Yep, the 09:09 Melksham to Westbury was a 3 car 166 this morning ... rather than for the 09:47 back, it carried on to Weymouth and 150001 which arrived on the Bristol to Weymouth service took over the diagram.  75 mph unit on what's now supposedly a service run with 90 mph stock, but the new stock does seem to have time in hand. Welcome back the "old girl" 150 prototype to the TransWilts.

From the Reading Chronicle




EasitNETWORK is at https://www.easit.org.uk

Ah - sorry - I misunderstood your previous post.    Took it as being an hourly (?) service with one particular hour having this swap each day, and not as an exception to daily procedure.

Railfuture Severnside branch committee group meeting last night has selected 4th April 2020 for their AGM. This is the same date as our long-fixed date for the Coffee Shop AGM.  Clash noted prior to the decision being made; all other Saturdays in April (and late March and early May) were rejected because of [other] conflicts and none-availability.

If there is one train into Reading and a different one onwards from Reading on a daily basis, should the timetable not clearly show one service into Reading and then a different one from there?

I used to use the A344 route as part of my regular commute ... now getting to be quite a time ago, and I fear that means that my previous comment was too much based on what's now history.  The old route was off the A303, passing to the right of the stones and the left of the car park and straight ahead at Airman's Cross towards Devizes, or forking off at Shrewton onto the B490 for Warminster.   Agreed, that traffic now stays on and clogs up the single carriageway, "I-see-the-stones" section of the A303.

Distribution from Amesbury, again, very much grown.  Not a great deal within Wiltshire to the west along the A303, but no doubt that feeds further west.
 

Which is why I wrote "the ideal solution is measures at Stonehenge and a decent, double tracked, modern, main line railway."


There was something similar in the latest round of "which route shall we go for" but it was clearly included in such a way as to show that the solution chosen (already!) was the right one.


Goodness knows; the article I quoted to start this thread suggests that final price bids are required so that costs can't go up later.  And as a result, all the UK prime bidders have pulled out leaving the field open to consortia from elsewhere in Europe.  Have they that extra wisdom to get it right, broad shoulders to take any hit if they find problems, or are the prepared to take on the government in court like some other companies and consortia are doing over franchise bids?

Train, Swindon to Chippenham.  Wait for 19:06 (no taxi before to gather everyone) the a taxi chit.  Five minute wait for a taxi and four of us crammed in to Melksham - there not much different from 10 minutes late there.  Taxi drive told us that some of his colleagues don't like the chits because they have to wait to the end of the following month to be paid.  I suspect our driver doesn't like them either, and probably doesn't like what I suspect are very thin tips from these passengers.

Didn't think 150s were supposed to be around these parts any longer?

Arrived at Swindon to catch this ... let's see how alternative works.

From the Yorkshire Post

From the BBC

If I spend a pound on a train ticket, where does my money end up?

Pie chart drawn from data at last night's Melksham Rail User Group meeting - fares presentation and discussions with Guy Watts of GWR.  Such a useful evening we had to put more chairs out, and time ran out too ...



A couple of footnotes -
* "Staffing" was described as rail industry staffing - so I think that includes signallers
* "Track Maintenance" includes signalling and day to day Network Rail cost
* Investment cannot be (just) GWR direct - I suspect that includes money to HMG reinvested into rail
Lots more I could question "where does xxxx fall" but it gives a general idea

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago ...


Severn Beach still every 40 minutes (with half hourly possible in theory) but improvements in the Bristol Area so we have four tracks up Filton Bank (allowing superexprss trains for London, stock movements from Stoke Gifford, etc) and Metrobus (so that people can sit on a nicer, newer bus in traffic jams.  Let's call those things "work in progress" as we have been promised better - such as MetroWest.   Portishead would be nice, so would more than one train an hour calling at Keynsham, and a decent service from Lawrence Hill and Stapleton Road to Bristol Parkway.

The other element quoted - here's an update from the New Civil Engineer - is the Stonehenge tunnel which is at bidding stage.   Unsurprisingly, no-one local is bidding to dig the thing:




I recall some 30 years ago visiting A&AEE (Aircraft and Armarments Establishment), Boscombe Down, Amesbury on business and seeing a map of all the proposals over the years to improve the road past Stonehenge - and a comment from my contacts there that if there were all built there would be nothing but tarmac for half a mile in all directions from the stones.

Local (within Wiltshire) traffic on the A303's current route past Stonehenge is minimal, with the big users being people passing from London and the Home Counties on their way west to Yeovil and Taunton, Devon and Cornwall.  Some stop to see the stones; many more on their first time past slow down and stare at the sight and that gawping alone is, I suspect, the cause of much of the jams and many accidents as the traffic slows down and the drivers fail to concentrate.

Passenger transport that's not in private cars along this part of the A303?  There may be some long distance coaches (National Express, Megabus, Berry's Superfast) and there are plenty of coaches headed for the visitor's centre on London - Stonehenge - Bath - London sightseers.  I don't see a huge rise in long distance coaches coming with the tunnel (and I wonder how other tight spots such as the Blackdown Hills are being dealt with).  I can't help feeling that for the future, enhancing capacity on the parallel railway through Salisbury, and electrifying it, would provide a more sustainable and quicker way of achieving the holy grail of getting masses of people from London to the Western Peninsular.  Having said which ... the ideal solution is measures at Stonehenge and a decent, double tracked, modern, main line railway.  Like we had (modern in its time) when LSWR ran it at the start of the last century, perhaps?

I spotted ...
- the boat train for Newhaven leaving from Waterloo, and arriving back at King's Cross
- Southern refunding the taxi fare for passengers using the Newhaven Marine link in US dollars
- Overhead electrification to Newhaven!

I forget who it is who always asks "ooze gonna pay for it" .. but if you simply cut rail fares by a third and had (say) 5 million railcard holders no longer buying cards, you're going to be £150,000,000 down. As well as loosing the loyalty element of people wanting to "get the best value from my card" ...

Back of fag packet calculation - railcard sales perhaps account for 10p per ticketed journey (that's the fee for purchase of the railcard) .

More snippets from Forces Network