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December 11, 2018, 05:33:11 pm

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1	All across the Great Western territory / The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom / Re: Station Usage figures from the ORR	on: Today at 05:03:46 pm
Quote from: dhassell on Today at 04:06:11 pm Quote from: Phantom on Today at 02:49:35 pm I noticed there was a twitter group trying to get people to travel there to distort the numbers I personally don't see how getting people to use the station is 'distorting the numbers'. Welcome to the forum! What you read is Phantom's view ... I don't share it. "Distortion"s as I would describe them come in with some of the ticket sales anomalies such as buying tickets to other stations beyond where you're going as they may be cheaper, or splitting your journey at Didcot which (on return trip) will give 4 uses that don't exist Quote At the end of the day, a twitter group can't physically force someone to use the station. They can persuade someone though... At the end of the day, passengers are passengers, regardless of their interests! Also in the cases of other 'least used stations', their figures seem to rise/drop everytime there is a mass visit to a station, the stats for Pilning so far are consistent. Exactly what user groups and community rail groups are encouraged to do - especially if (as Pilning) they are consistent / growing from one year to the next. P.S. You Avatar looks like it might be one of the tunnels just to the west of Aztec West ~~Station~~.

2	All across the Great Western territory / The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom / Re: Station Usage figures from the ORR	on: Today at 03:20:55 pm
Quote from: Western Pathfinder on Today at 01:51:07 pm Pilning Station up 107.8% not bad going Now if they could encourage some proper passengers!. Quote from: Adelante_CCT on Today at 03:02:12 pm The ORR statistics are aware of that: Quote Explanation of large change User group campaign Source for explanation of large change http://www.pilningstation.uk/why-it-matters I caught the train at Pilning a couple of weeks back ... and noted "proper passengers". For sure, the user group is encouraging people to use the station as best they can and that may well be how the proper passengers found out about it. For sure waymarking to the station from the village is notable by its absence. Good to have the ORR noting the local support at their London base - putting the station and group on the radar. That's the second year of good growth too, which indicates consistency of local support, another factor that would make anyone looking to improve services there feel rather more comfortable.

3	Sideshoots - associated subjects / The Lighter Side / Re: Advent quiz 2019	on: Today at 01:46:58 pm
11.3 is indeed Lincoln ... train has just arrived from Newark (where it departed from a very much barer platform) and as I recall terminated at Lincoln. Some of the onward services in Lincolnshire are pretty sparse - down to a Melkshamesque level.

4	All across the Great Western territory / The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom / Re: Station Usage figures from the ORR	on: Today at 01:28:43 pm
Quote from: grahame on November 01, 2018, 01:24:29 pm Quote from: IndustryInsider on November 01, 2018, 11:51:48 am What's your guess/hope for Melksham this time then, Graham? Fools rush in .... The figure to March 2017 was 74,666 - up from 60,676 the year before and 51,858 they year before that. I think we would be lucky to maintain the figure of 75,000 in the year April 2017 to March 2018. Sadly, I got that right - we have fallen back from 74,666 to 74,220 - just 99.4% of the previous year. Quote By April 2017, the peak train was full and standing to the extent that people were no longer being added to the train - there simply wasn't the capacity. The promised increase to 2 cars in May 2017 didn't happen until the New Year, still with occasional uses of a single carriage train. The last one car (153) I had the pleasure of using was on 15th June - with the train manager walking along the outside at Swindon, banging on the windows and asking people to move up. Come summer 2017, reliability went down the tubes ... and TransWilts is such an easy service to cancel, never mind that it's a real hardship to customers as there isn't going to be another one along in 30 minutes ... and puts them off for a long time to come. Early 2018 brought a loss of daytime services because of engineering works at Newbury and rail replacement buses that don't even connect properly at both ends are not popular. And it brought storms that shut the TransWilts long after everything else was open. At 99.4% we haven't done too badly - Trowbridge is 94.6%, Bradford-on-Avon 96.8%, Westbury 98.4%, Warminster 95.1%, Chippenham 97.5% ... so in spite of overcrowded trains (when running) and loss of passenger (when not or bustitited) w've kept pretty much ahead of the game - the whole game has slipped back though.

5	All across the Great Western territory / The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom / Re: Station Usage figures from the ORR	on: Today at 12:35:05 pm
Quote from: grahame on Today at 12:32:42 pm Quote from: ChrisB on Today at 12:10:14 pm Yes, they're out. Top 7 stay the same, although Waterloo is still top, throughputs are down, and haven't gone over the 100.000,000 mark. Bottom is now British Steel Redcar. ? Where ... my links not showing new data OK ... found them

6	All across the Great Western territory / The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom / Re: Station Usage figures from the ORR	on: Today at 12:32:42 pm
Quote from: ChrisB on Today at 12:10:14 pm Yes, they're out. Top 7 stay the same, although Waterloo is still top, throughputs are down, and haven't gone over the 100.000,000 mark. Bottom is now British Steel Redcar. ? Where ... my links not showing new data

7	Sideshoots - associated subjects / The Lighter Side / Re: Advent quiz 2019	on: Today at 07:54:03 am
Quote from: Adelante_CCT on Today at 07:07:14 am 11.1 Newbury Correct ... and noting freight wagons in a number of these old photos ... how times change

8	All across the Great Western territory / The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom / Re: Station Usage figures from the ORR	on: Today at 06:37:17 am
Due today http://orr.gov.uk/statistics/publication-dates via http://orr.gov.uk/statistics/published-stats/station-usage-estimates Assuming that the release does happen (pretty probable!) I will update stations pages and graphs tonight - doing my day job during the day today!

