The evening train that turns around at Southampton

[whole diary]

[grahame]

I'm taking a look at / learning about some of the passenger flows south of Westbury, and wonder if any members have any experience / comment about the end of the diagram by the SWT^▸ (South West Trains) "spot hire" 158 that forms the 17:39 Cheltenham Spa / 18:52 Swindon via the TransWilts to Southampton.

The train leaves Salisbury at 20:14 and gets to Southampton at 20:48, returning from there at 21:20, 21:51 at Salisbury and 22:26 at Westbury, where it attaches to the 23:00 South West Trains service to Salisbury, arriving there at 23:35 and shunting onto the depot at 00:08 to 00:18

Frankly, I've no experience in using this train once it's south of Warminster at 19:50 and (dangerously) reading the timetables it looks like a bit of an oddball.  From Salisbury to Southampton there are trains at 19:56, this one at 20:14, and anther at 20:32 - looks generous for the evening.   Coming back, there are services at 21:10, this one at 21:20, and 21:37 to Salisbury - again, looks very generous.   

North of Salisbury, it DOES cut a gap in Westbury arrivals from 82 to 65 minutes in what's an hourly service during the day, and it does provide a northbound service at Dilton Marsh cutting the 20:05 to 23:24 gap by calling there at 22:19.  But wouldn't it be better to put in the DMH^» (Dilton Marsh - next trains) call in trains passing there northbound at 21:08, 21:22 or 22:06 as that would even out the service, and provide journey opportunities beyond Westbury for anyone returning after an evening in Westbury Leigh!

Experience / thoughts, anyone.  What have I missed, if anything?

[Network SouthEast]

The train is fairly lightly used south of Westbury for the reasons you mention.

In the past the train was ran with a Fratton crew from Westbury to Southampton on the way down and a Westbury crew on the way back. Today however, the train has a Westbury crew in both directions.

I suppose as the train originates from Cheltenham, it provides a handy through service.

Did this train ever stop at Dean or Dunbridge in the Wessex Trains days? If it did, that may well explain how it came in to being.

[grahame]

Did this train ever stop at Dean or Dunbridge in the Wessex Trains days? If it did, that may well explain how it came in to being.

That's interesting feedback; I'm seeing no "smoking gun" as we have for the apparently-absurd 11:11 Westbury to Southampton (10 minutes behind the 11:01 and with just one extra stop) - the smoking gun being the large number of connecting passengers arriving into Westbury from the South West at about 11:04.

In the 2002 / 2003 timetable, the southbound train ran at 17:52 rather than 18:52 from Swindon and it was the main evening commuter TransWilts service.   And it called at Dean at 19:23 and Dunbridge at 19:29, reaching Southampton via Eastleigh and Southampton Airport at 19:58. It carried on at 20:00 (to Swindon at 21:53) NOT calling Dean or Dunbridge, but it did stop at Dilton Marsh.

From December 2006, the train ran an hour later with the withdrawal from service of the unit that had been running it, being formed instead (as it is these days) of the 17:40 from Cheltenham Spa, and running direct from Romsey to Southampton rather than via Southampton Airport.  It paused for 10 minutes (in olden and current times) at Westbury to provide a connection from passengers arriving from Bristol and Bath on a Westbury-terminating local service - I suspect primarily for Warminster and Salisbury commuters; I don't know what loadings were like south of Salisbury in those days either.

Passenger numbers from Swindon to Melksham / Trowbridge / Westbury plunged at December 2006 as the 18:44 departure for a homeward return commute was too late - especially as the remaining matching up service arrived at 07:48 into Swindon - but that's not the story I'm looking at here and I've told it before.

Back to Dunbridge / Dean.    The 20:00 off Southampton (now 21:20) didn't call at Dunbridge / Dean (see above) - but the 20:09 (a Portsmouth - Cardiff train) did. On the other hand, the Portsmouth - Cardiff missed out Dilton Marsh.  The Swindon end of the service was very quiet, and the final run - the 22:01 Swindon to Westbury was quite quiet too but provided a useful end-of-day fallback for commuters late back from work.   At present, the 21:44 HST^▸ (High Speed Train) from Swindon, connecting into the 234 bus at Chippenham which accepts rail tickets, provides for this flow and combines bus / train passengers to ensure there's at least one public transport service in the late evening on that corridor.

