Great Western Coffee Shop

Sunday 31st July 2022.

Day trip to visit the Outlet Centre.  First train "bustitued" so

Melksham to Swindon ... 11:00 to 11:28
return 15:44 to 16:08 or 17:44 to 18:08 ...

4 adults together - £21.80?

BUT


Is advice REALLY not to travel on Sunday?

Just watched this video from Network Rail https://twitter.com/GWRHelp/status/1552585350299746305 where the advice is not to travel today as well. Whilst I understand services are very likely to be busy today, can you keep up this message of advising people not to travel all the time? Last week it was as a result of hot weather. Both understandable situations to give that advice but if the same message is all people hear coming from the railway they will think twice, if they haven't already, and stop travelling by train.

It’s a tricky one.

Agreed that the ‘do not travel’ message is trotted out far too often.  Though todays trains are very busy from what I’ve seen so far.  A combination of less trains running and postponed journeys from yesterday.  If, say 20%, of people heeded the essential journeys only message then that’s probably helped prevent some trains from having to leave people behind.  Crowding is far more of a problem today than yesterday on routes where services are running.

I dread to think how packed that 2-car on the CDF<>PMH diagram is coping.  All a bit depressing really.

Five of us heading to Wembley early Sunday from WSM, at the moment there is an early train showing as running, note GWR still showing Sundays timetable is still to be confirmed

Unfortunately, I think there is more than one 2 car diagram on the CDF<>PMH line today  :(

Apparently there are signs there won’t be huge numbers of drivers looking for overtime on Sunday.

Sampling at Salisbury headed for Cardiff on Real Time Trains

8 trains in "cycle"
1 x 5 car
1 x 4 car
2 x 3 car
2 x 2 car
2 x unidentified

In detail:

09:42 - Cancel
10:42 - ?

11:42 - 2 car 13:46 to 14:30 CDF ; 17:52 - 18:34 PMH; 19:42 SAL; 165129
12:42 - 2 165127
13:42 - 5 165136 + 166212
14:42 - 4 158749 + 158750
15:43 - 3 166211
16:42 - ?
17:42 - 3 158957
18:42 - ? and showing to BRI "VAR"

19:42 - 2 and that's the same diagram as the 11:42 - 165129 again
20:42 - 5 165127 again, now with 166216 added
21:42 - 3 166212 again, but with 165136 dropped off

Following up (and knowing we have thread drift) ... I took a list at cruises starting and ending in Southampton over the next week

From (here) (https://www.southamptonvts.co.uk/Live_Information/Shipping_Movements_and_Cruise_Ship_Schedule/Cruise_Ship_Schedule/)

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/shipweek20220728.jpg)

To give you idea of a busy day - 30th - that's around 20,000 passenger berths
Celebrity Silhouette - 2886
MSC Virtuosa - 4842 (cabins as doubles - many can take a family)
Ventura - 3192
Iona - 5206
Sky Princess - 3660
Of course, I don't know how many will be unoccupied.

It's a brave man (or woman) who makes too many plans relying on GWR turning up on any given Sunday, irrespective of events on the previous day, however Saturdays strike will no doubt make the service even less robust than usual (.....which admittedly isn't setting the bar too high!)

Looks like Cross Country services to Southampton will be busy. I hope people have checked before they rely on using them in the current situation.

WAY off topic ... but there are 66 visits by cruise ships (25 different ships) in August. Most of them are cruise starts and ends
   3 AIDAPRIMA
   2 AIDASOL
   3 ANTHEM OF THE SEAS
   3 ARCADIA
   2 AURORA
   1 AZAMARA QUEST
   3 BOLETTE
   2 BRITANNIA
   4 CELEBRITY SILHOUETTE
   3 EMERALD PRINCESS
   4 ENCHANTED PRINCESS
   5 IONA
   3 ISLAND PRINCESS
   2 MEIN SCHIFF 3
   4 MSC VIRTUOSA
   1 NORWEGIAN PRIMA
   1 NORWEGIAN STAR
   3 QUEEN MARY 2
   5 QUEEN VICTORIA
   1 SEABOURN QUEST
   1 SEVEN SEAS SPLENDOR
   1 SEVEN SEAS VOYAGER
   3 SKY PRINCESS
   2 SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE
   4 VENTURA

Absolutely no services showing up at Charlbury on the journey-planners.

Which is a bit worrying as Riverside (said to be the largest free music festival in the south-east) is this weekend...

Which I note was confirmed by GWR twitter team.

Not good - many people coming out of town today for the weekend, expecting some sort of service on Sunday (possibly some cancelled but certainly not all....).

They were showing yesterday so the online planners can only have been updated overnight last night. Would you re-check again today having checked yesterday? I'm not sure I would....

I have written to GWR expecting them to relax ticket restrictions in Monday's AM peak such that weekenders can use the return that would have been used on Sunday in Monday's AM peak. It's only fair that they could get to work on Monday (even if that's from their weekday home) without having to pay extra in order to do so.

There's now a note on gwr.com saying that both the North Cotswolds and South Cotswolds lines will have no service on Sunday.

Really very poor indeed. I could understand a skeleton service, once every three hours or so, but nothing at all?

Quite a few crew shortage cancellations/short runs today too, is this related to the strike?

Well - here we are on Sunday, first train off Melksham at 11:00 picked up 17 pasengers (1 off), estimate around 40 in each of 2 carriages.  Around a dozen off our carriage at Chippenham - so scarsely people being put off.    In olden day terms, 81/18 which would be a good number for late morning on a damp Sunday. Also doing this is the service that GWR canned for months and months when they were short of crew.

I'm wondering quite how likely I am to get a hefty wodge in Delay Repay...

On a Sunday the day after a strike day:

1233 Frome
1329 Swindon

1336 Swindon
1522 Neath

Tickets split at Melksham (because the Routeing Guide and Fares Table can't cope with offering a First Class fare from anywhere in South Wales to Frome, Westbury, or Trowbridge, despite the Standard Class fares matching those to Swindon and Melksham) and Newport (because of Two Together Railcard restrictions the other way – it's a bit rubbish that it's a flat no on those empty trains before 0930 on a weekday, rather than the YP you must spend £12 or whatever it is these days).

Anyway, I'm basically considering this a wager with GWR. It's mad that they even think they can get me home in 2h49. I'll be cheering them on if they win, although I expect to collect on this one.