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

 
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

 
As things stand we will continue trips to our Yorkshire branch next year, with a visit to the K&WVR on the 'to do' list. In January we are having a few days in Paris - Eurostar out & back - primarily for the Stade Francais v Exeter Chiefs EPCR Challenge Cup rugby fixture although SWTSMBO will undoubtedly visit several retail emporia (A Paris trip for the other game against Racing 92 next month is also already booked). Next October we will head to Singapore for another family wedding; by then the full KTM electric train service from/to Johor and the rest of Malaysia should be up and running so we can give that a go.

 
A long quote here - see below it for my comments, which look at a generalisation of a situation in which GWR are doing their best.


Good and appreciated that GWR will get you onto other train services at no extra cost if you miss the last connecting train of the day.

A systemic issue that this reminds me of ... people make total journeys and the ongoing promise is purely onto other trains and within the UK national network.   Total journeys link onward to buses, to planes, to international trains at St Pancras, and to ferries.  These connections - though part of the joureny - are at provider's disgression across passenger travel networks, and/or may be covered by insurance and/or CIV ticketing.   Eurostar have - in circles I read - a good reputation for putting people on the next available train when they get held up on incoming rail journeys, and that was confirmed by a single personal incident.  RyanAir do not have a reputation of being helpful and indeed publicly asked at the Eurpoean Passenger Foundation meeting in June "why should we carry the cost and can of an incoming local airline that delays you when we have no commercial relationship with them"?

 

Thank you, and yes ...

 
Many thanks for that insight into a complex situation, Ollie - I read the answer as being somewhere between a glib "no, no, no" and something that can obviously be done.  "Where there's a will, there's likely to be a way" - we haven't considered the cascading / transfer of trains to meet the commitments, for example.   Sorry - but I remain of the concern that GWR do not have enough resources or enough flexibility in their resources to meet their day to day commitments to a reasonably robust degree throughout.   Management thing - they have gotten into a situation where far too many difficult calls have to be made, and as those calls are made and the results do severe damage to the business, to the customers, and to the communities they 'serve'.

 

Both trains appear to have been reinstated overnight. Nothing on JourneyCheck now to say otherwise.

 
While understanding that the UK, and more specifically, TfL are skint I couldn't help but wonder if replacing some of the barrier units at evasion hotspots with something akin to those in use on the Paris Metro might ameliorate the problem.

The Paris gates are full height and open/close laterally from very narrow housings, rather than being hinged, which, I would think, renders pushing through very difficult if not impossible.

 
It was a massive move from Liverpool to London for my parents in 1960 ... and an incredibly exciting holiday when we flew for the first time in a plane from Southend to Rotterdam for a Thompsons package tour of the Netherlands with coaches to places like Arnhem and Keukenhof.   To some extent the world has become a smaller place and long distance travel a natural part of our / my life.  And yet - speaking with a local friend the other day - he's concerned to the extent of planning half a year ahead about the travel plans he has to take his girlfriend to Rome for a short break and how they'll manage with hiring a cat car to get around. And I am minded that he and his friend were very concerned when I showed him the ropes of the summer Saturday train to and from Weymouth at the start of September ... and had a series of cancellations on the way home.

My data feeds are filled with far flung news of rail attractions (and Stella the Labrador!) such as the Darjeeling Himalaya Railway and I note that's a growing concern.  I can't think (may be wrong) there's a blossoming local traffic.
My new passport arrived ... and I'll be headed off again next year. 













For 2026 - might you be travelling "far flung"


Edit note: A rather amusing grahame typo corrected, for clarity. CfN. 

 
Route knowledge is probably a bit of a topic in itself, each depot has different routes and traction knowledge, then even within that depot the levels of route and traction knowledge will be different.

To use the current example, the Oxford - Bristol services are currently being operated by Paddington drivers, we do not sign via Melksham so wouldn't be of any use to cover the services Graham has mentioned. At Paddington on the non-HSS side, we are multi traction (not 158s) which is why the service was able to be a 166 vice 800 last week.

 
From the BBC:

 
Sun, 16 November 10:38 Weymouth to Swindon due 12:57
16/11/25 10:38 Weymouth to Swindon due 12:57 will be terminated at Westbury.
It will no longer call at Trowbridge, Melksham, Chippenham and Swindon.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

Sun, 16 November 13:32 Swindon to Weymouth due 15:45
16/11/25 13:32 Swindon to Weymouth due 15:45 will be started from Westbury.
It will no longer call at Swindon, Chippenham, Melksham and Trowbridge.
This is due to a shortage of train crew.

 


Not that simple.   yes, Chris, Bob has given the "official" answer ... but why is that so?

Bristol to Swindon services can be diverted via a reversal at Bradford South Junction and so surely drivers have that route knowledge, further there is a direct Bristol to London via Wesburty service ... and staff do overlap / work with the next depot.

And didn't I note that the Bristol -> Oxford ran - was it today or last week - 3 car. So the driver that time knew how to drive a 165, 166 or 158 which are exactly the units used on the Westbury to Swindon.

"Different depot.  Different traction.  Different route." is easy to say but those all overlap and have fuzzy edges, so it's a convenient reason to have.  It's not as if there was a spare driver at St Blazey or Redhill.    There is the wider question as to why there are such tight route knowledges and thin overlaps these days, so that if anything goes that bit wrong recovery, the system doesn't have the ability to switch and recover easily.