South Western Railways Waterloo - Bristol services axed

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Now that GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) is responsible for the former franchise of SW[TR], is it time for them to be Great British and consider restoring the through services from London via the County Town of Wiltshire - the nearest county town to London without a through train from the capital.

[IndustryInsider]

GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) isn’t responsible for SWR^» (South Western Railway - about).  The DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) are.  And wasn’t it them that mandated their removal in the first place?

[TaplowGreen]

I think the message for this and all aspects of "renationalisation" should be "manage your expectations".

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/great-british-railways-south-western-london-waterloo-b2756798.html

[Mark A]

That'll need a return to the likes of the pre-2018 SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) culture - in those times it was meeting people's travel needs, had a healthy set of destinations, passenger numbers on the service were trending upwards, with encouragement from the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) and plans to grow the service.

Industrial relation woes, plus a change of franchise with a new MD with their heart in mass transit for big cities has left the SWR services west of Basingstoke in a curious situation and I wonder how (or if) they will be pulled together.

The road network isn't good, rail has plenty of potential and particularly to the South West there's a lot of suppressed demand, but without political pressure, will we just see the likes of 'Until the service improves we're not going to give you any breathing space to develop'? This at a time that Covid caused the service to contract along with the revenue - and at that time some of the seed corn went in the bin.

So, is there a mechanism up and running behind the scenes that takes a rail system that's essentially been nationalised for years albeit with a very curious model, can it quickly turn that into a system that's quick on its feet, hungry for growth and better able to serve people's need to travel? We'll soon find out.

Mark

[bradshaw]

If we could get a return to the NSE^▸ (Network South East) sub-divisions and give them some autonomy then there may be a chance. The WoE would look after the main line and perhaps Reading Basingstoke, along with Salisbury to Southampton. Their brief would be to develop the business, looking at other opportunities such as Bath and Bristol.
The Portsmouth Direct and Weymouth lines would return to Solent and Wessex.

[TonyK]

Now that GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) is responsible for the former franchise of SW[TR], is it time for them to be Great British and consider restoring the through services from London via the County Town of Wiltshire - the nearest county town to London without a through train from the capital.

I confess, I had to look it up, and was half-expecting it to be Melksham.

[Mark A]

To and from travelcard zones 1-6 yesterday via Salisbury yesterday. Only a few on the bus to the station, but Bath Spa in the morning peak was busier than I expected. Announced as such, in came 'The Bristolian', from Weston Super Mare, but after Bath calling at Chippenham and Swindon only, and off it went with most of the people from the up platform, after which the down platform hosted the 7:24am through train to Penzance. There were a few people for that: whether any were heading for Cornwall, who knows. Then it was time for the 07:35 for Salisbury and Portsmouth.

The journey up to London worked well for the purposes of an unexpected bit of helping with preparations for, and later attending a, funeral. I bailed at Clapham Junction, where the lift took one look at me and expired.

The return journey involved use of the 19:20 from Waterloo. Pre-covid, this was an Exeter service that detached carriages at Salisbury for Bristol. It's now the 19:20 to Yeovil Junction, that detaches carriages at Salisbury which are taken out of service.

The xx.20 departures from Waterloo follow the old pattern of arriving at Salisbury a few minutes behind the hourly Portsmouth to Bristol service, with a 50 minute wait out of those for the next - and a quicker connection out of the xx.50s from Waterloo.

Both the 19:20 and the train to Bristol were running to time, so, no fortuitous connection for Bristol at Salisbury.

Sods law then dictated that the ensuing Portsmouth to Bristol train *was* around ten minutes late, so that one by chance made for a slick Bristol connection out of the 20:20 from Waterloo - but a bit of an extended wait for me at Saiisbury, which allowed a bit of thinking time about Salisbury's rail services - the stations loos and waiting room open at that time - very few passengers making connections - & the station frontage has seen a lot of work, with a sign alerting people hoping to park that there is a new rail-dedicated overflow car park '4 minutes' along the road beneath the bridge. The buses that leave from the station for the likes of Ringwood and Bournemouth now have smart new well positioned stops and a pedestrian crossing takes people half way to a couple of pubs and restaurants :-) at least one of which has a screen with a feed of train departures for the use of passengers taking refuge while awaiting some lengthy connection or other.

