Any idea where that is documented?

 
I'm answering in two halves and may split this part into a new thread.    The term "Estimates of Station Usage" can be misleading and is worthy of general coverage.   And, yeah, Melksham is a good example.


It's nothing directly to do with the population.   It's based on ticket sales.    If I buy a return from Melksham to Sugar Loaf (yes, I have done) it counts a2 2 journeys for Melksham - 1 arrival and 1 departure, and 2 journeys for Sugar Loaf - again 1 arrival and one departure.

Simples - except

1. If I buy a season ticket, how is it counted?    For a week's season, I think it's five return trips each way, end to end. So a week's season ticket Melksham to Swindon adds 10 to the headline figure for each of Melksham and Swindon.  The fact that on Thurdsday, my partner dropped me off at Chippenham in the morning so it should have only been 9 and 1 for Chippenham is not recorded.  And the fact that I took a train on the season on Saturday (one that was running) up to Chippenham to meet the  station friends isn't counted.    For longer seasons, there's algorithms to work out the numbers based on expected holidays etc

2. If I buy a split ticket - e.g.Melksham to Didcot and Didcot to London and back it should be 2 for Melksham and 2 for London, but it ends up as that plus 4 for Didcot - so much of an issue these days that adjustments are made.

3. At one time, Melksham to Bristol was cheaper than Bradford-on-Avon to Bristol and an awful lot of "Melksham Specials" were sold to people going nowhere near Melksham.  So much of an issue that at one time I'm pretty sure that it accounted for two thirds of the Meksham ticket number.  To this day, I will buy an off peak Melksham to a Severn Beach line station return to go to Temple Meads, and for Melksham to Trowbridge it's cheaper to buy a Westbury ticket

4. Go to London and the ticket is "London Stations".  So from Melksham, it's Paddington.  Probably, but it could be Waterloo or Victoria

5. My trip to Sugar Loaf?   No - it wasn't. It was to Llanshamlet, out the long way round via Craven Arms, week's work for DVLA with a break of journey at the nearest station to them

6. What about rangers, rovers and freedom tickets?

7. It's ticketed journeys counted, so if there are any fare evaders they ain't counted.  Which is probably fair enough because really the future train service levers shoudn't be based on the defrauders.

So, you see, estimates.   Internally, the data is there between every pair of stations is available - not yet for the year to '24 thought - see http://www.firstgreatwestern.info//flows.html?stn=MKM and the grand total number is the same.

 
Not an easement, but interavailability for the Off Peak Day Return to allow walking the Thames Path.

Buy your Off Peak Day Return to furthest point from your origin station. The destination choices are Henley, Marlow and Windsor & Eton Central.

Not widely publicised but I believe the interavailability is still valid.

 
Can someone confirm the Henley - Marlow - Thames Path 'easement' arrangements on this and the Henley branch that allows one to travel via one and return by the other, facilitating that Thames walk (with a nice pub in the middle I believe). I have looked it up in the Routeing Guide (Table E) but have drawn a blank.

 
Not that this involves the heaviest passenger flow: at Swansea, the early service from Paddington and GWML stations to Bristol is timed to run a minute or so later into Swansea - and the Swansea to Shrewsbury departure around 9:10 has been retimed to leave ten minutes earlier. This means that the London train's timed to arrive a minute after the Shrewsbury train leaves. (There are connections into the HoW service from, say Cardiff - and also Newport courtesy of a XC service from Birmingham.)

Thinking of the train from Paddington, on its arrival at Swansea the next train from Swansea to Shrewsbury is 4 hours later - for many stations on the HoW line, earliest arrival if travelling from any distance from many origin points is off at Newport and travel via Craven Arms which itself carries a time penalty.

Mark

 
21/11/2024 - Saved By The Railway
Exeter Farmers Market, a journey now usually made by bicycle (weather permitting) or bus could only be completed by train.

Tickets
1 x Senior Railcard Anytime Day Return DIG>EXC>DIG £2.85

Outward
DIG 0943 (0950)>EXC 0951 (0959) : 2T12 EXM>PGN : 1 x 150/2 (2 Cars)

Woke up to a 2" covering and moderately heavy snow still falling. Cycling obviously not being an option I checked the Stagecoach App which indicated the running of a normal service so headed out to my local bus stop which was occupied by two buses. I had planned to catch the 0930 bus into town, this being the first that allowed National Bus Pass travel, but after a short wait one of the drivers emerged and advised that service had been completely suspended 'for at least an hour'. A quick perusal of RTT showed that Avocet Line trains were running, albeit with some delays, so made the pretty slippery walk to DIG. While on the move I did try and use the GWR App to buy a ticket but it just returned repeated 'network failure' messages and there was not enough time to use the TVM. Before boarding 2T12 I asked the TM if I could travel and get a ticket at EXC but as it happened they were able to sell me one on the train despite the service being rammed.

Return
EXC 1155 (OT)>DIG 1200 (OT) : 2F15 PGN>EXM : 1 x 166/2 (3 Cars)

An on-time lightly loaded service. Given the fairly treacherous underfoot conditions I would have considered using the 'free' bus as it would have involved a much shorter walk to home but the entire service was still suspended and AFAICT did not resume until around 1300-1400.

