Yes, it took a long time to get it up too.   But I have an update - a very short time after it was put up, Jim, it was covered over with another poster and indeed it was in that state over the weekend.  I have made further input and just been informed that it should not get covered over again (so I'm guessing that it's visible again now ... I need to check!)

Looking at the online timetables / booking for June, it looks like the Summer Sunday service is as follows:

From Westbury at 09:00, 14:15 and 18:30
Returning from Weymouith at 16:15, 18:00 and 20:03

The return timings look sensible - 3 trains at 2 hour intervals to bring back people out for the day.  But there's a potential problem with the morning train in that it starts from Westbury - as far as I can tell - before any connecting services get there.

These were JUNE dates I looked at (17th) , by the way, as the system only goes 3 months ahead.

The boards elsewhere on this forum relate to existing services and their use and improvement.  But there are also a number of other outstanding campaigns around that would fall logically into the Greater Western franchise / area if provided by / operated by a main franchise.    Some are very likely and realistic candidates, others are longer term or less probable.

Please feel free to start threads here for other campaigns.  And if you're a campaign organiser and feel that you've got enough web / forum traffic to justify your own board, please let me know.

Here are some current campaigns ... anyone / everyone welcome to post up a new thread with introductions and links to them.

Corsham (station on Swindon - Bath - Bristol line)

Portishead (to Bristol)

Tavistock (to Pylmouth)

Radstock (to Frome and beyond)

Henbury Loop (North Bristol)

Thornbury (North Bristol)

Oxford to Bletchley / Milton Keynes

By the way - as well as thsi discussion board, we providing a "front page" at

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/corsham.html

I have admired Anne Lock's campaign for a new station for Corsham since I got involved with the the railway business last year (TransWilts line / Save the Train).  Anne has been at it for much longer and, but for a cruel twist, would now be using the train from Corsham whenver she needed to visit Bath, Swindon or London.

Recent developments give certain new hopes to Anne's campaign - and the many others involved - and I'm happy to be providing a little information here, and a discussion board, so that they can use this electronic medium too.

No - I think the statistic includes "going up in flames" as a failure 

Jim is referring to the work over the next week or so which closes all lines through Basingstoke.  On the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) side, that "bustitute"s the Reading to Basingstoke service, the impact is more severe for Virgin Cross Country, and even more severe for South West Trains.

Recent work at Portsmouth - where the bold decision was taken to close the who rail operation for a short sharp shock - has seriously overrun and it's been a long, sharp, aggrevating shock.

Excellent ... I wonder how this evening's 17:21 from Weymouth will be ...

When I last did "stats" a few days ago, we were at 10% cancellations over the previous week, with the remaining traisn typically being a few minutes late.  The one train I went for (06:44 the other morning) was 15 late and would have missed my ongoing plans ... so I aborted the trip.

The trains are quiet ... but the timing is all wrong.   See the front page of "Save the Train"

http://www.savethetrain.org.uk

It's been adopted / is tended by three members of the Melksham Rail Development Group ... complete with saftey briefings and high-visibility jackets.  The big problem with the flowerbeds is that there's no water tap on site and the team has carried the water in.   We all wish that extending the adoption could help us extend the services but I think that requires action from others too.

My post seems to have been mis-understood on several counts (email and here).   I'm not suggesting that the Looe line would of could be strengthened to the same extent as St Ives, nor that the St Ives doesn't need 4 coaches - it utterly DOES in the summer, I understand.

I contended that summer strengthening is need down in Cornwall, and also elsewhere - Weymouth comes to mind.  I was asking if there were enough extra resources being generated by maintainance being deferred to cover the whole seasonal extra need.

I understand that the above are not exactly isolated incidents - the operation hasn't been as smooth over the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) territory as it might this weekend so far.   But it's hard - so hard - for me to judge whether that's a change from previous years, or simply the fact that with forums like this, and the internet, you and I can read a lot more news of when things don't work perfectly.

An interesting comment from the FGW representative at the RailFuture meeting in Bristol yesterday. "It gets harder and harder each year to find extra trains to cover the summer peak, and this year we'll be delaying the refurbishement program we had planned until after the summer to make stock available".    He also confirmed 51 sets needed to run all diagrams, 69 currently on the fleet, and 12 of those to go to Northern Rail later in the year.   A higher proportion of units than should be are currently out of service - but with the loss of 12 things would be tight even if the out-of-service issue was fixed.  "4 or 5 of the units being lost will need to be replaced".

I understand that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) are planning to stregthen the Cornish branch lines this summer by deferring refurbishment work on units until after the height of summer - allowing (for example) a 4 car train rather than a single coach on the St Ives line.  I'm not sure if those extra resources are all being put into Cornwall where the local authorities seem to work well with First, or whether some will make it onto the Weymouth line which runs through areas such as Wiltshire, where the County Council seems to be more interested in building new roads that using the rail resources it's already got.

It seems that First Great Western are running some of their services with insufficient capacity to cope with the traffic offered this weekend; I have no yardstick with which to measure just what proportion of service are effected, but I am aware of:

* Road coaches used to carry passengers who wanted to catch the 17:21 out of Wesymouth on Friday, but couldn't get on.

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/info/218_Strengthening_of_Weymouth_Trains.html

* Also on Friday , chaos on the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) main line to the West of England.  "The 10:05 Paddington to Penzance was about 25 late away from Paddington after removing 200 or so passengers due to 'severe overcrowding'.  The train was some 40 late by Par and missed its Newquay connection leaving around 140 passengers to use alternative road transport"

My correspondent suggests that the number of passengers offered were no higher than a normal Good Friday, and wonders how the 153 running on the Newquay branch would have coped if the connection HAD made.

* Severe Overcrowding from West Wiltshire in to Bath on Saturday morning - passengers being denied access from sucessive trains in some cases.

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/overcrowded.html

* Passengers from Bath denied access to Porsmouth bound services on Saturday evening due to severe overcrowding.

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/overcrowdedtoo.html


I ask the question "Worse than before" in my title.  I was a traveller on two of the services reported, and I believe that 3 rather that 2 car trains would have sorted out the situation enough so that everyone who wanted to travel could have done so. With 2 x 2 car trains on each service, the journey would have been tolerably comfortable.

I'm "bumping up" this thread ... and posting an advert for you, CJ, to your recent blog entries.

http://firstgreatwestern.blogspot.com/

Neither FGW^▸ (First Great Western), nor the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about), (nor in Wiltshire, my part of the world the county council's decvision makers who are the local transport authority) come out smelling of roses, but I do have to agree with you that FGW get a whole load of criticism for things that are outside their control.  They also get rightful blame for some things that are in their control or reponsibility, and for things which were in their control when they submitted their bid for the franchise.

Truely, the real 'blame' can be placed - if we need to place blame - on elements of the system. There are many good people at Wiltshire County Council, the DfT and First who are doing their best with the system and what they've got. Alas, there are also people at each place who are all too ready to use the confusion of the system to pass the buck - to divert attenstion from themselves - or to use the system to the disadvantage of the traveller or wannabe traveller.