Melksham Missing From Santa FGW Christmas Eve Service Delivery List...

[whole diary]

[Lee]

The jury might be out on whether we can have a train next Christmas, but Santa is struggling to deliver one to Melksham this Christmas evening.

16:49 Great Malvern to Westbury due 19:27

This train has been revised.It will no longer call at: Melksham.This is due to signalling problems.

19:32 Westbury to Cheltenham Spa due 22:09

This train has been revised.It will no longer call at: Melksham.This is due to signalling problems.

Did these trains just sail through the station?

[fatcontroller]

Track circuit failure on the single line means that these services diverted via Box, Bathampton and Bradford OA.

[grahame]

Track circuit failure on the single line means that these services diverted via Box, Bathampton and Bradford OA.

Yep ... 38 minutes rather than 19 minutes, Trowbridge to Chippenham 



There was some odd stuff going on last night too ....

[grahame]

18:45 Swindon to Westbury due 19:27

This train has been cancelled.This is due to an earlier train fault. Last Updated: 27/12/2010 16:48

And the first train back after Christmas hasn't happened either (this morning's trains weren't running either).  It's almost as bad as the 2007 timetable change when cancellations went over 30%. 


Christmas quiz ... a quotation: "An enormous amount of effort has gone in, over the last two years, to really change First Great Western. The biggest change I think has been that we're running the trains much more punctually. Cancellations are at their lowest level ever, and we're working hard to give customers a much better service and that's coming through in the results."

Who said it?

When?

To whom?

[Brucey]

Mark Hopwood, September 2010 to BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) Wiltshire

Perhaps he wasn't referring directly to Wiltshire's service levels

[grahame]

Yes - the comment was made by Mark Hopwood to Radio Wiltshire a couple of months ago, so clearly for consumption by those of us who live in Wiltshire, but it did cover things outside the county; we're far from being an island and indeed many journeys starting / ending in Wiltshire go way beyond - as seen by some of the other questioning:

Q: Why is Swindon to London, the most expensive rail journey, per mile, in the country?

A: Actually it's not the most expensive. There are higher price tickets elsewhere in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom). [And he goes on to talk about average fares and some of the great deals on offer.]

He's right, of course, there <i>are</i> higher fares per mile. He didn't go into details, which is probably the right thing for a radio interview such as this - it's all too easy to get bogged down.

Full interview: http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/wiltshire/hi/people_and_places/newsid_8977000/8977230.stm


Higher fare - comparison / example - I couldn't resist looking!

Walkup fare is 54.50 single, peak, Swindon to Paddington (next year's price) and at 80 miles that works out at 68p per mile. 

I've been able to find another journey of about 40 miles that's going to be prices at 53.00 - that's 1.32 per mile.  Also on First Great Western in Wiltshire. 

I've checked out several dates in February on this one and not been offered any advanced tickets - I suspect there are none, though I can travel for 7.50 if I take a later service via a different route that always involves a change. I checked out the taxi fare at http://www.taxiroute.co.uk and that gave me a fare of 85 pounds - so for two people a taxi all the way would be cheaper.  You can also do it for 18.50 by splitting your journey into two tickets.  On one round trip a day, five days a week, a full class 150 train would raise 4 million pounds if everyone had a 53 pound single / 106 pound return fare ... what a crazy fare system we have!

[grahame]

19:32 Westbury to Swindon due 20:21

This train has been cancelled.This is due to an earlier train fault. Last Updated: 27/12/2010 18:34

So that's the entire service gone for the day 

I was going to ask some question along the lines of "which station is having the longest gap in train services this Christmas", but I suspect that we would only come in third:

1. Pilning
2. Reading
3. Melksham

[Timmer]

No it hasn't been a good first day back after the Christmas break with faulty trains and unavailable train crew being the main reasons coupled together with unusually large passenger flows making for some challenging travelling conditions in FGW^▸ (First Great Western) land.

Yes it does make you think back to Christmas 2007 a bit which lead to the launching of the Current Running page which is still up and running to this day. Lets hope things are better tomorrow.

[grahame]

28th December ... as far as the TransWilts is concerned, it looks better ... our first train since for four whole days - 95 hours.  Let's hope that was just an exceptional glitch.

I always feel caught between a rock and a hard place when there are significant service breaks / strings of cancellations.

On one hand, there's a need to shout and say - "oy - you are not providing the service you should" - an individual cancellation - a crew member sick, a broken down train, bad weather is one thing. But when it's four trains in succession, and not all for the same reason either, I begin to look and wonder if the managers who run the railway and those higher up who decide on the resource levels to be set are really providing proper levels to cover all services at all times.

But on the other hand, more positively, we want and need to work with these very people to move this line back to an appropriate service from the current curtailed one.  And we do appreciate that they too have pressures - financial, availability of rolling stock, and a very complex system to work within - and (critically) we know that most of them are railwaymen at heart, customer service focussed, and would love to have a magic wand to solve the issues.

[eightf48544]

Very quite by line at taplow. Turbos are always quiter than HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) so don't notice them.

With only 4tph each way they slip by unoticed.

Slough and Maidenhead seem to have  2tph fast and same 2tph stoppers as other stations.

If you look on Slough/Maidenhead live departures they've put the  buses on as well! Which I suppose is something.

[Lee]

28th December ... as far as the TransWilts is concerned, it looks better ... our first train since for four whole days - 95 hours.  Let's hope that was just an exceptional glitch.

Or not..

18:45 Swindon to Westbury due 19:27

This train has been cancelled.This is due to an earlier train fault.

19:32 Westbury to Swindon due 20:21

This train has been cancelled.This is due to an earlier train fault.

[IndustryInsider]

I was going to ask some question along the lines of "which station is having the longest gap in train services this Christmas", but I suspect that we would only come in third:

1. Pilning
2. Reading
3. Melksham

Combe, Finstock and Ascott-Under-Wychwood also have no train services scheduled between December 25th and 30th.  There's a replacement bus service running (despite the line being open) connecting them with a train at Hanborough - which I expect hardly any souls would want to bother with.  Shipton has a rail replacement bus for two up journeys, and a rail replacement bus for one down journey, and also two trains for down journeys, but none on the up!  Short platform lengths are the reason, as the replacement Turbos are all three-cars - but try explaining that to the average rail user!

[grahame]

Short platform lengths are the reason, as the replacement Turbos are all three-cars - but try explaining that to the average rail user!

It's pretty baffling for the average forum admin too.   Wasn't there a song "where have all the 2 car turbos gone - long time passing ..."  .  Is the answer "Blocked up in Reading every one" by any chance?

How sad that we end up comparing places like Finstock (population 707) with places like Melksham (pop 24000).  Logic tells me that on a level playing field, a place with 30 times the population might expect to have at least 15 times the train service - that's allowing a 2:1 fudge factor for Finstock residents being (person for person) very heavy rail users.

[IndustryInsider]

You're forgetting the fact that Finstock also serves as a railhead for the hamlet of Fawler.  Population = Several. 

[willc]

How sad that we end up comparing places like Finstock (population 707) with places like Melksham (pop 24000)

Graham, I don't see how you get the idea anyone was making a comparison. In the post to which Insider responded you mused about which places would go the longest without any trains over Christmas, Nothing more, nothing less. And nothing about population sizes.

There are some two-car Turbos outstationed at Oxford. There have to be to work the Bicester branch due to the length of the platform at Islip.