Longer trains - official?

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) travel updates at https://www.gwr.com/travel-updates/live-network-updates/disruption-information

Train Maintenance

We’re extremely sorry that some of our trains have been running with fewer carriages than normal in the Bristol area, Exeter area, and the South Wales-South Coast corridor.

The fleet is undergoing heavy maintenance, including installation of universal access toilets and other on-board customer improvements.

From Monday 3 July, we’ll start running 3 carriage "Turbo" trains on the Severn Beach line, enabling us to add more carriages to the busiest trains on other routes.

The Swindon to Westbury service is the fastest growing in the area (has been for several years) but certain trains are now so crowded that new users are being discouraged from using the services. When you routinely get over 100 passengers on a single carriage train, and have to start shouting down the carriage to get more people on, you're getting pretty close to the limit.   When the previous train is 2.5 hours earlier, and the next train over an hour later, people can't easily move to another service for their journey.

On the TransWilts, we have 2 peak arrivals into Swindon - at around 07:50 (2 cars) and 08:20 (1 car), but only one peak train back - at 17:36, and it's just one car.    True, the 15:12 (that's the previous train) also loads very well, but in essence the 17:36 is the only peak service.

At Melksham, with no alternative train service, a veritable scrum already leaves the 17:36.  With George Ward Gardens - a new development just a few hundred yards from the station - receiving its first new residents, building starting for 250 new homes on Pathfinder Way, and 450 more homes due to start just off Snowberry Lane, the town's welcoming several thousand new residents in the next year or so.  These are almost all family rather than retirement homes (we have those coming additionally) so that's a good commuter flow, and I would expect to see the passenger journey numbers at the station increasing from the 3,000 per annum it was when I was first involved through the current 60,000 to over 150,000 in coming years - that's assuming that the long-promised capacity materialises soon, before the train gets a "too busy to use" reputation.

Actually we're looking to help GWR fill its new trains quickly ... see http://mbug.uk ... looking at a connecting bus off most trains up to and including that 17:36 from Swindon.  It's joined up thinking - and I'm thinking I may be telling you that the 17:36 is full and standing this time next year - even thigh it has gone up to two carriages.  Of course, the longer platform at Melksham should be with us by the - that's up to three carriages ;-) ...

[John R]

Fingers crossed the TW is the first to benefit from the cascade.

I would have thought that it will take some time for a 2 car unit to become uncomfortably crushed, particularly if it is a Class 150 rather than a 158.  A 153 is very inefficient for space, with two cabs per car, rather than one per car, and similarly a toilet per car rather than an average of half. That means the single car unit has a lot less standing room.

However, if there is already some suppressed demand due to overcrowding that is suddenly released then I could be proved wrong!

[simonw]

This is very good news. Lets hope two/three other services also get replacement "Turbo" trains so that man more services can benefit across the whole region.