2C36 and 2C38 Set Formations

[whole diary]

[thetrout]

2C36 is the Monday - Friday 23:20 Bristol Temple Meads - Frome. Normally formed of 5+ coaches but Front 3 in use only.

2C38 is the Saturday 23:11 Bristol Temple Meads - Frome. Formed nearly always of 2 coaches only (Class 150)

Whilst Monday - Wednesday 2C36 isn't that busy. Thursday is when it starts to get busier. The Friday working is probably the busiest working of the weekday week, but nearly always get a seat.

Saturday however is a different story (No surprises there ). However when the 150 turns up it becomes a massive scrum and free for all with people trying to barge on before people have even got off! Needless to say a 2 car is slightly dicing with death. You always end up with people standing who invariably have had more than a bit to drink. Then comes the diverge at Bathampton Junction. Someone always ends up failing over!

So why do FGW^▸ (First Great Western) only provide a 2 Car on a Saturday when this is clearly the busiest day of this late evening last train home??

The cynic in me wants to say that it's because FGW have one less carriage to clean that is almost guaranteed to get some form of bodily fluid or food/drink substance abuse...

Discuss...:

[Southern Stag]

The only reason it's formed of multiple carriages in the week is because it is used to get stock to Westbury for the start of service the next morning. On a Saturday all that is needed to move to Westbury must be a 150. It may be worth complaining to FGW^▸ (First Great Western), other carriages could probably be added to the service with some rejigging on the diagrams, but I wouldn't like to say how likely it is that would happen.

[grahame]

So why do FGW^▸ (First Great Western) only provide a 2 Car on a Saturday when this is clearly the busiest day of this late evening last train home??

The cynic in me wants to say that it's because FGW have one less carriage to clean that is almost guaranteed to get some form of bodily fluid or food/drink substance abuse...

Discuss...:

It's probably because the Monday to Friday trains are used to get an extra set out to Westbury ready for the start of the following morning's service (peak trains into Bristol).  On Saturday, there isn't the need for an extra set at Westbury for Sunday.

Now - if First were to run an 07:30 Westbury to Swindon and an 08:20 Swindon to Weymouth via Westbury on a Sunday morning, they would have the excuse to run the extra capacity on the Saturday evening too. We know that Sunday train works - we had up to 68 people on the 07:30, and around 400 on the 08:20, when it ran for a few weeks as an experiment for 8 weeks in 2011.

Something about getting all our ducks in a line.   Looks like this does ... nice new diagram, and it would also give a Sunday morning Weymouth to Bristol service.  As I recall, the HoW^‡(resolve) team has been looking for Sunday morning trains all year for a while ...



Edit to add ... Written as Southern Stag was also posting ... I think I've provided an interesting suggestion for the ongoing Saturday night diagram!

[bobm]

..and of course ugly ducklings turn into swans....