It's nice to read just a little more (and it is slightly thin) about the man.  And they chose a day he visited Swindon.  Just a short ride would have brought him on to Melksham, but I notice there weren't any trains at all on that line during the time he was around.

The "North Downs Line" was originally a far-flung offshoot of the South Eastern and Chatham railway who provided services in the Kent and East Sussex areas up to London, with a straggly branch to Reading.   There were through services from London Bridge to Reading via Redhill, notable in that they headed out of London in an Easterly direction to end up, eventually, out to the West.

When I was brought up in Kent in the 1960s, the service was an hourly one provided by 3 coach demu units from Tonbridge to Reading with a reversal at Redhill .. the trains being notable in that 2 coaches were the old narrow Hasings line stock and the third coach was an "EPB" driver.  Very Heath Robinson, but a great fun journey on the rare occasions ....

What proportion of users on this line stay on the train all the way to Gatwick?

How do you compare ticket prices for two different pieces of public transport?  The usual measure is cost (pence) per mile, and I've just been looking at single tickets from Bristol to Paddington for 20th March.  I was offered a baffling 16 different fares on the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) web site, ranging from 10 pounds to 104 pounds - thats from a good value 10p per mile up to an amazing 104 pence per mile.  The best value "book on the day" ticket was 48p per mile, or 62.5p per mile if I wanted the flexibility to use any train.

Quoting First Great Western, "Our HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train (Inter City class 43 125 units)) are the roomiest of the long distance fleets. We don't accept we are cramming people on to our trains ... We are certainly not offering the budget airline pitch".  True, but they're not offering budget airline prices either.   Easy Jet are offering Bristol to Venice on 20th March for 27.99 - that's 3.5p per mile.    I tell you - if First were to offer a coach on each train with budget airlline pitch and a 3.50 Bristol to London fare, I'll bet they would have it packed out.

15:00 London Paddington to Weston-super-Mare due 17:15
This train has been revised. It will no longer call at: Chippenham and Bath Spa.

15:00 London Paddington to Weston-super-Mare due 17:15
This train has been revised. It will no longer call at: Reading and Didcot Parkway.

So that's London - Swindon - Bristol.   I was wondering if it was trying to make up time but even with the stops removed, the service started 22 late and got to Bristol 30 late.  Perhaps running on a single power car?

Jim, looks like the meeting could be pivotal ... would be great if you can get along, and we're helping to make arrangements to make sure that everyone can get home afterwards or stay in Melksham.

The through service from Bristol to Oxford was withdrawn about 3 or 4 years ago because (it was said) of line conjestion in the Bath / Bristol area.   Always a popular service, it's now a nightmare journey from Bath to Oxford, for example ... not only with a change and poor connections at Didicot, but also a change at Swindon somethimes due to some of the odd Didicot stopping patterns.

Me thinks that with some thinning out of the Bath to Bristol services that occurred last December there might be room to restore the service?  And perhaps give some respite / extra service to Keynsham and Oldfield Park and allow the Corsham station plans to be dusted off.

Not my line .. dangerous to speculate.  And thoughts / comments, anyone?

And didn't I see that the up morning train was cancelled the following day?

I think that First did carry out extensive consultations with passengers and user groups.

The SRA^» (Strategic Rail Authority - about) specification that was made from April to June 2005 and although it was technically sent out to consultation it went out only to groups with prior interests and not to individual railways customers; the result (and you can see it was planned to be such from some FOI^▸ (Freedom of Information) revelations) was only a tiny number of responses.

The result of this minimal consultation and a lot of other matters going on at the time was a draft timetable for the new francise that I heard one well-respected commentator describe as "not fit for purpose".   And so First undertook what they desribed as the "biggest consultation of its type ever" and, yes, it probably was.  Why did they do it?   Perhaps in an attempt to shift blame away from themselves.   And some excellent changes did get made.

