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27346
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Journey by Journey / TransWilts line / Informing the community - TransWilts CRP
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on: September 19, 2013, 11:25:08
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With now-likely additional services on the TransWilts line from December, we're moving the Community Rail Partnership into a more active informing and supporting role to tell our various communities about the opportunities that are about to be unleashed. Printing out old v new timetables (as I've been doing) starts to bring home the enormity of the trains that we're looking to fill! Wiltshire is arranged into a series of "Area Boards" - councillors for particular towns who meet every couple of months, get community updates, approve local grants, etc ... and we (TransWilts CRP▸ ) have just written around to them to solicit invites to their next meetings for a brief update. It's up to them, of course, whether they respond with an invite, decline to invite us, or simply don't get back to us but for those who are receptive it's a great opportunity for us to fill them in and ask questions. We're also looking to work with station groups along the way. In Swindon, Chippenham, Trowbridge and Westbury, TransWilts trains will for a minority of the services and we're hopeful that other or wide station groups will come forward to work with us, or we can form something that's rather wider than purely a "TransWilts interest" one. I'm aware of cyclist by train groups, groups particularly concerned with wheelchair access to difficult platforms, etc ... we're happy for them to expand, or to work with us in ensuring that TransWilts works. In the case of Melksham, we're already working closely with the Melksham Railway Development Group - and that's stepped up to the role for that station. IF YOU REPRESENT A GROUP AT ANY OF THE STATIONS - please let me know (email - graham@wellho.net; personal message or reply here). By the end of this month (September) and yu can help us set up the meeting too ;-) .... It is probable that train services on the TransWilts line (Swindon to Westbury) will be improved from December, as part of Wiltshire Council's "Improving Wiltshire's Rail Offering" works. These improvements will bring substantial benefits to the residents and businesses served, for example:
* Wiltshire Residents will be able to visit the Swindon and Wilshire History Centre, the Olympiad, Wiltshire College and other CHIPPENHAM facilities from the west and the south of the county by public transport without having to dog-leg via Bath or spend a great deal of time on buses.
* Visitors to MELKSHAM businesses will have a choice of train connections from London during the day, rather than a single daytime train at 17:45.
* There will now be 15 rather than 7 trains per day from TROWBRIDGE to London that complete the journey in under 2 hours
* And commuters from WESTBURY to Swindon will save 30 minutes of travelling time each day.
"The TransWilts Community Rail Partnership is a group of like-minded organisations seeking to improve the TransWilts railway line which connects Swindon to Salisbury via Chippenham, Melksham, Trowbridge, Westbury, Dilton Marsh, Warminster and Salisbury through co-ordinated activity with the railway, local communities and government bodies." (that's from our constitution!) and we would like the opportunity to update your area board some time this Autumn on the changes that are taking place, what it means for the area, and how local feedback can be channelled to make the very best of opportunities offered.
We understand the following are set for area board meetings:
9.10.2013 or 11.12.2013 Melksham Area Board
17.10.2013 Westbury Area Board
4.11.2013 Chippenham Area Board
14.11.2013 Trowbridge Area Board
Would you like one of us to come along, give a short presentation, answer questions, distribute marketing information / timetables etc?
As a further part of our program to promote and retain the service, we're working with existing station friends groups to help improve the customer experience, and to provide feedback both ways between the railway industry, local government, passengers and the wider community. And where a friends group doesn't exist in that role, we'll be happy to form such a group as part of the partnership. Provisional dates for initial meetings are:
25.10.2013 19:30 Melksham Railway Development Group (that's an existing group)
6.11.2013 19:00 Swindon Station Group
7.11.2013 19:00 Trowbridge Station Group
12.11.2013 19:00 Chippenham Station Group
15.11.2013 19:00 Westbury Station Group
IF you know of any existing groups, please pass this on and / or put them in touch - we would much rather have them expand to help us with the new services than set up something else - if they can arrange and host one of the meetings listed here, perhaps on a different date (those are not cast in stone) so much the better - but we do need to be in touch by the end of SEPTEMBER to ensure there's time to sort out venues, invites and publicity.
