Bath Christmas Market

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)

More than 150 trains will serve Bath and its world-famous Christmas Market this coming Saturday, but those travelling at the busiest times are being warned that they may have to queue to board trains home.

From 05:41 on Saturday morning to 23:49 in the evening, 156 trains will call at Bath Spa station – the equivalent of a train every seven minutes – with train operator GWR also providing an extra 22 trains, more than 10,000 extra seats, on top of the usual Saturday timetable.

From JourneyCheck

Formation Changes:
06:08 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff Central due 09:45
07:23 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff Central due 10:45
07:27 Cardiff Central to Portsmouth Harbour due 10:51
08:23 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff Central due 11:45
08:27 Cardiff Central to Portsmouth Harbour due 11:51
10:30 Cardiff Central to Portsmouth Harbour due 13:51
11:23 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff Central due 14:45
11:30 Cardiff Central to Portsmouth Harbour due 14:51
12:23 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff Central due 15:45
12:27 Cardiff Central to Portsmouth Harbour due 15:51
14:23 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff Central due 17:46
15:23 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff Central due 18:46
15:30 Cardiff Central to Portsmouth Harbour due 18:51
16:23 Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff Central due 19:47

Example:

08:27 Cardiff Central to Portsmouth Harbour due 11:51
Facilities on the 08:27 Cardiff Central to Portsmouth Harbour due 11:51.
Will be formed of 2 coaches instead of 5.

So as I read it, GWR are shortforming 14 trains that call at Bath Spa, and then adding other train?.  They are pulling off perhaps 1,500 to 2,000 seats but then adding back in - well - is it 12,000 (so they really are extra) or 10,000 (which is really 8,000 extra)?    What is the benefit of cutting trains back and then adding in new extras in their place?

[Timmer]

3 vice 5 coaches, passengers stand a good chance of boarding the train. It will be pretty wedged, but you’ll be able to travel.

2 vice 5 coaches, passengers will be left behind at stations. Running 2 coach trains on the Cardiff to Portsmouth line is as crazy now as it was back in the early 2000s and should be avoided.

Last weekend of the Christmas market. Monday being the day when the people of Bath breathe a huge sigh of relief as the sheds are packed away for another year. I suspect the stall holders will be breathing a huge sigh of relief too. It’s been a pretty cold couple of weeks to be sitting in your unheated shed.

[rogerw]

There are now a number of cancellations due to staff shortages which affect services through Bath

[grahame]

There are now a number of cancellations due to staff shortages which affect services through Bath

Indeed - it's crazy (IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion)) to add trains to the schedule just to cancel them.   I took the bus into Bath this morning, train to Westbury and then connection on to Southampton.  I *was* going to take the direct train (the one that was NOT shortened) from Bath all the way to Southampton, but it flagged up "full and standing" so I got on a delayed Weymouth service as far as Westbury.

Platform at Westbury stuffed - extra train to Bath (and Bristol?) cancelled ... an SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) train came in from the Salisbury direction - would have been good had it gone on to Bath and Bristol, but that duplicate service was removed a year ago today, so it reversed destination "Exeter" - I'm guessing via Yeovil.

3 car (!) Portsmouth to Cardiff came in - we had been warned it was "full and standing" and that it was unlikely that many people could get on, and so it proved - lots of people left behind, and I dread to think how it did at Trowbridge and Bradford-on-Avon.     The railway incapable of handling the traffic that was there (which must have been anticipated) - could not even run its own produced timetable.  And the promise from the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) prior to the SWR services being withdrawn north of Westbury that there would be sufficient / extra capacity provided has been thoroughly broken. 









It's not all bad - the station staff at Westbury deserve an award for how they were handling things - customer friendly announcements - clear and in the right quantity. THANK YOU.   Of course, being Westbury there were multiple platform changes going on, trains coming in at the time another was expected at the same platform, etc.    "This is NOT the Cardiff train.  Please wait on this platform for Bath Spa" ...

P.S. - My Southampton train was just over 20 minutes late, also reported "full and standing" but it was not.  I suspect it had got delayed prior to Bath Spa due to crowds, and the suggestion that it was full, reported perhaps from Bristol, would follow it all the way to Portsmouth.

[froome]

My partner tried to catch a train today from Oldfield Park (the other Bath station, which has an hourly service). She found that that train she hoped to catch was cancelled, so was the following one, and so was the one following that. So presumably we had no trains stopping here in the direction of Bath Spa for at least 4 hours. I don't know if those trains did run but were full and just ran straight through Oldfield Park without stopping, or if they were completely cancelled.

[grahame]

The 12:56 ran (at 13:20), then the next train that ran was the 15:56 (at 16:09); trains due at 13:59 amd 14:56 terminated (from Gloucester and Worcester) at Bristol Temple Meads due to a points failure.  Likely bearing in mind your report that the 15:56 was advertised and cancelled but then re-instated. Looking wider (running at Bath) virtually nothing was on time or close - some grossly out and falling further back as they're out of path - to the extent that I'm seeing a Cardiff - Portsmouth service a whole hour late and in the path of the next train!