https://www.journeycheck.com/greatwesternrailway/
Cancellations to services between Plymouth and Penzance
Due to a safety inspection of the track at Hayle some lines are blocked. Disruption is expected until 12:00 17/11.
Train services between Plymouth and Penzance may be cancelled, delayed or revised.
Customer Advice
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What has happened?
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We have been informed that a collapsing badger set has been identified under the railway in the Hayle area.
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What are we doing about it?
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We are working with Network Rail to be able to return to running our normal timetable as soon as possible..
We have stopped train movements in the area until staff are on site to investigate; they should be on site shortly.

Causing a headache down West this morning.

5Z12 turned around at Saltash and returned to Plymouth (was Pnz bound).
The other 175 test running today has been cancelled - nothing to do with badgers!

 
Monday November 17

A cosy morning peak:

1P11 05:16 Worcester Shrub Hill to London Paddington (07:24) : cancelled ("due to late arrival of an inbound service (YI)" according to RTT).
1P02 05:23 Hereford to London Paddington (08:24) : 5 cars.
1P16 06:43 Worcester Shrub Hill to London Paddington (08:44) : 5 cars.

 
In my humble opinion, and of course not being in full possession of the details, the ability for the driver’s internal door to be forced open represents a critical design flaw issue comparable with that of aircraft cockpit access.

That the passenger has achieved this apparently without specific tools nor a more motivated, terrorist mindset is even more concerning. In my opinion.

 

Considered unacceptable by whom exactly? As you rightly point out all these systems can be made to 'fail safe' in the event of an emergency.

 
A new UK-first pilot scheme is aiming to create fast and more reliable train wi-fi, using technology originally developed for Formula 1 cars.

It will see a train in the Great Western Railway fleet use a hybrid system of both signals from mobile phone masts on the ground and low earth orbit (LEO) satellites in space to create a more reliable connection.

The scheme has been developed by British tech company Motion Applied, in partnership with the transport body for Cornwall, Devon, Plymouth, Somerset and Torbay, Peninsula Transport.

The pilot will last for 60 days onboard GWR's Intercity Express Train which runs in the South West region, having started in mid-November.

In a recent study by networking testing firm Ookla, external, the UK ranked 16th out of 18 major European and Asian countries for train wi-fi speed, with average download speeds at just 1.09 megabits per second, compared to Sweden's 64.58.

Nick Fry, chairman of Motion Applied, external, formerly part of McLaren Group, said the issues faced in connecting to the internet from a fast moving train had "many parallels with motorsport".

He added that by using technology originally developed for F1 cars, trains should be able to switch between ground and space-based networks such as LEO satellites to "reliably connect" without drop outs.

In the 2025 spending review, the Department of Transport secured £41m to introduce low earth orbit satellite connectivity on all mainline trains by 2030.
'A step in the right direction'

Councillor Dan Rogerson, from the Peninsula Transport board, called the pilot a "major milestone" in its plans to modernise transport infrastructure across the South West and South Wales.

"It's not just about passenger wi-fi," he said. "This is about a whole new digital backbone for our transport networks".

Bruce Williamson from the campaign group Railfuture told the BBC the scheme appeared to be "really good news".

"We're all increasingly connected these days, and wi-fi has become more and more of an essential service for travellers. I'm not going to hold my breath, but this is a step in the right direction."

In May, South Western Railway launched its own, separate, "superfast" wi-fi rollout for its trains between Earlsfield and Basingstoke, using trackside poles and antennas to create a bespoke 5G rail network.

 
Anything more secure and harder to push through or even climb over than the current design of ticket gates is - rightly or wrongly - not considered acceptable in this country.  Partly a legacy of the Kings Cross fire (they can all be opened automatically in an emergency such as overcrowding and do so if a fire alarm is activated, but "What if they don't?" is still the cry, quite possibly from a previous era of City Hall Conservatives!).  They could be made harder to get through when you shouldn't, but I've seen the complaints and claims for damaged clothing/luggage or injuries when even the existing gates close too quickly on someone dawdling or waving several bags in front of them.  The detection beams that decide when the gates open and close had to be completely redesigned when a couple of small poorly-supervised children were squashed by a gate as it opened with them hiding outside it.

As an aside, my purely personal observation is that a fair few in London are dodging really quite small fares (local journeys, youths entitled to reduced fares anyway) out of bravado as much as anything, and some of them may not have travelled at all if they'd had to pay so wouldn't have paid a fare either way.  Doesn't excuse what they do and it's frustrating to see, but the amount of revenue lost can only ever be an educated guess.

 

Thank you II.

Some also sign the Class 230.

 
So I take it that the journey time of 45 minutes for the rail replacement bus between Warminster and Salisbury is somewhat factious if it has to go down the A350 and along the A303 before rejoining the A36.