Finally, on Saturday 19th October we are hosting a "TransWilts Link" meeting for all travel and transport and interest groups across Wilthshire, and those who use travel and transport services in the county (so that brings in the likes of Frome too). This is a meeting we hold every six months - it allows groups to exchange experiences, to hear (and learn) from industry leaders and technocrats, and it helps us all co-ordinate suggestions and acitivities so that we're co-ordinated rather than pulling against each other. Please feel free to pass on our details as hosts of that meeting (10 a.m., Westbury). Update - Station groups / some date changes |
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27349
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All across the Great Western territory / Fare's Fair / Re: Cost of single walk-on rail tickets to be slashed
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on: September 18, 2013, 12:08:10
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But what about fares where there are both period and Day returns...
[snip]
Off-Peak Day Single: ^9.40
Off-Peak Day Return: ^9.50
Off-Peak Return: ^18.10
That seems fairly fair to me.
Hmmm ... I disagree, I'm afraid. If I travel from Plymouth to Penzance off-peak, and back by a train the same day, it costs 9.50 ... but if I stay overnight and travel back off-peak the next day it costs 18.10. What possible justification is there for charging me nearly twice the amount for the return trip because it happens to be made a few hours later? Perhaps I should have gone further in my original post / support of returns being around 60% of singles, and suggested that there should not be a day return - rather a period return that's valid for [time to be discussed - 8 days to 1 month]. I have seen arguments earlier that it's hard to check return halves on short journeys, so they're just for a day. But if the price of the return half goes up from 10p to five pounds, then you're not going to have the issue of lots of long-dated 10p tickets which would both tempt people to try it on, and at the same time cause staff and other travellers to get really upset about a potential fraud of travelling a day late. A good way to stop a potential fraud is to redraw the system so that it's no longer worthwhile to do it - far better than fussing over enforcements on 10p fares! |
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27350
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All across the Great Western territory / Fare's Fair / Re: Cost of single walk-on rail tickets to be slashed
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on: September 18, 2013, 00:51:40
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Of course there is already a trial it is on FGW▸ !
Yes, indeed .. and I personally feel the FGW setup is a pretty fair and appropriate ratio between singles and returns. Although FGW Super/Off Peak Singles aren't half the cost of the return. They [are] 60-75% of the return.
My view is that it's fair and appropriate that returns are somewhat cheaper than singles each way. 60% to 65% feels about right. Having the web site say it's 50% is incorrect and should be amended. Having day returns just 10p to 1.00 less remains unfair and should be amended in line with the 60% to 65% 'standard'. |
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27352
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All across the Great Western territory / The Wider Picture - related rail and other transport issues / Re: Brian Monteith - "Borders railway will never pay"
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on: September 17, 2013, 11:08:42
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Please note that this is an opinion piece, not a news item.
A little googling of 'brian monteith' (I'd not heard of him before) reveals that it is fairly predictable that he would take this view. ....
Yeah ... Lee posted that with source so that the background would be very clear  . One of our strengths here is that we can, and do, quote opinions that may differ from our own. Far better to acknowledge the presence of differing views and to offer logical discussion than prevent they don't exist. The business of lines with unbalanced ends, especially with significant traffic from a central point, iran interesting one. Do you look at the income and running costs of each section in isolation when you're doing the sums, or take a look at the whole? Away from the Borders, and away from the GW▸ area too, let's take another example of a long 'tail' - say Chester to Holyhead. Holyhead to Valley isn't all that busy; "doesn't pay for itself", and you could probably extend that to Bangor. Howerver, cut the line back to Bangor and the section from there to Chester won't pay for itself because of the traffic loss, so cut it back to Llandudno junction. Oops - without the Bangor and Holyhead traffic it doesn't pay, so cut it back to Rhyl. But ... so we go on, and before we realise it the whole line is uneconomic - an uneconomic tail may well make a body economic that otherwise wouldn't be. I do wonder if rails should still go to Ilfracombe ... And I'm so glad I live on a double ended line  |
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27353
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Journey by Journey / Heart of Wessex / Re: Avoncliff station, still a request stop?
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on: September 16, 2013, 20:33:11
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At the risk of thread drift ...
