May 2023 timetable

[whole diary]

[JayMac]

Warminster's through train(s) from and to London Waterloo not (as yet) in the timetable, but that might be a Hook-related thing perhaps.

Mark

Care to share what you are smoking?!

[jamestheredengine]

Bad news: It's been decided to extend the 1548 Paddington to Swansea to Carmarthen. This hugely increases the risk of them putting half a train on the westbound departure at Cardiff at around 1740. Really not ideal – where was the consultation on such a decision? The 1618 would have been a much better candidate for turning into a Carmarthen train as it misses the South Wales peak.

Continued bad news: Once again the 1518 Paddington to Cardiff has failed to be extended to Swansea. Instead it continues to run back from Cardiff to Paddington lightly loaded to be swapped with a Bristol train that goes into North Pole depot. You have sidings at Maliphant Street too, GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway). You could even add an 11pm train from Swansea to Bristol to even things out if you ended up with too many units in Swansea – that would be useful too, especially on a Friday night.

Good news: no sign of TfW's awful consultation to trash the 0743 Swansea to Paddington (the one that actually recognizes that Cardiff has a morning peak) by putting a Swanline local service in front of it having any result at all yet. Hopefully this will be modified to the Swanline service running behind GWR.

edited by moderation team to tone down some of the wording used in original post.

[RichardB]

As Bob said earlier, don't take too seriously what appears on Realtimetrains etc for the Summer timetable now.  This evidently is the Network Rail offer and subject to a fair bit of negotiation before things are finalised.  Improvements will need to be signed off by the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about).

Still a fair bit to go before the actual May 23 timetable is known.

[grahame]

As Bob said said earlier, don't take too seriously what appears on Realtimetrains etc for the Summer timetable now.  This evidently is the Network Rail offer and subject to a fair bit of negotiation before things are finalised.  Improvements will need to be signed off by the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about).

Still a fair bit to go before the actual May 23 timetable is known.

Agreed, and on that basis my local thoughts and comments to help document where adjustments would be improvements.

The job the timetablers do is the bedrock on which the service is based, and the right service is critical to passengers. So sometimes it's tempting to get rather emotional about decisions or suggestions made, which is why the timetablers, who are really clever and well informed technically, tend to batten down the hatches and hide away from the general public.  Intemperate language does not help, nor does telling them how to do their job.  Positive suggestions - early on - as to what we would like to see are useful, as are later tweaks.  And we can all work together to tune a service that works better for everyone.

I have taken a look at the timetable for my local station - Melksham - and the service that runs through it (through passengers account for two thirds of the passengers so are absolutely key).

The Monday to Friday draft service from May 2023 has two logical chunks. 

After 08:00 in the morning, it's close to ideal; I made some suggestions a couple of weeks ago and I suspect that the great minds of GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) had already seen and bettered what my tiny mind came up with.  Congratulations to the planners - it's a service about every 2 hours, maintains the critically timed late afternoon trains, and adds in (thank goodness, at last) a late evening return service. It even manages to provide (maintain) an extra early evening service by swapping a dmu with the Stroud Valley line.  Very welcome.  One tiny request - that the 22:26 off Swindon be retimed to 22:31 to provide a connection from London; it would leave the bay platform just after the Cheltenham Train rather than 1 minute after that train arrives which would be a customer service disaster that *might* connect. I see no pathing problem by holding back and indeed 2 minutes of pathing could be saved. Whatever, it would be a couple of minutes later into Westbury, but it sits there anyway for a few minutes before being shunted away for the night.  A few minute later into Westbury also REMOVES the temptation of people trying to bolt across to the Frome train that leaves at exactly the same time - another potential customer service PR^▸ (Public Relations) disaster saved.  (Or run the train from Swindon on to Frome rather than the train from Cardiff??)

Before 08:00 in the morning, the proposal is a disaster.   There are no trains AT ALL. The 05:33, 07:21 and 07:53 to Swindon are lost, as is the 06:36 to Westbury and Southampton.  First arrival into Swindon goes from 05:59 to 08:32!! That will kill a lot of the morning trade, be a really big hardship to people, and kill the afternoon and evening trade too because people make round trips still.  I can see why it is done operationally - it saves a train.  There is no train at Westbury until an arrival from Filton Abbey Wood which then turns around to go up to Swindon.