However ... there was a long way to go from "not fit for purpose" through to "good", and a variety of limitations - some goverment based, some from First's accountants no doubt, some because their first commitment is to shareholder, meant that in many cases the very act of consulting was as far as it went.  In the case of the line I use (TransWilts), for example, requests for the one remaining morning train to be moved a little later, and for the one remaining evening train to be moved a little later were, I'm sure read ... but the outcome was the opposite.

This seems to have happened wit a few trains recently - a wheeze through which a train that's late from it station of origina can be on time at destination, perhaps, or some other reason?

The Department for Transport publishes an annula survey of transport trends.  Here's the figures published today (15 Feb 2007) dated 2006 and using 2005 as "last year".

The Government has a target to reduce overcrowding on London commuter services by 2010.  Overcrowding during the morning and evening peaks is monitored, in terms of Passengers In  Excess of Capacity (PIXC). This is the proportion of passengers on trains in excess of the seat  capacity for longer distance services, and with an allowance for standing passengers on shorter  journeys of less than 20 minutes. There are limits on the level of acceptable PIXC at 4.5 per cent  on one peak and 3.0 per cent across both peaks. The train operating companies conduct an      annual autumn count.

The PIXC measure fell in the early 1990s but increased from 1996, particularly in the morning  peak. In 2000 and 2001, the am peak figure exceeded 4.5 per cent but has since fallen. In 2005,   the excess was 4.0 in the morning peak and 1.6 in the evening peak - an average of 2.9 across  both peaks. The greatest overcrowding occurs in the morning peaks, and the highest levels of  overcrowding in 2005 were in trains by South West Trains at 6.2 per cent, First Great Western  Link and Thameslink, both at 5.6 per cent. Silverlink trains in the evening peak were at a level  of 5.8 per cent.  Last year, Southern had the highest level over overcrowding at 7.8 per cent in  the morning peak.

The average age of rail rolling stock is seen as an indicator of safety, reliability and comfort. Since 2000/01 the average age of national rail rolling stock has fallen steadily for long distance operators. For operators in London and the South East there was a gradual fall between 2000/01 and 2003/04, followed by a fall of about 20 per cent in each of 2004/05 and  2005/06. The average age for regional operators has shown little change.

DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) Transport trends - published today. My highlighting.

I understand that the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) long distance fleet is the oldest in the country with an average age of around 25 years.  Some new trains (the Adalente units) were obtained a whil eback, but these are to be returned in December.  There are no plans to replace the trains in the next 10 years.   It follows that the fleet on FGW will on average get 1 year older each year until 2016, after a substantially higher average aging this year.

I take it, then, that the DfT expects service to get less safe, less comfortable and less reliable? (But gosh I do like the 125s!)

Industry insiders have commented that they would be worried if this work was NOT being done as it would be leading to a running down of the line and making for less future reliability and a worse medium term prognosis.

There seems to be a lot of this around at the moment.  What's going on?

1. Are the operations staff more prone to be sick at the moment because, let's face it, it can't be fun having less happy passengers complaining at worse timetables, higher fares and unreliable services?

2. There are fewer relief staff available to cover for sickness - services are being run without the backup that was previosuly available to render them reliable?

3. Is it simply that we're seeing these report more in the electronic age and there were always issues such as this and at the same level too?

4. Are safety or operations practices leading to a less reliable service (I saw a quote - NOT St Ives - about a service that was delayed due to staff no longer staying away at the far end of a line overnight, and then having taxi problems getting to the train left unattended to start it up in the early hours)

The movement from a long distance railway company, operating services which a huge number of people use very occasionally, into a company that gets a steadily higher proportion of its income from medium distance passengers - commuters from Newbury, Swindon, even Bristol into London has lead to the use of carriages which have more seats each (and also more room for standing) and also the withdrawal of buffet car facilities.   So we see an increase in seats but a decrease in carriages, and a decrease in the space and comfort and facilities offered to each passenger.