TransWilts - now and in the coming years

[whole diary]

[Lee]

How time-sensitive would the requirements of those currently driving be, in order to attract them to rail instead?

For example, would an 0818-ish arrival into Swindon be more advantageous than (say) an 0848-ish arrival or vice versa? In the other direction, what would be an optimal morning arrival time into Salisbury, and how far could one deviate from that before potential custom is lost? What about potential evening return times? How much priority should be given to peak timings at intermediate TransWilts destinations? What about off-peak, and other periods of the day?

Although I do have members such as John R, ellendune, bobm and chris in mind regarding expanding on their examples, I would again stress that I'd like to gather the views of as many interested members as possible.

[grahame]

There are a few people at my employer who live in the Salisbury area and work in Swindon. And as I know only a small proportion of a couple of thousand employees on the site, one can extrapolate that there are probably many more. They complain that the journey is slow and tedious, but there's no alternative. I would have thought even one service each way that gave them around 8 to 9 hours in Swindon rather than the current 11 would prove very attractive.   

John, I'm CERTAIN that there are many more.

I scratched my head slightly at the excellent support we received from the MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) for Devizes, as her constituency doesn't include any of the TransWilts stations ... but apparently there are major traffic flows on the roads from Salisbury in the South to Swindon in the North through "roads designed for horse and cart".   Regular / daily travellers looking to save a few seconds here and there by driving faster that they should through places like Pewsey, Upavon and Marlborough, but rarely stopping to bring business into the places they pass through.

I believe that the 8 or 9 hours, rather than 11, would make all the difference.  And so, initially, did the SRA^» (Strategic Rail Authority - about) when specifying the current service level, with a requirement for an arrival between 08:00 and (?) 08:45.  At First's request, this specification was modified to allow an arrival during the 07:30 to 08:00 period instead, and at the same time First took the wide 17:30 to 19:00 requirement for the return service and pushed it into the last available path before 19:00.   This timing saves them (First) the cost of hiring an extra train, as the train off the TransWilts can be used to form the commuter train into Gloucester (arriving there at a sensible time), and the return train in the evening (again, at a sensible time).

[grahame]

The fares and routeing permissions between Swindon and Salisbury are something that really needs looking into should a decent TransWilts service come to pass.

It is scandalous that a train operator can charge over ^50 for a single journey between two towns in the same historic county. 57 miles by rail on a direct service for ^56? Rip off. The routeings need changing at the very least to allow for a 'via Melksham' fare.

Of course I'd never pay that ^56, seeing as there is a split that would reduce the cost to around ^19. A split that even beats the 'via Bath' Anytime single......

I am delighted to report that this fare has now been reduced from 56 pounds to 23 pounds - a very good and decent solution by changing the "via Bath" fare into a "via Trowbridge" fare.

[JayMac]

Good news. A whole raft of relevant flows from Swindon to Salisbury and beyond now have a new 'via Trowbridge' option priced considerably less than the 'Not via London' fares and for some destinations matching the 'via Bath' fares. These new fares can now be used on services through Melksham.

So.... the funding is in place.... the fares are in place....

One word of warning. Don't try to purchase a SWI^» (Swindon - next trains)-SAL Anytime Single 'via Trowbridge' from WebTIS based booking engines (redspottedhanky, London Midland, Southern etc). The fare isn't currently available through them.

[anthony215]

Now all we need are some units I wonder of course where some could be found from in order to run a Swindon - Salisbury service.

An idea could be to run the London Paddington - Cheltenham service hourly throughout the day and use the two units which are used on the Swindon - Gloucester/Cheltenham shuttles.

The other option could be to hire in some loco hauled trains to displace units from elsehwere although I hardly think this option would happen.

Its a pity London Midland cannot use a class 172's on the Bedford - Bletchley route and cascade their remaining class 150's to FGW^▸ (First Great Western).

[JayMac]

An idea could be to run the London Paddington - Cheltenham service hourly throughout the day and use the two units which are used on the Swindon - Gloucester/Cheltenham shuttles.

That would, I believe, require two additional HST^▸ (High Speed Train) sets. There ain't anything spare there.

Rolling stock utilisation for services through Melksham is something the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership has looked at in some depth. Could you remind us of the findings, grahame?

