Is the train empty?

[whole diary]

[Bmblbzzz]

On Friday I took the 12:49 from Temple Meads to Waterloo. The departures board said it would leave from Platform 12, with another SWT^▸ (South West Trains) terminating in P11 shortly before; presumably that would form the slightly later service to Portsmouth. So I waited on P12. The terminator terminated and then there was an announcement: the Waterloo train would now depart from P11. Sure enough, the train there now had London Waterloo displayed on its destination board (very useful thing which would be even more useful if by the doors as well!) so I and the other waiting passengers boarded. We sat for a while and nothing happened, which was expected as it was still early. Then I noticed the doors were locked. That's odd. Then the driver came through (I think he'd been taking advantage of the break to use the toilet) and checked we were on the right train. "She can't have checked the train was empty," he said when I pointed out the locked doors, "she" being the conductor (guard? whatever the term is). Not really a problem, just a slight oddity, but it must have been a bit strange for anyone arriving on the platform to see people on the train but the doors locked!

[JayMac]

The other SWT^▸ (South West Trains) terminating would have been a GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) service in SWT clothing I suspect. A hired in unit. SWT don't serve Portsmouth from Bristol TM^‡(resolve).

[grahame]

I'm not sure I read that to say there were two trains there.  SWT^▸ (South West Trains) sometimes come into one of the double-numbered platforms (such as 11/12) ... drop off an pull out to park up for staff break, then pull back in to original platform prior to departure.  Looks like some people boarded when it arrived??

[Bmblbzzz]

There was only one train. It was in 11. The board said this would terminate, while the Waterloo train would leave from 12, so two separate trains. In fact the terminator formed the Waterloo train, departing from 11. This was announced as a platform alteration and on the train's own display, so we boarded. The driver and guard were wearing SWT^▸ (South West Trains) uniforms; would that be the case if GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) had hired in a train? And would they hire a train for one service and the same train and crew then go on immediately to form a SWT service? Seems unlikely to me but I don't know. I think the destination of the other train, that the driver checked we were not going to, might have been Brighton not Portsmouth.

Anyway, the journey was very pleasant except for a rather tardy trolley and doesn't Clapham Junction have a lot of platforms (but apart from that it's rather disappointing for such an iconic station)!

[JayMac]

with another SWT^▸ (South West Trains) terminating in P11 shortly before; presumably that would form the slightly later service to Portsmouth.

Still can't get my head round this bit.

[ChrisB]

I was about to report a sighting of a SWT^▸ (South West Trains) 158 in the sidings at Cheltenham as I passed yesterday at teatime, but as discussed here, it was probably the SWT stock that GWT has on hire.Did look very out of place!

[grahame]

I was about to report a sighting of a SWT^▸ (South West Trains) 158 in the sidings at Cheltenham as I passed yesterday at teatime, but as discussed here, it was probably the SWT stock that GWT has on hire.Did look very out of place!

5 days a week (Monday to Friday)
09:06 to 09:18
12:47 to 13:18
16:47 to 17:40

Yes - it's the daily hire / buy-in unit.  It will be interesting to see if whether that buy-in continues now that a train or two has been released from "The Beach" or if one of the release trains takes over this diagram rather than strengthening other services.

[Bmblbzzz]

with another SWT^▸ (South West Trains) terminating in P11 shortly before; presumably that would form the slightly later service to Portsmouth.

Still can't get my head round this bit.

That was the next train scheduled to leave from P11 and the one the driver checked we were not meant to be on when he came round (either Portsmouth or Brighton, can't remember now – have a feeling platform display mentioned Portsmouth but driver said Brighton).

[stuving]

I could try to "do a Sherlock" on the evidence in this thread; there's nothing so reliable you can "eliminate[d] all which is impossible", but some things are better than others.

RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) is reliable for the timings of trains that run, and for which train is which except in rare cases. It says that last Friday the SWT^▸ (South West Trains) arrived at 12:20, 15 minutes late. RTT also gives us the timetabled moves, saying this train sits in P12 while two GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) "diagonal" services reverse in P11. The first of these (12:22 Portsmouth) was swapped to P9 last Friday to accommodate the late SWT service; the second was the 12:39 to Brighton which left at 12:41, and is shown as from P11.

AIUI^▸ (as I understand it), RTT is told which platforms a train should go into, but rarely gets told what really happened. For the split-numbered platforms at BRI^» (Bristol Temple Meads - next trains) the scope for confusion is even greater. So RTT shows the last planned platform in bold if the train is confirmed as having run. Also, RTT can only show services or movements that appear in a timetable of some kind, so a last-minute change that doesn't even get into the STP is just not visible.

Some SWT trains get sent out of P11/12 to lurk for a while before coming back to depart. That frees up another through platform, for example for an XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) train. It looks to me as if Friday's plan was changed, late on, so the 12:05 would do that, hence it is shown as arriving in P11 not P12. If it then came back after the Brighton train had left, it could depart from P11.

I'm sure Bmblbzzz is correct about it being P11, but was it really the incoming SWT from Waterloo/Salisbury, or could it have been delurking from Bristol West Junction (which is where RTT says they go)? In which case did the driver think you had been locked in the train for the 15-20 minutes it was lurking outside BRI? As to why the guard unlocked and then relocked the doors, I've no idea (and the driver didn't notice). 

Finally, since the preceding train in P11 was the GWR one to Brighton, and before that there's usually another to Portsmouth, was it really advertised as SWT? How accurate is Bmblbzzz's memory for such things?