Cancellations on forgotten main line

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Cancellations to services between Southampton Central and Bristol Temple Meads

Due to a shortage of train crew between Southampton Central and Bristol Temple Meads fewer trains are able to run on all lines.

Train services running through these stations will be cancelled or delayed. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.

Customer Advice

We're sorry for the delay to your journey today. Due to a shortage of train crew, fewer trains are able to run between Southampton Central and Bristol Temple Meads via Salisbury and Westbury.

Customers are advised to seek alternative routes where available. We are requesting road transport to run between Southampton Central and Bath Spa, this has not yet been confirmed. Once this is confirmed, it is likely to be very limited.
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Customers travelling between Cardiff / Bristol and the South Coast are advised to travel via Reading using Cross Country services between Reading and Southampton Central. Tickets will be accepted on this route at no extra cost.
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South Western Railway are accepting GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) tickets at no extra cost via any reasonable route.
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For more information, please speak to a member of staff or trigger a help point located at platform level. Our social media team are also contactable on X (Twitter), via @GWRHelp between the hours of 06:00 and 23:00.

Further Information

An update will follow within the next 2 hours.

If you require further information please speak to our staff at the station or on the train, use the Customer Help Point, tweet us @GWRHelp or call National Rail Enquiries on 03457 484 950.

If you arrive at your destination 15 or more minutes late because your GWR train was delayed or cancelled, you can claim Delay Repay compensation. Please keep your ticket and visit GWR.com/DelayRepay

Last Updated:15/09/2024 15:58

Conspicuous by its absence is an explanation of why they are short or train crew

[John D]

I was looking at most recent published figures, and cancellations for group EF13 South Wales - South Coast is 13.06%

https://www.gwr.com/-/media/gwr-sc-website/files/about-gwr/what-you-can-expect/our-performance/GWR-Periodic-Web-Report-P2510.pdf

Is it just me, or is over 1 in 8 trains cancelled a pretty abysmal statistic.

Punctuality at 61.17% is not great either.

[grahame]

I was looking at most recent published figures, and cancellations for group EF13 South Wales - South Coast is 13.06%



Is it just me, or is over 1 in 8 trains cancelled a pretty abysmal statistic.

The bare answer is "yes - that is an abysmal statistic".  And yet I even question the basis of the statistic - "Lies, damed lies and statistics".

The period involved was 17 days of "normal" working, 2 days of Christmas shutdown, and 9 days during which the line was broadly split between Trowbridge and Salisbury with rail replacement buses running, with just one train on some days running from Trowbridge to Swindon (replacement bus again) and Westbury to Weymouth becoming Frome to Weymouth.

It appeared to me that the buses were  reliable to their limited timetable, and in the habit of making up time by missing out Dilton Marsh according to my contacts there - even on the thinned service.  Frome to Weymouth - supposed to be every 2 hours - looked like alternative cancellations on far too many days so it became a 4 hourly service.  And slower buses meant that for some journeys they were far from "replacements" - the dictionary say that a replacement "does something in place of something else" - which they weren't as people couldn't get to work on time [Melksham to Southampton commute]

So - some things better, some things worse and for this month a pretty useless statistic. I suspect buses do not have its timekeeping included ... and as the table is number of services, did it double or triple up when services were split?

[Clan Line]

Looking at that table makes me wonder what is classified as a fully formed train. "0.31% short formations" - pull the other one, it's got buffers on it !!  But, of course, the mathematical jigery-pokery helps by stating that the "services cancelled are excluded", so cancel all the trains = 100% fully formed ??