Severe weather forecast - South West Trains pre-cancel services on 18 January

[whole diary]

[Jason]

"Because of the severe weather conditions, we will be running a revised timetable on Friday 18 January throughout the South West Trains network."

http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/SnowPlan2013.aspx

[IndustryInsider]

Interesting stuff.  We'll see whether the weather scuppers these plans, but at least it shows some form of advance planning and not a total make-it-up-as-you-go-along job!  Perhaps this is a good example of the NR^» (Network Rail - home page)/SWT^▸ (South West Trains) alliance working in the common interest of dealing with an expected disruption to the normal service?

[swrural]

The Dutch have been doing this for three days now.  Essentially they have made half hour frequencies hourly (etc).  I get an email update from NS as their goings on interest me.  Don't anyone ask me what my daughter, who lives there, thinks of the Fyra!   

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

Because of the severe weather conditions, we will be running a revised timetable on Friday 18 January throughout the South West Trains network.
To make best use of the trains and crew we expect to have available, we will be concentrating on our main line services 

For more info please see http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/alerts.aspx

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

i'm really sorry i have just started another post on this as i couldn't see anything in the swt thread

[paul7575]

If you take the Bournemouth line timetable as an example, they are running what is effectively a modified Sunday service, with the key difference being that trains won't run through Bournemouth, and that should allow Weymouth - Bournemouth to run independently if the weather is totally different down there, as is often the case.

They explained last time this happened that across the network, all the stock diagrams are modified to remove interworking across different routes, and traincrew diagrams also get modified to keep the crew (driver and guard as a pair) on the same discrete routes, to try and cut down on delays caused by crew or stock not getting to the same place together. 

(This is what causes most of the disruption following random incidents apparently - but it obviously isn't an efficient way to diagram stock or crews on a normal day to day basis.)

Paul

[devon_metro]

"Because of severe weather"

It hasn't happened yet!!

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

That seems to be the general consensus on twitter 

Putting that to one side it seems that both swt and southern are trying a very different plan of action to fgw who intend to run services as normal so if the snow is as bad as predicted it will be interesting to see who copes better, mind you first dont have the 3rd rail issue

[TonyK]

True about the third rail, but to Exeter?

Given the reputation of the British transport networks of all types with even a light dusting of snow, it's good to have a backup plan. It does seem an over-reaction to implement it just in case. Still, you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't.

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

i cant say for sure, but stopping the Bristol services and reducing the west of England ones would ensure more staff are available closer to London and free up diesel units incase there are issues with the third rail

[swrural]

Yes, I've had another look and NS was actually more often cutting down 15 min services to half hour frequency but they run more frequently anyway (generally).  Funnily enough they have decided to go back to normal tomorrow (brave).

They had 30,000 good and bad tweets but were generally pleased with commuter reaction.  They served 50,000 gratis cups of coffee to moaning delayed pax, which must have helped.  85% of pax were already informed via email and mobile, they discovered.

The Exeter service for tomorrow looks very sensible and is two hourly west of Salisbury and they cancelled Salisbury to Bristol, also sensible.

[Chris from Nailsea]

i'm really sorry i have just started another post on this as i couldn't see anything in the swt thread

Don't worry, lad: I've now moved and merged both topics here, as they cover exactly the same issue. CfN. 

[swrural]

The SWT^▸ (South West Trains) west service has a lovely simplicity to it,  see here.

http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/uploads/table4-westofengland[2].pdf

Their front page 'service updates' does not tell you anything (normally is coloured green, orange or red -very effective) but blue with see the special timetable on each line they operate.

Probably more sensible to do that.


Edit note: The square brackets used on that page appear to cause problems with the hyperlink: I can only suggest 'copy and paste' the full address in order to read that timetable. CfN. 

[TonyK]

THE are still moving, I'm on the very delayed 9.16 to Showjumping,but glad to be moving.Should get to work in time to go home.

[bobm]

...and where is Showjumping in non-predictive text?