Interlacing of SWR and GWR services, Westbury to Salisbury, from 2019

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From a piece I'm putting together in Wiltshire - two dates for your diaries

South Western Railway are holding a consultation about their 2019 timetable, and early discussions are underway between our TravelWatch SouthWest representative and Great Western Railway about the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) changes that will be needed in 2019 as timetables change to ensure that the local and regional trains connect well with the new long distance Intercity Express Trains.  Services between Westbury and Salisbury, with intermediate stations at Dilton Marsh and Warminster, are run by both SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) and GWR but they are limited in how much they can co-ordinate due to Competition and Merger Authority rules.   No such limitation on Community Rail Parnerships, so the TransWilts CPR (designated Swindon to Westbury) and the Three Rivers CRP^▸ (Community Rail Partnership) ( Salisbury via Southampton and Eastleigh to Romsey) are co-ordinating and looking at what an overall line timetable might look like for inputs to the two processes.

A TransWilts representative has been invited to / will be speaking at the BA13 Community Area Partnership public meeting on Thursday 16th November 2017 at 7pm at Leighton Recreation Centre, Wellhead Lane, Westbury BA13 3PT, and the Community Rail Officers of TransWilts and Three Rivers will be meeting to review the overall look of the 2019 timetable as known so far at The Old Bell in Warminster at 18:30 on Monday 20th November.  TransWilts members (and indeed others interested) very welcome to come along and join in.   Please inform our Community Rail Officer (via grahamellis@transwilts.org) if you’ll be coming along so that we have some idea of how much company we’ll have.

[JayMac]

How much can GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) commit to though? There will be an ITT^▸ (Invitation to Tender) up and running next year for the next Greater Western Franchise.

Wouldn't it be better to consult with the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) so that proposals for interlacing services are included in the ITT.

[grahame]

How much can GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) commit to though? There will be an ITT^▸ (Invitation to Tender) up and running next year for the next Greater Western Franchise.

Wouldn't it be better to consult with the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) so that proposals for interlacing services are included in the ITT.

Even better to be doing both ... 

[JayMac]

Goodo.

Dot the T's and cross your eyes... get your ducks in a row... attention to detail...

Keep up the good work grahame. 

[Timmer]

It would be good for GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) and SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) to work together to produce a timetable where you don’t have the duplicity of one train following another. That’s not going to help anyone. Surely them working on that together doesn’t fall foul Competition and Merger Authoritity rules.

[trainer]

... where you don’t have the duplicity of one train following another. That’s not going to help anyone. Surely them working on that together doesn’t fall foul Competition and Merger Authoritity rules.

I would imagine that duplicitous trains could be in trouble if they pretend to be buses.    However, duplicated train services could well be a waste of resources.

[grahame]

... where you don’t have the duplicity of one train following another. That’s not going to help anyone. Surely them working on that together doesn’t fall foul Competition and Merger Authoritity rules.

I would imagine that duplicitous trains could be in trouble if they pretend to be buses.   However, duplicated train services could well be a waste of resources.

There are significant holes, and some astonishing duplication too, on Westbury - Salisbury. Much of it dates back to ten and more years ago, to a section of line that had only a half of today's traffic and was at the tail end of services from major city groups at both head ends.    It got / gets what happened to be available at the time, with a safety net provided by the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)'s franchise SLC^▸ (Service Level Commitment) (the minimum service spec).   That safety net's a bit more of a holey string vest in this case, leaving a couple of great wheezes at the time to meet the requirement, but save rolling stock by not meeting the passenger requirement the SLC was designed to define.

Rail traffic has grown massively over the past ten years, and even where a "curious and perverse" service is provided - a quote from one of the local authorities in the area - traffic will grow to make use of that service, like plants grow in the seemingly barren desert.  Re-organisation needs to ensure that such unintended traffic is taken due care of in any shakeup, and community partnerships are well placed to point out / explain such traffic.