[anthony215]

OK thanks it was just an idea I  had

[grahame]

An idea could be to run the London Paddington - Cheltenham service hourly throughout the day and use the two units which are used on the Swindon - Gloucester/Cheltenham shuttles.

That would, I believe, require two additional HST^▸ (High Speed Train) sets. There ain't anything spare there.

Rolling stock utilisation for services through Melksham is something the TransWilts Community Rail Partnership has looked at in some depth. Could you remind us of the findings, grahame?

During the day, there are 3 x HSTs on London Paddingon -> Cheltenham and 2 x 15x on Swindon to Cheltenham.

Every hour, a train takes 30 minutes to turn around at Cheltenham
Every 2 hours, a train takes 70 minutes to turn around at Swindon
And there's a 50 minute turn around at Paddington (if it's the same set)

Swindon to Cheltenham takes a few minutes over the hour. So on a line that was a self-contained service that would take 3 trains to provide the hourly departures from each end.  However, through trains to London alternating with a more local service rather frustratingly leave the two local units running for less than 60% of the time and sat at the end of the line for over 40%.

Extending local trains from Cheltenham to the South?   You can get beyond Chippenham and towards Trowbridge before you had to turn back, but not (robustly) all the way to Trowbridge.

Look now to the south, at Salisbury you have a 15x train terminating and turning around (from Romsey) that's there for 40 minutes in every hour. Not long enough to robustly get to Warminster and back.   And you have another 15x train that's there for 28 minutes in every hour, from Waterloo.

And in the middle at Westbury ... oh my goodness, this one is complicated.  A train arrives at around :36 from Bristol and one leaves at :38 towards Bristol - clearly not the same unit. Some go on to Frome and some of those to Weymouth. A few head south via Salisbury.  Sometimes local shuttles run from Westbury to Warminster to serve Dilton Marsh.

There *are* options available at certain times of day to get better utilisation, but these aren't trivial and you end up with the possibiity of providing an odd service at times that don't make for good, realistic round trip / commute schedules.  You've got to watch single lines at Kemble, on the TransWilts, and at Chandler's Ford.  You've got to watch interaction with the expresses who's tracks you're using in different parts, freight, long signalling sections etc.   And if you do a great deal on linkage, you may end up having the *time* available, but not in the right part of the two hour slot.   Add one unit and you end up with many more options; from either Salisbury or Swindon you can extend a train to Swindon or Salisbury and provide a two-hourly TransWilts, even through the single journey is a smidgin over an hour.

The Franchise consultation in January to March asked about franchise boundaries, and there are some oddities in the area south of Westbury - such as Dean and Mottisfont which are operated by First but only have Stagecoach services.  I'll be most interested to see what's in the ITT^▸ (Invitation to Tender) about this.

All four bidders for the next franchise have timetabling experts that know far more about this kind of stuff, and indeed if there had been an easy answer under current parameters, I suspect it would have been offered.   I'm going to defer to them rather than speculate here further 

[grahame]

One word of warning. Don't try to purchase a SWI^» (Swindon - next trains)-SAL Anytime Single 'via Trowbridge' from WebTIS based booking engines (redspottedhanky, London Midland, Southern etc). The fare isn't currently available through them.

? - I always thought that all fares were supposed to be available through all booking engines - certainly the regular anytime single stuff.

[JayMac]

Online booking engines don't have to be impartial and there are no 'rules' that say they have to sell all fares that are available.

I assume that it is merely an issue of updating ATOS's WebTIS system and nothing deliberate. Symptomatic, probably, of the disjointed nature of rail ticket retailing systems. It is of concern however, that someone could buy a SWI^» (Swindon - next trains)<->SAL ticket through WebTIS and be overcharged. I've emailed and used Facebook to point out to redspottedhanky (cf. ATOS - who provide the WebTIS back end ticket retailing for numerous TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company)) the issue regarding these new flows not yet showing on their booking engines. One hopes they update their systems pretty sharpish. If NRE^‡(resolve)'s fares info and thetrainline based booking engines can update then there's no reason why WebTIS can't.

That said, the industry's own internal 'fares finder' via 'The Manual' is also not yet showing the new fare flows. I'll keep an eye on this one and see what transpires through next week.

In the mean time. Caveat emptor,