Bath to Bridgnorth and back 2/1/23

Plenty of food for thought yesterday on a day trip to Bridgnorth. The trains very quiet apart from one. ~~Much ado about ticketing so it's useful to know that there's an off peak day return valid to Worcester from Bath at morning peak times.~~ Ah, I tell a lie, I'm sure this used to be the case and it's changed, but hey, yesterday was a bank holiday.

Bridgnorth: busy. The funicular is closed for the duration though - they're dealing with an unstable retaining wall that's the property of a neighbour, though they hope to resolve this by April.

The return was complicated. I'd allowed 25 minutes for the connection at Kidderminster, and the post-WW2 rail system in the form of the Severn Valley Railway delivered me back to Kidderminster precisely half an hour late, their service having an issue with the vacuum brakes on the stock. This defect offered fireworks, as the loco crew attempted to fight it from a series of standing starts in the wrong places. I was five carriages back from the loco and the sky was raining little gold speckles, so, while it was a monday, it wouldn't have been a good day to have the washing on the line there. The train finally offered a good view of the departing West Midlands connection from the SVR service, stalled once again 20 feet off the platform end.

This then meant no through train at Worcester Foregate Street back to Bath. At 5pm the ticket window there was still staffed (just) - staff helpfully found a connection but involving a 50 minutes wait - and via Worcestershire Parkway - that involved a train that for some reason wasn't listed on Realtime Trains - a 'Double voyager' Crosscountry service from Edinburgh to Plymouth. My day return ticket was valid via that route, and I must check if that offers any opportunities on the outward journey, though I suspect that Parkway doesn't see any Crosscountry services at a suitably early time.

A 50 minute wait at Foregate Street, no real threat but the atmosphere might have been a bit edgy for some Worcester Women - with three grown men outside being revolting, three in the station being loud and two at platform level, one of who was not handling well the fact that his trophy dog was tucking into what he was saying was pigeon poo. I think the animal was just helpfully cleaning the entire area beneath a six foot bench. Also, it's always surprising how many edgy ten to twelve year olds are hanging about on the streets of Worcester at any time of day or night - I've a fond memory from a sunny morning 40 years back of chatting with a group by the cut while minding the boat: one had a party trick in that he was able to evert his upper eyelids and they'd stay that way.

Worcestershire Parkway, at night, has the vibes of an enormous glass-and-stainless-steel VR model of a station suspended in a vacuum. Excluding myself, just one passsenger left the London train and the station, and just two arrived to join the Crosscountry service.

Is it surprising that railway civil engineering is loth to excavate through an embankment - there are various examples of stations that if this approach were taken would be far more low profile and Worcestershire Parkway is one of them.

The Crosscountry train arrived, probably 90% full throughout, booked to call at Gloucester, and for some reason, before Cheltenham, the crew announced that they needed to detach one set of the Voyager pair and leave it behind, instructing passengers, who were luckily for the most part young, agile, travelling alone, to join the remaining four carriages that were already pretty fully occupied.

Seeing the packed train, I bailed on it, found that my day return ticket was valid via Swindon, looked for the GWR^▸ train to London, and finally found the IEP^▸ that was waiting in the unfeasably far distance at the head of the other platform. This resulted in a gentle climb of the Stroud Valley past the lights from house windows in Chalford followed by a gallop downslope and across the gravel into the clay, and then a half hour connection at Swindon - further oppportunity to enjoy that automated stair safety announcement on platform 4.

Thoughts on lots of things, one being the ticketing structure.

Bath to Kidderminster's priced (unattractively) by Crosscountry. Bristol services in the direction of Worcester are weak, underused, provisioned by the monstrous 166s, but they are to be found and they do take you there. Not so easy to get back, and certainly not on a pre-strike bank holiday.

GWR's ticketing will take you as far Worcester (and on to Malvern too) and is far more affordable. ~~They also offer off-peak tickets in the morning peak, which is how it's been suggested that railways regain passengers during the covid pandemic - so GWR are ahead of the curve here.~~ Ah, this easement (did it exist, am I imagining it?) has vanished, as has the easement for the 06:46 from Bath to Swansea - and of course the long-standing off-peak easement on the Paddington - Penzance train calling at Bath at 9;57 - that's gone too, along with the entire train.

So, if someone in Bath is looking for a day out with several destinations, and to see a bit of the country, and it's the weekend (but not Sunday, because no through trains on Sundays) buy a ticket to Malvern, use it early in the day - and then the return journey, starting from Bath is valid via the Stroud Valley stations but also I think Hereford, so perhaps that off peak day return ticket can be put on record for the variety of destination cities and towns on offer - as well as this it also offers an affordable if slow* route, via a split ticket at Worcester, into the entire West Midlands conurbation.

But, there's a spectre. Should the current government provoke a hard cut to the railway system, one option is to turn the dial back to the services that ran in the 1980s, in which case Worcester would still have services via Droitwich and Kings Norton, but the route to Kidderminster might see only one or two trains, and just in the morning and evening peaks - with the entire route via Kidderminster into Birmingham trimmed back to hourly or worse and also closed on Sundays, and for all I know the GWR through service to Worcester from Bristol would evaporate completely. We must hope for better times (and act to bring them about...)

Mark