GWR have now uploaded period 03 performance figures

Cancellations are even worse than previous period in some areas
EF03 London-Cotswolds 10.38% cancelled
EF10 Bristol suburban 9.11% cancelled
EF13 South Wales - South Coast 11.3% cancelled

https://www.gwr.com/-/media/gwr-sc-website/files/publications/performance-report/gwr-performance-report-period-2703.pdf

If anyone commutes 5 days we're week (2 return journeys) then statistically going to have about 1 of their 10 journeys cancelled (1 in 9 for EF13).   
Nowhere near good enough in my opinion.

 
Yet another one - from the BBC:

 
Delays to services between Reading and Oxford via Didcot Parkway

Following a points failure at Didcot Parkway all lines are now open. Disruption is expected until 20:00 15/07.

Train services between Reading and Oxford via Didcot Parkway are returning to normal but some services have been delayed.

 
Railway related school memories. The Shoreham (Sussex) toll bridge, have never found out why railway staff collected the tolls (same at Hayling Island). Once again the smell of creosote on a wooden bridge in summer. Closely connected to the Shoreham to Christ's Hospital branch, in its last throes. The Beeding cement works up the valley and the geology connected with, good for the chalk with clay coming by underground pipeline from Henfield (?).

Doing my cadet force Cert T at Longmoor Military Railway. A week "playing" with signal boxes (and levers), ground frames, loose shunting in the marshalling yard (the shunting pole was some way taller than me) and driving a small diesel engine on a non-passenger service. And more, a week of bliss, as said I hate to think of the elf and safety paperwork now, even if we had the infrastructure.

 

Which we are not allowed to do now. Especially with swine flu on the continent.

 

Sounds like you had a great teacher there

We had Mr Lessware, who was ex-RAF.  He'd been in Bomber Command in WWII and beyond that he told us nothing.  I later learned that he was awarded a DFC

As befits a pilot, he took us boys to somewhere up above Wotton-under-EDge and we had the most fantastic day out on gliders.  The gliders were launched skywards on a winch.  Yours truly enjoyed a couple of flights and a lot of tractor driving to recover the tow rope.  Different times.  I can't even begin to imagine the amount of paper that would be generated by such an excursion today

If you had a go at the level crossing gates at Ashton Gate as a schoolboy, failure would not be a surprise.  If memory serves, the gates were quite long and would have been heavy to swing.  And, for a youngster, the levers in the frame, whatever the colour, would have been a bit heavy, I'm sure

 
Useful to compare and contrast with Leven, Tweedbank. Both terminus stations, lengthy island platforms with two faces.

At Tweedbank, there's the issue, when it's time to do so, of how to take the railway onward through the (virtual) fourth wall. Portishead's unlikely to see an extension but it is certainly going to have a wall. How much of the forthcoming structure will need to go in the bin in the unthinkable situation that demand outstrips supply sufficient for the station to need a second platform is anyone's guess.

Mark

 
I don’t remember any mention of passive provision for additional platforms at either station. Pill will have an old ‘spare’ platform on the Portbury branch, but a new set of points would be needed at the Portishead end to allow trains to access it.

Interestingly the latest animated renderings show the line being served by 2-car Class 165’s - there’s ambitious for you!

You can see the renderings at source here: https://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/first-look-at-new-portishead-and-pill-stations-as-railway-restoration-progresses

 

Stapleton Road is likely to become increasingly important as an interchange, both to/from the Severn Beach line but also for Abbeywood/Brabazon services. I’m not sure that parking is likely to be a factor.

 

Thank you - so is there passive provision for second platforms at Pill and Portishead or are we going to be stuck with a single platform when it inevitably turns into a roaring success and a higher frequency of service is needed?

 
"Direct flows": what a revealing way to present the gains - and stands the argument "This is a duplicate service between Bristol / Bath and London" on its head, lays it on a stretcher, and carries it out of the room.

Mark

 
Many thanks for doing that Chris B.

 

Sorry - my (coding) bad - it was expanding the MKM and DMH abbreviations within the URLs. Fixed.

 
I can see John D's link, but as said, grahame's links not visible.

 
and someone adds


No and yes - the overcrowding is from West Wiltshire into Bath and Bristol at present. The trains that terminate at Salisbury from Bristol are much less heavily loaded as they get further from Bristol and this is an opportunity to help even out loads. Likewise, the Salisbury to London services that start at Salisbury start quieter and are picking up people all the way. So the though trains extra passengers would be biased towards the quieter section of the line.

Having said that, we were promised 5 carriage trains as routine on the Cardiff to Portsmouth service preCovid but they typically run with just 3 carriages (sometimes 2 or 4, very occasionally 5) these days even though traffic levels are back to where they were. There will be an element of relief once the Cordoba (175) fleet is properly in service in Devon and Cornwall and allows some 158 units of the type pictured to be transferred up to Bristol - but this is NOT part of the timetable update request, and we are being careful to ask for something reasonable and achievable in its own right and under the guidelines of it being a timetable change.

 
In response to a number of follow ups on Faceplant saying "they're not going to give you more trains ...."

Read my lips - NO MORE TRAINS.  Sorry to shout, but I have read so many social media posts in the last fortnight telling me that asking GBR|SW for more trains in their timetable review is unlikely to be delivered.   WE ARE NOT ASKING FOR MORE TRAINS - we are asking for existing trains to be retimed and joined up to make a better network product. It seems I have not got this message across; we know this is a timetable review and not an investment plan.

