Great Western Coffee Shop

Evening all,

Following on from a lead that the RealTimeTrains site was showing times for Exeter St. Davids to Okehampton from 13th December, I decided to look up Bristol Temple Meads to Severn Beach from that same date and the result is that you get some idea of how the new timetable might look. Here is Avonmouth for that date, for example, and this shows how the Monday to Friday timetable might look:

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/gb-nr:AVN/2021-12-13/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

Still early days but it looks promising in my book even if it does mean earlier (or later?) travel times for most of us. The current Weston-super-Mare to Filton Abbeywood trains look set to reroute to Avonmouth and Severn Beach with, it seems, some kind of Bristol Temple Meads to Filton Abbeywood shuttle in place instead. It is also interesting to note that RTT has the Portway Park & Ride station (which, IIRC, was supposed to be called Portway Parkway?) as an unadvertised stop.

On Sundays the Severn Beach line shows as hourly between Bristol Temple Meads and Severn Beach with earlier and later trains than at present. Let us hope that this much improved service comes to pass.

HTIOI,
Dave

A while back various documents started to give the impression that someone had spotted the fact that 'Portway Parkway' would have been a confusing name. RTT presumably have good reasons to believe that the name 'Portway Park and Ride', and the CRS code PRI, are correct.

Good!

True. I suppose alternatives could have been Avonmouth (West Town) or Avonmouth Bridge but perhaps calling it Portway Park & Ride is at least more accurate. Not sure why it has turned up on RTT so soon though when, AFAIK, construction of the station has not yet started.

Dave

On the (admittedly digressive) subject of CRS codes: People often refer to Bristol Temple Meads as 'BTM', though the correct CRS code is BRI. BTM is available, so you might be forgiven for wondering why they don't use it. The best answer I've had is that BTM is too close to BMT (Bedminster) and BTH (Bath Spa).

So, having avoided the confusion of 'Portway Parkway' someone appears to have picked the CRS code PRI... which could, you might think, be confused with BRI!

It gets very difficult  ... try to find a good code for "Corsham" and you'll see why there is resistance to opening a stations there  ;D

On another note - how much traffic (any?) is there expected to be between Severn Beach and St Andrews Road and stations to the south of Temple Meads - through trains one way, connections on the way back.

I'm sure it will be widely referred to as Porkway Partway for some time yet. Except when it's known as Partway Porkway.

Just noticed on RealTimeTrains that, on 13th December anyway, 2K60 (2012 from Bristol Temple Meads) is shown as terminating at Avonmouth (2039) in Platform 1. The next train from Platform 1 is then 2K62 (2113 Avonmouth - Severn Beach). This appears to be in order to provide a path for the 2041 Severnside Sita - Brentford waste train which passes Avonmouth at 2103 but surely it would make more sense to retime the Sita working?

Dave