 

Ah right - I just thought they based it on the town's predicted population growth; didn't realise it took factors such as this into account.

yep

Having used the bus instead of the train a few times recently I must admit I'm more inclined to use it regularly than I was. Especially since they brought the first 271 service forward about 7 mins so there's a much better chance of getting to Bath in time to catch the service I'd have changed onto at Chippenham if I'd taken the train. And even if I don't, there are more services running to Bristol through Bath than there are at Chippenham.

If only the 271 wasn't so crowded and/or had seats wide enough for humans. And it will be £2 more expensive soon; at the moment bus+train is only slightly more expensive than the train only option.

 
The weight of heavy snow is known to bring trees and tree branches down and if allowed to grow unchecked ( as has been the case on many mainly secondary lines for several years) problems as experienced today in numerous places on the Okehampton and North Devon lines
are inevitable.
Network Rail, through ‘Mitigation’ directives from over powerful Natural England has in last year or two had to spend hundreds of thousands /more than a million pounds acquiring land ( including over the odds prices paid for good agricultural land) adjacent, or in at least one case a few miles, from the Crediton to Okehampton line.
This former mainly agriculture land is being planted with thousands of mixed species trees, with it is understood non degradable plastic tree guards.

If only some of this money had been spent to remove the obvious safety hazards these trees pose, which are very evident to railway staff and passengers, along in particular the
13 mile ‘tree tunnel’ between Coleford Jn and Okehampton, then cancellation of train services as experienced again today could have been avoided.

 

 
Train stopped and stranded at ......

Sampford Courtenay!!!

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fD1nG5VPJus

 

I had a few minutes - added the factor from 2019/20 to 2023/24 and also https://www.greatwesternrailway.info/statnav.html?all=1 (note parameter on end) gives you the whole of Great Britain if you want to look North!

 

Passengers were rescued by the fire brigade, but the train (2R52?) is still stranded.

An additional problem earlier was that the main road from Crediton to Exeter was blocked by a lorry, stuck on the hill through Newton St Cyres.

 
As of the last update at 14:00, there have been 8 passengers stranded on a train on the Okehampton line for 6 hours.  The rescue train of Network Rail personnel had only managed to get 3 miles from Crediton.

 

Great minds .... I was in the process of doing that as you wrote.   The station name column was too wide and have doctored Heathrow taking out "(Rail Station Only)".   I may add - but in the morning now's I have ANOTHER council meeting - a column to indicate the percentage of pre-covid we're at.

 

Thanks, Graham.  Very useful.  Might I add that having an extra year listed (2019/20) which was virtually all pre-COVID, would give a better idea of the level of 'bounce back'?

 

Not unexpected - in fact better than it might have been.   

The service is cancelled far too often if they're short of crew, or short of trains, or doing engineering work somewhere and sending expresses through Melksham, or (as has happened today) sending trains our way because of an incident at Limpley Stoke.   And people can't travel on cancelled trains. Most avoid the rail replacement buses if they can, and that's even if they run them.  And this got worse in the 23/24 year over the 22/23 year. Beware, it's an even worse prognosis for the 24/25 year.   Do not expect to see better ORR stats for Melksham until they publish in November 2026. Once someone is let down badly, they take a lot of convincing to get back onto the "same" service.  And cancellation of even a single train when the next one isn't for 2 hours is a bad let down whereas a single cancellation on a 2-per-hour or 3-per-our service is a let down, but not a bad one for most people.

The good news is that people travel on trains and not on statistics so if we can persuade whoever's running the trains and making timetable and on the day decisions to be aware of what best serves the community, and actually run it, improvements could come once Westbury re-opens. 

 
Last updated

21 Nov 2024 at 15:17

Train operators affected

Great Western Railway
Route(s) affected
Between Exeter Central / Exeter St Davids and Okehampton

Description
A points failure at Crediton means lines between Exeter St Davids and Barnstaple are blocked. Services between Exeter Central / Exeter St Davids and Barnstaple will be cancelled.

Additionally, heavy snow between Crediton and Okehampton means the line is closed. Services between Exeter Central / Exeter St Davids and Okehampton will be cancelled.

Disruption is expected until the end of the day.

 
...and it's the only one to do so.

Sorry - just seen "analysis to follow".

 
Melksham decreasing?

 
I have downloaded the data and put up a table including all the stations in GWR land for the last  4 years at
https://www.greatwesternrailway.info/statnav.html

 

The effect of providing a better service.

 
Dilton Marsh stands out in particular, to me. 

 

Pity no Chippenham or Melksham stop on this one, though I appreciate it would have been well early for the normal train.

 

THANK YOU for the extra Melksham and Chippenham calls in the 10:23 Portsmouth to Cardiff - or rather 12:12 Westbury to Cardiff.  Makes sense.

 

Err ... not disruption until 12:45, but until 13:57 - see previous post declaring a cancellation on the TransWilts.  And yet ... again ... trains cancelled due to issues elsewhere ...

 

 
From the days when British Rail EMU's and diesel electric locomotives had DC traction motors which had air vents for forced air cooling

11 February 1991. British Rail's Director of Operations, Terry Worrall, was asked to comment in BBC radio 4 "Today" programme, interviewer Jim Naughtie, on the adverse effects of the unusually heavy 1991 snowfall on railway services that winter. Terry Worrall explained that "we are having particular problems with the type of snow, which is rare in the UK" Jim Naughtie replied "Oh, I see, it was the wrong kind of snow," to which Worrall replied, "No, it was a different kind of snow".

 

It appears to have been delivered today for entry into service in January - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cew1wxx0d0jo