Yesterday, I caught the bus to Blenhiem house, walked back over the bridge and double back down to Melksham station to catch the train.  Another gent was doing the - went to the ticket machine and looked to be in "learning mode". I asked if I could help, and he told me he was looking to travel to Bristol Parkway.   Next trains coming at 12:33, and I advised he catch that and change at Chippenham and Bristol Temple Meads. 

I was advised I was wrong - according to Google, it's a single change at Swindon and, hey, what would I kow as a randon traveller to - probably - another station.  My "yes ... but ..." starter was brushed aside and he bought his ticket.  But then he looked at it after it came out of the machine ... "But this says 'only valid via Bath Spa'" he said.  "It didn't tell me that in the screen as I bought it ...".  Correct - it didn't.

Via Bath Spa ... 12:33, change at Chippenham (12:44 to 13:13), change at Temple Meads (13:39 to 14:00) and arrive 14:09 at Bristol Parkway. Valid.

Via Swindon ... 12:33, change at Swindon (13:01 to 13:10) and arrive Bristol Parkway 13:31. But not valid on the ticket issued by the ticket machine, and no indication prior to purchase.

My friend asked what he could to - I suggested that he ask the train manager to "excess" him, as he was on a timescale and could not really afford over half an hour more as he travelled; I told him there wasn't a Melksham to Bristol Parkway ticket valid via Swindon, even though it's usually very much the faster way, though a ticket to beyond Bristol Parkway into South Wales *would* be valid that way.   As he got on, at the train manager's door, he started making his request and I went up the carriage and sat down.

The train manager stated he was unable to sell him a ticket that would take my friend from Melksham to Parkway via Swindon - the best he could do was to sell him a ticket to Swindon, and a Swindon to Parkway ticket, and claim a refund. Oh dear ... as you can imagine, my friend was not pleased, and came and sat across from me and told me what the Train manager had said.

The ticket manager did a ticket check, and having been filled in, as he came back I asked him if my friend could have made the journey on via Swindon on the trains he wanted on a Melksham to Severn Tunnel Junction ticket and get off short.  The train managwer looked puzzled, but looked it up on his machine and confirmed that would have been valid, and indeed lower cost than the pair trains offered.   This was the 12:18 from Westbury, and "as we know" it's used a a route learner / refresher for lobg distance crews.   This TM was unknown to me, and was based in Exeter - "we have to know this route for the sleeper" - but (and he confirmed) they don't know the wrinlkes of the fares here, which they really should if they are selling tickets. Or they should have a system that informs them as appropriate.


Long (b)log but

a) It is unfortanate that there are no Melksham to Parkway fares via the quickest route

b) It is doubly unfortuate that apps like Google (and the Interrail planner) offer this route

b) It is tripply  unfortnate that the TVM sells a slower, and restricted ticket without warning

c) It is four times  unfortunate that the customer facing staff, on top of the first three problems, only offer an overpiced solution because they don't have the data on the best fare available to them.

 

There are elements.  Llangollen Canal - water from the upper reaches of the Dee for Chester.

 
In terms of helping to drain it, possibly?   

 
From the BBC video archives, but still worth watching, if you haven't before:


It's a video clip, so you'll need to click here on the link to the BBC.

CfN. 

 
Could canals have any function as part of a national water grid?

 

There is no mention of the word "peak" in the Lichfields report (nor in NPPF).

But, it was your reference to Trowbridge, Bath and Salisbury that was the eye-opener. My first thought (well, almost...) was:

"what were the designers of the station criteria trying to achieve?"

Firstly, the NPPF section we're concerned with here is covering developments outside settlements.
Exactly how settlement boundaries are calculated is a bit arcane, but I'm assuming that NPPF is relying on existing methods that do tend to produce something that appears intuitively right.

It's the development that has to outside the settlement, not the station. So, we could be looking at (for example) Castle Cary, where the station in in the fields, or we could be considering any station in a village or small town where an 800 metre walk could get you from the development to the station. Even a larger town, where the station is off-centre (Melksham?).

We've already discussed the service frequency. Whatever the detail, it's sensible for the policy to only permit development where the station is somewhat useful.

Now, why top 80 Travel-to-Work areas for GVA?

First thing to understand is where the TTW area concept comes from. According to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travel_to_work_area:

I have no idea how the two criteria are manipulated in such a way that nowhere is left out of a TTW, but the resulting map can be seen at https://geoportal.statistics.gov.uk/documents/534c0129bdc14be5aa270a919668a3d4/explore

It mostly looks sort-of-realistic, although the Merthyr Tydfil TTW area, for example, looks unnatural (for want of a better term).

The TTWs represent areas with a high degree of self-containment; people both work and live in the same TTW.
However, there is a huge difference in the working population contained within these TTWs, which naturally affects the GVA obtained in each.
There's also a variation in the per-capita GVA: somehow, Swindon TTWA beats London into 2nd place and Salisbury, Trowbridge, Bath and Taunton come in that (decreasing GVA/cap) order in the 2023 data  

While the productivity (GVA/cap) is notable, I think the population variation between TTWAs is more significant. It appears that Bath TTWA has about three-quarters of the working population of Trowbridge TTWA.

What does this mean for the chances of station-related development? To be in the top 80 GVA list, your TTWA could be:
* an area of high population density
* an area that is not surrounded by competing work locations that eat into the size of the TTWA (and hence population and GVA - bye bye Bath)
* an area that is not so rural that the TTWA population is below (say) 100k (that's Taunton out...)

The TTWA criterion gives some odd results: Poole TTWA is OK for station-related development but Weston-S-M is not.