Wouldn’t have meet connecting train services at Warminster and Southampton then.

This isn’t the first time work on the railways has clashed with work on the roads. You do wonder sometimes whether the various authorities ever talk to each other. I am aware that rail engineering work is planned a long way in advance in most situations.

 

To answer on behalf of Ollie, yes that’s correct.  Non-HSS drivers sign Turbos, IETs, and 387s.

 
S106 payments should be able to generate the cash needed, if the council planners get their decisions right

 
Correct. Talk to your MP.

Sympathy for GWR. Their budget is still shrinking year-on-year

 

So if it's true that every idea would cost money, logic suggests we need to amend the DfT's bidding and priorities, doesn't it. And/or that we take a look and see if there's some sort of way that the various objectives come together in such a way that everyone involved want to work for them and get dividends. 

 
Money.

All the abilities you are suggesting with flexibility cost money. And if the DfT don't want the flexibility, they won't pay GWR for it. GWR have NO choice, but do the DfT bidding. You do know that!

Ollie - are you saying that the same PAD non-HSS drivers drive 166s AND 800s? And the HSS drivers also drive just 800s?

 


Found on the internet - I claim no rights whatever. CfN. 

 
An update, from the BBC:

 
From the BBC:


As the 29th and 30th of November are a Saturday and a Sunday, I'd suggest to the BBC that 'commuters' will be those least affected. It's 'passengers' generally who should be warned of delays.

 
Sunday November 16


Though RTT reports that 1W03 13:50 Oxford to Hereford (16:04) operated from Shrub Hill, and 1P77 17:30 Hereford to Oxford (19:31) ran normally.

Later (21:50) :

1W59 18:50 Oxford to Great Malvern (20:18) : cancelled throughout (train).


And for tomorrow, Monday November 17:


EDIT 01:30 : 1W59 added, notes about 1W03 and 1P77 added

 
Draws or drawers? 

 
An update - I have been quiet on reporting for ten days, but never the less monitoring and tweaking. 

* At three minutes after every hour, our server had been taking a backup copy of Coffee Shop databases and to ensure table integrity in the backups, that has locked the forum for up to a minute. There have also been two daily backups of the image database and those have also locked the forum.  The frequency of the coffee shop database backups has been reduced to every 4 hours, and the image database backups retimes to what I believe are quieter times of day.  The "lock"s still happen and won't be going away.

* I have tidied up a lot of other stuff on the shared server from my old IT training days and so a number of other loads not associated with the Coffee Shop are reduced

* Very common images across many of the pages we serve are now looked after by the receptionist who has them in her draws rather than needing to refer to the workers every time.  There are still some spikes where substantial numbers of images are called up at the same time and some effort continues there.

* The GDBR / approval database from the new look front pages grows and can slow down performance when we check on every page "do I know you"?  At present I'm trimming this database manually every few days, but looking to improve that so that it's done automatically every night

 
Some really interesting thoughts here and there is no magic answer that ticks all the boxes - there will be some compromise, perhaps in extremis either spending more money than we would like on a near-perfect solution, or minimal money in railway terms on patching things up.

1. An intermediate signal (in each direction - so two of them?) to allow train flighting might help at times but I worry about how this would work without the capacity to hold trains waiting for their flight on the min lines, and whether it might present more troubles than it's worth in terms of the extra hassle it would produce back to Swindon and Westbury to build the flights.  I also worry that by the time the first train in a flight has cleared the intermediate signal and section, it will only be a few minutes short of the time it would take to be clear of the whole line anyway, and the gain would be relatively small - granted for the smallest of investments being discussed.  I might be more tempted to seriously consider this option if it were extended to two intermediate signals in each direction; assuming we are still using line-of-sight signalling, extra intermediate signals would also reduce the instances of passing single yellow aspects some miles ahead and having to slow down on the approach to potential red signals which in most cases would have cleared before they are reached anyway.

2. A (train length plus delta) loop away from the intermediate station has me thinking "like Tisbury" where, when a train is looped, it adds significant running minutes and can irritate the **** out of passengers too - headed home - destination Tisbury, and people are sitting outside the platform for perhaps 5 minutes and get a bit antsy about it.  Tisbury has a population just one tenth of that of Melksham - a different oder of magnitude.  And with that loop away from the platform, two passenger trains passing each other are going to be a few extra minutes apart - sequential rather than parallel calls - which adds to the elapsed time a bus would need to sit at the station between dropping people off for the first train and picking them up from the second.  The Axminster lesson might be used - where the bus in that dead time serves places so close to the station that people would realistically walk from there to the train, but that solution degrades the passenger experience of arriving on the train at Melksham on the (first arrival) train and having the comfort of the bus being there and waiting.

