Example of a failure to run. How it smashes plans and confidence

[whole diary]

[grahame]

After my rover ticket expired on Saturday, Sunday was ... an extra day trip, Melksham to Salisbury, to meet my son and catch up on the last year.

Going to sleep on Saturday night, plan was to catch the 09;36 (2M06), change at Westbury and catch the 10:01 onwards (1F07) to Salisbury.  Plans are great, but I awoke in the morning to find the Bristol to Portsmouth train 1F07 cancelled, so I emailed Chris to let him know I would be an hour late - 11:45 rather than 10:45 meeting and mucking up the plan for us to grab a quiet late morning snack before the Sunday lunch rush.  And, yes, an hour's wait at Westbury.

Then GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) cancelled 2M06 as well ... next train supposedly at 12:07 (2O89) - the Swindon to Weymouth train ... (but then that came up as a short run - only Westbury to Weymouth, so also failed to serve Melksham).

Such are the troubles of travelling with GWR.  This story will not come as s surprise to readers here - how sad that this sort of thing is so common place that it does not generate any surprise.  As an advocate of rail, I am loathe to write it up in public because it puts people off and I desperately want rail to work, but (frankly) I feel pretty powerless to make it work, and frightened to promote something to others that I know has a very strong chance of failing.


I am posting this in our "looking forward" board because I do want to look forward.   it feels that we are at a low point  and "we" should look, learn, build back better (to steal a term from the buses) though there is a sad concern that we could sink further.   The rail industry may have some tired old people and jobsworths in DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) and TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) management would can be retired in the changes.  But sadly the vast majority that I come across are skilled people who have experience and understand the problems and with permission can do better and a number of them are choosing to move on.  I hope we are not left with a skill vacuum and a move from "could do but not allowed by HMG" to "could do if we still had the skill and experience".  Only time will tell - but can we help in any way??

[grahame]

If you know how, you can still find ways to travel, and I did make Salisbury for 11:45.  But no thanks to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) who failed to point me at the alternative.  There's a new Sunday bus service from Melksham to Trowbridge, and I was able to catch the x34 at 09:51 from the Market Place in Melkshm to the back of Sainsbury's in Trowbridge where it terminates, and then walk the six or seven minutes to the station.  Then catch the train that was running - at 10:54 (1F09)

* No suggestion from GWR of this option

* No directions from the bus stop to the railway station (not sure why it terminates there rather than at Trinity Church which is by the rail station)

Ongoing train - 4 cars 158 which has "full" though I has able to have a spawling, shifting youth move aside from his second seat.  Others were standing


Return train ... I didn't know when I would be through ... caught the 14:20 back (1F20), which was a 4 car 158 again, even more stuffed that the one I had caught down. Just a single "open" seat in the front carriage, from which I persuaded the German family of 3 at the table for 4 to move their stuff onto the luggage rack. I suspect it was busy because of the cancellation of the previous service.

15:07 into Trowbridge.  Next Melksham train (which may not have been running anyway - I didn't check) a long way off - so was the next bus (16:20 - hourly except for a couple of 90 minute gaps I happened to hit) and back home at around 5. There is a shelter from the rain by Sainsbury's but little seating or shelter from the sun - not really suitable as a bus terminus.


So - the journey WAS possible and made, but no recommendation of this routing in any way that I found.  Google "Melksham to Salisbury" probably would have susses it out for me ...

[Surrey 455]

I travelled to Fratton yesterday from Guildford on SWR^» (South Western Railway - about). The departure board at Guildford shows the next GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) to Gatwick cancelled. On the return journey the announcements at Fratton tell me that the next GWR to Cardiff is cancelled as is the following GWR service to Portsmouth Harbour.

I had no plans to catch any of these trains, I was just remembering that Sundays on GWR are run in the style of a Greek Island bus service from a few decades ago. Maybe it will run, maybe it won't. Maybe it'll run on time, maybe it will be very late.

I have to say my experience of Greek bus services now is that they generally run to time and are usually air-conditioned coaches.

[grahame]

I had no plans to catch any of these trains, I was just remembering that Sundays on GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) are run in the style of a Greek Island bus service from a few decades ago. Maybe it will run, maybe it won't. Maybe it'll run on time, maybe it will be very late.

I have to say my experience of Greek bus services now is that they generally run to time and are usually air-conditioned coaches.

Sounds about right (first paragraph) and offers hope (second paragraph)

Following up, you'll note that my 2nd and 3rd graphic contradict each other.  At 15:09, the 16:58 from Trowbridge to Swindon was showing as running and I could have waited for it. But then that too was cancelled ... so of the 9 trains showing on the board at Trowbridge, five ended up being cancelled, three ran (probably) on time, and one was 25 minutes late.

I had arrived a couple of minutes earlier on an on-time trains and was gathering my thoughts about getting back to Melksham, and a friendly local lady wished me good luck for my onward journey.  Eager to return the good wisheS, I asked where she was headed and she said "home" - 100% reliable as it tuns out she was walking to her house in Trowbridge.

[grahame]

I came out of the Town Hall tonight and walked across the road, got chatting with a couple of blokes enjoying a beer at an outside table. I love this sort of interaction and I must have ben chatting for 15 to 20 minutes.

"The trouble with the train is that it's always cancelled" said the more sober one and I agreed it feels like that - but actually it's NOT always cancelled - it just feels like that because at the weekends - which is what we were talking about - it's canceled far too often.   It should not be more than 2% ... however ...

No less than 18% of weekend services cancelled in the last 4 weeks.  GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) always tell us that these things are just a blip distorted by a couple of bad days, so I give you weekend cancellations for the last six months of 13% ... so it was very poor and has become dreadful.

I can understand the frustration on my pub friends in saying "it's always cancelled". No, but most people make connections and an out and back trip at the weekend, with 18% cancelled, gives 1 - 0.82 ** 4 chance of at least once cancellation of the 4 trains involved to upset the day - and that's just a 45% chance of all your trains running - and a 55% chance of at least one cancellation.  Which is why I cannot market rail travel to newcomers these summer weekends without adding a health warning.

As an aside - you'll note that Melksham has actually improved in it ranking even though performance has dropped.  So we are far from alone with the problems.  Small comfort to someone stood on the platform in Melksham to be told that passengers stood on the platform at Meopham have the same problem - except that (of course) Meopham has a far more frequent timetable in the first place, so it's not such a ruination of a day out if someone has to wait for the next train.