The timetable planners and those who make the running decisions both long term and short term plans are the only people that can answer those questions.

I just drove the trains that I was rostered or instructed to.

 
From the BBC:

 

DPM - "Dense Passenger Mode" - why "have to"?   Why are there direct trains at 30 minute intervals from Plymouth to London from 04:54 to 08:35 with two of them being overtaken by others on the way?  I can appreciate the need for a good flow of trains off the B&H into London and they will be busy - but I always imagined them to come off Laira / Longrock in such droves to "feed" busyness further in for operational reasons more than for capacity out there at 5 in the morning!   Why not start the ones that are overtaken in passenger service from - say - Taunton on Mondays that the line though Totnes is close on the Sunday?

 

Unfortunately those sets have to be back in position for the start of service Monday morning. So how do they get back and with what drivers?

 

I seem to recall the plan was to use 8 or 12 car 387s to run extra services to/from Cardiff on match days?

 
I read this yesterday online and have to assume that whoever wrote this “Study” lives in Outer Mongolia and has never set foot in England, let alone Wiltshire !

It purports to talk about “M4 to the Dorset coast” route. It proposes sending the traffic through Melksham & Westbury to Warminster. Traffic “through” Melksham (no real bypass) is bad, Westbury is a nightmare already. Oh......... and Yarnbrook roundabout and West Ashton lights !

OK, let’s accept this fairy tale to that point. Where does the traffic go from Warminster ? The A350 to Shaftesbury is reasonable – apart from the very steep hill into Shaftesbury itself – then no bypass. The A350 to Blandford must be one of the worst roads in the UK. They are already routing HGVs through Melbury Abbas and Spread Eagle Hill.

The other option is to send the traffic down the A36 from Warminster to Salisbury, thence to  the “Dorset Coast” Another lunatic option ! Has anyone ever driven along the Inner Ring Road & Southampton Rd in Salisbury ??

What makes this “Study” even more infuriating and out of touch is that two of the really bad pinch points on these routes have been well on the route to getting “proper” by-passes in the past. The Salisbury by-pass was ditched by John Prescott in 97/98. The Westbury by-pass was funded, until the “nimby” lobby struck and the money went elsewhere , I believe it was used to  (RE !!) double up the rail route through Stroud.

This is yet another absolute classic of the inept/incompetent so-called transport planning we suffer from. Add this to HS2 and the Stonehenge bypass fiascos.

 
I find myself looking at this


And find myself wondering if the number of trains running via the Berks and Hants is reduced, and if a couple of IETs from Longrock have moved onto the connected network to help out into South Wales.

 

Yes - it IS.  "Coffee brings us together" - what a wonderful finale

 
Slight stab in the dark to finish this quiz off; is number 24 Cheltenham Spa, I wonder?

 

Yes - though I quoted costs based in season tickets WITHOUT Travelcard add ons.   From Reading - yes, that gives you Paddington and Waterloo, and by changing at Clapham Junction or Waterloo it gives you Victoria, Charing Cross and London Bridge.  With a further change at London Bridge, Cannon Street, Blackfriars and I suspect City Thameslink?

 

The purchase of an Annual Season Ticket from A to B within Devon and Cornwall entitles the purchaser to a free Gold Devon and Cornwall Railcard, so it does, in a way, throw in off-peak access to the Devon and Cornwall rail system.

 

Last November some example...

Lord Palmer - £5600
Ickenham Hall - £3000
Willington Hall - £2750
Earl of Plymouth - £8000
Corfe Castle - £9100
Thomas Hardy - £6500
Western Star - £10000
Beryl - £480
Albert - £1000
Thames - £10500

 
Out of interest how much do these nameplates generally sell for?

 
Let's try ... train stations ...
Millbay
North Road
Mutley
Friary

... or am I too historic?

Orange Group
Chippenham
Trowbridge
Melksham

Tax and Jail alternatives
Supertax -> You must buy an anytime since
Incometax -> Advance fares sold out. Buy an off peak tickets
Go to Jail -> You have been cause getting off early on an advance fare ticket

 
Memory jog, can't remember if 2022 or 2023 but a person under the influence of alcohol tried to board a moving IET on platform one and failed miserably. Platforms one and two were shut for a few hours until I could travel from BPW to Cardiff and take the train to Stoke Gifford.

