The Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway was staging a weekend, and making a lovely job of it.

Despite Sunday travel... well, it wouldn't be correct to say that everything hung together, but, for the fit, the day worked out. It's generated a bit of admin, which I am part-way through.

The GWSR is somewhat remote from public transport* and I have to say I've never seen so many fences jumped by members of the public at Cheltenham Racecourse. Appropriate in a way but hardly accessible.

There's a bit of a mystery, for an off-peak day return BTH - CNM, whether the routing still allows travel via Swindon as well as Bristol. The National Rail site has become sniffy about that. (In the event, returning via Swindon wasn't needed, but it very nearly was...)

Mark

*Public transport and the GWSR are actually much closer than they were a few years ago as the even-on-Sundays very regular bus serving Bishops Cleeve passes their racecourse station, but there's no stop there, hence the admin. For good measure, Google Maps has the GWSR station down as 'Cheltenham Spa', and has the same for the national rail station in town - which can cause confusion with searches...

 
A curiosity from the day - as my final GWSR train left Broadway for Cheltenham just a few minutes late, the 10:30am Crosscountry service that I'd travelled on earlier in the day from Bristol was arriving into... Edinburgh, itself just a few minutes late.

Mark

 
OK... more admin on yesterday's outing.

Just one of GWSR's stations sees a 7 days per week bus service: that's Cheltenham Racecourse Station as it's passed by Stagecoach's Bishops Cleeve bus from Cheltenham Spa station, which even has a 20 minute interval service on winter Sundays.

But... the racecourse station isn't actually served by that bus, the nearest bus stops being half a mile up the road or half a mile down.

A bit of digging: the A435 Evesham Road that passes the site: major works are about to start, the entire stretch being shifted slightly away from the station side, eliminating the pavement along the far side of the road. This makes space on the side by the station for a separate pavement and cycle path - the 'Gloucestershire cycling spine' that runs for some way across the county.

Something I'm hoping for but not yet seeing in the illustration linked below: bus stops to allow the 3 times per hour bus that passes the site to connect one of the county's major visitor attractions with Cheltenham Spa railway station.



I asked the railway, the organisation *has* made representations on their needs, but sound as though they aren't sure if anyone went into listening mode.

I've now asked Gloucestershire's transport major projects, and also Stagecoach, the same thing...

Mark

(Edited to swap out that painfully eyewateringly large image...)

 
Picture is too mahoosive to view on mobile device.

 
Oops, accidentally linked to their image which is a ten megabyte jpeg the size of a tennis court, here's a reduced version.

Mark

 
If work has started I assume it's too late to respond to any consultation.  I've contacted Gloucs CC in the past about the lack of bus stops, being a GWSR shareholder and occasional visitor, but never had a reply.  I have a vague memory of also contacting Stagecoach, who I seem to recall said they would love to serve the station but the council wouldn't approve a stop there. I've always assumed it was due to some concern about bus passengers crossing a busy and fast road, or stopping buses holding up other traffic (how dare they!), but with no willingness to address the issue so bus stops could be put in safely.

It will be a real missed opportunity if this scheme doesn't include Racecourse Station bus stops as it's quite a trot from the recommended park & ride stop or (my preferred option, as they seem fractionally closer and less of a windswept slog even if they're not) the stops near the racecourse roundabout. Can't see any bus stops in the CGI, and if they're taking away a pavement it's sounding unlikely. Grrr. Complete lack of joined-up thinking.

 
Yes, agreed on the roundabout stops being closer (though still half a mile away).

The cycle spine may have been developed at some pace. I found somewhere on the project's web site that submissions were being accepted until late June.

I would be surprised if the GWSR hasn't pressed them quite hard on this, it's a benefit to them which would arrive at no cost, it's on their doorstep, and they have to work so hard at everything else they do, if the work doesn't include bus stops this is a missed opportunity. If a submission from the GWSR has been ignored they would have had the option to respond by upping the ante with a call for support on the issue from their membership as well as the wider heritage rail community.

