Misery for Plymouth/Cornwall passengers in early 2009

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

Hi, Naz Nomad, and a warm welcome to the Coffee Shop forum, this wet weekend!

I'm not able to answer your question myself - but we do have a number of members (passengers and FGW^▸ (First Great Western) staff!) who are familiar with your planned route, so I'm sure they'll be able to help!

[devon_metro]

According to the National Rail Enquires:

There are no engineering works for First Great Western on Sunday, 15 March 2009

There are no engineering works for First Great Western on Saturday, 21 March 2009

[Timmer]

FGW^▸ (First Great Western) should be posting up the new Winter timetables starting December 14th anytime now on their website. Whether or not the timetable booklet for Devon and Cornwall includes weekend timetables showing services operating during the weekends when the engineering is taking place between Exeter-Plymouth we shall have to wait and see. Sometimes they do...sometimes they don't.

[Naz Nomad]

Thanks guys. I'll keep an eye on that. If any of you get any further info please let me know in case i miss it !!

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

as for the suitcases the new hst's are struggling with passengers! i had to stand up and when i say stand up there was no standing room i was in the connecting corridoor between coaches not i dont use this service normally and due to diversions it didnt call at tiverton taunton bridgewater or bristol so um caugh caugh whats this train normally like??? and you cant say its passengers from the swt service as there was one of those 15 mins before and it left nearly empty

[Timmer]

as for the suitcases the new hst's are struggling with passengers! i had to stand up and when i say stand up there was no standing room i was in the connecting corridoor between coaches not i dont use this service normally and due to diversions it didnt call at tiverton taunton bridgewater or bristol so um caugh caugh whats this train normally like??? and you cant say its passengers from the swt service as there was one of those 15 mins before and it left nearly empty

Very busy at the best of times when services aren't being diverted via Yeovil and running on their normal route. When they are diverted via Yeovil, due to single line working between Castle Cary-Yeovil-Exeter, FGW^▸ (First Great Western) can't run to the same normal frequency timetable so what trains they are able to run direct from the South West to London and vice versa are pretty much rammed with every available space taken as you experienced today and best avoided if you possibly can unless you can book in advance and reserve a seat...thats if you can actually get to it of course!

[woody]

When the additional passing loop at Axminster is installed for the new hourly SWT^▸ (South West Trains) Waterloo/Exeter service from December 2009 timetable will FGW^▸ (First Great Western) be able to operate an hourly service in these circumstances.

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

i think the forgotten passing loop at honiton has been neglected this weekend, to be fair it would have been very hard to timetable and im presuming impossible otherwise it would have been used?

i think the easyest thing to do this weekend would have been to swap the fgw hst's for 158's and run the fgw and swt serviced coupled together until yeovil then do a split, is this a silly idea (i know fleet redeployment on this scale for such a short period may be silly but hey its me!)

[devon_metro]

i think the forgotten passing loop at honiton has been neglected this weekend, to be fair it would have been very hard to timetable and im presuming impossible otherwise it would have been used?

i think the easyest thing to do this weekend would have been to swap the fgw hst's for 158's and run the fgw and swt serviced coupled together until yeovil then do a split, is this a silly idea (i know fleet redeployment on this scale for such a short period may be silly but hey its me!)

HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) cant couple to 159s for a start and SWT^▸ (South West Trains) have to run a service besides FGW^▸ (First Great Western) so couldnt just loan the whole 159 fleet

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

i think the forgotten passing loop at honiton has been neglected this weekend, to be fair it would have been very hard to timetable and im presuming impossible otherwise it would have been used?

i think the easyest thing to do this weekend would have been to swap the fgw hst's for 158's and run the fgw and swt serviced coupled together until yeovil then do a split, is this a silly idea (i know fleet redeployment on this scale for such a short period may be silly but hey its me!)

HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) cant couple to 159s for a start and SWT^▸ (South West Trains) have to run a service besides FGW^▸ (First Great Western) so couldnt just loan the whole 159 fleet

no sorry dm thats why i said swap the fleet around for a few days fgw have 158'8 and they couple to 159's

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

no comment?

[John R]

I think you answered your own question in the original post, and that's why no-one is bothering to respond further. The logistics of such an exercise would be enormous and not worth the effort.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Not misery, but some concern over fare increases at Plymouth: see the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) News video report, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7742380.stm

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

I think you answered your own question in the original post, and that's why no-one is bothering to respond further. The logistics of such an exercise would be enormous and not worth the effort.

lalalalala