Avocet Line - Exeter to Exmouth - incidents and events; services, stock and related improvements

[whole diary]

[TonyK]

Pedantry or no, using correct spelling, punctuation, and pronunciation will upset no-one, whilst doing it wrong will at best raise a few laughs at the expense of the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company), and at worst make them look a bunch of amateurs.

[LiskeardRich]

Hope GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have a strong rail replacement fleet for Sunday.
Exeter chiefs vs Bath. Complete sell out.

http://exeterchiefs.co.uk/news/train-disruption-sundays-game/

Supporters attending Sunday’s sold-out Aviva Premiership clash between Exeter Chiefs and Bath Rugby by train should allow extra travel time due to planned maintenance work by First Great Western.
The line between Exeter St Davids and Exmouth, which drops off at both Digby & Sowton and Newcourt stations, will be operating a bus service between the affected stations.
In a bid to avoid congestion, we advise all supporters to take note of this information and act accordingly by planning extra travelling time.
Normal match-day bus routes remain unchanged, while match-day parking – which can be booked in advance by clicking here – is available on the Exeter Business Park in Grenadier Road at a cost of £7. Those who choose to pay on the day will be charged £10.
This includes a free shuttle service to and from the stadium for all occupants and will be available three hours before and after the final whistle.

[Bob_Blakey]

'...due to planned maintenance work by First Great Western.'
Really? Usual standard of accuracy/proofreading from the Exeter Chiefs Head of Comms! 

[phile]

'...due to planned maintenance work by First Great Western.'
Really? Usual standard of accuracy/proofreading from the Exeter Chiefs Head of Comms! 

Joint Venture with South West Trains.   

[Bob_Blakey]

Yet another lorry strike at the Honiton Road overbridge.

http://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/rail-services-disrupted-after-hgv-394095

Hopefully P45 time for the idiot driver.

[plymothian]

The previous post from Plymouthian seemed to indicate this fault had been rectified.
Could GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) consider employing somebody who has a basic grounding in correct punctuation to configure the scrolling text displays; the absence of full stops, etc. is most disconcerting.

Basically, nope!

There are 2 types of AutoPIS that have been installed - GPS based and Door-release based.

The GPS ones were upgraded so that they would miss out request stops and still know where the train was in relation to the next non-request station, they can also handle local door stops.

The door-release ones only know to change when the guard releases the doors.  This puts them out of sync when stopping at request stops, plus they cannot be set up unless the train is stationary with the doors released.  This system doesn't work with local door operations either as it requires a full door release to trigger the change.  Because of this, it is a PITA^▸ (Pain in the A**e) to reset especially on the Exmouth line.

Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing which system you have when it's initially set up, however once running the GPS ones will announce "we are now approaching..." whereas the door-release announce "the next station is..." upon departure and won't not announce "this is..." until the doors are released. 

[Bob_Blakey]

The TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) at Digby & Sowton has now been fitted with a contactless card reader. A very useful improvement I think.

Also, and I expect this will prove to be old news although it's the first time I have seen them, the guards on my DIG<>EXC return trip yesterday were both equipped with Fujitsu branded ticket machines which consisted of a main processor/printer unit together with a smaller contactless card reader. Compared to the older machines ticket issuing seemed to be significantly quicker.

[Bob_Blakey]

0912 DIG>EXC & 1020 EXC>DIG trip this morning. Nice to travel both ways in a fully refurbished 150/2 unit; this is becoming increasingly the case (the ABRail database now shows 15 of these units having been reallocated from Bristol to Exeter). The inbound service was full & standing. Also good to see that both services carried two passenger-facing staff so nobody was getting a free ride.

[phile]

0912 DIG>EXC & 1020 EXC>DIG trip this morning. Nice to travel both ways in a fully refurbished 150/2 unit; this is becoming increasingly the case (the ABRail database now shows 15 of these units having been reallocated from Bristol to Exeter). The inbound service was full & standing. Also good to see that both services carried two passenger-facing staff so nobody was getting a free ride.

The 150/1s , except 2 still to go, have moved to Northern and many of the 150/2 workings through Bristol have been replaced by Turbos,

[Timmer]

0912 DIG>EXC & 1020 EXC>DIG trip this morning. Nice to travel both ways in a fully refurbished 150/2 unit; this is becoming increasingly the case (the ABRail database now shows 15 of these units having been reallocated from Bristol to Exeter). The inbound service was full & standing. Also good to see that both services carried two passenger-facing staff so nobody was getting a free ride.

Yes GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have done a great job of the refurbs of the 150/2s and 158s. Very smart, sad to leave them leaving the Bristol area services.

[RichardB]

0912 DIG>EXC & 1020 EXC>DIG trip this morning. Nice to travel both ways in a fully refurbished 150/2 unit; this is becoming increasingly the case (the ABRail database now shows 15 of these units having been reallocated from Bristol to Exeter). The inbound service was full & standing. Also good to see that both services carried two passenger-facing staff so nobody was getting a free ride.

Really good to hear.  The plan is for most Exmouth - Paignton services to go to four coaches, intended to be usually 2 x Cl150/2, later this year.

[devonexpress]

'...due to planned maintenance work by First Great Western.'
Really? Usual standard of accuracy/proofreading from the Exeter Chiefs Head of Comms! 

Being fair, BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) Spotlight & ITV News West Country are no better.

[Bob_Blakey]

My MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) (Hugo Swire - East Devon) has just written on social media that GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have told him they will '...phase in updated rolling stock in January and February...'.

This was apparently in partial response to issues raised in a meeting with Mark Hopwood last October.

Obviously my breathing reflex will not be temporarily suspended - although being fair to GWR I did actually travel from DIG to EXC last week in a 4 car (2 x refurbished 150/2) consist for the first time in over a year.

[REVUpminster]

I expect this is the promised 158's  They may have new universal toilets fitted. Be interesting to see them under the existing timetable go to Exmouth. Under the Devon Metro they are expected to run between Barnstaple and Exeter Central reversing in what I now call the Morrison's siding.

[Bob_Blakey]

Afraid not; Hugo Swire would only be concerned with the branch line to Exmouth as the Tarka^▸ (Line from Barnstaple to Exeter) Line does not fall within the East Devon constituency. This must therefore refer to the long promised 4 car 150/2 services.