If provision isn't made as part of the work, publicity-wise, this will not be a good look. Bus stop provision will then have to be done as a separate move, the safety related issues will already have been mitigated in that the speed limit there will already have been dropped from the national speed limit to 40 and the carriageways narrowed so hopefully progress could still be made.

Mark

 
On the phasing of this work, the A435 sees a daytime closure  this week for advance works...

https://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/media/vnvfqhxb/a435-closure-and-diversion-plan-10.pdf

... with the cycleway construction on that section going ahead in spring 2025.

https://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/major-projects-list/a435-improvement-schemes/construction-information-and-road-closures/

A complication may be that the work is funded by an active travel pot, so it may be that another source of funds would have to be found for any bus stop elements.

Mark

 
Mention of the numbers travelling on the Bristol-Oxford service has put me in mind of Sunday's trains. tl:dr, a good if fragile day out.

10:02am Bath to Bristol. It would have come from at least Westbury but engineering work on the line I think. The train, three carriages, left Bath 100% full and was full and standing after Oldfield Park. This is the first train to Bristol from Bath on Sundays and there's a non-trivial demand for an earlier one, as 10am has a sort of 'Winter 1980 Sunday timetable' feeling to it.

10:30am Crosscountry from Bristol. This was the service to Edinburgh. Full and standing from Bristol, even more so from Parkway. 1st class seen to be cheerfully full from Bristol. A lot of reservations from Cheltenham. Anecdote not data, during a ticket check the majority of passengers seen to have tickets on mobile phones. The train ran to time to Cheltenham, then halted at the Gloucester junctions (report of unspecified animals on the line). A bit of a crawl to Cheltenham, so, 8 minutes late there where a lot of people left, and more waiting, so a bit of a wait to leave the platform, and by the time I was across the road to the bus stop for the GWSR-provided bus to their racecourse station, it was no-where in sight - I caught Stagecoach's Bishop's Cleeve bus instead, hence the hike and fence leaping from the racecourse park and ride.

GWSR somewhat busy during the day, but after 4pm very much thinned out. Their last train ran a little late southbound to the racecourse station, railway people there encouraged me up the ramp for the (last) GWSR bus back to Cheltenham Spa station booked to leave at six but awaiting passengers from the last train, the driver being in radio contact with platform people.

Making it to the top of the ramp the bus was in sight at the far end of the (now dark and fairly deserted) car park, its front end turned a little away from the direction of approach of any intending passengers, something that turned out to be relevant to what happened next.

Heading for the bus and having to be cautious on the uneven surface in the dark, I was still around twenty yards from it when the driver, unseen, closed the doors and the bus set off.

Me: "AHOY!!!".

He stopped the bus, doors opened and I was greeted with a "Just caught sight of you out of the corner of my eye".

Off we went to the main line station, where everything was running a little late, allowing me to catch the stopping train to Bristol that I'd otherwise have missed, and a 20 minute connection into a London train so, all good, though not for everyone as there were a few cancellations from Bristol.

Mark

 

The current (non-engineering affected) Sunday timetable has a first train from Bath to Bristol at 09:10 (08:39 from Westbury), which was replaced by a bus between Westbury and Bath. This bus should have connected into the train from Paddington to Exeter St Davids, due to leave Bath at 09:25, but this ran ECS between London and Bristol, so not really surprising that three coaches at 10am was barely adequate.

Incidentally, as recently as the Winter 1991-92 timetable, the first train from Bath to Bristol was not until 10:08 (from Paddington), and the first train from Westbury to Bath didn’t arrive until 12:26 

 

An update: the Gloucestershire Live web site has an article this week on the work: including a delay to the start of work on the shared-use path past the GWSR station as additional time is needed to address subsidence in the existing road.

Mark

https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/news/cheltenham-news/traffic-chaos-fears-collapsing-road-9663061