Current:
Bristol to Salisbury - 12 stations = 66 direct station to station flows each way
Salisbury to Waterloo - 9 stations = 35 direct flows (not CLJ to WAT as CLJ is set down / pick up only)
Total - 101 direct flows

Proposed:
Bristol to Waterloo - 20 stations = 189 direct flows each way (still not between CLJ and WAT)

I grant you that many flows (both current and future) are thin but look at some of the direct service gains:
* Basingstoke - that hidden hive of industry half way to London - gets direct Bath and Bristol trains
* Trowbridge and Bradford-on-Avon get direct trains to London
* Oldfield Park gets trains to Clapham Junction and Waterloo - great for student population from south of The Thames

It stikes me that this change of timetables is a once-in-a-decade opportunity to join things up into a network for the passengers, and bring us the gain from nationalisation as we move away from competitive fiefdoms which caused friction and poor service provision across regional territories.  A win-win chance.

Carla Denya, Dan Norris, Wera Hobhouse, Anna Sabine, Brian Mathew, Andrew Murrison, Caroline Noakes, Kit Malthouse, Luke Murphy, Will Forster, Marsha De Cordova and Florence Eshalomi - please take note; this will provide residents and businesses around stations in YOUR constituency with better travel options.

Pictures - current express Sprinter trains along the line.  Different paint jobs, maybe

 
Getting 'not found' pages for both those links

 
Don't know about other stations but at Chippenham in my experience they generally leave the barriers open at the top of the west bridge stairs when an IET arrives to avoid hold-ups.

 
Interesting ... and that's the first full weekday of the Nationalised Great Western operation.   There is sense in calling at some of the lesser served stations such as Stapleton Road ...

Looking at other services for the new timetable I note: DMH MKM WVS

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/gb-nr:DMH/2026-12-14/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt - a failure to address the peak gap that was been created at Dilton Marsh last December

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/gb-nr:MKM/2026-12-14/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt - and no significant changes at Melksham (weekend services look unchanged too).

Bristol to Oxford remains every 2 hours

12 trains from Westbury (and mostly from beyond there) terminating at Salisbury, and 11 trains starting at Salisbury and running to / via Westbury
Early days, of course ...

 
https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/railway-fare-evaders-face-a-tougher-challenge-with-new-design-ticket-barriers-91093/ popped up on one of my news feeds.

I don't recall having seen this posted elsewhere on this forum - if that is not the case feel free to make use of the delete key.

Not that long ago, in a thread about fare evasion from memory, I suggested that the style of gates used on the Paris Metro should be used in the UK. Looking at the images in the IV article these new gates do appear to be a significant improvement on what we currently have.

 
Real time trains has some new services (some are extensions of services to/from south west Wales to Cardiff) running through to Bristol from December 2026 timetable

Example Fishguard to Bristol
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:L00529/2026-12-14/detailed

Looks like they will be worked by class 197 DMUs

In England looks like like stations served are Filton Abbey Wood, Stapleton Road and Bristol Temple Meads.   
Slightly intrigued by including Stapleton Road, but it is fairly east to park for free nearby so maybe it is for people travelling to Cardiff who object to paying for parking

I think this is first phase of proposed services calling at some new stations (usually referred to as Burns stations) along South Wales main line.

There is a rumour that rail growth in Wales will mean additional new trains will be ordered, so possibly bi-modes will get ordered for Burns station services

 
Not quite schooldays but near enough. One of my main reasons for choosing Geography and History as my principal and subsidiary subjects in 1972 at Worcester College of Education was the time we spent out the lecture room on field trips. It was thumbs down for doing fieldwork for  one of our lecturers on Bredon Hill,measuring the angle of poles stuck in the ground measuring soil creep......but it was thumbs up for visiting the very early Ironbridge museums,Black Country musuem at Dudley and the 2 Saxon churches at Deerhurst near Tewkesury.
In the 50 years since  I have travelled across most of Europe,giving thanks for the geography and history, that enabled me to see how they interrelated. This culminsted in the holiday of a lifetime earlier this year,when I visited Sicily..a literal melting pot of geology geomorphology and different invaders who all keft their marks on the island eg A Spanish facade on an Arabic temple on Syracuse Cathedral and trips up Etna and viewing Stromboli.

 
We are a very odd forum / place ... every digit in this report is odd ...

Of course, if we were in base 8 (and most of our trains have 8 wheels per carriage) the number would be 1332325 which is not as odd.

I - remember - numbers by patterns. My new passport, 9 digit number, is 2 x 3 digit train classes and the number of the oil exploration contract I worked on in 1972 in my pre-Uni job, and from which I gained an understanding of some geology and rock behaviour and formations which was fascinating but really doesn't have much practical application these days. 

This morning, our Friends of Melksham Assembly Hall Facebook Group has attracted its 500th member ... a numeric milestone which I will probably comment on there ...

P.S. The very act of posting this is going to break the pattern. Never mind - we look forward here!  Just over 26,000 more posts and we'll be all evened out for a while.

 
For me it began with a lifetime of experience - all six years of them - and a small pale blue bicycle with white rubber tyres. Destination of choice was a level crossing on the old Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway at Brownedge Crossing, near Bamber Bridge, south of Preston about half a mile away - this was the mid-sixties - a different planet, I know.

The roadway of the crossing was creosoted timbers that exuded a wonderful smell in the warm summers of my childhood, white gates, and sweet music of the telegraph bells coming from the adjacent signalbox. Black Fives - I was hooked.

Fifty years later I became a signalman, and S&T volunteer, on the Chinnor and Princes Risborough Railway, and relived my childhood dream.

 
With thanks for your update post, ChrisB, I have now added DfTO to our Coffee Shop forum 'abbreviations and acronyms' page. 

 
There was a slide shown at the Stakeholders conference recently that referred to a DfTO stock replacement Policy being formed for later 2026/7 to run in the 2030s outside the ROSCOS

 

 
Yellow card to TG, for mentioning barbeque anywhere other than on 'the lighter side'.