Great Western Coffee Shop

Just a shout, and a call for feedback to help me keep up with goings on in this neck of the woods, and feed in my news.

Just on the horizon is the local community's investigation of what has gone wrong with the work at Dorking Deepdene. One of just 87 (now 86 since the amazing work delivered at Livingston South) stations on the UK's National Network with timber in part or all of part or all of the platform decking and/or the supporting structure(s).

The timber platforms were built 50 years ago when the original station buildings were razed, and later extended to 75 feet for the Class 165/166. There is it seems no NR Group Standard for timber platform inspection and maintenance, and when the works removed the existing passenger shelters, in preparation for installing new ones.... 

Those of you who are ahead of me will point out that this is a tad short for the 80 metre Class 769's proposed for this route. - I'll start a thread on this separately

I also work with CyclingUK, and as an independent specialist in integrated transport. This embraces bikes on trains, bike hire at stations, and cycle parking/access. I tweet as BCCletts. For bikes on trains we've a few issues, and note that generally for off-peak services on popular routes we see a fairly consistent 10% of on-train passenger count travelling with bikes, on trains with 50% of fewer seats filled. For the reverse flow commuters on the Severn Beach Line however they carried out a long running survey, that showed up to 50% of the passengers travelling with bikes - after all who in their right mind would leave a bike overnight in open racks at Severn Beach or Avonmouth station on a daily basis. The extreme I gather has been 14 bikes = 100% of passengers on a 102-seat Pacer on the last service back from Barnstaple..... Even back in 1997 there seemed to be at least one Brompton per carriage on morning trains in to Paddington so goodness knows the numbers now. Figures show that the public bike hire (Just launched in Cardiff this week), has a UK average of 40% of the hires as trips to or from rail stations, and the GWR website includes listings of the schemes & operators at various stations, sadly this has slipped and is rather out of date,so a few reminders needed?

Cheers Dave H - follow & DM for contact via Twitter   

   

A brief "welcome back" and look forward to inputs / discussions on two highlighted topics.

I suspect that Dilton Marsh is another one of the 85?   I note steel verticals going in for extended prefabricated platform sections there, and an astonishing amount of scaffolding and temporary access ways on both platforms as they're extended from - I believe - half a carriage to one carriage.   And, yes, the normal trains calling there in the future will be 2 or 3 carriages, with 5 cars scheduled on some very early / very late services on the Portsmouth - Cardiff run.

Cycles on trains ... we seem to have the perversity of encouraging cycle use, yet the cycle capacity on local trains being at its limit, with certain routes requiring cycle booking which is perhaps fine on an outward journey, but a real hinderance if you're making a return journey upon completion of activities later in the day.

I think re Dorking Deepdene, it is a simple case of them finding much more work needed to be done on the platforms than was previously thought to be the case.

The 769s are really a quite recent option for the North Downs Line and a platform extension at Deepdene for them will have to be factored in for the future.

I was at Deepdene on Saturday 5th May and Monday 7th May for the first time in several months and noticed the missing shelters. I have read either here or elsewhere that it was part of a refurbishment programme and new timbers are needed before replacement shelters can be installed. I see that new timbers appear to have been laid where one of the shelters was, and the old timbers have been removed but not replaced where the other shelter was.

I've just caught a train from Deepdene and can confirm both platforms now have shelters in use. They have narrow perches as at bus shelters for you to lean your bottom on.