This forum is made by its members ... thank you, Godfrey Tables, For Track Now!, other gentlemen and ladies, for your contributions; it wouldn't be the same without you. I'm writing that (as I've already posted upstream in this thread) on behalf of the active admin and moderator team - and that also to add my personal "Thank You" to them - in alphabetic order: bignosemac; bobm; brucey; chris from nailsea; inspector_blakey; johoare; lee; nickf; phil; sion bretton and timmer. Thread drift? We can do a tun back onto line here, I'm sure. Did you realise that Avoncliff is a great favourite of at least two of the 'behind the counter' team ... and I can certainly envisage some Saturday or Sunday outings next year to the Cross Guns or the cafe across the canal from there. It may have become a compuslory sop for safety reasons, but the way passengers have grown it's probably not worth calling it a request stop ... every train should have people to drop off or pick up! |
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27354
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Sideshoots - associated subjects / The Lighter Side / Re: What's this?
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on: September 16, 2013, 07:40:42
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... I don't think this one is going to 'go' ... it's the promotions to encourage First bus travel to and from Bath Spa university - September is the time to catch the new undergraduates at the Fresher's fare and "just having timetables and pictures of buses isn't going to attract them". So there were First bus underpants art year, and tins of First bus baked beans this year. Who knows - in 20 years time they may be offered to dealers on "4 rooms" like a bottle of George Best wine which was on the other night (in the background, I hasten to add, while I was working on something else!)
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27355
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Journey by Journey / TransWilts line / Re: Public timetable requirements to reflect an amended service
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on: September 16, 2013, 07:29:45
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I think the first essential requirement at any station is some form of route map. I would suggest three colours for the routes: direct, one change and two changes. All intermediate stations to be shown. If a station is on a direct route but isn't served by a direct trian then it should be in one/two change coloursas applicable.
Boundaries: for Melksham I would suggest Taunton. Weymouth Southampton, Lodon Padd, Oxford Cheltenham Cardiff. All with arrows with onward destinations. Intermediate junction stations like Reading to have arrows showing Gatwick Staines etc. Yes - a route map is also needed ... another thread, I think. Again I would much prefer to stick with standard practise as it's well tested but there are several and the specific case of Melksham is odd as you say being (a) cross triangle, (b) very connection oriented and (c) with a relatively naive ridership. Now to the timetables. It seems to me there are three ways of doing this.
The old fashioned columns with all stations listed on the left and trains in their own verticle column. However, this doesn't work too well for Melksham as you are basically on the third side of a traingle with two main lines you'd have to list both main line timetables in full. Also many people dfind the full timetable hard to read. We currently have this as part of Portsmouth / Cardiff and people find it (a) hard to read and yet (b) incomplete in providing the information needed. However, it's low maintenance as no specific sheet has had to be prepared for what's been a lightly used station. The seocnd way is to list stations served and the trains that serve them giving arrival and departure times. this works well for direct services but how many stations reached by changes you need to list is an interesting one. That was the http://melksh.am/4174 experiment, and to some extent http://melksh.am/4175 - it's poor in providing the connection data but great for marketing purposes. For direct trains it's all you need but a significant proportion of journeys will involve a change. The third way we don't seem to use much is separate arrival and departure notices which list all train and the staions they serve (arrival/departure tiem in brackets by station. This might work well for Melsham with only six trains to list
You'd have on depature
06:00 Swindon (06:30) calling Chippenham (06:15)
Change Chippenham for Bath (xx:xx) Bristol TM‡ (yy:yy)
Change Chippenham and Bristol TM for staions to Weston Suer Mare and Taunton S Wales Gloucester Cheltenham Birmingham and Northwards.
Change Swindon for Didcot arrive 07:00 Reading 07:30 Paddington (07:55)
Change Swindon Didcot for Oxford (07:30)
Change Swindon Reading for stations to Gatwick Airport London Waterloo local Thames Valley stations Rail air coach Heathrow.
07:00 Westbury [or further] (07:20) calling Trowbridge (07:10)
Change Westbury for staions to Weymouth (xx:xx) Taunton(yy:yy) Reading Salisbury (zz:zz) Southamton (aa:aa)
Change Westbury Taunton station to Exeter torquay Plymouth and Penzance
Change Westbury Reading for stations to Gatwick Airport London Waterloo local Thames Valley stations Rail air coach Heathrow.
Change Westbury Salisbury Staions to Exter via Yeovil London Waterloo
Cahnge Westbury and Southampton for staions to bournmouth Potsmouth and Brighton.
