Out of order - from yesterday:
The railway was closed at Trowbridge "at the request of the police due to ammunition being found near the line" and these things happen. The ongoing information at Melksham was AWFUL - for the longest time the 06:32 just said "delayed" and the 07:21 was on time. Even when the southbound train was stated with a time again - estimated 07:18 - the northbound train at 07:21 still said "on time". That makes a mockery of the "system knowledge" as it's predicting an impossibility on the single line and I found myself chatting with other passenger and telling them "not before 07:33" for the Worcester train.
"Delayed" on a 3 line screen is useless; there IS a big screen there (facing the car park) and all that was saying was the same thing with 2 lines each for the following 3 or 4 services. Could have been more descriptive. When I eventually got to Westbury, the screens there were showing distrupted train departures alternating with a desciption of what the problem was and why. Why on earth could the same not be done - automatically share across stations big and small with responsive design so there's no need for human input on a. station by station business at the time of extreme re-organisation?
I was at the Rail Innovation Exhibition yesterday (ironic) and lots of clever stuff. BUT there could be so much basic stuff done getting information right for passengers at the time of disruption - accurate (and not afraid to say "don't know"), consistent, and perhaps with interactive tools. Lots of things being displayed but frightening on the information display side as to how fragmented, partial and at times embryonic it is - leaving passengers literally out in the cold. I did a better job in Melksham reading my phone and helping to explain roughly what was going on from scant evidence.
Yes, I did try the help point. It was obvious to me that the 06:32 would miss the connection at Westbury on into the 07:00 to Paddington with my "this train only" ticket, and if that misses the next fastest way to London in the 07:21 change at Swindon. The nice chap on the help point told me that my next train was the 07:58 from Westbury and my ticket would be accepted on it, but that my advanced ticket was for that route only and would not be accepted if I took the next alternative which happened to use a different route (via Swindon) even if it got me there quicker. He then told me that I COULD use my ticket on
SWR» trains such as one that was running from Yeovil Pen Mill because "ticket acceptance is in place". I got the impression that his geography was not great and he was of the understanding that Yeovil is just a short walk up the road from Melksham.
2O19 "adjusted" to not run beyond Salisbury (it was so late that the school traffic it normally carries south of there would have gone on the following train operated by SWR if they could all get in!)
2M81 got to Westbury on time, and sat there until the line re-opened ... and for some considerable time thereafter. It was still there when I arrived at 07:30 when it should have left at 07:05 ... and stayed even longer as trains via Bath Spa were displatched out of order - perhaps because it was so late that "what's another 10 minutes?". There were hard decisions to make here - a backlog of trains and a limited line.
Net result ... 2M81 ran only just ahead of the path of
2M13, probably took much of its traffic, and delayed 2M13 as well. Two trains at Melksham, 14 minutes apart, to Swindon must be close to a record. Interesting to see it can be done, and perhaps just a gentle warning of how NOT to do it if we end up with competing Go-op trains - they need to be spaced out!
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