Great Western Coffee Shop

Details of services, or in many cases the services that won’t be running over Christmas.

https://www.gwr.com/travel-updates/planned-engineering/christmas

I’m trying to think if there has ever been a time where so much work has taken place at the same time on the GW region?

We have various threads running - one on each set of these works.

Note also the effect on lower tier services of these works - for example the scarcely used (  ;D ) service between Bristol and Southampton will be broken from close of service on 22nd December until first service on 5th January, with buses replacing trains between Trowbridge and Warminster

They've forgotten to mention that Cardiff - Portsmouth trains will be replaced by buses between Cardiff and Temple Meads (presumably).

The full horror of a Cardiff-Portsmouth journey was too much to contemplate.  :o

Does anyone know if platform extensions and other alterations for IET are being undertaken at Westbury in addition to the like-for-like replacement of trackwork?

Platforms 2&3 are to be extended to 10-car (260 m) length, though not in a desperate hurry.

The GWR journey planner and ticket sales site doesn't contemplate it yet either. It says



I tried Cardiff to Portsmouth on 27th December

Offers you "continue to tickets" where it will happily sell you a ticket for £54.30 (single) against an un-updated journey time of 3 hours and 22 minutes without change.  I guess this could be considered OK as you have clicked past the warning screen?

By contrast, for 27th November - very very similar train times - prices are as low as £14 (and as high as £138.80 via Reading and Guildford)

Not going to be fun for those who HAVE to work in Bath/Bristol on the 2nd/3rd of January travelling from Frome, Warminster and Westbury. I know some make it a complete break and head back to work on the 7th of January but not everyone can and wants to do that.

I can only think that NR need to the extra days rather than finishing the work on the 1st of January. Still think its a shame that for such a long blockade that the old platform 1 isn't recommissioned at the same time thus requiring another major closure at a later date; if it ever happens of course.

Update ...

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/engx18.jpg)

Let's see if I have this right ... as I'll be sharing on our Facebook page once my classic spelling errors have been corrected.  GWR train services over Christmas 2018 and the New Year 2018/19

4 major set of engineering works on dates shown in tables. 

Overview of engineering changes on red dates:

WESTBURY 23rd December 2018 to 3rd January 2019 inclusive
Portsmouth to Cardiff trains replaced by buses between Trowbridge and Warminster
Swindon to Westbury trains replaced by buses between Chippenham and Westbury
London to West of England trains that call at Westbury will call at Frome instead
Bristol to Weymouth trains will not call at Westbury
South Western Railway trains from Bristol to London (Waterloo) via Salisbury will not run

PADDINGTON 23rd December to 26th December inclusive also 30th December
Long distance trains from the South West, Bristol and South Wales will terminate at Reading
More local trains will only run as far in as Slough - no trains from Slough to Paddington
An exhanced train service will run from Reading to Waterloo
Passengers from the North Cotswold line map prefer to change at Oxford and take a train in to Marylebone
Passengers from Exeter and west thereof may prefer to take the SWR train from Exeter to Waterloo
A wide range of rail replacement buses and ticket acceptance will in place between London and Slough and Heathrow

SEVERN TUNNEL 25th December 2018 to 1st January 2019 inclusive
GWR trains that normally go to Newport will terminate at Bristol Parkway.
(so that's Portsmouth - Cardiff, Taunton - Cardiff and London [Reading!] to Cardiff and Swansea
Buses from Bristol Parkway into South Wales

GUILDFORD 25th December 2018 to 30th December 2018 inclusive
Services from Reading that normally run via Guildford will terminate at Ash
Buses from North Camp (do not stay on the train to Ash) all stations to Redhill
Buses from North Camp (do not stay on the train to Ash) direct to Gatwick Airport
Most South Western Railway services that call at Guildford all also be replaced by buses
London to Guildford via Effingham Junction trains will run.

Note that Buses will NOT run on 25th or 26th December

---

General Timetable - special days

24th December - services will end early evening
25th December - no services
26th December - no GWR services. Limited Chiltern service Oxford to London (Marylebone)
27th and 28th December - some peak services will not run
31st December - some peak services will not run. Check online for evening
1st January - check online for morning services

There may be other engineering works too - we suggest you chcek all jourmeys online; timetables expected mid-November

Edit - minor spelling correction and clarification

Demand should at least be spread over several days this year given the day of the week Christmas Day falls on.  A fair few will travel Friday evening, but the outward load should also be spread over the Saturday, Sunday and Monday.  Returning, the 27th will, as ever, be busy but many should elect to stay over the following weekend as well.

Thanks Grahame

That's a model of clarity - GW please note!

Excellent summary, Graham.    Your patience in producing this appreciated

Part of it is based on an ideal / extracted from a  sheet from GWR ... so thanks to them; this is a "partnership production"  ;D

Think you might have missed another closure of Filton Bank?

At Christmas / New Year?   If that's in the date range - even the prior weekend - I'll add it

I have 24/12/18 to 01/01/19 in my diary.  I'll check with my sources to see if its still the case.

Cancel that!  The line is open but only two tracks, the other two for some followup work.  Thank heavens for four tracks!

Thanks for those checks. I have posted a general link to the page onto our new Coffee Shop Facebook page ((here)) (https://www.facebook.com/CoffeeShopCRP/photos/a.2247872375459869/2248853805361726) and also shared it on the TravelWatch SouthWest page ((here)) (https://www.facebook.com/travelwatchsouthwest/posts/884039408474002) and on the TransWilts page (where I am providing an engineering / operational feed until Sophie takes over) ((here)) (https://www.facebook.com/TransWilts/posts/1617994401633929). Each with its local text - for TWSW that reads


and for TransWilts


Forum members and lurkers also on Facebook (especially those of you who look after information pages / groups yourselves) are encouraged to share further  ;D

Absolutely! It's such a good idea, you almost wonder why no-one thought of it before!

I note the following alterations to cater for the xmas rush:

Thursday 20th & Friday 21st sees the common additional 14:33 from Paddington to Plymouth (These are not yet in the passenger schedule but will no doubt appear in due course) . Also these two nights sees the usual 17:07 service to Frome curtailing at Newbury before running back to Paddington to form an additional 19:33* to Plymouth (Thursday) and Penzance (Friday).

(The 19:35 service to Didcot departs at 19:36 to cater for this)

The 19:12 service to Bristol TM will not call at Reading, and after Bristol Parkway will run to Newport & Cardiff instead of Bristol TM on both days

On the Friday however the 19:03 service to Penzance terminates short at Plymouth.

*The 22:42 Plymouth to Penzance is re-timed to 23:05 to connect with this service from Paddington


Saturday 22nd sees additional services to Penzance at 09:33 and Swansea at 11:15

Good to see no engineering work overruns affected GWR this morning.  At the London end of the network, platform extension works commenced/continued at a number of the stations Elizabeth Line services will eventually be calling at.  New footbridges were lifted in at West Ealing, Ealing Broadway and Acton Main Line.  Track work also took place at numerous locations, including a major renewal at Southall East Junction.

Work continues with a 2-track timetable in operation today east of Slough.

This is a bit of a pain, now I suppose opentraintimes will be out of date again?

West Drayton has a new 3½ year old footbridge not yet in use. Still waiting for someone to build a new ticket hall to connect it to.

There were no changes to any of the signalling, so opentraintimes should still work OK.

Thanks for that.