Great Western Coffee Shop

Contractors are out and about at Cotswold Line stations installing mountings for new departure screens and help points at stations on the line. Have observed posts in place at Shipton and digging for foundations under way at Finstock, while someone was taking a look at the existing mountings at Moreton-in-Marsh this morning.

Hopefully no more trains disappearing from the system, or shown running 20 minutes late as they roll into stations on time...

It would be nice to think so, but the new CIS system will be relying on the same data feed as the current one - manual input by signallers to Trust. With only three timing points between Wolvercote and Norton Junctions (the 'boxes at Ascott, Moreton and Evesham), the system has to rely on predicted running times between stations. Any delays, and it all goes wrong.

Unfortunately, the decision not to resignal the route into the Didcot signalling centre and to retain the existing 'boxes instead means that there is unlikely to be much improvement post redoubling except, perhaps, because there should be fewer regulation problems!

I know the human element will still be there, but many of the flaws of the current system have always seemed to be bugs in the software, not down to whether a signaller has been tapping away at Trust the instant a train passes the box.

Announcements by station staff to ignore the automated announcements and the screens are a way of life and have been ever since the CIS arrived during Thames Trains days, with the newer web-driven screens adding to the fun in the past couple of years, which are definitely not in the habit of suddenly claiming trains are suffering 10 or 20 minute delays almost at random.

If only someone would reconnect the bell in the Moreton booking office which went off when trains from Evesham triggered the treadle for the Chipping Campden and Blockley level crossing barriers, which meant the train was about six minutes away. Utterly reliable and sadly missed, especially when you could carefully time your departure from the nice warm booking hall on a chilly winter morning.

Yes, there were also bells at several other stations (e.g. WOF) which were useful. Why the demise of the bells? (esp if they're automatic)

Hopefully it will be a little better with software improvements - but still confusingly inaccurate at times I'm sure!  Also, with only Moreton box staying as Absolute Block following the eventual re-doubling, hopefully there will be better automatic reporting to trust from the areas controlled by Ascott and Evesham's new panels?

The new panels covering the Honeybourne and Charlbury areas (to be installed in Evesham and Ascott 'boxes respectively) will provide additional reporting opportunities.