I don't know where I'm going with this thread - except that I'm in a learning process to help being well informed for future changes. I know the "why" for most of the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) extras south of Salisbury, but this one has puzzled me. But then by 20:14 in the evening, there's no great stock shortage and no other burning flow it could mop up if it did something else.   In current times, a late TransWilts run would be better resources via an extra run of the 'local' 153 - and please note this should not be read as a proposal nor as a word against any such proposal. Another definite "don't know" within research and learning.

Network SouthEast - many thanks for helping in this understanding; inevitably there will be changes / knock ons "all the way to Brighton" when timetables of long distance expresses change with GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) electrification, and it's good for those of us up in Wilts to be aware of the wider picture as we listen to proposals and perhaps provide tuning feedback.

[John R]

 In current times, a late TransWilts run would be better resources via an extra run of the 'local' 153 - and please note this should not be read as a proposal nor as a word against any such proposal. Another definite "don't know" within research and learning.

At the risk of digressing, I've been wondering about the viability of such a service. With volumes on the current last service picking up, is it time to consider a further service leaving Swindon around 2200. It would provide a much better late connection from London (and other places east of Swindon), make an evening out in Swindon viable, and on the few occasions each year when Swindon Town have an evening kick off enable fans to travel by train.

[grahame]

 In current times, a late TransWilts run would be better resources via an extra run of the 'local' 153 - and please note this should not be read as a proposal nor as a word against any such proposal. Another definite "don't know" within research and learning.

At the risk of digressing, I've been wondering about the viability of such a service. With volumes on the current last service picking up, is it time to consider a further service leaving Swindon around 2200. It would provide a much better late connection from London (and other places east of Swindon), make an evening out in Swindon viable, and on the few occasions each year when Swindon Town have an evening kick off enable fans to travel by train.

If we digress too far, I can split the thread.

The 20:55 arrival from Swindon at Westbury has to clear quickly as the following trains call shortly thereafter and there's a platforming issue if it were to stay in station and anything got delayed by even a few minutes.
- 21:00 Cardiff - Portsmouth
- 21:04 Exeter - Paddington
- 21:06 Paddington - Plymouth
- 21:09 Portsmouth - Cardiff

I did note an arrival at 21:12 of a terminating train from Frome and wondered about that running on to Swindon until I realised that this is an HST^▸ (High Speed Train)!!   So in reality, probably a shunt and a departure for Swindon at around 21:15, getting to Swindon at 22:04 - onward connection to London is poor - not until 22:31. 

The logical return from Swindon is either at 22:27 (connection off 22:19 arrival from Paddington for Swansea) or at 23:00 (connection off 22:48 arrival from Paddington for Exeter). Some interesting goings-on in the bay platform at Swindon at around that time - even if it could be scheduled to put 2 in then 2 out, I suspect the closeness of the arrivals and departures would lead to stacking order problems. But for a 22:04 to 22:27 turn around, there's enough flexibility in case of delays and platform 3 would be clear, I think.  In some ways that's the better of the two in my mind - in other ways 23:00 is better as it's a later opportunity, doesn't clash with the bus, and offers a good Bristol / Bath to Melksham connection which the 22:27 does not.   In any case, academic IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion), as the logical best time to bring this in is at the start of new electric train schedules, and at that point just about everything changes.

P.S. Should an extra TransWilts run at this late point, it reaches Westbury after the last connections to anywhere (except the 00:08 to Frome) have gone - the 22:27 rather irritatingly just a few minutes after the last Salisbury

[Adelante_CCT]

I did note an arrival at 21:12 of a terminating train from Frome and wondered about that running on to Swindon until I realised that this is an HST^▸ (High Speed Train)!! 

 

No, this is a 15X unit, formed from the 18:41 from Gloucester. The 20:26 arrival at Westbury is the HST.

[grahame]

I did note an arrival at 21:12 of a terminating train from Frome and wondered about that running on to Swindon until I realised that this is an HST^▸ (High Speed Train)!! 

 
No, this is a 15X unit, formed from the 18:41 from Gloucester. The 20:26 arrival at Westbury is the HST.

So it is - I clearly need to learn to read more carefully.

In which case, my academic only exercise may suggest it carrying on to Swindon and back.