Great Western Coffee Shop

There's a train from Westbury to Portsmouth Harbour at 11:02, coming from Cardiff. Then atrain at 11:11 starting at Westbury to Southampton. One extra stop only, on request at Dilton Marsh.  "What's the point?" I asked when I first saw this in the timetable.  Here's the answer:

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/c1111_1.jpg)

Pictured - the 06:50 from Penzance pulls in Westbury at 11:01 whil the 11:02 to Portsmouth Harbour closes doors and gets ready to pull out.   The 11:11 exists almost entirely to provide a connection off the Penzance.  Here are passengers making the switch ... helpfully for the photographers, the 11:11 stock was parked, waiting and locked, until 11:08.

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/c1111_2.jpg)

The train left Westbury with 53 on board ... 2 coach train (in SWT livery!) and I chatted with the people through one carriage.  Started with one person (thank you for the lever - you're a Coffee Shop readed) and allowed the conversation to spread along - checking where people had started their journeys.  All willingly told.   The significance is in that if/when the services from Westbury to the West are all capped at Exeter St David's people from West of there may have to make another change.

Dawlish 2
Eggesford 1
Exeter Central 1
Exeter St Davids 2
Newton Abbott 1
Paignton 1
Par 1
Penzance 2
Plymouth 6
Redruth 1
Swindon 1
Taunton 1
Tiverton Parkway 5
Totnes 1
Westbury 3

So that's

17 from beyond Exeter St Davids (14 from main line stations towards Penzance, 3 from branches into EXD)
2 from Exeter St Davids itself
6 from stations between Exeter St Davids and Westbury
4 NOT connecting off the train from Penzance

This indicates the care that the timetablers need to take in planning future services to ensure good connections from beyond Exeter St Davids to Southampton (where most were travelling). I don't know how much the Saturday pattern differs from Monday to Friday - quite a bit, I expect, but this is food for thought. Some of the couple were for cruises (complain - lack of luggage space - "you would have thought they would run a train with space for luggage ...") and some comes via Westbury because of poor connections from The West at Exeter to Salisbury ("Waterloo trains seem to leave just before the train from Plymouth arrives").

Significant flows on and off West of England expresses at Westbury are commonplace - I have counted over 100 joining trains heading west.  Yesterday was a rare opportunity to do a snapshot / analysis of a group of people coming along that flow, though of course I missed the others coming off that train at Westbury at 11:02 and making other connections such as the 11:21 via Trowbridge and Bath Spa to Bristol, and the 11:32 via Chippenham to Swindon, or indeed with destination Westbury!

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My own thought is that it's a huge shame that the 11:02 does NOT connect; it was NOT rammed, and when it goes turbo, it will have plenty more space.

Also - why not extend the 11:20 arrival at Westbury at 11:21 (or 11:25) to Southampton, evening out the pattern south of Westbury and providing other opportunities too?   The set that would have formed the 11:11 could then form the 11:32 to Swindon.

Looking at complete diagrams, the returning train left Southampton at 12:27 yesterday, between a 12:17 (scheduled 12:10, mind!) to Cardiff and a 12:37 to Salisbury; it carries on to Great Malvern. I didn't see floods of people joining it at Southampton, and don't see any big flows that would be upset by being moved 10 minutes earlier or later, or indeed if it ceased to run in favour of an extended-northwards 12:37.