it seems to have a train every hour (sometimes 2 trains in the hour) to Chester.

Bangor - 2 trains an hour to Chester.
Melksham - 2 trains a day to Swindon.

I'm jealous ... but biting my tongue.  I'm sure someone will tell me why these services are equitable, fair and reasonable  :-\

Bangor is a a sub-regional transport hub on the main line to Holyhead. It is also a business  and shopping centre with a catchment area population of > 185,000.  It has no nearby competitors apart from Llandudno, which is more a holiday and retirement town.  Bangor also has a university with > 9,000 students.

Much as I am a fan of Melksham (and particularly Lacock), comparisons based on population alone are not,  (IMO) a strong enough argument. :(

I'm in total agreement (and I hope that my 'smiley' looked tongue-in-cheek on the original post).  In my view, it's not only the numbers of people, but also the flows - who wants / needs to go where, and when, and how often that also has to be multiplied in. And these factors change the whole 'story' if you compare a remote location where there is little inter-urban commuter flow (Fort William, perhaps) and one which is part of a cluster of towns or virtually a suburb (e.g. Dyce).   I've chosen those two places are they are away from the 'emotion' of good and bad services being mentioned here, and are both run by the same TOC in the same juristiction.  They happen to be smaller than Bangor and Melksham.

What are the "flows" at Fort William - tourists, hub for area. Very few commuters.  So (IMHO) journeys  over 5 miles [by any mode] per head of population per annum will be low - and that's the factor that to be multiplied in.  On the other hand, there's a lot of Dyce folks going in and out or Aberdeen, and quite often, and the multiplier should be much higher. My "5 miles" is a reasonable minimum for middle distance travel - there's a different "in town" market below that number, and the number is argueable.  Dyce has more trains than Fort William, and this sort of calculation helps to show why ...

Hmm, must get my 'observation lock' fixed.  :-[ ;D

Happily, I shall be playing on the Melksham line tomorrow.  Can all passengers please come out to buy their weekly seasons, trips to Inverness etc because my takings are not set to be spectacular.

I suspect another reason that grahame may have picked Dyce is because it closed in 1965 and re-opened in 1984.....

There were almost 20,000 season ticket holders using the station in 2004-2005, increasing to 43,000 in 2006-2007.

On a related note, Dyce will feature as part of the Aberdeen Crossrail project (which includes an increased service frequency), should it go ahead (link below.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberdeen_Crossrail

Calculation? I see no calculation :)

A reasonable back-of-the-fag-packet approximation for these things is the good old inverse square law. The number of journeys should be somewhere in the region of the product of the population of the two nodes divided by the distance between them.

There are, naturally, a couple of gotchas:

• This will produce an estimate of the total number of journeys, and you can't assume it will work for a particular mode among them;
• 'Distance' is not necessarily measured in miles: 'time' and 'price' can also be used.

Don't forget to use at least two decimal places in your answer, as stupid people are 87.36% more likely to believe it.

Because Bangor is on the main line from chester to holyhead where there is a regular service.  Melksham is on a mainly freight line.  If Melksham was on the route from Bath to Westbury then I am sure its service would be as good as Bangor.

Location, Location, Location.

Melksham has the disadvantage of being on the Thingley Junc to Bradford South Junc spur and IMO Melksham only sees Trains to prevent FGW going for the politically hot potato of Closure of Melksham Station. Whilst the Service is almost useless It could be worse.

Now IF FGW had the Wisdom to put on a Oxford-Swindon-Salisbury-Southampton service ever Hour Calling at Melksham then I bet young Grahame's smile could seen from Swindon, when he's still in Melksham.

Best not mention Umberleigh, Copplestone or Yeoford, then ;)

Actually that looks rather good value ... if I get on the 09:18 tomorrow morning and go up to Inveness (change at Chippenham, Temple Meads, New Street and Waverley) I get to Inverness at 21:03.  I spend Sunday there and come back on the 07:55 on Monday morning, changing at York, New Street and Cheltenham and get back into Melksham at 19:10.  And that's for 171.50 for the whole trip, which is between 16p and 17p per mile.

