The Didcot Dance - still happening!

[whole diary]

[grahame]

And where would you fit Didcot passengers on the 15.51 anyway?

Are you telling us that the 15:51 is so severely overcrowded when it's running with the scheduled 8 carriages that there wouldn't be room for the South West to Oxford traffic to join it, or are you tacitly accepting that it's going to be predominantly a turbo working into the foreseeable future?

If it's any comfort to you, Will, I would be suprised to see anything changed to eliminate the regular 28 minutes wait for "connection" on the 30 minute services.   They say "where there's a will, there's a way"; we haven't seen a way being found, so I would conclude there's no will.

[willc]

Yes. It is a very busy train with its current calling pattern, even with an HST^▸ (High Speed Train), see posts on the subject of the 15.51 from a number of people other than me.

[grahame]

Yes. It is a very busy train with its current calling pattern, even with an HST^▸ (High Speed Train), see posts on the subject of the 15.51 from a number of people other than me.

"Back of fag packet" calculation ... if it's overcrowded as a 125, then when it's a Turbo there would be over 180 people per carriage - approaching 200% loading.  Goodness - hadn't realised it was that bad ... has anyone taken any pictures?

This is a bit academic, mind ... as noted further up the thread, I'm not exactly holding my breath in thinking that the Didcot Dance will end any time soon.  Roll on a few direct trains from Chippenham and beyond to Oxford and beyond 

[Mookiemoo]

Thing is though  - people who know check out the details and get an alternate service if they see a turbo - I for one would not get the 1551 as a turbo  - I'd rather sit int the sloe bar/three guineas/where ever for a couple of hours

[IndustryInsider]

Quote from: IndustryInsider on August 22, 2010, 11:53:27 PM
Perhaps all of the xx:50 trains from Paddington to Oxford should stop at Didcot Parkway (around the xx:38 mark) as they offer better connections from the Bristol trains and also at Oxford for passengers heading north?  At the moment the only ones that do are the 10:50, 12:50 and 14:50, as in the other hours the xx:48's to Cheltenham stop at Didcot - not much use for passengers from Didcot towards Oxford though!

Now there is a good idea ... and indeed it would make the service more "Clockface" too - passengers having an hourly service with good connections at Didcot from Chippenham / Bath / Bristol.

And put another five minutes into Oxford/Cotswold not very 'fast' already services? No thanks. Never mind what it would do to pathing on the Cotswold Line. And where would you fit Didcot passengers on the 15.51 anyway?

The added time on those services that currently do call at Didcot (10:50, 12:50 and 14:50) is two minutes, not five - despite them being 90mph Turbos.  Slack probably added to the fast trains as they are often catch up with the stopper at Oxford and have to wait a platform.  There's no problem with pathing of terminating services at Oxford (even if a HST^▸ (High Speed Train)) as the next train isn't due into platform two until around 15 minutes afterwards. 

Stopping Oxford to Paddington services at Didcot is nothing new of course, and as long as the journey is done in an hour then, off-peak additional calls to help the situation Graham and myself are describing would in my opinion be a positive thing. 

The Cotswold Line would not be affected at all - all Cotswold Line trains depart around the xx:21 mark, save for the 06:48 (which already calls there) and the 15:51 and 17:50, which I would agree, an exception should be made.

It's a situation that could only be improved in the 'down' direction however, as with an xx:12 departure from Didcot towards Bristol you're stuck with a 20 minute wait whatever.  Again, connections into the South Wales services are much better.

[smokey]

When it comes to Connections I always had a feeling that BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) wrote the Penzance-Paddington Service around the Liskeard-Looe service, connections from London to Looe and V/versa always seemed very good.

A Knock-on from the 1960's? After Barabra Castle stood up in Parliment and Saved the Looe (& St Ives) line just 2 weeks before closure. Shame she announced the closure of the Bodmin Road-Bodmin General, Wadebridge and Padstow line in the same speech.

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

ok just to clarify... i wasn't suggesting that fgw was any way at fault and timings from london and plymouth are fine..... but what if your coming from bristol or beyond, st davids to exmouth junction is a bottle neck for which none of the toc's can be blamed, well i like blaming cross country :-) i guess that frequent 5 min delay which causes you to run over the footbridge and watch your pacer bounce away, i understand why fgw cant hold the service i don't have any issues with that infact i don't want them to, its just frustrating

[willc]

the 15:51 and 17:50, which I would agree, an exception should be made.

Which doesn't really fit in with the idea of creating an easily understood timetable that repeats for as much of the day as possible, which was always my understanding of the concept behind the December 2006 timetable change.

Yes, this situation at Didcot isn't great but I think pretty much everyone posting here could nominate something from their neck of the woods that is more of a problem to more people than this one.

"Back of fag packet" calculation ... if it's overcrowded as a 125, then when it's a Turbo there would be over 180 people per carriage - approaching 200% loading.  Goodness - hadn't realised it was that bad ... has anyone taken any pictures?

Probably not quite that grim, as anyone bound for Slough and Reading from Paddington will swiftly absent themselves from the scene in search of an alternative (eg Reading has 15.45, 15.48 and 16.00 HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) as well) once they see what's going on but still likely to be well over 300 packed on, with it only really starting to thin out past Charlbury and usually still plenty on board until Kingham and Moreton-in-Marsh, whatever train is used.

[IndustryInsider]

Which doesn't really fit in with the idea of creating an easily understood timetable that repeats for as much of the day as possible, which was always my understanding of the concept behind the December 2006 timetable change.

You could easily have an hourly additional service from 08:38 up until 15:38 catering better for many more people.  I would say that was more easy to understand than the current offering every other hour at 11:38, 13:38, 15:38, and 17:37?  Perhaps more important would be having them on a Saturday as they could pretty much run all day.

Yes, this situation at Didcot isn't great but I think pretty much everyone posting here could nominate something from their neck of the woods that is more of a problem to more people than this one.

Quite possible.  Though Graham highlighted the problem and I suggested a possible remedy - which, unlike most of those other larger problems, results in no pathing issues and an improved service for two flows of people all for the loss of two minutes of journey time on the more lightly loaded of the twice-hourly Paddington to Oxford services.

[willc]

Fair enough, though I expect there isn't going to be much enthusiasm for doing anything much to timetables with Reading remodelling looming on the horizon.

And maybe someone in FGW^▸ (First Great Western) knows something about a healthy passenger flow between South Wales and Oxford that isn't obvious to the rest of us, hence the current arrangement?

[IndustryInsider]

You're probably right, and until such time the 'Didcot Dance' will mean journeys from central Bristol, Bath and Chippenham to Oxford, Banbury and further north will often be a bit of a slow Waltz!