Summer 19 Timetable

[whole diary]

[rogerw]

The summer timetables are now available on Realtime trains and there are significant changes to the services via Westbury, particularly on Mondays to Fridays with a number of additional services (times at Westbury in brackets)
0655 Yeovil P M to Salisbury/Waterloo (0740)
0750 Waterloo to Yeovil P M (0952)
1045 Yeovil P M to Salisbury/Waterloo (1136)
1453 Yeovil Jct to Slisbury/Waterloo (1541)
1620 Waterloo to Bristol TM^‡(resolve) (1829)
1820 Waterloo to Castle Cary (2030)
1935 Bristol TM to Waterloo (2016)

The 1850 Waterloo to Westbury via Yeovil is withdrawn north of Pen MIll but replaced in part by a 2141 astle Cary to Salisbury.

Dilton Marsh now has a regular service to/from Waterloo on Mondays to Fridays with departures at 0743, 1139, 1544, & 1748 and arrivals back at 0948, 1449 & 2023

The summer Saturday service from Salisbury to Weymouth via Yeovil is again to operate, Starting back from Waterloo but there is currently no sign of a repeat of last year's service to Corfe Castle.

The additional Bristol services also run on Saturdays and there is a new 0915 Waterloo to Bristol with the corresponding return working on Sundays

There are 4 additional services on Saturdays
0716 Castle Cary to Salisbury/Waterloo? (0745)
0850 Waterloo to Frome (1054)
1130 Frome to Waterloo (1143)
1820 Waterloo to Yeovil Jct (1956)
None of these services call at Dilton Marsh

On Sundays there is only one service other than the Bristol ones mentioned above
0951 Yeovil Jct to Waterloo (1049)

[Timmer]

Are SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) bringing in their new timetables in May postponed from December or is this a phase timetable change?

[rogerw]

There don't appear to be any significant changes on the Weymouth line and I haven't checked any others.  SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) did suggest that they would do the Westbury improvements asap.  They don't really affect any other services to any extent and there are no changes east of Salisbury

[RichardB]

It's still very early for the May timetable.  Things may still change.

[Clan Line]

Looks good for passengers between Salisbury and Westbury (and intermediate stops) - more decent rolling stock to avoid travelling on the Turbos !

[Timmer]

There don't appear to be any significant changes on the Weymouth line and I haven't checked any others.  SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) did suggest that they would do the Westbury improvements asap.  They don't really affect any other services to any extent and there are no changes east of Salisbury

What I thought, no affect on services out of Waterloo so these changes can easily be bought in.

[Timmer]

Looks good for passengers between Salisbury and Westbury (and intermediate stops) - more decent rolling stock to avoid travelling on the Turbos !

Certainly does provide a few more options between Salisbury-Westbury and to Bristol of avoiding travelling on a Turbo and being able to travel First Class. Most importantly it provides more capacity on this line which can only be good news.

[grahame]

I have split out a Dilton Marsh specific topic at

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=20950.0

[paul7575]

There don't appear to be any significant changes on the Weymouth line and I haven't checked any others.  SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) did suggest that they would do the Westbury improvements asap.  They don't really affect any other services to any extent and there are no changes east of Salisbury

...apart from the Sunday morning and afternoon Salisbury to Reading service?  Here’s the up service listing:
(resolve)/from/BSK^▸ (Brake Standard Corridor (carriage))/2019/05/19/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt&toc=SW" target="_blank">http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/advanced/RDG/from/BSK/2019/05/19/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt&toc=SW
And the down service list: http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/advanced/RDG/to/BSK/2019/05/19/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt&toc=SW

I’ve had confirmation that (apart from the Romsey rounders) there are no longer any 158s or 159s diagrammed in the Hampshire area, which allows for a number of WofE services to be strengthened at various times of the day.  All those oddities, such as Winchester to Totton, and some early and late trains between Basingstoke and Portsmouth will be operated by 450s. 

DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) operating entirely over third rail have been a bit of an embarrassment IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion), but to be fair they have been steadily reducing in the last 3 years or so, with Lymington ending last month as is generally known.

Paul

[DaveHarries]

Certainly does look good for passengers wishing to go between Frome, Castle Cary and London with the extra journey options. Particularly the case on Mondays to Fridays when there will be 13 SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) services per day instead of 6, including shuttles between Yeovil Pen Mill and Yeovil Junction. Bravo SWR: let us hope they attract enough custom: the RealTimeTrains website has those trains running at least until 13th December.

On the Weymouth side of things SWR are running London Waterloo to Weymouth on Saturdays via. Yeovil for the Summer season starting 25th May:

1L11 0635 London Waterloo to Weymouth via. Salisbury, Yeovil Junction and Yeovil Pen Mill
2M00 1210 Weymouth to Yeovil Junction via. Yeovil Pen Mill (which, it appears, links onto the 1429 to Waterloo)
1L66 1654 Weymouth to London Waterloo via. Yeovil Pen Mill and Yeovil Junction

There are also improvements on Sundays with the number of departures from Westbury to Salisbury and London Waterloo rising from 6 to 9 with extra services to / from Bristol Temple Meads thrown in:

Present:
1V33 1355 Salisbury to Bristol Temple Meads
1V81 1955 Salisbury to Bristol Temple Meads

1O60 1604 Bristol Temple Meads to Salisbury
1O82 2135 Bristol Temple Meads to Salisbury

