Observations from a first major train journey for many months

[whole diary]

[GBM]

........
This comes from an SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) newsletter dated November 2109:

Helping keep vulnerable people safe update

Pedantic note - 'Back to the future!'
Lovely shots, thank you grahame.  A delight to read your observations as well.

[grahame]

Lessons from the day ...

* Confirming the need for flexibility in travel planning - to some extent a personal comment, but had I been forced to book specific modes and times several days ahead, it would have been a right mess because of the weather.

* Heavy staffing at stations - perhaps noted because of the light passenger loads

* Thin services and awful connections.

* Very much more a young person's travel means than I have seen before - the seniors out for the day are not out for the day

* Extraordinarily patchy loading

* Heavy freight presence

* Most people following the face mask rules on the trains; very patchy as to wearing a mask or not at stations.

* Ticket check on train just twice - between Melksham and Chippenham, and between Romsey and Salisbury.  One barrier negotiated - left station at Southampron Central where I was being collected.

Felt safe - the "biggie" is the lack of decent connections (and lack of last service into Melksham from Westbury) between thin services which discourages use, ad little or nothing out there which encourages train use as Lee describes in France.   

Reminds me a bit of the bus system - resting to a degree on its laurels and there for people who know about it and how to use it, with no thought to helping build things back up forward with just a tinge of marketing.  We know that LNER^» (London North Eastern Railway - about) are offering encouraging low price fares - come on, GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) and SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) - please provide just that bit of encouragement to give the waverers just that little bit of positive permission to use your services.

[Phantom]

Thank you for the photos, it's a bit surreal seeing people travelling by train
I used to travel 6 days a week by train, my last journey was back from Manchester Picc to Weston on Thursday 12th March

[Marlburian]

Lessons from the day ...

Felt safe - the "biggie" is the lack of decent connections ...  between thin services which discourages use ...  

That applies to me, with only an hourly service either way from Tilehurst. Over the decades I've already killed rather too much time hanging around at Reading Station with a "normal" timetable. Occasionally I used to take the train to start a walk some distance from home or even to get to an environmental task (in Twyford, for example), but as things are at present I would rather take the car (which is underused, anyway: on Monday I took an extended route for the Big Shop to keep the battery charged).

And there was I back in January muttering about the new timetable entailing Tilehurst trains waiting at Reading for eight or ten minutes ...

[Marlburian]

Next month I have to attend a funeral in Torquay. The crematorium isn't that far from Newton Abbot station and indeed 13 years ago when I had to go there for another funeral I took a bus from the station.

I see there's an hourly rail service from Reading to Newton Abbot and I can easily get to Reading from Tilehurst but I'm not sure that I could wear a mask for two hours plus in either direction and I won't be able to tell how busy the trains are likely to be. I can't say that I fancy the 160-mile drive either, though it'll be pleasant to see again the Devon countryside. Thirteen years ago, I skipped the wake but this time the widower has said that he would like me to attend, involving a drive (by taxi, were I to take the train) to the hall.

I'll probably spend at least one night down there, aiming for one of the Livermead hotels, in sight of the beach where I met the deceased 60 years ago. If it's the Livermead House Hotel, I may or may not admit to the being the little lad who left a tap running seventy years, flooding the floor ...

[Surrey 455]

I may or may not admit to the being the little lad who left a tap running seventy years, flooding the floor ...

I guess that flood is probably a large lake (or maybe ocean) if the tap is still running after 70 years 

[froome]

I may or may not admit to the being the little lad who left a tap running seventy years, flooding the floor ...

I guess that flood is probably a large lake (or maybe ocean) if the tap is still running after 70 years 

Well it is called Torbay.