Encouraging visitors to the South West - FGW campaign launches

[whole diary]

[Super Guard]

So on a saturday in August there are currently tickets available from London to Newquay (around 5 hrs) for under ^40 for a family of 4 (with a family railcard). No change required, no bustitution and your seats are reserved.  And if you don't want to pay for the catering on board then there's a Sainsburys and M&S available at Paddington.

No A303, No M5, No A30, no services on the M5 that are so crowded that you have to queue to get into, when your young child is desparate, having announced that they need to go as you are sailing past the previous service station.

Seems quite an attractive option to me.

...........so I've got to get a railcard, and commit myself and my family to one train on one day 3 months hence? It's OK if flexibility is not an issue I guess.

If a family is going on holiday, how exactly is committing yourself to one train 3 months in advance any different to booking a flight? 

[grahame]

Having to provide alternative transport arrangements on the very frequent occasions when the sleeper doesn't use the TransWilts would not be particularly conducive to ensuring and retaining regular usage by passengers.

Yep, flagged up in my post.  I suspect that the big problem is the Sunday night train, which is also the least important because ...

For the same reasons is why the Night Riviera doesn't stop for passengers at Swindon, Newbury, Westbury, Bristol, Yatton, Nailsea & Backwell, Bridgwater... all could have as much of a call on er.. calls as Melksham.

The call is for a late service from London although Cynthia's origin post looked at heading west.  Swindon and Bristol already have the 23:30 - just 15 minutes ahead, so the sleeper would provide little extra. There's a pretty late Exeter train via Nailsea too.  But the final Melksham train is a connection off the 19:00 - not 15 but 285 minutes earlier.

I'm not sure that the sleeping pax would appreciate extra stops the 'wrong side' of 0230!

I always awake at Exeter & that's too early frankly...i'd be wuite happy for first stop after Reading to be Plymouth...

Yep, noted as a potential issue in my original post.  Interesting you talk about waking at Exeter where there's an extended stop, rather than on the brief pause at Taunton.  Perhaps you wouldn't notice another couple of quiet stops?  I know I don't when on the (Caledonian) sleeper, but it's personal thing.

Non-stop Reading to Plymouth is a bit of a red rag at the moment;  faster journey times (get you to Plymouth at 4 a.m.?) in place of loosing intermediate traffic.  Daytime there are very big flow indeed from Westbury to the west ... I was astonished at the crowds at about 19:30 on Sunday joining the Plymouth (or was in Penzance?) train.

[JayMac]

I think you should be pushing for a later service local on the TransWilts, connecting off a later service from London, not trying to shoehorn in extra stops on the Night Riviera, which can, and often does, change route on the day. Sometimes even after departure. Fixing a stop at Melksham loses all the operational flexibility the Sleeper currently enjoys.

[Super Guard]

I think you should be pushing for a later service local on the TransWilts, connecting off a later service from London, not trying to shoehorn in extra stops on the Night Riviera, which can, and often does, change route on the day. Sometimes even after departure. Fixing a stop at Melksham loses all the operational flexibility the Sleeper currently enjoys.

...and for that reason alone, Network Rail would veto it.

Remember, there is not even a Taunton stop on a Sunday night in either direction.

[TaplowGreen]

I seem to remember a documentary a few years back about the special "holiday trains" which took groups workers to resorts such as Blackpool during "Wakes week" and/or Glasgow Shipyard fortnight back in the 30s/40s/50s/60s - seemed to be mostly for Northern resorts but was there ever anything similar in the South West?

[grahame]

I seem to remember a documentary a few years back about the special "holiday trains" which took groups workers to resorts such as Blackpool during "Wakes week" and/or Glasgow Shipyard fortnight back in the 30s/40s/50s/60s - seemed to be mostly for Northern resorts but was there ever anything similar in the South West?

I understand that during holiday / works shutdown weeks, trains were run from Swindon to Weymouth to take the railway workers to the seaside.

[bobm]

Swindon had its "Trip Week" when the railway works closed and the workers went on special trains to a variety of destinations on the South Coast and into the South West.

http://swindonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/trip.html