[Bmblbzzz]

I don't know if this is an example of what Grahame's talking about, but I noticed there's a train at 10:25 from Warminster to Westbury calling at Dilton Marsh. Doesn't seem to come from anywhere before Warminster or go to anywhere beyond Westbury, leading me to think it exists solely to meet some sort of SLC^▸ (Service Level Commitment) for trains calling at Dilton Marsh. Would that be the case?

[Timmer]

I don't know if this is an example of what Grahame's talking about, but I noticed there's a train at 10:25 from Warminster to Westbury calling at Dilton Marsh. Doesn't seem to come from anywhere before Warminster or go to anywhere beyond Westbury, leading me to think it exists solely to meet some sort of SLC^▸ (Service Level Commitment) for trains calling at Dilton Marsh. Would that be the case?

Correct.

[Adelante_CCT]

Doesn't seem to come from anywhere before Warminster

It does the opposite, 10:08 from Westbury

or go to anywhere beyond Westbury

Forms the 11:11 to Southampton.

[Bmblbzzz]

I don't know if this is an example of what Grahame's talking about, but I noticed there's a train at 10:25 from Warminster to Westbury calling at Dilton Marsh. Doesn't seem to come from anywhere before Warminster or go to anywhere beyond Westbury, leading me to think it exists solely to meet some sort of SLC^▸ (Service Level Commitment) for trains calling at Dilton Marsh. Would that be the case?

Correct.

Thanks.

Doesn't seem to come from anywhere before Warminster

It does the opposite, 10:08 from Westbury

or go to anywhere beyond Westbury

Forms the 11:11 to Southampton.

Obviously the rolling stock has to come from and go to somewhere, but as those are reverses of direction in each case, they can't really be considered the same service, which is what I was thinking about.

[grahame]

Obviously the rolling stock has to come from and go to somewhere, but as those are reverses of direction in each case, they can't really be considered the same service, which is what I was thinking about.

You have indeed started to note some of the services I was describing - and some of them are poorly used. But that may not mean that they're poorly used on other legs of their diagram;  these trains provide an interesting mix of (a) genuinely useful passenger services (b) services to meet the SLC^▸ (Service Level Commitment) (c) services to move a unit between one useful journey and another which doesn't start where the first one ended and (d) services which were there initially to meet the SLC, but have found themselves a genuine customer base.

We need to learn from existing flows and loadings, listen to aspirations, listen to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) and SWR^» (South Western Railway - about), listen to Wiltshire Council, and apply common sense.

[paul7575]

ISTM that the off pattern GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) services that only run to or from Southampton were almost redundant (at least on the section south of Salisbury) once the SWT^▸ (South West Trains) Salisbury Romsey service commenced in 2007 or whenever it was?

There must surely have been better uses for the stock elsewhere on the GWR network - eg that short working noted above from Warminster, where could it be better used if it didn't have to go to Southampton - perhaps it would fill a gap on the Westbury - Swindon route section...

Paul

[Bmblbzzz]

Or extend that Warminster–Westbury run to something a bit more useful, say to Swindon...

[grahame]

ISTM that the off pattern GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) services that only run to or from Southampton were almost redundant (at least on the section south of Salisbury) once the SWT^▸ (South West Trains) Salisbury Romsey service commenced in 2007 or whenever it was?

There must surely have been better uses for the stock elsewhere on the GWR network - eg that short working noted above from Warminster, where could it be better used if it didn't have to go to Southampton - perhaps it would fill a gap on the Westbury - Swindon route section...

Paul

Or extend that Warminster–Westbury run to something a bit more useful, say to Swindon...

A couple of fine theories ... if not quite so straightforward on the ground. Examples:

That 11:11 Westbury to Southampton local ... which follows the 11:01 Portsmouth train making one addition stop - on request at Dilton Marsh ... loads at around 50 passengers.  That's because the 06:45 from Penzance calls at Westbury at 11:05, dropping off lots of people (with lots of cases!) headed for their cruises that start later that day from Southampton.

Running Swindon - Westbury services on, in a 2 hourly cycle, to Warminster gives a turn around at the edge of the operational window - 55 minute run and 5 minutes to turn around. And as soon as you have pathing issues on any of the main lines it mixes with, you are in trouble.

Where there is a problem, there are potential solutions.