If I came with you on the 06:40 on Monday and did a day trip to London, you would charge me 146 pounds if I asked you for a return (218 first class, 111 if I knew to book 2 singles), which is 73p (or 109p or 55p per mile) and - sorry - is a rip-off.

But then I could spend 151.40 with you on Sunday and buy a return trip - like with did with Santa - to Swindon and back for 40 adults and 40 children.  I think that would do more to help the line's usage stats (as well as putting more people on the train), and it would certainly keep your ticket machine busy. The cost is under 5p per mile per person - at that same rate, Melksham to London would be 10 pounds return and Bath to Northallerton (NICK, are you there?) under 25 pounds.

Isn't it a strange system where one person to London is about the same price as eighty to Swindon?

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

Have a good day tomorrow, G.Uard ... the lack of return trip opportunities that suit my other plans rather puts me off a leisure trip;  I'm in a business that's just starting to pick up now after Christmas, though, and I'll be back on the road on Sunday ...

Perhaps I shouldn't admit this, Lee ... but the places came out of the blue and there wasn't even as quarter much research done as you give me credit for.   

Sad truth is that no matter what comparison I come up with, it doesn't much matter.   Whatever other open line I compare the TransWilts to, the TransWilts comes out looking like it's got a VERY shoddy deal.  Whatever other town I compare Melksham  to, Melksham comes out like a town that someone's trying to crush out in the mud like a spent cigarette.

Don't forget the "again" which belongs at the end of that.

Services to Melksham Station were run down and the facilities finally closed by Beeching, and it was, remember, the very first station in England to be reopened again post-Beeching - about which much hoo-ha was made at the time, including a TV news film, which I have a shaky VHS copy of still somewhere.

The reopening was due entirely to a well-publicised public campaign, organised in a pre-internet age when running campaigns involved a lot of foot-slogging in order to reach even a tenth of the public that a well run campaign can run now; and the authorities must be very, very stupid indeed if they think closing Melksham station a second time will be any easier than the first.

 

The good folk of Honeybourne (closed 1969, reopened 1981) Dronfield (closed 1967, reopened 1981), Wetheral (closed 1967, reopened 1981) and many more would probably disagree with that statement.

Just goes to show, you shouldn't believe what you read in the newspapers and see on the TV then...

"it's a [sic] historic day for Melksham - the first station closed by Beeching to be reopened"

Perhaps the fact that it was closed in 1966, before the above mentioned, makes a difference? I dunno.

(http://terrascope.co.uk/images/MelkshamStationReopening.jpg)

Please excuse me if I'm being incredibly naive here, but weren't those all closed some time after the Beeching cuts of 1963?  So Melksham may indeed have been the first of the actual 'Beeching Cuts' closures to be reversed?

I think we're splitting hairs. Melksham was closed in April 66,  Dronfield in Jan 67. So I would hardly say that one was part of the Beeching cuts and the other wasn't.

Anyway, Templecombe (closed March 66, reopened October 83) is another example of a reopening before Melksham.

Fair enough, John - like Phil, I seem to have been taken in by the press 'spin' of the time!  ;D

They both closed. The both re-opened. Full-stop. ;)

If its any help, Dyce, Melksham, Dronfield, Wetheral and Templecombe were all listed for closure in the 1963 Beeching Report (link below.)
http://www.shropshiretransport.info/beeching/report1/15%20Appendix%202.pdf

Honeybourne wasnt listed, and this could well be because the line from Cheltenham-Stratford wasnt listed either (link below.)
http://www.shropshiretransport.info/beeching/report1/maps/Map09-1.htm

Unfortunately though, the Cheltenham-Stratford line wasnt featured as part of the 1967 British Railways Network For Development detailed in the document below, which paved the way for the post-Beeching closures.
http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/BRB_NetworkForDevelopment1967.pdf

The last Leamington Spa-Gloucester train ran in 1968, and through passenger trains ceased using the Stratford-Honeybourne section in 1969. The line remained open for diversionary/freight/Cheltenham race trains until a derailment at Winchcombe spelt the end in 1976. Proposals for today's preserved Cheltenham-Toddington (GWR) railway to link up at Honeybourne once again are mentioned in several posts elsewhere on the forum.