Great Western Coffee Shop

Because of engineering work between Exeter and Plymouth passengers travelling to or from Plymouth from mid January to the end of March are warned to check journey times before travelling. 

At weekends the line between Exeter St David^s and Plymouth will be closed for engineering work as follows:

All day Saturday on January 17th, 24th and 31st
All day Sunday every weekend from January 18th until March 21st.

A replacement bus service will operate, with both non-stop services between Exeter St David^s and Plymouth, and stopping services calling at intermediate stations.

Weekday services during the weeks commencing Monday 19th and 26th January and Monday 2nd March will be running to a revised timetable, because of single line working through Marley tunnel between Totnes and Newton Abbott.

TJ

Marley Tunnel is between Totnes and Plymouth.

Thanks for correction; I had copied the information from my source without enagaging brain!!

TJ

Interesting. The coach companies might be busy. if the whole railway west of Exeter is closed!!

There already halfway there,the so called "main" line west of Newton Abbot is now little more than a branch line anyway with its 55/65mph line speeds,while new road schemes have transformed the parallel trunk roads.

if only there was another route.........................

It wouldn't be any quicker.

no it wouldnt but an extra route would improve capacity,reliability, more destinations more convinient

Maybe IF trains could still go the LSWR route from Exeter St D to Plymouth the Train journey might well be 10 minutes longer than the route via Newton Abbot, BUT I and 99.9% of passengers would prefer that extra 10 miutes than,

1, Getting off train with bags and luggage at Exeter,
2, Finding the coach and putting luggage on coach,
3, Bouncing around inside a Coach (with no Driver Safety devices) for about 1 hour,
4, Off loading from the Coach and finding luggage in bus hold,
5, Finding train in Plymouth,
6, Waiting for Depature Time at Plymouth (anything from 10-25 minutes).

That little lot is bad enough on a fine day but on a windy wet day! ??? ???

Of Course 80% of Passengers Don't put themselves through all that, they DON'T Travel, well NOT by TRAIN!!!

It takes about 5 1/2 hours by Rail from Penzance to London Padd, but when Buses are used the journey time is up around the 7 hour mark.

It's bad News when Lines shut for engineering work, yet BR used to use Single line working to keep trains running IN most cases.

Health & Safety is the Reason for MOST total line closure.

OK then: ANY H & S Reps like to explain WHY MORE DEATHS have occured SINCE Single line working at relaying sites has been outlawed.

Because H & S has produced a work area where it's presumed that the RISK has been removed.

Much better (for everyone) and SAFER on a worksite where engineers are Kept on the alert.

Of course H & S can't work around that it doesn't add up ON PAPER!

exactly!!

Isn't there a possession planned near Totnes utilising single line working in the near future?

They never run buses from Exeter. It takes too long.  They will run them from Tiverton Parkway as they always do.

Also I sorry to tell you that the journey time will be exactly the same as the train.  The quick access to the M5 from Tiverton means there will be no extented journey times.

They run buses from Exeter for the intermediate stops. Not all services are HST you know! ;D

I belive there is Single line working planned in the Totnes Area, would image the work to be done is on the Single Bore Marley Tunnels, so there is an alternative to using Buses.

I have a question about this. The above mentions Sundays up til March 21st. But the 21st is a Saturday,which is the day I will be travelling back from St Austell to London,so are the trains going to be affected on this day? It mentions Saturdays,but only up to Jan 31st. Was the above copied and pasted from somewhere,or was that a typo by the poster?
My travel plan is as follows.:
Sunday 15th March - Night Riviera from Paddington to St Austell (arr Monday 16th morning) Will this train be affected?
Sat 21st March travel back to London(not sure which exact train yet,around 9am)

We will have 2 or 3 suitcases with us,and we don't really want to have to lug them onto a bus then back on the train again. I couldn't seem to find this info on the FGW website,and the ticket booking system does not go that far ahead for me to do a sample journey.

Hi, Naz Nomad, and a warm welcome to the Coffee Shop forum, this wet weekend!

I'm not able to answer your question myself - but we do have a number of members (passengers and FGW staff!) who are familiar with your planned route, so I'm sure they'll be able to help!

According to the National Rail Enquires:

There are no engineering works for First Great Western on Sunday, 15 March 2009

There are no engineering works for First Great Western on Saturday, 21 March 2009

FGW should be posting up the new Winter timetables starting December 14th anytime now on their website. Whether or not the timetable booklet for Devon and Cornwall includes weekend timetables showing services operating during the weekends when the engineering is taking place between Exeter-Plymouth we shall have to wait and see. Sometimes they do...sometimes they don't.

Thanks guys. I'll keep an eye on that. If any of you get any further info please let me know in case i miss it !!

as for the suitcases the new hst's are struggling with passengers! i had to stand up and when i say stand up there was no standing room i was in the connecting corridoor between coaches not i dont use this service normally and due to diversions it didnt call at tiverton taunton bridgewater or bristol so um caugh caugh whats this train normally like??? and you cant say its passengers from the swt service as there was one of those 15 mins before and it left nearly empty

Very busy at the best of times when services aren't being diverted via Yeovil and running on their normal route. When they are diverted via Yeovil, due to single line working between Castle Cary-Yeovil-Exeter, FGW can't run to the same normal frequency timetable so what trains they are able to run direct from the South West to London and vice versa are pretty much rammed with every available space taken as you experienced today and best avoided if you possibly can unless you can book in advance and reserve a seat...thats if you can actually get to it of course!

When the additional passing loop at Axminster is installed for the new hourly SWT Waterloo/Exeter service from December 2009 timetable will FGW be able to operate an hourly service in these circumstances.

i think the forgotten passing loop at honiton has been neglected this weekend, to be fair it would have been very hard to timetable and im presuming impossible otherwise it would have been used?

i think the easyest thing to do this weekend would have been to swap the fgw hst's for 158's and run the fgw and swt serviced coupled together until yeovil then do a split, is this a silly idea (i know fleet redeployment on this scale for such a short period may be silly but hey its me!)

HSTs cant couple to 159s for a start and SWT have to run a service besides FGW so couldnt just loan the whole 159 fleet

no sorry dm thats why i said swap the fleet around for a few days fgw have 158'8 and they couple to 159's

no comment?

I think you answered your own question in the original post, and that's why no-one is bothering to respond further. The logistics of such an exercise would be enormous and not worth the effort.

Not misery, but some concern over fare increases at Plymouth: see the BBC News video report, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7742380.stm

lalalalala