More than "occasional" ... looks like around 6 in and 6 out on a recent random day I chose

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/advanced/WHATLYQ/2015/07/23/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

But if the front cab one was defective, was it practical for the driver (implication is driver only operation) to make his way back through 4 carriages ... better to bolt up the track as he's said to have done, whatever the state of the radio at the back?

I should probably say "early" arrivals.    I've listed the first arrivals along the whole route, and all the earlier short workings to show how (and to check for myself) that the build-up is sensible.

I must be barking mad to be arranging this.

https://www.facebook.com/events/921181181253410/

16th August.  From Swindon, Chippenham and Melksham to Thornford International

Draft technical paper on Swindon to Solent service proposal at

http://atrebatia.info/swi_soa_draft.pdf

Suggestions / notes of errors welcome - next 48 hours please! as I'll be using this on Wednesday.

That is of tremendous help, thanks Paul - if (in some ways) confirming the impossible; confirms that the turn around of the Romsey 6 HAS to be quick, for example.  It does suggest that the "6" could become a "d" if traffic in the Southampton area allowed it - but that would have flow implications.   However current system is not bust apart from incredibly long layover of train in Salisbury, and doesn't need fixing south of there. And it still needs a reasonable layover "up north" anyway for robustness and perhaps PNBs^▸ (Personal Needs Break)

Thanks for the offer to check the signal - if you do, great, to complete the answer but it's probably an interesting sideshoot.   In any case, turning a southbound train one stop before a city is usually a silly thing to do as typically there's a big flow of business available to the city (I can think of one place in FGW^▸ (First Great Western) land where it happens every day, though!)

Trains coming from Chandler's Ford reverse every hour at Romsey, and I note a Sunday morning train direct to Southampton starting there, and also occasional trains terminating there at times of disruption.

Question - can trains arriving from Southampton direct reverse at Romsey, and if so at which platforms?  While I'm "at" asking - can it be done at both platforms from Chandler's Ford, and do reversals from Salisbury need to shunt, or is there a crossover on the Salisbury side?

Provisional date and venue - 20th February 2016, 10 a.m., within easy walking distance of SWINDON railway and bus stations.

Edit Date confirmed as 13th February (has been for a while - I am late updating this ancient post!)

Cheese Hall, Devizes, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. 3 p.m. (lots to cover!)

Full agenda to follow below ... but please put this in your diary now.   Open to all with an interest in the current and future use and direction of public transport in Wiltshire, organised by the TransWilts CIC^▸ (Community Interest Company ) of which the TransWilts CRP^▸ (Community Rail Partnership) is a division.

We're anticipating that there will be more bus than train content this day, with significant changes underway on Wiltshire's buses at present, and being planned for coming years.  However, there's also rail items already on the agenda such as service designation, and a raft of topics that are multimodal or holistic (wonderful word  ) in how they look.

Just hold the day folks - likely to be very interesting!

Where there's a will ... St Blazey, via Greenford and Southall.   But I don't think there should be a way taken except for a very rare historic celebration ...

Shamelessly quoting out of context:


Got me thinking.

a) I want ... a train to my county town (just six miles away) for commuters - filling the 06:38 to 09:15 gap
b) I want ... a later train - a round trip back after the 18:38 (Saturday) and 19:37 (Monday to Friday)
c) I want ... the first train on Sunday mornings to run all year
d) I want ... decent connections between the buses that pass the station and the trains that call there

And looking at the logical way to deliver those ...
c) Well - the train's already in place! Business case to be made
b) Extend 2A87 FRO^» (Frome - next trains) to WSB^» (Westbury - next trains) to CPM^» (Chippenham - next trains), leaving WSB 21:15. Then CPM 22:03 to WSB, arrive 22:28, to form 2V97 ...
d) One of 23rd August changes helps. And other change (I think 1st September) may help too.
a) Darn it that's hard ... may need to wait for stock cascades.

Noting carefully the use of the words "affordable", "viable" and "direct replacement". 

