Westbury westwards - significant numbers on the morning train

[whole diary]

[Phil]

Hmmm ... the 'lead' on a survey on this should probably come from the rail expert in Wiltshire Council's sustainable transport team; potentially we could pull in some help from TransWilts and approval from GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway). 

Doesn't this fall squarely into the West Wilts Rail User Group's remit?

[grahame]

Doesn't this fall squarely into the West Wilts Rail User Group's remit?

You may also ask if it falls into the remit of the Heart of Wessex CRP^▸ (Community Rail Partnership), with whom I should discuss it.

[Adelante_CCT]

and I was slightly surprised to see that the semifasts miss out Tiverton Parkway and the expresses call there in the TravelWatch SouthWest presentation yesterday.

Correct, that's what has been said in the franchise document..... I'm hazarding a guess they have gone for this option because if the semi-fast was to stop at Tiverton instead it may impede the 'fast' before arrival at Exeter? Or perhaps they feel Tiverton requires an hourly service rather than the semi-fast every two hours? Or quite simply, someone in the planning dept at GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) lives in Tiverton 

[grahame]

I was down in Taunton on Wednesday coming back on the 14:22 Plymouth to London service which has a stop at Westbury.  Crowd of us got on, just to hear an announcement that the train was to be diverted due to a line problem, and that the next stop would be Reading.  Reporting it on this thread to say "you should have seen how many people got off" ... I don't think it quite half-emptied the train, but there were an awful lot!

There were a number of well-informed transport people travelling on the train, and it was good to see them have a chat with the train manager, who got in touch with 'control' and arranged a Bristol Temple Meads stop order ... with everyone piling back on again.  And a lot of those same faces were on the 15:22 off Bristol too, getting off at Bath Spa, and Trowbridge, as I noted as well as carrying on to Westbury and I know some were going beyond.

Posted here as a reminder of just how important Westbury/westwards is, a reminder of how useful it is to have an independent diversionary route, and as a "thank you" to staff involved in getting and making the stop.

P.S.  The train was the lunchtime restaurant car ... caught up with BigNoseMac who popped out at Taunton to see what was going on and was in excellent spirit.   I guess there was a bonus in the diversion - it must be very rare for a functioning restaurant car to run from Taunton to Bristol these days!

[ellendune]

A good piece of rethinking there to benefit passengers during disruption. 

I note that although it left Taunton 8mins Late it still only arrived at Paddington 12 minutes late, so despite a long way round and stopping at Bristol - though not stopping at Castle Cary or Westbury, it only lost 4 minutes. 

Does that suggest there is some considerable fat in the timings or is the Berks & Hants route quite slow these days?

[grahame]

Wriggling in and out of Westbury slows the train down by rather more than any of us like.   And there's 3 minutes of recovery time and 4 minutes of station stops in the schedule.   We were lucky to get a clear run to Bristol where I left the train, it would seem there was a clear run beyond, and probably beyond judging by the timings.  And I suspect the 125 was in top form and not being driven to economise on fuel on this occasion.

Silly comment on Westbury ... the avoiding line's only 240 metres from the station - that's the length of a 9 car IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.).  There are already examples of a considerable passenger walk to get around stations (has anyone here every travelled on a 12 coach train from King's Cross to one of the new platforms in Cambridge?, then exited the station there?).  Couple of extra platforms on the avoiders, anyone?   Solving capacity and run time issues ...  Just doing an airline comparison, it would appear that the longest walk (platform -2 to +3) at a Westbury would be less that the shortest walk you'll have from road/railside to your plane at Gatwick South - excellent diagrams at
https://www.gatwickairport.com/globalassets/documents/passengers/prm/58634_prm_walkingdistances_v4.pdf