Great Western Coffee Shop

15:29 from Swansea, due to call Swindon at 17:28. 
17:36 connection recommended by GWR for Westbury.

Swansea train pulls in to platform at 17:39 (according to Real Time Trains) and Westbury leaves at 17:40 (according to real time trains

Swansea pulls in and draws to a halt.  Doors slow to release, Westbury starts to move out once station throat is clear and before anyone can dash across ...

-- signed - frustrated at Swindon

For those who don't know the layout at Swindon that should be a cross-platform connection - no stairs or lifts involved.

Less than 10 seconds from being release from the train at Platform 3 across to the departing train - admittedly at the very front - of platform 2.

Real Time Trains shows the 17:36 leaving 4 minutes late anyway ... not making that up but rather dropping another couple of minutes on the run to Westbury.  Hints from the RTT log suggest that the further loss would have been due to intermediate station calls lasting longer than scheduled due to numbers getting on and off through the end doors of a 153, and perhaps jamming just inside the carriage as people pick there way around others standing, or ask people to move up.

No onward connections from Westbury were compromised, and the return trip of unit started on time from Westbury; we know Swindon have advised holds based on main line connections for Gloucester trains and perhaps there's a case of having 5 minutes on some of the Westburies.  To be fair, that's more important to connect from London trains than from South Wales, though passenger survey data does show a noticeable connectional flow.

Seen it happen numerous times at Maidenhead when the Marlow train ( not that it runs these days!) pulls out just as a connection from London/Reading pulls in.....in the latter case it's probably less than 10 seconds to transfer.

Perhaps there's a case in future franchises for performance to be measured on total rail journey time - from entering the station precinct at your departing station to leaving your final station.   That's not only re-balancing the connectional times / compromises which we know are sometimes necessary and result in tough decisions, but also looking at gateline speed and ticket purchase times.

Passenger speed through stations was another topic mention at last week's Stakeholder briefing.  I noted:
Regular readers will appreciate that my smelling is not good at the best of times, and notes taken direct onto a laptop in meetings / presentations are even worse; I reproduce those comments here from my typing of what Mr Hopwood was saying; they gain from not being stored in paper notes and then going through an extra level of interpretation later but they loose from being riddled with schoolboy errors.  I'm sure that should de 12 to 18 months rather than 12 to 198, for example.

Connections out of slightly late running trains from London tend to be held simply because it isn't usually sensible to let the 75mph Westbury unit run just in front of a 125mph HST/IET all the way to Wootton Bassett or Thingley junctions.

Regular readers will appreciate that my smelling is not good at the best of times, and notes taken direct onto a laptop in meetings / presentations are even worse; I reproduce those comments here from my typing of what Mr Hopwood was saying; they gain from not being stored in paper notes and then going through an extra level of interpretation later but they loose from being riddled with schoolboy errors.  I'm sure that should de 12 to 18 months rather than 12 to 198, for example.


[/quote]
Really?

Intentional error  ;D

The personal truth is that I do sometimes give off an air that's not quite as pure as I might wish it to be (high metabolism rate is the excuse) but that's rather taking us off topic.

Happens all the time at Newton Abbot, XC train pulls in and GWR Paignton service leaves, meaning people for Torre, Torquay & Paignton, have to wait 45 mins, sometimes over an hour, depending on timetables.  Half of the time its easier just get off and then go outside and use Hop12 instead.