Great Western Coffee Shop

"Severe weather between Newbury and Bedwyn has resulted in the train service being suspended between these stations. Replacement road transport are conveying customers between Newbury and Bedwyn, via Kintbury and Hungerford, in both directions. Disruption is expected to continue until the end of the day."

I arrived at Bedwyn on Saturday morning after enduring an extremely tedious replacement bus from Newbury via Kintbury and Hungerford only to find a mere dusting of snow on the ground, hardly what you would call "severe weather"!

The same situation from Westbury to Chippenham ... Network Rail are in a "Key Route Strategy" mode where they're not working points at junctions on certain routes today - so that's no turn backs at Bedwyn, no trains from Trowbridge to Chippenham.   Of course running a two-hourly Westbury rather than an hourly Bedwyn if they don't want to keep the points running ...

...and after NR spends a fortune on electric point heating.... ::) :'(

.... but have'nt got the 10p for the electric meter.

Boo-ti-ful sunshine in Yate at mo.

That's pretty serious isn't it - with Swindon shut, all Bristol and South Wales trains were supposed to use the line between Newbury and Bedwyn, in addition to services to the West of England.

Or do they just mean the crossover and turnback siding (which are NOT "between Bedwyn and Newbury" but is west of that section) are closed?

I was about to post this ;-

With the Swindon line shut (a planned one) is it not beyond the gumption of someone in the GWR Ivory Tower to issue special stop orders for stations Bedwyn to Newbury in the current situation on at least one of the diverted services per hour.

Well yesterday (Saturday 17 March) the loops at Woodborough were in use for freight trains, so freight obviously more important than passengers...... :P

The current landscape reminds me of a joke Christmas Card I saw a few years ago. It had a hand drawn picture of a pristine snowy landscape with a small settlement in the background. In the foreground was a little boy relieving himself and had spelt the words 'Merry Christmas and a' in joined up writing in the snow, on opening it to see the inside message, it read 'Happy New Year if I have enough left'.

Yes, they just meant the crossover and turnback siding. When my rail replacement minibus called at Kintbury and Hungerford stations, there were still HSTs and IEPs running through in both directions.

I am guessing the following Journeycheck entry is similar in that (I guess) it relates to the points at Blatchbridge and Clink Road Junctions being set to 'main line only'

To confirm:

The decision was taken Friday night to cancel all Bedwyn stoppers for Saturday. The service remained suspended until Sunday afternoon. It was resuspended all day Monday and the only trains today stopping between Newbury and Bedwyn have been the HST services that start/end beyond Westbury. Through trains have run fine throughout. No extra stops have been made.

The siding at Bedwyn is the reason and presume was the reason why services were suspended from Friday 2 March to Sunday 4 March in the last snow. Temps at Bedwyn have been above freezing since 1130. But no trains. No info re buses either.

So have concluded this will happen every time temperature goes to freezing. Of course in between the snow suspensions we have had the engineering closure. So no trains for 10 of last 18 days.

....so are the points at the Bedwyn turn-back not heated? It's not like they aren't fundamental to the operation of the hourly semi-fasts on the B&H  ::) (and indeed any stopping trains between Newbury and Bedwyn)

If not, could this be addressed during the ongoing/upcoming work to extend the turnback siding for IET's?

Otherwise we will have nice new trains that can't be operated when it gets a bit chilly!

Why do that when buses could be used? ::)

Because the buses - once they're sourced - take 50 minutes for a 15 minute journey. At time of unscheduled disruption they take time to source. At time of poor weather, the roads to Bedwyn and Kintbury stations are liable to be difficult or impossible to drive and (for TOC's benefit  ;) ) it's cheaper to stop an existing train passing through than to source and hire buses.

"Once they're sourced" can be interesting.  Noting it took over an hour - in good weather the other week for a taxi to be provided at Trowbridge - that's Wiltshire's County Town, how long does it take to get a bus to Bedwyn ...

Is it my cynical view of life, or are we heading back to the situation where the original GWR used to run its own buses?

Yes I certainly agree with you. I had made a slight dig at GWR for preferring buses over additional stops, as happened at Melksham during last week's diversions. Although I guess both situations aren't comparable, because at Melksham they appeared to be constrained by the time the single track was occupied so it was either buses or less diverted trains running. Generally it does seem that GWR are inconsistent at choosing when to add extra stops on another service due to a cancellation, but I guess that's probably the same with all TOCs.

Now what could we call a British company that ran buses and trains?

To also note that at no time did the Kennections 4 Newbury-Hungerford via Kintbury bus stop running. The roads were bad.

First Group :D

Feedback ...


... everything went wrong at the same time, it seems!