Starting 19th May:
1V21 1055 Salisbury to Bristol Temple Meads
1V33 1355 Salisbury to Bristol Temple Meads
1V81 1955 Salisbury to Bristol Temple Meads

1O48 1304 Bristol Temple Meads to London Waterloo
1O60 1604 Bristol Temple Meads to Salisbury
1O82 2135 Bristol Temple Meads to Salisbury

Lastly, on Mondays to Fridays, one other improvement is that the gap of 6hrs 32mins in afternoon & evening SWR departures from Bristol Temple Meads to Salisbury is being closed by the addition of:

1V49 1801 Salisbury to Bristol Temple Meads
1O72 1935 Bristol Temple Meads to London Waterloo

The unit which will form 1V49 currently detaches from 1L49 at Salisbury and works ECS^▸ (Empty Coaching Stock) to Salisbury Depot. As for 1O72 it is interesting to note that it appears not to join a train from Exeter St. Davids on reaching Salisbury which most of the other workings currently do.

HTIOI,
Dave

[paul7575]

AFAICS^▸ (As Far As I Can See) the new 1O72 runs Salisbury to Waterloo in a currently unused xx47 path, and then returns as an additional 2250 service to Salisbury,  2F71.

Paul

[DaveHarries]

Another thing I have noticed, on RealTimeTrains, is that the unit which operates the 2340 London Waterloo - Yeovil Junction on Friday and Saturday nights will overnight at Yeovil Junction instead of working ECS^▸ (Empty Coaching Stock) back to Salisbury. Either they have a driver living in the area or are getting him / her a taxi to get back to Salisbury.

Dave

[WSW Frome]

These new SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) services will certainly provide some extra benefits at Frome, Bruton and Castle Cary especially by providing new through journeys to/from Salisbury and to Waterloo (with/without change at SAL). The new services also fill some Heart of Wessex gaps and some provide good/reasonable connections at Westbury or Castle Cary into GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) inter-city journeys, east or west. It will be interesting to see how these SAL/WAT journeys are priced, as currently travelling the long way round via Yeovil generally requires a higher-priced (walk up) fare, even when the services are advertised to Frome along parts of the route! SWR some positive fare tweaks please.

I was also looking at the current GWR timetable (which would apply to several previous iterations) and decided that inter-city connections at Westbury into/out of southerly Heart of Wessex services have got worse in recent times. Previously there were some swift exchanges but on weekdays now only 20.03 PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains) down and the 06.45, 14.42, 16.29 and 18.56 FRO^» (Frome - next trains) up have connection times under the 30-40 minute range. Sundays are better but with lower frequency!

So a plea to the POWERS THAT BE - We know it is not easy but when tweaking the long awaited new GWR timetable, please do your best to improve these connections at Westbury. Alternatively they can respond to the various requests for "some of" the new semi-fast services to call at Frome.

[grahame]

Press release from SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) -

Friday 08th March 2019

Customers based across the South Western Railway network will benefit from extra services and journey opportunities when the next train timetable is introduced, from 19 May.

Andy Mellors, Managing Director of South Western Railway, welcomed the good news:
“There will be substantial changes to our next timetable starting in May, which will bring over 300 additional train services a week for our customers.

“Many of these service enhancements are based on extensive consultations and feedback sessions that were undertaken previously with local stakeholders, businesses, community groups and customers.

“We are very pleased that these enhancements will come to fruition shortly and we will continue to work on refurbishing our existing fleet and introducing brand new state-of-the-art trains in to service by the end of the year.”

Here are some of the highlights from the new timetable:

*Two additional fast Portsmouth to Waterloo services* in the morning peak and an additional evening peak service to Guildford / Haslemere.
*Reading to Waterloo passengers will see two additional trains during the morning peak, and there will also be an additional service during the morning peak from Ascot to Reading. There will also be additional Windsor and Hounslow trains in the morning peak period towards London.
* The Waterloo to Farnham (via Ascot) route will see two additional services, while one additional Waterloo to Windsor, and two Reading to Ascot services will also be added, all during the evening peak.
* New half-hourly service between Farnham and Guildford.
* Extra later evening services from Waterloo to Salisbury and Waterloo to Portsmouth.
* On Sundays, there will be a new Salisbury to Reading (via Basingstoke) service.
* On the south coast, there will be some additional services between Weymouth/Poole/Southampton and Waterloo during peak times.
* Extra weekday and weekend services from Yeovil to Waterloo calling at Castle Cary, Bruton and Frome.
* Godalming will benefit as all fast Portsmouth/Waterloo services will call at the station (doubling the number of services).
* Other improvements to the timetable include some evening suburban service changes with an additional Waterloo to Chessington South and Chessington South to Wimbledon service.

The summer Saturday Weymouth service on the Salisbury to Yeovil route will be extended to cover the full timetable period.

[stuving]

Some of that seems an odd way for SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) to present what they have done. In particular, they have taken up a suggestion in the franchise SLC^▸ (Service Level Commitment) and extended it, splitting the Ascot-Guildford service into Ascot-Farnham and Farnham-Guildford from May 2019 (with Alton-Waterloo continuing much as now).

For the rest, they are continuing the process of adding a train here and there, inching towards the full SLC. There are ECS^▸ (Empty Coaching Stock) made into public services, part-route trains extended to/from Waterloo, etc. For the Reading service, they now have 4 tph Down for the evening peak, and they are not far short Up in the morning peak.