So - what would I suggest.  Firstly, that the 06:51 Westbury to Weymouth starts back from Swindon at 06:08, restoring the 06:36 at 06:33. Giving connections from Melksham at Trowbridge to Bristol and at Westbury towards London and providing onward service that has irritatingly been missed for years to the Heart of Wessex.  In the up direction, 05:17 off Westbury as at present.  I did look at running it at 05:45 and turning it at Chippenham, but it would conflict with a freight and/or have to come in there just AFTER a Swindon and London train had left.

Secondly, I would suggest that the 07:28 arrival from Filton heads out to Swindon at 07:35 - the time of the train at present - calling Melksham 07:51 and arriving Swindon 08:17.  Not ideal, but the extra quarter of an hour would make a massive difference to an awful lot of very frequent / daily users.   Ideal would be another 10 or 15 minutes earlier, but I can't see that without interfering with services on other lines and I'm going to leave GWR (pretty please) to look at that.

The Saturday service - at first glance - looks excellent. Through train to and from Weymouth, down in the morning and back in the evening and (praise be!) something northbound after 18:35 at long last. Please may that last at 21:17 from Westbury at least run all year.  There is a reduction of two round trips, but they are the ones that would have been lost in my suggestion and on experience are sensible changes that will make the service more robust

The Sunday service looks good for the most part with the first southbound service connecting to Portsmouth, to Penzance and to Weymouth. The wait of 1 hour at Westbury on the return trip from Weymouth, somewhat less from Plymouth and from Portsmouth, are unfortunate but not new, and this could only be shortened by a few minutes as the train used has been shuttling up and down with limited turn arounds prior to that. Earlier return trains from Weymouth also have significant waits.

The elephant in the room is the question "Will this run reliably" ... and it has a better chance, I think, than some of the current services!  A lot of that is down to GWR actually providing the staff an not stealing them off for other services, having enough of them, and having them not withdraw their labour in a continued industrial dispute.

I am burning the midnight oil (or 3 a.m. oil) to write this; I will check in the light of day and if it my initial thoughts don't change, pass on my suggestions.

P.S. The  Monday to Friday morning service does not even meet that latest service level commitment, so something needs to be adjusted, doesn't it?. Or do we need to do an FOI^▸ (Freedom of Information) to find out if that's been rewritten without consultation?

[brooklea]

[/i]=1675287273]
As Bob said said earlier, don't take too seriously what appears on Realtimetrains etc for the Summer timetable now.  This evidently is the Network Rail offer and subject to a fair bit of negotiation before things are finalised.  Improvements will need to be signed off by the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about).

Still a fair bit to go before the actual May 23 timetable is known.

Before 08:00 in the morning, the proposal is a disaster.   There are no trains AT ALL. The 05:33, 07:21 and 07:53 to Swindon are lost, as is the 06:36 to Westbury and Southampton.  First arrival into Swindon goes from 05:59 to 08:32!! That will kill a lot of the morning trade, be a really big hardship to people, and kill the afternoon and evening trade too because people make round trips still.  I can see why it is done operationally - it saves a train.  There is no train at Westbury until an arrival from Filton Abbey Wood which then turns around to go up to Swindon.

Two observations;

1. The 06:36 still runs to Westbury and Southampton, but starts back from Gloucester, as it used to a few years ago,

2. The 05:24 Westbury to Salisbury still runs, and then shunts to clear the platform at Salisbury - it currently goes on to form the 06:35 to Cheltenham Spa via Melksham (07:21), but I see nothing to show what happens with it next in these proposals - it could well be that it will still form that service, but perhaps there is an issue to resolve in the timings for that train?

So maybe a little unfair to describe it as a “disaster” just yet?

[grahame]

[/i]=1675287273]
As Bob said said earlier, don't take too seriously what appears on Realtimetrains etc for the Summer timetable now.  This evidently is the Network Rail offer and subject to a fair bit of negotiation before things are finalised.  Improvements will need to be signed off by the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about).

Still a fair bit to go before the actual May 23 timetable is known.

Before 08:00 in the morning, the proposal is a disaster.   There are no trains AT ALL. The 05:33, 07:21 and 07:53 to Swindon are lost, as is the 06:36 to Westbury and Southampton.  First arrival into Swindon goes from 05:59 to 08:32!! That will kill a lot of the morning trade, be a really big hardship to people, and kill the afternoon and evening trade too because people make round trips still.  I can see why it is done operationally - it saves a train.  There is no train at Westbury until an arrival from Filton Abbey Wood which then turns around to go up to Swindon.