9	Sideshoots - associated subjects / The Lighter Side / Re: Advent quiz 2019	on: Today at 06:07:55 am
Tuesday 11th December 2018 - the Coffee Shop Advent Quiz. 11.1 - Where was this picture taken? 11.2 - And in which year? 11.3 Where was this picture taken?

10	Sideshoots - associated subjects / The Lighter Side / Re: Advent quiz 2019	on: Yesterday at 07:00:19 pm
Quote from: ellendune on Yesterday at 09:18:40 am 10.1 Melksham (the new Taunton in quizes) Not long before closure in 1966 Yes it is ... and look how much has changed! The lengthening of the platform in the summer took away the last remnants of the old station that we in (re) use - platform surface and edging stones.

11	All across the Great Western territory / The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom / Re: Rail travel too unreliable to commute to work?	on: Yesterday at 06:38:43 pm
Quote John McKee, director of Hanover Healthfoods ... An interesting decision by Mr McKee to go to the press ... to widely expose concerns which should be between him and his team member if she (for any reason) is failing to deliver what's needed in the job. Either she's in on it (I wonder if they need publicity to help keep the shop in business, for example, and have come up with a way to get it) or she's not (in which case she could be pretty upset with him. Quote from: broadgage on Yesterday at 01:50:14 pm Drifting a little O/T I once had a very junior position in a large catering company that required an early morning start. I was rapidly promoted to a senior position, Due I believe not to any particular skills or experience, but simply because I could RELIABLY arrive on time. And thereby avoid the head office being troubled by the frequent complaints about late opening. Other employees no doubt had excellent excuses for being late, including trains, buses, car breakdowns, traffic congestion, sick children, bad weather, and many others, but I arrived on time. When we offered accommodation, we had post that required a reliable 06:30 start. And the busiest time of day - and for things that had to be done in that early time - started within minutes of the staff member arriving. And all bar one were fabulous timekeepers - the one who wasn't lasted only a very short time, though to be fair she it was a different straw that broke the camel's back, with the panics to staff on a no-show simply "taking into consideration" as for the first (and only time, I hope) I asked a member of staff to leave permanently. You are right on "not troubling head office". Excellent staff are low maintenance ones.

12	All across the Great Western territory / Across the West / Re: Access for all - nominations requested by 1st October 2018	on: Yesterday at 06:20:20 pm
Quote Long-awaited improvements for the distinctly disabled un-friendly Theale Station will be carried out after it was confirmed it had been selected for the next round of government funding. The station in West Berkshire currently has no facilities for disabled people, but is set for a revamp in the next round of the government Access for All funding. Reading West MP Alok Sharma confirmed there is no need to bid again as the station will receive funding. No details of when the work will be carried out have been revealed yet. Is this "Access for All"? Is there a full list somewhere or has the MP jumped the gun? From GetReading

13	All across the Great Western territory / The Wider Picture in the United Kingdom / Rail travel too unreliable to commute to work?	on: Yesterday at 08:30:48 am
From The Edinburgh News Quote An Edinburgh businessman has vowed to never employ another rail commuter because a key member of his staff has been repeatedly delayed by ScotRail disruption. [snip] The timetable, launched yesterday,[SUN] has 100 extra daily services including a new half-hourly link between Edinburgh and Glasgow via Cumbernauld. John McKee, director of Hanover Healthfoods, relies on senior employee Rachel Bell to open the shop at 9:30am every day, which also acts as a parcel drop-off point. However, she said her train service from Aberdour in Fife had been so unreliable that he regularly had to draft in colleagues at short notice or come in himself when she was late. Mrs Bell, 40, said: “I have gone from driving 40,000 miles a year to commuting by train and have been quite shocked with what people have to put up with. My boss hired me so he could depend on me but I’m having to let him down on a weekly basis."

14	Sideshoots - associated subjects / The Lighter Side / Re: Advent quiz 2019	on: Yesterday at 07:10:38 am
Monday 10th December 2018 - the Coffee Shop Advent Quiz. 10.1 - Where was this picture taken? 10.2 - And in which year? 10.3 Where was this picture taken?

15	All across the Great Western territory / Diary - what's happening when? / Re: 9th December 2018 - Santa, Melksham to Swindon and back	on: December 09, 2018, 11:37:33 pm
A different Santa trip. Geeze .... https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/sobbing-children-left-traumatised-horror-15528809

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