From the evening of 24th December for 30 days, "Westbury" will be closed for engineering works including track renewals.  Early notice of this was broken to attendees at the community briefing by GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) on 14th March 2024, and it generated great interest and questions from the audience.   As it's early notice, plans are liable to amendemnt but ...

1. Warminster, Frome and Trowbridge will be used as railheads with buses between and service starting onwards from there.  In particular, I asked about Trowbridge where the sigalling does not allow for train reversal at the station.  I was reassured that both services to Bath and Bristol, and to Swindon, will operate from Trowbridge though their times may vary from the normal timetable.

2. I am unclear whether the Westbury avoiding line is also closed; I would imagine not, so that trains to the South West are not diverted via Bristol and so that freight from the quarries is not stopped for the month

3. I understand the opportunity is NOT being taken to make passive provision (let alone re-instate) the fourth platform at Westbury.  The fourth platform is something, GWR told us, they would like but would be a separate project at a later date.

4. Ticket acceptance for journeys from Bath and north west thereof to south east of Romsey via Reading was request and "yes in principle" but that was a hesitatent yes and so we should wait and see.

Given the regular problems at Westbury North, Heywood Road and Hawkeridge - many of them reported on here - something needs to be done.  Apparently 30 point "ends" will be worked on during the month.  It was a little unclear if the station will be closed in all directions all the time during the works or whether there will be disruption on different routes at different times.

Yep, you could characterise that as 10 days over the holiday season and then 20 days when the people and daily flows are back.

I was unclear at the meeting as to whether the main line via the Westbury Avoider will be closed or not, and that would make a huge difference.  I suspect the people at the meeting are just learning into this too; the question WAS asked in passing but I don't think there was an answer.  If I was GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), I would characterise the comments on Westbury as an early information piece to help prepare friends in the community and to pick up what were going to be the element GWR have to "sell" rather than any detail as yet.  The big thing they have to sell (in my mind) is that they are not taking the opportunity to do any "platform 4" work - even passive provision.  That's sad because when they do that work it will be another significant possession and further penalty payments / compensation paid within the industry; it make no sense to me NOT to be thinking about the 4th platform.

If, given the lead time, even passive provision for Westbury's platform 4 would fit with Labour's Louise Haigh's 'Move fast and fix things' mantra, it would be worth someone getting it on the table for consideration.

Mark

Is Trowbridge station not bi-directional on the route to Westbury?

Thanks Grahame for the info,

can I just clarify that you can come off the Melksham branch and do a cross over to the Bath Spa bound platform at Trowbridge?

Thanks again Grahame for the info.

In this day and safety age,the railway don't want to train crew walking the rail lines.

Also it can be difficult for the driver to walk back through the train if its packed OR its two separate units.

So... the work involved in making passive provision to return that Westbury platform to use... what might that involve and are there varying degrees of what might be done? At the least, if the winter 2024-25 work will be making it more difficult, it may be possible at this stage to at least avoid *that* outcome.

Mark