Great Western Coffee Shop

Sounds reasonable given the loss of the two SWR 'locals' in the evening Peak and the crush loading of 1L93 (0610 Salisbury to Exeter St Davids) in the morning.

I've not heard anything either yet but agree with Phil.  The only reason Pinhoe extensions haven't happened yet is because it hasn't been possible to train enough crews due to the pandemic.

3Z50 (1511 Exeter TMD to Castle Cary) and 3Z51 (1747 Castle Cary to Exeter TMD) - the GWR route-refreshers for HSS drivers are back in the schedule. However, judging by last week, they are not stopping at Pinhoe nor Axminster, so I am not entirely certain whether these runs will be useful for these Barnstaple extensions.

GWR must be confident they will have the stock as an extra train would be needed and also another one for Okehampton.
The 769s must be coming on stream at Reading to release the 165s which are also being refurbished.

Shame the three councils of Somerset Dorset and Wiltshire can't get together and get a continued journey to Salisbury

I don't know about that one ... I will leave it to the "line experts" to comment but looking back at old timetables, I would suspect that the 30 minute services at each end - into Exeter from Axminster and into Salisbury and east thereof from Yeovil Junction are somewhat separate commuter flows in terms of justifying the extra service.  But, please, convince me otherwise.

If we're doing a "total review", I know I've oft advocated the extension of the Romsey 6 up to (and beyond) Westbury, but would a good use of the train that sits in the bay at Salisbury be an onward service to Yeovil (Pen Mill, via Junction) rather than extending the slower of the two trains in the hour coming into Salisbury from Basingstoke?   I had better stop writing before I suggest something REALLLY silly that forgets it's a single line!

In the December 2019 timetable SWR used to run between the 16.25 , 17.25, 1825 London trains a 1639 to Honiton not stopping at Cranbrook or Feniton and an 1746 Axminster all stations.

Arrivals in the morning at Exeter were more complicated 0635 from Axminster, 0742 from Gillingham, 0822 and 0944 from Salisbury, before settling down to xx43 arrivals from London.

Devon Metro was always intended to replace theses services.

Hopefully stock should not be a problem as 769s at Reading displace 165s west.
An extra train would be needed as would another for the hourly Okehampton service from May.

Following up this subject in the latest track access applications on NR’s website, they have only applied for contingent rights to the 3 public services, on the basis that SWR May reinstate their own short workings in Dec 22.

The only extension I can see so far runs on Mondays to Fridays only which is that the 1639 Barnstaple to Exeter Central is retimed to depart Barnstaple at 1631 and runs through to Axminster. After Exeter Central this will call at Pinhoe, Cranbrook, Feniton and Honiton before arriving Axminster at 1828.

The unfortunate thing with this is that the train on this trip then works ECS to Exeter TMD on a lengthy schedule: the working leaves Axminster at 1847 and heads to Castle Cary with a pause at Chard Junction (28 minutes) and arrives at Castle Cary at 1952, It then leaves Castle Cary at 2036 and runs to GWR's depot at Exeter, via. Yeovil, Axminster and Honiton with pauses at Chard Junction (6 minutes), Honiton (28 minutes) and Exeter St. Davids (4 minutes because the train reverses direction there) before arriving at the depot at 2225. Makes a good route refresher for the drivers but rather a long one: a siding at Axminster would surely be a good idea? https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:W45741/2022-05-16/detailed

Dave

Relay the old Lyme Regis bay on the up platform. Then the service could wait for the down and up Waterloos which cross here. It could thus serve as a connection into and out of the London services which could run Honiton and Exeter only.

68 miles there and back? That's just embarrassing, considering that I recently recall more than one railway manager arguing in respect of the Bristol to Waterloo services "Well we can't be expected to run trains carrying fresh air, 'cos environmental impact".

These trains are bound to replace the route refreshers mentioned by Phil Wakely above.

This train is only replacing the SWR 1746 Exeter St David's-to Axminster from the pre-covid timetable. I think the SWR then went empty to Salisbury.

It will be interesting what stock is used as Exeter depot uses 158s 166s and 150s to Barnstaple and there might be 165s as well after May.

Both the SWR 'locals' returned to Exeter - one in service, the other as ECS.

The Turbos have not be gauge checked between Exmouth Junction and Axminster and, as far as I am aware, there are currently no plans to use them on the Axminsters.

I suspect we're at something of a "pinch point" at the moment with regional / local stock shortage in Bristol and Exeter.  Once the 769s come into substantial service from Reading, Turbos cascade to Bristol and then more / most 158s move from there to Exeter giving more 15x stock available for services from there ... such as an hourly service to Okehampton, the extras to Axminster, and longer trains in the South West for the Sumer leisure traffic.

Will the 769s be into service by May?

What will users of the Cardiff - Portsmouth and connecting services in Wessex think of the stock changes? We are tired of short, overcrowded trains and will welcome them rising up to the five carriages, but we remain unhappy with a degrading from the regional class 158 trains to suburban units of classes 165 and 166.  Suburban units are fine for what they were designed and bought for - and that's services such as the stoppers to Severn Beach and to Weston-super-mare where the mid carriage doors help, but that are far from clever on long distance journeys.

I am sure I read the Barnstaple users prefer the 166s on the peak hour trains. A 166 worked 3 days last week.

The March Todays Railways had 10 158s (All the 2 coaches) transferred Exeter to Bristol and the 7 (all 3 coaches) transferred Bristol to Exeter in service now.

Exeter's new shed has been built to handle 3 coach trains and has a lifting road that can exchange bogies.

I also read that when the 165s (16 are three coach) come west from Reading they will end up at Exeter and by the end of the year the 150s could be gone. It all rests on the 769s coming into service which I hear isn't going all that well.

There are 20 150s at Exeter for the 7 trains (2 units on many) on the Paignton-Exmouth, 2 Okehampton from May and 5 for the rest of the branches in Devon and Cornwall. They are usually supplemented by 3 Turbos rotating down from Bristol for use on the local Exeter services (Devon Metro).

So if Exeter ended up with 16 165s and 7 158s all three coach the GWR could claim newer trains more seats throughout Devon and Cornwall and into the 2030s a newer greener  train will probably have been developed because the turbos and castle sets will be life expired.

I see that, according to RTT, the ECS from the Barnstaple - Axminster service back to Exeter TMD runs to a different route and schedule on Thursdays with a running time that is about 75 minutes shorter.

Mondays - Wednesdays & Fridays: 5L90 Axminster - Yeovil - Castle Cary - Yeovil - Axminster - Exeter TMD
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:W45741/2022-05-18/detailed

Thursdays: 5C90 Axminster - Yeovil - Castle Cary - Taunton - Exeter TMD
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:W45742/2022-05-19/detailed

Dave

Given the number of times that the current driver refresher pairing, 5Z30 and 5Z31, has been cancelled recently (I think it has only run on three occasions in the last month??), I strongly suspect that the vast majority of these BNP-AXM services (if they do actually start) will be cancelled after Exeter Central due to ‘lack of drivers’.  If the service does run through to Axminster, I would not be surprised to see the 5C90 and 5L90 runs replaced by a simple ECS working back from Axminster to Exeter TMD via Honiton.

Not quite, the second short working, the 17:46 from Exeter to Axminster used to terminate Axminster then run ECS to Salisbury via Castle Cary and Westbury as a route refresh turn for Salisbury drivers