Squashed - train services between Bristol and Bath

[whole diary]

[Spaceship]

Cheers - 158s they are, mostly the hybrids I think with the power car in the middle but going back to my original post, these are a right pain when its busy, slow to board and very squashed in. I sometimes find space for standing (which I prefer with the foldup) on the end by the corridor connection, but it does depend.

I will see one or two later on probably!

[phile]

The 3 Car 158s are all Power Cars formed, as earlier pointed out, by 2 Car 158s with a Car from other 2 Car 158s (after splitting) attached on the end   

[Rhydgaled]

The 3 Car 158s are all Power Cars formed, as earlier pointed out, by 2 Car 158s with a Car from other 2 Car 158s (after splitting) attached on the end

All 158s are all motor coaches (engine under the floor) yes, but there is one FirstGWR 158 which has a non-driving vehicle (no cabs) in it. That's 158798 and is the one with the special Springboard livery at the moment, as seen here (not my pic). All other FirstGWR 3-car 158s have three cabs, 158798 only has two.

[phile]

158798 is a "proper" 3 Coach unit.   The 150/9s have just been "knocked together" from 2 Car units..

[Andrew1939 from West Oxon]

Some of the summer additional West Country services have been formed by "pinching" an HST^▸ (High Speed Train) from the Cotswold Line resulting in gross over crowding of an Adelante or Turbo on the CL.

[froome]

Problem was ... growth has been 9.3% compound at Keynsham and 7.6% compound at Oldfield Park, and what just looks like a few percentage points one year builds up.   Keynsham last year had 412,600 journeys rather than the 183,000 anticipated, and Oldfield Park had 313,000 rather than the 163,000 anticipated.  And whilst plans have been changed to bring in more carriages, they don't grow on trees, they cost a lot of money to hire (more than the extra income they make if only really needed at the peak), and the story's the same in lots of other places.

As a newbie just catching up with a few threads. Oldfield Park is my local station, and I would say 'squashed' is an understatement of the situation on these services, and on many of the morning peak services. Very occasionally, people haven't been able to board at all, especially at Keynsham.

I would be tempted to challenge the figures for those travelling, which I assume come from ticket sales from the stations. I know that many people who use Oldfield Park buy tickets from Bath, as they can't get them at Oldfield Park (queues often too long in the morning) and having a return to Bath Spa allows much greater choice of return services (when I have to queue on Temple Meads platform for up to 15 minutes to buy my ticket to get there, many others I hear are doing the same). So mys suspicion is that those figures are an underestimate of the growth in users. In the ten years I've lived here, it looks to me that usage has increased by far more.

[John R]

Did I see that Keynsham and Oldfield Park may get ticket machines "soon"? (Which in railway terms could still be some way off).  Not before time, as it's unacceptable if people have to queue for 15 mins at Temple Meads to get a ticket.  I see the 200+ alighting on the 0758 arrival from the Severn Beach line on platform 1 most mornings and passengers sprint off the train, to get a better place in the queue for tickets.

[Chris from Nailsea]

As a newbie just catching up with a few threads. Oldfield Park is my local station, and I would say 'squashed' is an understatement of the situation on these services, and on many of the morning peak services.

Thank you for posting, froome, with your very valid update on the situation.

My colleague Timmer on the moderator team also uses Oldfield Park frequently, so he'll no doubt be able to add his own observations to this discussion: I'm not an expert on this one. 

[froome]

I try to avoid having to use the peak hour services because it is impossible to ever get a seat on them, but occasionally I have to. Last Wednesday (Nov 9) I caught the 08.13 from Oldfield Park to Temple Meads. It was standing all the way down when it arrived, a lot of people got off (inc 20 schoolchildren from the carriage I boarded) but many more got on, and was standing nose to nose down every carriage. At Keynsham some got off and some managed to get on, but I counted at least 50 left on the platform unable to board.