3. Rail operationally, loops near the Lacock or Staverton end - or both - would be enormously helpful. The ability to hold trains off the main lines - be it waiting for a slot on the main line, waiting for a slot on the single line, or for having a faster train passing a slower / out of slot one would be marvellous. The concern remains about the gap between the passenger train calls in option 2 - perhaps the more so as the gap in minutes between the calls in the two directions gets longer, and could move us to having to make a choice as to which connections to make or optimise, and which to leave as missed connections.

4. An extended platform at Melksham, with a loop from the centre of that platform allowing trains to arrive in two directions at the same time and both undertake station duties at the same time, with no outside the station waiting and extra delay, with one departing around the loop to bypass the other.  This makes sense to me - there is the extra cost of a platform extension but no bridge, no lifts needed. (Example above - Bad Doberan and Penryn)

5. A second platform at Melksham, on the other side of the tracks, with a loop allowing trains to pass at the station.  Bridge and lift costs likely to be prohibitive, but if the second platform had an independent entrance off the upside yard, or off Shurnhold, that expense could be spared.  In essence a northbound and a southbound stations at quite some walking distance from each other.  Issues for people on return trips - which station to park their car / leave their bicycle at, and which station to bus-serve. The continentals way of doing this is to have both lines of the loop bidirectional and to use the "outer/remote" platform only for the quieter or two trains when passing.  So with main flow being day journeys to Chippenham and Swindon, morning trains northbound and afternoon trains southbound would all call at the same platform. (Example above - St Budeaux)

6. An arrangement like (example above Limerick Junction) where the main line runs past Melksham away from the platform, and two loops are provided to bring trains into the longer platform and/or to pass. "Left field" idea - but not ruled out for the sake of this conversation. Many similarities to option 4, but it would additionally allow for either train to arrive and / or depart first, and also for freight trains and diverted expresses to bypass passenger ones

7. Two loops and / or dynamic loops - at or near the station and extending most of the way from just south of Thingley Junction as far as the bridge over the river Avon at Staverton.  A whole series of sub-options here and these are not the cheapest but they are long-term better that any of the earlier options. The original infrastructure was 2 tracks broad gauge so there should be space, though remedial action might be needed to move the current line to the side again, and to wider cuttings, embankments and bridges that have degraded.  Concern again about bus connection timing and also access to a second platform if the loop also continued through the station - see earlier options

8. Redouble the whole line, and / or with single or double junctions at the ends. A double junction at Bradford South Junction is feasible.  At Thingley junction, the cant on the Chippenham via Corsham to Bath line to ease speed restrictions on the curve would require looking at a may be an insurmountable problem. But then all expresses have just stopped or are slowing down for Chippenham anyway and acceleration from slacks is far better than it used to be - so something to think about?

9. For completeness only  I have disregarded picture examples from Klaipeda, Rovaniemi, Rynbista and Turzovka pictured above, as I see level crossing of pedestrians over the track as something that would not be allowed, and bringing in two trains end to end and swapping over all the passengers as inappropriate where there are so many through passengers - even though it is done at Ormskirk in the UK.

A view to consider the future - beyond the current election cycle and control period - to what's needed in the future.  Call it Crayonista if you like.  Housing uplift in our area is going to bring many more residents and without huge expenditure it won't bring for roads. £250 million for a Melksham bypass, perhaps the same for a Westbury bypass, and none of that starts to address the clogging of traffic into Bath and Bristol. Add to that Chippenham Dualling costs, Yarnbrook improvements, and you'll soon be approach a spend of a billion pounds.

Where is the extra housing to go?  Suggestions on the current infrastructure have commented about new stations at Corsham, Christian Malford, Thingley Junction, Lacock, Holt and Staverton.  There is some sense in providing at least passive provision to allow trains from Melksham to once again run direct via the Bradford North Curve - removed as late as 1990 - to Bradford-on-Avon, Bath and Bristol; there may also be sense in re-instating the south to west curve at Thingley which was lost many years ago.  The biggest flows from Melksham overall (road and rail) are to Bath, and a train every 30 minutes to Bristol - alternately via Bradford-on-Avon and Corsham, with these trains passing the hourly Weymouth and Westbury to Swindon and Oxford, and Oxford and Swindon to Westbury and Weymouth services respectively may be something we see in the next decade.  That would put the town bus that connects with the trains up to every 30 minutes in a major boost of local use too.  Please - let's not due anything stupid that we regret later because it rules out future visions.

 
There are no trains from Warminster to Southampton today, Rail Replacement buses will run instead....................well, sort of - the A36 is shut between Heytesbury and Codford for the whole weekend. The diversion is via the A303.........well planned indeed !

 

I was very curious as to why there was no SL4 in the article I quoted, but didn't look into it.   Thanks for the add.

 
Just add SL4 -  Grove Park to Canary Wharf