There have been 27 trips around the southern loop of the T1 per day (between 06:58 and 23:22 at Manro Road shops) and 19 trips on the eastern loop (Horse Road time) until now, and I'm sure your right in reporting that the ones you're familiar with have been busy.    Of the 27, perhaps only the 07:52, 08:34, 10:04 and 10:34 into town are busy - maybe the 15:04, 15:34 and 16:04 too.  Catering for commuters (first 2 services), Pensioner pass holders shopping (first two buses picking up after 09:30) and the ones later in the day after college.  And if those 7 are 70% loaded, but the other services have (say) 3 people on them, public perception is "busy"

170 people tell you bus is "always crowded" (and see 70% loading)
60 people tell you "route is quiet" (and see 8% loading)
... calculated average loading (with college traffic) 24%

Take away college traffic during holidays
100 people tell you the bus is "always crowded"
70 people tell you "route is quiet"
... calculated average loading (without college traffic) 18%

Without a college on the eastern leg, and with the first arrival into the town not until 08:57, just 2 out of the 19 trips look like being likely candidates for busyness.  Lets's say they have that 70% load

70 people tell you the bus is "always crowded"
50 people tell you the "route is quiet"
... calculated average loading 18% all year

Purely educated guesses, you'll appreciate.  Arrivals into Trowbridge at 09:26 and 09:34 probably used to be busy when they accepted senior passes, but with the cutoff going back from 09:00 to 09:30 there has been a dramatic reduction in numbers using buses in the area at that time.  Pensioners have told me "I can't use the XX:XX bus any longer" and that seems to be the general ethos, whereas the technicallity is "I would have to pay myself to use the XX:XX bus now, just like everyone else, but I choose not to do so".  Result - even more appearance of busy buses as the already-peaky traffic condenses into even fewer services making an even-peakier operation.

T1 has been 2 vehicles, run commercially (and bear in mind that even a commercial service is supported by taxpayers in the form of free bus passes and perhaps by BSOG^▸ (Bus Service Operators Grant )), and an evening service of 6 trips on the southern loop, supported by Wiltshire Council and using a vehicle shared with route 234. We aretold that the evening 234 service has been costing ^47000 pounds per annum in support, 19,500 journeys being made, and a subsidy of ^2.40 per journey. The supposedly complete list of subsidies from Wiltshire Council does not list the T1 at all, and at a guess it may have been included within the 234 contract.  So the withdrawl of the commercial services, and the inability to find an affordable / viable alternative actually saves the council money, cutting the services they provide while the finger is pointed at the operator who's withdrawing.

It's my understanding that there were indeed very few (just one!) bidders for the contract. Although you'll see lots of different company's buses running around in Wiltshire, many or even most of them are short of drivers, and furthermore they regard the T1 and what was being requested as a difficult route. One just wonders how much it's truely a problem route, and how much the current changes provide an opportunity to refactor.


I believe that we could do very much better, indeed, by looking at the network as a whole;  adjusting other routes to cover gaps is something of a step in that direction, and is indeed being done on the 234 sections which leave unserved communities - the x34 taking in Leap Gate, Rode, and St Thomas Road (hope I have that right?) on certain runs.   And such changes [are / may be] [partly] funded by council support.  Yet to a great extent that's just looking at the edges - almost crisis management to ensure at least some service remains.   Problem is that if the sticking plaster fails to provide a more cost effective solution than the thing it's fixing, we'll be back in the same loop next year with the sticking plaster being lost as an attempt is made to save the other more viable parts of the by applying a sticking plaster that keeps them for a further year.

Some 55 trains are passing along the TransWilts each day this week.  40 of them are express passenger trains, 13 are freight, and just 2are local trains. There are also 14 rail replacement buses because the line was reduced from double to single track, and can no longer handle the 69 trains that "should" be running.

Here they are (yesterday's collection)



There are about 200 to 220 journeys in total on the two trains that are actually running, perhaps a further 250 on the rail replacement buses. Sadly, that down from between 600 and 700 passengers a day during a week the trains are running normally.  I may be sad, but I'm not surprised, and I'm understanding.  For somewhere around 7,000 passenger journeys per day are being made on the expresses, and if it wasn't for the use of the line for freight and diversionary purposes in the past, it wouldn't be here at all today. We can live with this, with understanding, for a couple of weeks.

There are some good things to see and learn. In the swansong of its operation (too late to save it), the 234 service bus is accepting rail tickets between Chippenaham and Trowbridge and indeed I used it myself yesterday. So people are finding other public transport ways. And it's fantastic to see that the line can, day in and day out, support an hourly service.  In fact it's supporting a rather awkward hourly service of long trains that are reversing on open track near Trowbridge - and it all seems to be working nicely.

Figures quoted in this post are well educated guestimates which will - if anything - be a little on the low side.  Evidence / data comes from around a dozen samples - of HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train), of the remaining local trains, and of the Rail Replacement buses, scaled to fit the relative volume of flows seen though the day. More data will be to hand later - we're learning ... we're learning what can be done!

I am advised there are two types of Darts - regular ones and longer ones.   I don't know which one's pictured here, but I understand that both lengths have been in use on the Rail Replacement service.