Great Western Coffee Shop

New Job - Transport Delivery Planning Coordinator

Who would have thought that in the same time frame, the powers that be would merge

• Metrobus
• Filton Four Track
• Bromley Heath Viaduct
• Electrification of GW in the north Bristol area
• Rebuild Bristol Parkway - shutting for a month is not maintenance or upgrade, it is something more significant
• Filton Abbeywood upgrade
• GWR - Run down local train fleet due to late arrival of new stock

Whilst all of these activities are worthy (except GWR local fleet rundown), who in their right mind would have allowed them all to happen at the same time?

Every day this week, I have caught the BRI (Temple Meads) <-> FIT (Filton Abbeywood) train, and then had to wait 10-20 minutes for a bus to take 15 minutes to get to BPW (Bristol Parkway). Surely, this could have been better organised? For example, after the Stoke Gifford Link (Metrobus) is open, and GWR fleet up to strength and running reliably.
 

You could add the remodelling of the Temple Circus Gyratory to your list...

However at least four of these activities are inextricably linked - Filton four track is needed to give paths to Stoke Gifford depot (inter alia); Abbeywood is part of that, the depot is needed for electric trains, Parkway is about capacity for said electric trains. The fleet issues are also strongly linked. Complicated business, modernising a railway!

All of these projects are intended to solve problems created by a successful, growing economy - luckily, this is likely to be much less of an issue post-Brexit.

Incidentally (I've got into trouble for suggesting this before, but am I really the only one who finds it confusing?) BTM is so often (incorrectly) used for BRI that it has almost become a standard idiom, but FAW for FIT?

Whilst many of these jobs are linked, there is no need for all to be concurrent.

Most of the electrification work has been done at weekends and night. Why shut Bristol Parkway for a month to do it?

Bristol Parkway platform 4 was added without shutting the station. Why not just shut platform 2, moving all traffic to 3/4 to allow building of 1 and extending 2? Then traffic could have been moved to 1/2 whilst 3/4 was extended?

Why not delay for a 4-6 weeks until Stoke Gifford Link road was open?

Surely easier to delay the roadworks/buses? The BPW works have been scheduled for at least 12 months, and fit into the wider electrification GWML works.

Also, a thread below this one (started by you, simonw) refers to a two-week closure - why are you exaggerating in this thread?

The Bristol Parkway work is more than just building the new platform.  A new link line is being built and several new signals and points are being added.  Electrification masts are also being installed.

This is already being discussed here http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=18454.0 and here http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=16746.0

Huge new signal gantry went in yesterday too

Context is key, surely? This is a forum where we write in sentences (mostly) in English. Abbreviations and acronyms are fine, where they're well known, but I don't think that applies to station codes. Certainly not to all 2,500-odd. Of course we have the acronym list on this site, and it's very useful, but it doesn't list FIT (or FAW). In the context of the other place names, FAW was easily understood. FIT probably would have been too, but might have required a little deduction from those not familiar with it.

Personally I'd have written the name out full or more likely just as "Abbey Wood". I see there is an Abbey Wood station in the London area and if, in the Bristol area, I asked for a ticket to "Abbey Wood" I would expect it to be queried just for exactness but I would also imagine the ticket seller would expect it to be "Filton Abbey Wood". If I did the same in London, I probably wouldn't be queried and would get a ticket I didn't want, which would be my fault.

But mainly, we're writing to be read, not to program ticket machines.

Casual readers may not have a clue what BTM, BRI, FAW, FIT aren't easily understood by all.

The best form to use is the full station name firstly in the OP,  with the (correct) station code in brackets. Thereafter the station code will suffice.

Bristol Temple Meads (BRI) to Bristol Parkway (BPW) via Filton Abbey Wood (FIT).

Back to the topic. I agree that more should be done to avoid major works clashing across transport systems.

Agreed - and I think that's what's suggested in the forum's intro pages.  We are not, however, a forum where the moderator and admin team looks to find every slight transgression of our suggestions with a view to stamping on them!

I did wonder about adding a three letter code lookup facility - but then it's the casual readers who would need it most, and it's pretty unlikely that they would be sufficiently casual to be unaware of codes, but not casual enough to actually find that new facility.

No need - it already exists! (http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/) This works both ways - code to name, and name to code. I've found it jolly handy over the years, as long as people use (cough splutter) correct codes.

Firstly, on station codes: Full Station Name (Official Code) must be the clearest way. I expect some of reasons people don't do this are not knowing it's recommended and not thinking of it, considering what they write is clear enough anyway, and perhaps the biggest, writing in a rush. It may take only an extra second to type the full name but looking up the official code is going to add a bit of time. However, we could probably all benefit from writing with a bit more care sometimes.

