Chippenham - facilities, improvements, parking, events and incidents - merged posts

[whole diary]

[James158]

Line problem at Chippenham.

Train services are being disrupted due to signalling problems at Chippenham.

Engineers are working as fast as possible to restore services to normal. Delays of up to 20 minutes can be expected.

This is not affecting train services too badly as of yet.

[Timmer]

From FGW^▸ (First Great Western) website:

Services between Swindon and Bristol Temple Meads are being disrupted due to signalling problems in the Chippeham area.Train servicves are unable to call at Chippenham. Alternative road transport is in operation between Swindon, Chippenham and Bath Spa in both directions.

Altered services as at 10am:

05:40 Plymouth to London Paddington due 10:14
This train has been revised.It will no longer call at: Bath Spa and Chippenham.

07:30 London Paddington to Penzance due 13:16
This train has been revised.It will no longer call at: Chippenham and Bath Spa.

07:40 Paignton to London Paddington due 11:38
This train has been revised.It will no longer call at: Chippenham and Swindon.

08:30 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads due 10:15
This train has been revised.It will no longer call at: Chippenham and Bath Spa.

09:00 Bristol Temple Meads to London Paddington due 10:39
This train has been revised.It will no longer call at: Chippenham and Swindon.

09:00 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads due 10:38
This train has been revised.It will no longer call at: Swindon and Chippenham.

09:30 Bristol Temple Meads to London Paddington due 11:14
This train has been revised.It will no longer call at: Bath Spa and Chippenham.

09:30 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads due 11:15
This train has been revised.It will no longer call at: Chippenham and Bath Spa.

10:30 Bristol Temple Meads to London Paddington due 12:14
This train has been revised.It will no longer call at: Bath Spa and Chippenham.

10:30 London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads due 12:15
This train has been revised.It will no longer call at: Chippenham and Bath Spa.

[SDS]

Cable Theft again it is rumoured to have been.

[JayMac]

From The Bath Chronicle (01/10/2010):

Trains get back to normal after signal fault causes chaos

Rail services to and from Bath were getting back to normal today after being thrown into chaos by signalling problems.

Scores of passengers were left temporarily stranded at Bath Spa station by a fault to the west of Chippenham which disrupted trains between Swindon and Bristol Temple Meads.

Officials at Network Rail are investigating whether the fault was caused by the latest of a spate of copper thefts affecting railway lines up and down the country.

Trains were unable to call at Chippenham and First Great Western organised buses to replace services between Swindon, Chippenham and Bath Spa in both directions.

It has diverted some services via Westbury and Bristol Parkway but services were restored by the end of the morning.

One traveller trying to get from Bath to Swindon earlier this morning had said: ^It^s absolute chaos. All the trains have been cancelled and they don^t know when there^s going to be a coach to Swindon.^

Network Rail has set up a taskforce to deal with incidents that have seen ^35 million worth of copper stripped from its infrastructure since 2006 as the cost of the metal has soared.

The logistics of replacing train services were complicated by an incident near Membury services which led to long queues on the M4.

[grahame]

Chippenham Station ... Saturday.   It might not have been much, but the waiting room did used to keep us slightly warm. However:



Glad to read that it's not a permanent loss of facilities and indeed we should get back facilities better than they were:



Questions asked by someone I was with on the platform. I think I know the answers, but it would be nice to have quotable confirmation, and the poster does not claim to have given us a complete list of improvements ...
1. Is it true they're putting in a lift too?
2. Will there be ticket barriers when the works have been completed

[Brucey]

Afraid I can't answer your questions Graham, but since when did redecoration become a noun?  Also the irregular full stops are bothering me.

[inspector_blakey]

It's always been a noun, the question is when it became a proper noun

At least I didn't notice any obvious mis-spelling on that notice, but someone does need to look up how to punctuate lists. There must be people working at FGW^▸ (First Great Western) towers who are perfectly competent in the use of English, so it's a bit of a mystery to me why no-one ever bothers to run these signs past a proof reader who knows what they're doing.

[Phil]

I suspect there will be no much-needed lifts or barriers.

I distinctly remember there was a perfectly good "barrier" system in place at Chippenham  30 years ago: the station entrance was in the same place as it is now, but what is now a window to the privately run internet cafe contained a friendly fellow who checked that everyone passing had a ticket - and sold platform tickets to anyone who was seeing off a friend or relation. Not a soul passed him without having business on the station. I still think there's a place for platform tickets today. At least the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) would get SOME money out of the fare dodgers. I realize I'm probably in a minority of one in that line of thinking though....

[philipgreg]

Does nayone know what is going on with the dissused platform. They have taken up the edge at the Bath end for about 50ft I guess. This is the part that curves in towards the line and reduces the available width, maybe they are going to straighten it to allow the reinstatement of track to that platform?

[Chris from Nailsea]

Welcome to the Coffee Shop forum, philipgreg, and thank you for posing that very interesting question!

I don't have an answer, obviously - but we do happen to have a few members here, who may be able to offer further information! 

[thetrout]

I believe there was talk about in the Great Western Route Utilization (sp?) Strategy...?? But if they have actually taken that up... I know not...

It's about time the toilets there were refurbished... They are in a bit of a state. But nowhere near as bad as some of the Spanish Railway Station Bogs I've used over the past 10 days........

[grahame]

Do you know how - on Google - the majority of people will follow and find what they want on the front page.   How does that work for Ticket Vending Machines?

I travelled up from Chippenham to London last Thursday afternoon.   Long queue at the one of three counters open, so I used the TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine).   Front page offers me London tickets - peak and offpeak, and with and without various London Underground Travel Card options.

Now - I happened to know that there's something called a super offpeak which is cheaper than any of the options which was offered on the front page, and I managed to find a "please give me more options" button and navigated my way to the ticket I wanted.

I would have thought that there was quite a heavy super-off peak traffic at that time of day.  My question - how is it decided what goes on the front "splash" page? 

Does it seem a little naughty to be offering peak tickets at a time of day that they're unlikely to be needed, and yet not offering the best deal for the mid-afternoon?  I suggest that many occasional travellers aren't aware of  "super offpeak", and would probably have assumed that they needed the offpeak ticket, at a higher price than they needed to pay.

[ellendune]

I used a TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) at Cologne Hbf a couple of years ago.  First it asked where I wanted to go and when(default being now!).  Then it listed the trains and gave fares for each.  Then I selected a train and it sold me a ticket. easy!  It took a couple on minutes.

Why can't TVM's here be so easy.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Probably the same ticket machines - Scheidt and Bachmann hardware (German efficiency) - but let down by cheap ATOC^» (Association of Train Operating Companies See - here) software here in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) versions?

[thetrout]

Maybe they assume people will return during the Evening Peak so hence displaying more flexible tickets.

Also AFAIK^▸ (as far as I know) the ticket machines at Chippenham (Except the one in the London side Car Park) are the ones from the days of Great Western Trains