Rail Replacement - 25 minute journey becomes 118 minutes

[whole diary]

[grahame]

"Normal" Sunday - i.e. Sunday when trains are running ...
15:28 Swindon to 15:53 Melksham (or 17:52 Swindon to 18:17 Melksham) - 25 minutes

This Sunday according to the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) journey planner
16:30 Swindon to 18:27 Melksham (or 18:30 Swindon to 20:28 Melksham) - 118 minutes



Ouch. Talk about a disconnected connection.

A contact of mine has flagged this up.   He has checked back with GWR on social media who have confirmed it, with a series of standard paragraphs.   Sad


And yet ... real time trains shows a 17:30 bus into Chippenham at 18:05, and 18:07 departures of buses from Chippenham to both Westbury and Bath Spa.   It looks like it's designed as a connection there, it smells like it's supposed to work - but the journey planner and GWR tell us to spend an hour in Chippenham.

Looks like a connection, smells like a connection but we've told you twice - it is NOT a connection!!!!

[eightonedee]

Perhaps they are influenced by the "minimum connection time" rule they apply when running trains. Even so, surely someone would have the initiative to delay the onward 18-07 service a few minutes to eliminate or reduce the risk of a connection being missed due to a short delay to the incoming service, and give a less inadequate replacement for the train.

[Surrey 455]

I had something similar last Sunday. The first picture is of the normal Sunday journey times from Leatherhead to Bookham, a direct train with no other stations in between.

The second is of the rail replacement service during engineering work that day. I did not make that journey, I chose to walk instead. I estimate I could have walked between those stations and back again in the time it took the rail replacement services. I still do not know if that was an error or if SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) really did schedule multiple replacement buses running in one direction only.

[Surrey 455]

I had something similar last Sunday. The first picture is of the normal Sunday journey times from Leatherhead to Bookham, a direct train with no other stations in between.

The second is of the rail replacement service during engineering work that day. I did not make that journey, I chose to walk instead. I estimate I could have walked between those stations and back again in the time it took the rail replacement services. I still do not know if that was an error or if SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) really did schedule multiple replacement buses running in one direction only.

[rogerw]

Trans Wilts rail replacement not working too well at mid day today.  I ended up on the 1250 ex Westbury which left 16 minutes late following the 25 minute late arrival of the inbound service, which thus missed all onward connections