Advent Quiz ...

[whole diary]

[grahame]

For today's (Dec 3rd) picture, I'll take a guess at it being Bow Brickhill.

No - sorry - that isn't Bow Brickhill, which looks like this:



Bow Brickhill is on the Bletchley to Bedford line (Marston Vale) which should / will become part of East - West rail. I did some work up there a while back. This image is one I took on 9th October 2013 - and I could really have done with a better routing from Melksham than I have available to me at present!

[grahame]

Bumping today's picture as it seems to have got lost in a discussion about white vans.    We decided this was NOT Bow Brickhill, but that guess may not be all that far out.

Straightforward one today ...

[stuving]

Fenny Stratford!

[grahame]

Fenny Stratford!

Yes, it is. The first station out from Bletchley on the way towards Bedford.  There's a short single track section once the line leaves the yards at Bletchley - through Fenny Stratford and over a trunk road and (as I recall) a river before doubling up for the next station at ... Bow Brickhill.   

I stayed at The Campagnile hotel in Fenny Stratford in the autumn of 2013 and commuted to Bow Brickhill foe a week, delivering a course there at the technical centre of the Red Bull racing team. One afternoon / evening I decided to walk instead of riding the train, and I realised that this is one of those journeys where it's a blooming long way around by anything except train!    Also recall that the platform at Fenny Stratford had accesses from different roads at each end, and seemed to form a well used public footpath as well as a place to board the train.

[grahame]

[ellendune]

Thornbury?

[grahame]

Thornbury?

No, but right area ... not far away

[bobm]

Pilning

[grahame]

Pilning

Yes, it is - the village centre.   Look at Travelline and you'll be offered a variety of journeys if you want to get to Bristol - all taking somewhat longer than you might imagine if you know that the Saturdays Only train into Temple Meads takes 18 minutes.

Frankly, the train from the village centre also takes / took longer as it's a 20 minute walk to the station - with Pilning being a spread out village and the station being off the eastern end of even that.  What's a bit of a shocker is that you're taking just a few minutes shy of an hour from leaving Pilning by public road transport (at 09:13) to continuing your journey from Filton Abbey Wood (at 10:10) - the AA tells me it is 7.7 miles from Pilning to Abbey Wood.

[JayMac]

Frankly, the train from the village centre also takes / took longer

There's a train from Pilning village centre? 

Incidentally, as you can see from the journey planner, the 625 is now operated by Wessex Bristol rather than Severnside Transport.

[grahame]

There's a train from Pilning village centre? 

"Use of English" ... my full quote was:

Frankly, the train from the village centre also takes / took longer as it's a 20 minute walk to the station ...

Suggesting that it's 40 minutes from Pilning Village Centre to Temple Meads on foot and then by train.

Journey planners suggest a glorious mix of bus to Abbey Wood and walk to Severn Beach in addition to the Saturday-only train service.  It has been for many years (and remains) a spread out village with rail station(s) that would have been called "Pilning ROAD" in the past, and where access to the nearby city of Bristol by public transport is quite disproportionately slow and awkward for the distance involved.

[grahame]

Really easy one today!

[ellendune]

Chippenham

[grahame]

Chippenham

Exactly.

The longish gap in the TransWilts service in the middle of the day was initially there by common agreement as everyone wanted the daytime LSTF^▸ (Local Sustainable Transport Fund) service to be spread out from 2-hourly to be spot on for commuter to Swindon at both ends of the day (08:18 arrival; 17:36 departure).   However, with passenger numbers significantly towards the top end of initial projections (well in excess of many official suggestions, indeed),  the middle of the day gap has been plugged by a unit that used to lay over in Westbury.  Unless we changes social habits this will never be the busiest train of the day, but it does provide extra non-peak journey opportunities and helps us market other trains too as the majority of passengers on the TransWilts are making day return trips.

Regrettably, the line cannot handle a train every half hour in both directions; something to allow trains to pass each other between Chippenham and Trowbridge would be needed.  But an hourly service is practical, and proven too during TPOD and other engineering works.    Into the future, many people ask about a re-instatement of the direct line from Melksham to Bradford-on-Avon - removed in 1990.  While the service from Chippenham remains every 2 hours, or indeed every hour, diverting alternate trains via such a loop would dilute the across-Wiltshire service to the point it would loose focus and passengers, but with a service every 30 minutes, heck, Bath is the most popular place for people from Melksham to travel, and the request for journeys by public transport from Chippenham to Bradford-on-Avon is common and it's hard to know what to recommend at present.

[grahame]