Adding official station codes to the glossary must be a mammoth task. In mentioning their absence, I didn't mean to say they were lacking.

But I'm not sure about looking them up. The only thing that occurred to me is a booking engine (as Red Squirrel – RSQ? ;) – has posted). Googling "station code filton abbey wood" or "station code fit" also seems to work, at least as long as the station is in Wikipedia, which I expect most are. But again, time.

Secondly, on the topic: Not only do some of these works need to happen together because they are interconnected (and because one big closure probably causes less disruption overall then several small, connected one) but Metrobus is not a rail project. I don't suppose anyone at GWR, Network Rail or any of their contractors has any say in its timings, any more than they do in the ongoing water mains works in the Bristol area.

More's the pity!

There is certainly coordination in the timing of roadworks - for example, Cattle Market Road and Prince St Bridge reopened before the Temple Circus scheme started, and Bromley Heath viaduct had to wait for the completion of the MetroBus M32 junction. I suppose there may be some benefit to be had from coordinating rail projects with roadworks, as bignosemac implies, but my guess is that the costs would outweigh the benefits.

In terms of station codes, I think the context of the post should guide whether the use of the station code is adequate.  For example, a post on the Daytime Traffic on the Trans-Wilts thread could reasonably refer to the 1736 SWI to WSB, and numbers alighting at MKM, without needing to spell them out in full. 

Indeed it could. It would be less reasonable however if if referred to SWD, WSY and MSM - three-letter codes which look like station codes but, like BTM and FAW, aren't.

A Swinderby (SWD) to West Byfleet (WBY) - slightly off even from that suggestion - would be an interesting one to market, with little end to end traffic!!

I apologise for my coding errors in station names, they are now corrected.

How can anyone who is not involved in the industry realise that Filton Abbey Wood is FIT, and Bristol Temple Meads is BRS.

My original point about the lack of coordination of all transport systems in North Bristol being torn apart at the same time stands. Whilst all this work needs doing surely it could be better integrated.

Or even BRI...

I'm not involved in the industry, and yet can usually guess if I don't know.  One presumes that regular posters and readers a) have an interest in the subject, b) are at least aware of the three letter codes used by Nationalrail.co.uk (amongst others) and c) can make the connection if they don't actually know that (e.g.) TAU is the abbreviation for Taunton.

There are some interesting ones - ZBB, DBG, BPC, KPA ... how many of those can you get without looking them up? (Perhaps we should move this to lighter side)

None, it's fair to say.  And two don't even appear in the nationalrail look up (i.e. if you populate a station field with them). 

KPA Kensington Olympia.

There are alternative look-ups - for ZBB (underground, not national rail, at least not any more). But BPC?

BPC is in the ORR stats, but seems to have been changed on the National Rail site. 

Strictly speaking you would have to be a person who has had the need to check a train time online. I'm rather surprised if that's not the vast majority of the people lurking round or contributing to this forum.

In other news, I see that these Station Codes used to be called CRS codes, from Computer Reservation System. I wonder how often people were accidentally booked to Carstairs?

Have we digressed?

There's a difference between guessing from context that BRI and TAU and Bristol Temple Meads and Taunton or that BRS is a "typo" for Bristol Temple Meads, and guessing while writing that the code for Bristol Temple Meads is BRI not BRS. In other words, you can't guess the code from the name, you have to either know (great! but you can't expect everyone to) or look it up (easy enough in most cases, but again, depends on time and might be more difficult if eg posting from a phone).

Digressing a little (more), I have heard of someone booking a flight to Birmingham, Alabama rather than Birmingham, UK, because they were distracted by the IATA code BHM. Following from that, whereas it's normally relatively easy to guess a place from an IATA code, it gives you no clue as to where the place is geographically; which is why air traffic control, flight plans and the like use International Civil Aviation Organization codes, which have a global continental, regional and national structure easily locating an airport geographically but giving no clue as to its name. Heathrow, for instance, is EGLL.

Having very recently flown from BRS to BSL it did occur to me then the scope for confusion.  (Oh, Bristol to Basel, in case you're wondering.)

All this talk about misleading codes reminds me that, in the bygone days of printed national timetables, the Longbridge-Four Oaks pages once carried a footnote "Also calls at Chester DMUD". (Diesel Multiple Unit Depot). Presumably, a mis-coding of Chester Road.

Now perhaps we can go back to working out how to make transport better... ::)

It was changed in both - because the name of the station was changed (belatedly).

So what is/was BPC

"Penychain railway station, formerly known as Butlins Penychain railway station, is located by an over bridge at Pen Y Chain on the Llŷn Peninsula in Gwynedd" - WikiPedia