Oldfield Park station - incidents, awards, timetable changes - merged topic

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

Indeed: congratulations to all involved with those excellent floral displays at Oldfield Park! 

The flower beds at Parson Street are, I believe, due mainly to an initiative from the Severnside Community Rail Partnership (link below.)
http://www.severnside-rail.org.uk/index.asp

What I find particularly impressive is that they don't appear to have suffered the sort of vandalism that the old brick station shelters at Parson Street used to - suggesting that the decisions to replace those shelters with modern metal ones, and instal some flower beds, has led to a greater respect for the amenities at Parson Street!

I must have a word with Keith Walton about the possibility of doing something similar at Nailsea & Backwell ... 

[bemmy]

Yeah it no longer has that abandoned look which used to be compulsory at all minor stations. I suspect the fact that nowadays a couple of trains an hour stop, even in the evenings, and there are sometimes people waiting for trains, has also made it a less attractive place for the local youth to get up to no good.

[John R]

Caught a mid-morning service last week and there was someone at Parson St who appeared to be doing a passenger count. At least, he was well dressed, didn't get on the train, didn't look like he was spotting, and seemed to record something.

Not the most exciting job, monitoring the passenger flow at Parson St, but at least it was a dry day!

[Chris from Nailsea]

Thanks, bemmy - I agree!

And I think the same may be true of Bedminster, too - despite my previous chip about 'passing through it at 90mph'!  

It's noticeable that Bedminster and Parson Street, which are both unmanned stations - in recent years, anyway - have apparently benefitted indirectly from improvements to the service.  More trains stopping does seem to have helped to discourage some of the 'anti-social behaviour' there.

And the flower beds (at Oldfield Park and Parson Street, anyway!) do make it more pleasant for those waiting on the platform for a train!

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BTP^▸ (British Transport Police) press release:

BRITISH TRANSPORT POLICE APPEAL FOR INFORMATION AFTER DISTURBANCE FOLLOWING FRIENDLY FOOTBALL MATCH - BATH

British Transport Police (BTP) officers are appealing for witnesses after a disturbance at Oldfield Park railway station in Bath.

The incident took place at around 9.15pm on Thursday 8 July following a pre-season friendly football match between Bath City and Cardiff City.

It was described as a violent confrontation between two groups of men which was witnessed by other passengers and members of rail staff.

Inspector Andy Irwin-Porter, the officer in charge at BTP Bristol, said: ^This appeared to be a premeditated attempt to instigate violence by a group whose sole intention was to travel to Bath to confront Cardiff City fans returning home after a football match. The incident at Oldfield Park was witnessed by other passengers at the station and on board the train, including families with children. British Transport Police will not tolerate behaviour such as this anywhere on the rail network. We will do everything in our power to find those responsible and bring them to justice.

^The majority of football fans are law-abiding citizens but there are a minority who, by virtue of their behaviour, bring the game and the notion of being a supporter into disrepute. I would appeal to anyone with any information about this incident, or who knows the identity of anyone involved, to contact British Transport Police in confidence.^

Anyone with information should contact BTP on 0800 40 50 40, quoting incident number 756 of 08/07/2010, or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

[tramway]

There was an announcement by the guard last night on the 16.30 Cardiff Pompey as we left Bristol that from the next TT change the service would no longer call at Oldfield. 

As I can't find the new TTs on FGW^▸ (First Great Western) site I can't confirm, but as this is the only Pompey service that does stop it's been a bit of an anomaly, especially since the introduction of the 2 preceding services running from Parkway and Filton only 21 and 14 mins before.

Probably the most crowded of the evening trains largely due to the number of Oldfield passengers, many of who were clearly none to pleased with the announcement.

Is anyone aware if the Westbury/Warminster services will be retimed, as the Pompey will catch up with the Westbury service even earlier than it does now.

[paul7575]

I'd recommend trying this:

http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/en/s/pockettimetable/search

If you enter your journey details and times for a calendar period stradling the timetable change, (say 6th to 17th of December), it will generate a comparison, with altered trains side by side marked 1 or 2.  For it to be useful make sure you select 'show all calling points' in the Advanced Selections.

I just made a BTM^▸ (Bristol Temple Meads (strictly, it should be BRI)) to Westbury query, there do seem to be a whole load of timing changes.

HTH Paul

[tramway]

Cheers Paul

Will be interesting to see how it pans out.

Looks like we'll still be watching the lambs at Freshford for a few minutes in the spring.

[Timmer]

New winter timetables should be on the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) website this Friday if previous TT changes are anything to go by ie. exactly one month out from the TT change.

[JayMac]

I'd recommend trying this:

http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/en/s/pockettimetable/search

If you enter your journey details and times for a calendar period stradling the timetable change, (say 6th to 17th of December), it will generate a comparison, with altered trains side by side marked 1 or 2.  For it to be useful make sure you select 'show all calling points' in the Advanced Selections.

I just made a BTM^▸ (Bristol Temple Meads (strictly, it should be BRI)) to Westbury query, there do seem to be a whole load of timing changes.

HTH Paul

What an excellent tip, Paul! Thanks for that. I'm off to look and other minor changes across FGW^▸ (First Great Western) land. So much easier to have the side-by-side comparison rather than cross referencing .pdfs or paper timetables.

[Timmer]

Forgot to add earlier that I am a bit surprised that the Oldfield Park stop is being removed from the 16.30 as when I have either been on the train or seen it arrive into Oldfield Park there have always been quite a few passengers getting off here. This was quite sometime ago though. Have passenger levels for Oldfield Park on this particular train changed much recently?

[Chris from Nailsea]

I was on the Westbury to Bristol Temple Meads service last Friday afternoon: we were 'slightly delayed', but at around 17:15 through Oldfield Park, the number of passengers alighting / boarding there struck me as quite impressive!

HTH.

CfN. 

[tramway]

I was on the Westbury to Bristol Temple Meads service last Friday afternoon: we were 'slightly delayed', but at around 17:15 through Oldfield Park, the number of passengers alighting / boarding there struck me as quite impressive!

HTH.

CfN. 

Thats's the point, train totally overloaded, Oldfield Park users have 2 other services to choose from, and go for what should be an inter regional service rather than a more local service.

Still don't agree that there should be a stop at Bradford.

[Trowres]

Stopping the Portsmouth services at Bradford on Avon has added several hundred passengers a day to the railway. I suppose you could argue it's added to overcrowding  , but otherwise seems to be a good decision.

[Toiletdriver]

The Oldfield Park stop on the 1722 ex BTM^▸ (Bristol Temple Meads (strictly, it should be BRI)) is definately caped in an attempt to better the time keeping of this service, it is one of the worse Wessex FGW^▸ (First Great Western) west timekeepers!