All trains, east and west, had to use platforms 3 and 4 so unsurprisingly it was chaos. I did a bit of cheating by messaging a friend in the WROC and my service got priority into Cardiff, a very rapid reboot of the IET concerned and on the move as quickly as possible. A brief use of the hose pipe and platforms reopened.

That's where the TfW staff deserve much praise coping with those who want to get home an hour previously.

 

 
Well it had to happen eventually...

The ETCS system went tits up this morning.

Some serious delays accruing between Praha and Česká Třebová.

https://www.cd.cz/jizdni-rad/omezeni-provozu/mimoradnost/60159

Link only works whilst the problem continues and it will translate to English.

 
I've been to Cardiff on a number of occasions for rugby and getting away afterwards was always a miserable experience irrespective of kick off time - but the later it got the worse it was, albeit never helped by the last train being ridiculously early after such a major event. Occasionally one extra train would be laid on but not publicised.

Latterly we took to heading back to Bridgend or staying overnight in Cardiff (booking as soon as the fixture was announced to try to avoid price gouging) but that of course relied on gambling that trains would be running on Sundays, and we all know what a gamble that is nowadays.

Thankfully now a friend's son lives in Cardiff so we drive and park/stay at his place.

It does seem largely to be a Cardiff specific issue - Twickenham has a lot of options in terms of stations as well as its own (Richmond/Whitton/St Margaret's/Hounslow etc) all within walking distance, at Murrayfield it's superb - they now have the trams, and on my last trip there, services were running from Haymarket towards Glasgow every 8-10 minutes, and Stade de France is well served by the RER.......Dublin is small enough to walk around..................but Cardiff always struggles in this respect.

 
Further information ...

 



"Here" link in the quoted text is to https://www.connectedcities.org/links/metrowest-event-0325

A number of well know names, old friends, and experts there and I plan to go along.  The Bath to Wiltshire interface is one that often falls between the stools of WECA and Wiltshire in planning terms, and with massively increased housing in Withshire but yet a lack of allocated employment space (at least here in Melksham) we may b set for a dramatic increase in commuting ...

 
Back in ye olden days when it was the National Stadium of Wales and all games kicked off at either 1430 or 1500...

The NSE commuter stock that would sit spare for the weekend (look away bean counters) would be utitlised for rugby specials. One ECS move would be Oxford Foxhall curve Kemble Gloucester to Chepstow forming an additional to Milford Haven which then worked to Cardiff, ECS to Newport for another extra to Cardiff.

There were many rakes of vacuum braked mk1s used all around South Wales, ending back at the Thames Valley depots during Sunday. They needed a good clean before Monday morning but when the cleaners were on a basic of around £152 a week for 39 hours there were no shortage of volunteers to come in Sunday morning for £50 or £60 to do the dirty work.

The last train to London was from Swansea around 2020, 2125 from Cardiff.

Don't times change...

And to quote a Tory snob in the summer of 1993 who assaulted me by grabbing my shoulder and shaking me.

"Privitisation will sort out the railways and make it better."

(Looks at the current drivers salary and compares it to 1994 when I drove my first train).

 

His contributions to the forum are very much missed.

 
Nope... Thinning out the Sunday service won't increase the number of avaliable crew on a Saturday late turn.

 

I'm not sure if there may be links here ...



... or whether these are just parts of the daily stuff.  I'm also noting tomorrow's engineering changes and wondering if the resulting Sunday thinning out releases crews to work Saturday (today)?   Ah well - let's see how it goes.

 
Lots of others too



Discussion with the domestic authoritys have lead to the conclusion that there is nothing in here which is a "must have" for us in Melksham and that included a look through targets, totems and posters too.  Never realised just how many obscure castles and halls there are (or were) in the UK!

 
With what crew and what rolling stock?

 
Cancellations to services between Reading and London Paddington

Due to a broken rail between Reading and London Paddington some lines are blocked.

Train services running to and from these stations may be cancelled, delayed or terminated at and started back from Reading. Disruption is expected until the end of the day

 
Indeed you have, SandTEngineer - thank you for your time and contributions to the Coffee Shop forum!

CfN.