It was an unusual day for ticket inspections, with SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) staff doing a ticket sweep on the way up from Salisbury, and one of those groups of four revenue security teams on the suburban train out of Clapham Junction - mine visibly caused the guy's eyes to glaze over - but the sight, as a destination, of 'Zone 1-6 travelcard' reassured him. Unusually for 22:55 at night, the barriers were in operation at Bath Spa, which seemed to be a bit of a surprise to a few. Finally, having caught the first bus of the day of Bath's 6/6a/7 route I was in time to catch the last as well.

Thinking of Salisbury, the place looks to be about 85 miles from London, the train service, half hourly, now looks to be a mixture of semi-fasts that stop at major intermediate stations, and semi-stoppers that call at all stations west of Basingstoke, both varieties take around 1 hr 30 minutes, which all feels a bit pedestrian - until you compare that with, say, Googles times for driving from central London to Salisbury, which suggest around two and a quarter hours with a dark suggestion that it's like to take rather longer. The station, the area, the businesses, mid evening, though, came across as very quiet.

Even with travel by car being point-to-point, and, considering those timings, that only a minority will be travelling from Central London to the likes of Salisbury, perhaps if rail to Salisbury feels a bit 'Legacy transport system', road travel doesn't shine brightly either. But both eclipse water transport, Salisbury's 'Canal Head' being a record of unrealised ambitions.

Mark

[grahame]

... but a bit of an extended wait for me at Salisbury, which allowed a bit of thinking time about Salisbury's rail services - the stations loos and waiting room open at that time - very few passengers making connections ...

Salisbury connections are tuned for Portsmouth and Southampton to Exeter ... usually 5 to 10 minutes, so you'll have seen people doing that getting on the train you got off - except that it's now a Yeovil train so they can't do Exeter any longer.

Noting that the Bristolian was busy in the morning.  K-chink - good income for the rail industry with displaced people who might have use the lower cost service via Salisbury before it was [vandelised?] to make it un-attaractive to the extent that south London became easier via Paddington and the tube; noting your comments previously about how hard it can be to find the lower price fares too.

"I went in and spoke with the rail minister and raised the concerns with him" said our previous MP^▸ (Member of Parliament, or Mile Post (a method of measuring the railway in miles and chains from a starting point - usually London), depending on context); she did not go on to say "we had a nice cup of tea, chatted about it, and decided to do nothing because it would blow over ..."; I have no evidence that was what followed at the meeting, which looking back was reported to me in such a way that it could have been the outcome.  Both protagonists in the meeting stood for re-election and I note that neither got in. Co-incidence I am sure.

[Mark A]

Putting to one side imagining the sort of layout Salisbury would need to allow the two trains on the two lines to each exchange a portion so that both sets of passengers on each retained their seats to all destinations... <<<c o g n i t i v e ~ h a z a r d : do not attempt to think about that.>>>

From Bath, that 07:13 might be a bit peaky for passengers needing that combination of a cheaper option, a through train, and South London. The train after nine (and designated off-peak) to Waterloo was a sweet spot though.

Something new though, bargain advance fares in the morning peak on the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway). Last time but one I checked, these were still rather aggressively priced, more than a bit 'Meh'.

More recently this has changed, the 07:13 to Paddington next Monday is currently available for £25.30, which must be close to the proportionate annual season ticket daily rate.

This is perhaps something that varies like wave heights on a beach, but that's advance fares for you.

Mark

[Mark A]

I still have a news alert set for 'Bath Waterloo train' and it's just flagged an article on the Bath Christmas market in an online publication called 'Town and Country'. Very optimistic travel times quoted 'Just over an hour from London'.

Mark

There are regular train services from London Paddington and London Waterloo that can get you to Bath in one to two hours.

[grahame]

I still have a news alert set for 'Bath Waterloo train' and it's just flagged an article on the Bath Christmas market in an online publication called 'Town and Country'. Very optimistic travel times quoted 'Just over an hour from London'.

One has to wonder if the transfer of 158s up from Devon and Cornwall to a Bristol base as the 175s come in will leave 158s rather that 165s dominant on the Bristol to Salisbury terminators.

When the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) operation is nationalised next year, perhaps that would allow the GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) BRI^» (Bristol Temple Meads - next trains)-SAL stopping service and the GBR SAL-WAT stoppers - both to be consistently 158/159 operated and perhaps timetabled such that it's the same unit going forward.