Wootton Bassett station - campaign for reopening

[whole diary]

[infoman]

I do recall going to a meeting at RWB in the town in the mid 1990's?
Only thing I recall was that their were approx 100 local residents at the meeting

[grahame]

Some starter questions with 2025 comments ...

Who would use it?  Would it hurt other transport (abstract?)
Would the trains be busy enough to make it worthwhile?
What trains would call there? 
Would services be reliable and not impact reliability of expresses?
Will there be line, station and train capacity?
Where would the station be located?
How would people get to and from the station?
How would it fit with future developments in the area and services?

I would guestimate passenger numbers could reach those of the similar sized town of Bradford-on-Avon with a similar population, and with a similar frequency of service to where people really want to travel to.  That's a substantive traffic though not enough to justify such a frequent service as BoA^» (Bradford-on-Avon - next trains) has without other stations offering traffic too. So the case for adding local service is bolstered by proposals for Grove and for Corsham - also into the future there is comment about Gablecross, Christian Malford (for new community), Box and Saltford, also for expanded communities at Lacock and Holt.

Major flows
- to Swindon, but so local that it would abstract from the bus and / or people would still prefer the bus due to frequency and ability to get on and off closer to their starting and ending goal points
- to Bath and Bristol
- to major county towns of Wiltshire - Chippenham, Trowbridge, Salisbury
- to Oxford (and I note that Oxford University owns a lot of the land)
- any inbound flows?

Minimum initial service to attract people - half hourly, comprising
Hourly - Oxford to Bristol
Hourly - Swindon to beyond Westbury (Salisbury / Southampton or Yeovil / Weymouth)
As rail use continues to grow, there are extra service options that include but not exclusive to RWB

Electrification and robust timetabling is key.  Having trains that start under electric power will cut the journey time impact for each station and electrification along the entire routes described should be considered as well as at RWB.  Measures to add extra capacity to help run a robust service rather than one that's at the limit of what can be squeeze in, and can run it clockface, is encourgagre.  That includes loop platform at Chippenham, redouble or similar from Chippenham to Trowbridge, extra platform face at Westbury.

Where would the station be placed?  Ideas suggested have been on the Bath line to the West of the junction, and on the combined line on the eastern edge of the town. In railway operating terms, the latter has the advantage of being able to offer services to South Wales and perhaps a new Hullavington station in future mists, but the disadvantage that it would hit capacity and likely require loops.  To the east of the town would be a green field site suitable for a substantial station and where house are being built, to the west of the town it would be accessed from the main road on the outskirts of the town towards Lyneham, closer in but a rather more constrained site.

[Noggin]

Given the experience elsewhere in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom), I think it's fairly safe to say that "build it and they will come" applies here and that we'd see almost immediate changes in transport usage patterns as people would take advantage of the new facilities.

I'm going to be very crayonista, but given battery-electric trains (and future electrification), would a half-hourly "all stops" Swindon to Salisbury service not make sense? Wootton Bassett station would of course be horribly complicated and expensive, I suspect that Chippenham would need 4 platform faces to enable trains to pass, Westbury probably needs the missing platform face to be reinstated and in this magical world, an Abbey Wood-style Swindon East Parkway with two terminating platforms would generate significant traffic and free up capacity in Swindon station.

If we followed this logic, then a compliment would be an Oxfordshire-championed Swindon to Kidlington (or Witney if we were really enthusiastic) via Oxford service which would support a "Wantage Parkway".

I would have thought that the Bristol to Chippenham corridor would be best served by a MetroWest RER-style service, reopening St Annes, Saltford, Batheaston, Corsham etc.

I'm not convinced about Hullavington, but it would likely make sense to add an additional pair of tracks between Bristol Parkway and Chipping Sodbury, terminating a Bristol RER there in a "Yate South" station - there being a huge amount of land south of the line which could be used for housing.

It's a lot of money, but it would be transformational for the region and given much of the nonsense our cash is spent on, would it really be that much?

[eightonedee]

In response to Grahame's post, can I suggest that the flow to Reading might be more significant than that to Oxford as it is by far a larger service centre with businesses and therefore employment opportunities than Oxford, so more likely to produce commuter traffic?