Arrivals Would be
05:59 Westbury (05:39) Trowbridge (05:49)
06:59 Swindon Chippenham (06:45) mConenctions from London Paddington, Reading Didcot
Times ficticious:
Looking at the current service, this would have merit and is something we could have done ages ago. Looking forward to a future service with more trains, I suspect that the destinations are going to get lost in the text and there's no data on connectional returns. And we then start looking at the whole business of fares and which tickets are allowed by which routes. |
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27356
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Journey by Journey / TransWilts line / Re: Public timetable requirements to reflect an amended service
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on: September 15, 2013, 20:40:52
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I've had a look at it, but it's not clear to me exactly where I would need to change trains and at what times the first train arrives and the second departs.
On the inbound I would probably put the Melksham arrival time on the top
There are rather a lot of destinations. Depending on the purpose I wonder whether it would be better to focus on a smaller number? Or have two blocks, one for local destinations, and one for further afield. I'm sure in a printed format it would be much more readable than as currently shown.
As an aside, I bumped into a colleague walking to Swindon station last week, who when asked told me he commuted from Trowbridge, and came via Melksham but dog-legged back. He was absolutely thrilled when I told him that from December he probably wouldn't have to leave so early and would have a direct train back.
I've tweaked it a tiny bit and put a printable (.pdf) at http://www.wellho.net/downloads/dec13_mkm_x2.pdfInterestingly, rather than "unreadable" I got the reaction - "WOW ... all those trains?" The 17:36 back from Swindon will be very useful Now ... connection data is NOT shown - either how many changes, where etc. This sort of format strikes me as useful for showing the 'marketing' data (and clearly it has helped sell the improvement to my guinea pig!) but it needs a reference back to the ticket booking sites (which is where I scraped the data from) in order to give journey details. So as such it does not provide what people need at the station. * "Local", "Regional" and "Long Distance" blocks. Maybe ... although you'll then be tempting me to add a couple of others such as Birmingham and Manchester. * Melksham at the top on the return side? ... Maybe, or even both top and bottom - but once it's regionally split that becomes less of an issue. * Sorting into some other order? Perhaps. * Bold font for through services? What would be useful too is to highlight direct services with the times in bold, a bit like the current FGW▸ timetables.
You posted after I wrote .. yes, agreed ... great minds, etc One thought re my comment above is to perhaps have a hyper link or pop up against each time displayed so in the example I've circled the arrival time at Heathrow. By hovering the mouse or clicking on this would bring up:
Departs melksham 06:38
Arrives station a 07:00
Depart station a 07:30
Arrive station b 08:20
Depart station b 08:45
Arrive heathrow 09:10
I know nothing about programming, design or presentation though. you've probably already guessed that.
That could be a good online approach - click on a time to come up with a popup / details. There would need to be a way to print it out, and you can't have popups on posters at the station when you point at a time yet. As noted, thought needed here .. marketing approach looks (and I'm slightly surprised, so THANK YOU John R) good. |
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27358
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Journey by Journey / TransWilts line / Re: Public timetable requirements to reflect an amended service
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on: September 15, 2013, 17:46:49
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At the very least, come December, I think there is a need for a new line of route timetable for Swindon<Melksham>Westbury.
One that shows connections east and west at both ends.
Yes, there doesv- although there will be a very high proportion of people making journeys that involve changes. 4 out of 5 stations are interchanges, and both termini are major junctions. So the connections may be long-winded to show. I've had a play - for our business visitors - with what a Monday to Friday major destination sheet might look like - at http://www.wellho.net/mouth/4174_.html?pwidth=wide and I've added "trains coming back" as the bottom. This sort of thing will probably form the basis of what we sent to hotel guests and course delegates, and I hope we'll be up from 5% to 50% arriving in the town by train in 2014. Edit to add ... I will not be using the major destination sheet as drawn up - having sought local opinion it's described as "unreadable" and I need to look for alternative ways to present the information. I comfort myself with the knowledge that this was a piece of research into possible formats, and an outcome of "it is not readable" is a valuable outcome and lesson. Perhaps we're back to bignosemac's line of route? |
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27360
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Journey by Journey / Heart of Wessex / Re: Avoncliff station, still a request stop?
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on: September 15, 2013, 15:29:16
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An aside issue ... I know that some forums have rules about not linking to other forums, nor even mentioning them. We don't. There are different twitter feeds, facebook groups, and forums out there and I hope that our members feel as free to discuss what's on Railforum or Wnxx as they do to discuss what The Daily Mirror is saying about rail travel or what they see for themselves at Readng or Avoncliff.
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