Great Western Coffee Shop

From a Facebook group - a report of 2 IETs (5 cars each) joining at Swindon for the first time. Trains from Cheltenham Spa and Swansea (both via Kemble this week) linked for the journey onwards to London.

As a future with long distance flows down, this could make sense.  This week this South Wales both on divert and lockdown, minimal flows through the barriers with people off the Swanseas (I have no measure of through passengers on those trains) - far and away the busiest arrivals are from Bristol Temple Meads (and Weston and Taunton). 

I can envisage 2 incoming trains per hour from South Wales (Cardiff + Swansea), 2 per hour from Temple Meads (one from Taunton and Weston), 1 per hour from Cheltenham Spa via Gloucester and 1 per hour from Weymouth, going on as 4 trains per hour to London (every 15 minutes, all 9 or 10 car, all calling Didcot and Reading) and 1 per hour to Oxford.  The short starters from Bristol and Cardiff serving intermediate stations, especially where the line is electrified.

As an aside, noticed a scheduled 8 minute wait scheduled at Swindon for the 07:40 none-stop to Paddington.  And (checked with RTT) it arrived a further 5 minutes early.  What is the point of having a train wait at Swindon for nearly quarter of an hour just to race to London (4 minutes early at Royal Oak - 08:25; slow entry and just 2 early into the terminus) - or is that a temporary thing because of the engineering.  Can't, surely, be a reversion to the old custom of a refreshment stop at Swindon, where WHSmith is open but both platform buffets are closed (and Costa outside doing a notable trade in take away coffees|).

The joining of the two IETs at Swindon wasn?t planned.

The first train from Gloucester (already cut back from Cheltenham due to late running earlier) was cancelled at Swindon due to a lack of a driver to take it forward.  So the following service from Swansea was coupled to it on platform 3.

There was also another incident at the station today.  A Swansea service from Paddington booked to go via Gloucester was routed into platform 4 - but you can?t gain the Kemble line from there.  After a 45 minute delay it was reversed out, crossed over and continued its journey.

Hope that was a computer error, rather than a human error, as a member of the Swindon panel society, that is pretty much rule one, you cant go to Gloucster from the down main...

Yes - understood. Currently the only permissive platform is 2, and at 3 carriage length and no 153s around any more, the facility is unused.  So a "special" job yesterday.

If nothing else I suppose it demonstrates that the 5-cars do have an advantage on occasions.

It appears this is complex.  Platforms 1 and 3 are permissive, however they are "PP-C / PF" whatever that stands for.  It would appear to mean that such moves are permitted, but cannot be planned for (in the timetable?  Short notice changes?)

This may shine some light on your previous post Grahame
https://www.simsig.co.uk/Wiki/Show?page=usertrack:glossary:permissive_wrkg