The train was on time and 4 carriages, so I assume (and from what people were saying) this was actually a fairly normal situation, not something unusual for that service. If so, it is disgraceful.

[WelshBluebird]

Oldfield Park is also my local station, and I actually commute to Keynsham.

In terms of the actual service, I guess I am lucky because I tend to end up on the closer to shoulder peak services. However the services still tend to be very busy and especially in the evening peak it can be a massive squeeze to get on (despite the fact there are two services very closely timed leaving Keynsham, 17.56 and 18.11).

Regarding passenger numbers, in addition to them being misleading because of people buying tickets to / from Bath instead of Oldfield Park (something I often too myself actually), I wonder if the fact that there are no ticketing facilities at either station for the vast majority of the day also has an impact. For anyone unfamiliar with the stations, during the morning peak mon-fri there is usually (but not always) a member of staff selling tickets from an avantix machine. Outside of the morning peak, you have to buy either on the train or an interchange station / your destination. For journeys between Oldfield Park and Keynsham, it is quite common for no member of staff to make their way through the train as such there is no opportunity to pay. Indeed this is also the case for the few times when no staff are present during the morning peak. Added to that is that GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) tend to be fairly lax about the "buying before you board" rule with Keynsham and Oldfield park in the morning peak because the ticketing situation is so poor. So I do wonder if the official numbers are on the low side here!

[froome]

Another squashed journey today, I caught the 13.26 from Oldfield Park to Temple Meads, so middle of a Sunday. It arrived with people nose to nose again all the way down each aisle. The 30 or so passengers waiting managed to just squash on (I was hard up against a door, which was slightly alarming).

However, the worst aspect as that when we got to Temple Meads, it was announced that two extra carriages would be added to the train before they opened the doors. This meant that about 300 standing people (it looked like at least 75 in my carriage and there were 3 or 4 carriages) were jolted quite hard, with many having nothing to hold onto where they were standing. I would have thought this broke a whole book of health and safety rules. Why don't they let people alight first in those instances?

[Oberon]

I often travel from Bath Spa to Bristol and make a rule of always travelling on HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train). Most people seem to alight from these at Bath leaving plenty of seats to choose from for the onward journey. Now that electrification issues have scuppered the Turbo cascade to the west for the foreseeable future the prospect for enjoying local journeys from the likes of Oldfield Park are probably blighted for years to come. Cheering thought isn't it..

[WelshBluebird]

The next few weeks are not going to be fun anyway thanks to the Bath xmas market.
And the issues from this weekend just gone won't help (I imagine at least a few people didn't bother travelling and will instead visit in the next couple of weekends).

Although saying that I did get the 13.50 from Oldfield Park to Bath Spa yesterday (to connect to a London service, I'm not usually that lazy!) and I was quite surprised how quiet it was. It was still standing room only but plenty of space, no where near as busy as I was expecting. Which is interesting considering froome's experience going the other direction just half hour earlier.

[froome]

Following on from my Nov 12 posting above, I caught the 08.13 train again today. I tried to count the number of passengers waiting for it at Oldfield Park and reckon there were at least 150 boarding, possibly quite a few more as passengers were coming down the ramp as the train arrived. It was standing room only of course. There were also a lot trying to board at Keynsham, of which several couldn't get on (at least 10 outside my carriage and presumably similar for the other carriages).

Our local paper had an article last week about a passenger fainting on one of these severely overcrowded trains. I will post about that separately, in the Bristol Commuters section.

[Spaceship]

I must admit I found it funny when I was on the 16.49 out of Tm to Weymouth yesterday and there mutterings of 'is it always like this' I replied this isn't full. full is when you are squashed against the wall leaving a mark of your face on the window. Now there was the time a few months ago when GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) thought it might be funny to reduce 3 cars down to 1... Some of us sensibly decided to get the later train and we were all on platform 9 watching everyone trying to fit in the train on platform 7. Consequently they didn't all fit in