Two observations;

1. The 06:36 still runs to Westbury and Southampton, but starts back from Gloucester, as it used to a few years ago,

2. The 05:24 Westbury to Salisbury still runs, and then shunts to clear the platform at Salisbury - it currently goes on to form the 06:35 to Cheltenham Spa via Melksham (07:21), but I see nothing to show what happens with it next in these proposals - it could well be that it will still form that service, but perhaps there is an issue to resolve in the timings for that train?

So maybe a little unfair to describe it as a “disaster” just yet?

Overnight, the 06:36 has re-appeared ... and if the Salisbury to Cheltenham Spa service also re-appears with a call at 07:21 (plus or minus a few minutes) then that's "job done".

As published yesterday, it was a disaster and it remains close to that with just a southbound service at 06:36 restored. With the key peak train back at 07:21, that will change the whole thing.

As per BobM and RichardB - there are elements here which are not yet fixed.  And so this is an excellent opportunity to help GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) and the DfT realise where final "adjustments" are needed from a local / passenger viewpoint, as well as from an operational perspective.

Edit / Stop Press - a phone call just taken suggests that the further tuning is taking place, with final stuff supposedly in place by a week on Monday.  Past experience tells me to carry on documenting changes; in past iterations, things have moved from "please let us get on with this" to "you're too late - should have been raised earlier" which was a less that effective route to getting the right service!

[Gordon the Blue Engine]

Turning to the Thames Valley, the semi-fast Padd – Didcot services are shown as non-stop ML Padd – Slough (or at least Dolphin Junction) and vv as expected.  However, they sit at Reading for up to 14 minutes which makes them largely useless for through journeys between local stations west of Reading and Paddington and vv. 

I realise that GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have to accept that on the RL's between Didcot and Reading there’s a free for all between out-of-path freights and their trains, and that a long layover at Reading on the up at least gives the possibility of punctual departures towards London.  But I’ve said many times before the solution is for NR^» (Network Rail - home page) to sort out the UR and DR between Reading and Didcot.  Not straightforward of course, as the XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise))’s and freights use bits of other busy lines across the network.

[IndustryInsider]

As published yesterday, it was a disaster and it remains close to that with just a southbound service at 06:36 restored. With the key peak train back at 07:21, that will change the whole thing.

It wasn't 'published' yesterday, was it?  Or as well as the information on RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) did you also get some official information from GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)?

[grahame]

As published yesterday, it was a disaster and it remains close to that with just a southbound service at 06:36 restored. With the key peak train back at 07:21, that will change the whole thing.

It wasn't 'published' yesterday, was it?  Or as well as the information on RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) did you also get some official information from GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)?

You're correct - it was not "published" by some definitions of that word.  It became available in public.

Publishing can include the following - from Webster's Dictionary

to produce or release for distribution.

and the data has indeed been released to the industry engines for distribution.

[IndustryInsider]

You're correct - it was not "published" by some definitions of that word.  It became available in public.

Good.  That's reassuring then, given there's plenty of time for those missing services to appear until it is released officially...and we should all know by now how flaky data that far in advance on RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) is.  Though of course that means there's plenty of time for the additional services you've mentioned to disappear. 

[bobm]

Overnight, the 06:36 has re-appeared

Interesting note on the 06:36 on RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website)

Seating: first & standard between Gloucester and Swindon, standard only from Swindon

[TJ]

I notice that both the 05:44 and 20:28 from Exeter SD to Exmouth are shown as running but the respective return services are not.

Service cuts or not?

[grahame]

On the Swindon - Westbury service, I have posted more specifics in Frequent Posters to get some views from established members, and friends on Facebook can get at it on my page here.

[CyclingSid]

Slough stops removed from Cotswold/fast Oxford services

At Slough today, fencing is up on platforms 2 & 3 ready for the timetable change.

[Ralph Ayres]

Slough stops removed from Cotswold/fast Oxford services

At Slough today, fencing is up on platforms 2 & 3 ready for the timetable change.

I can remember when real Inter-City trains called at Slough, which was really useful as among other things it's a focal point for local bus services (albeit with a temporarily messy drop-off thanks to the hideous new bus station catching fire). It seems we now have to trek out to Reading and change to pick up anything even vaguely long-distance.