Thus, in summary, our hypothetical developer is looking for:
* A station in the fields or near the edge of an existing town;
* ... that has a frequent service to somewhere-or-other
* ... in an area that already has a high population and is not surrounded by other workplace destinations (so where are the trains going?).

"what were the designers of the station criteria trying to achieve?"

I still don't know.  

 
Bit of variety today.......

Cancellations to services between Reading and London Paddington

Due to trespassers on the railway between Reading and London Paddington all lines are blocked.

Train services running to and from these stations may be cancelled or delayed. Disruption is expected until 18:45 21/08.

 

What a scurrilous suggestion!     

CfN. 

 
Indeed, in 1971 we'd have encountered concerns about the extension to the Farmoor reservoir.

Turning to the canal issue, the additional costs imposed by providing a navigable channel are estimated at £20 - 40 million or ~0.5% of the costs of construction of the reservoir. Should the navigable channel need to be constructed 'Retrospectively' the additional work adds £100 million to that cost. (The reservoir construction budget will already include an amount for the provision of leisure and sports facilities / environmental mitigation / landscaping unrelated to the canal.)

An issue is that the planners, in regarding the benefits brought by a restored canal, will tend to put a value only on the length of new channel. They need to be motivated to include the 'Network effects' - the reservoir navigable channel bringing benefits the length of the 57 mile canal once established - and beyond that into the parts of the canal network that it will touch.

(This has something in common with new railway proposals, with people talking in terms of the benefits to e.g. 'Matlock - Buxton' when they should be talking 'North West - East Midlands: populations ~7 million and ~3.5 million respectively)

Mark

 

That's the old fashioned way of doing it?   I remember from my commutes to school seeing a succession of trains in the morning peak coming up from Ashford and Hastings through Sevenoaks and Orpington headed for Cannon Street and Charing Cross.  During the day, the  overnight-empty shed at Grove Park and the sidings on Blackfriars Bridge were populated with 12 carriage trains, which in the evening headed out of town again having filled up with the same people they brought in that morning at one of the two termini.   During the day, services to / from Hastings were just hourly, just (!) 6 carriages, and all stations too once they got out beyond Tonbridge.

 
Yes;....so would apply if the service swapped direction midway through the day to maintain peak flow of 2tph....

 
Indeed - if they actually already had a canal that was disused, then their request would hold more water. Just as they have an unconstructed [plan, it's at the same stage as the reservoir, but of course that is far more likely to get the funds for construction sooner. I agree with others that their request is a huge stretch & unlikely.

I doubt they were talking about this reservoir in 1971.....I have relatives in Sutton Courtenay, and they would have heard by then.

 

Do you mean "in the direction to which most people would be travelling" ?

The frequency of services, be it 2 or 4, had to be maintained "throughout the daytime"; whatever that means (longer in the summer?).

 
1971, and us, teenagers in a skiff, having arrived in Oxford via the canal, we headed up the Thames and I can't recall where a lunchtime stop was or what it was that indicated to us that the reservoir proposal was very much a live issue with the public - and I don't think this concerned the nearby Farmoor reservoir. The new reservoir here has been a very long time under discussion.

A day or so later, our attempt to reach Cricklade sputtered out and we stopped overnight at Castle Eaton - summer water levels were challenging and it emerged that not nearly enough people from Swindon could have been using the toilet that day. (The flow of the  River Ray, which joins the Thames about 3/4 mile below Cricklade was at that time very closely related to the output of the exemplary Swindon water treatment works...)

Mark

 
I do sometimes wonder if GWR wouldn't be that upset if they didn't have to run trains to/from Hereford:

 
Somewhat similar colours on a door in this photo from the end of July 2006. This was the little corrugated iron station building at Trawscoed, at the end of its life, somewhat ruined and about to be swept away.

For a few months more, as a reminder of railway freight traffic, there would be coal on the platform. People would have to dig deep to recover memories of HRH Queen Elizabeth the Second's overnight stay there in 1955.

Mark

 
From the 2026 RT report that Stuving has found:

I haven't found anything to suggest that W63 is not a reference to a point operating machine. However, RT60 refers to a particular design for a complete point. Hard to find details of it, but here's a potential (or actual?) replacement...
https://www.thepwi.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/21-July-14-Why-NR60-Mk2-Ian-Bostock.pdf

 
DU must mean delivery unit, in this context maintenance delivery unit. So the east one must be the MDU with the full name "Western East MDU".

(Sorry this map is a bit hard to read - it was like that in the document I stoleborrowed it from.)

 
Sorry, Stuving: I have now corrected the link in my previous post.

 
An update, from the BBC:

 

What I find at that link is not the 2024 improvement plan (I can't find that anywhere) but the CP7 plan. The NR page for the improvement plan only has a link the (April 2026) Performance Improvement Plan Report. That says, of the improvement plan,  "April 2026 NR transitions delivery of Plan into Business-as-Usual". There is also some rather cryptic reporting of the results for e.g. W63 points replacement.

Where did you find the improvement plan itself (as a PDF)?

 
Thanks, TG, for locating that thread.
It references the Network Rail CP7 Delivery Plan, which can be found at:
https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Wales-and-Western-CP7-Delivery-Plan.pdf

Further grubbing located the Wales & Western Performance Improvement Plan (2024) at:
https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Wales-Western-Region-Performance-Improvement-Plan.pdf


Still very much a management-orientated description.  The only hint of hardware-specifics is:

I guess that W63 refers to Westinghouse type M63 point machines; please correct me if you know otherwise, or if you can identify "East DU area" !

[edited to correct link]

 
It has to be in the watercourse around the north and west of the reservoir really. There are several reasons why going through the reservoir wouldn't work, but principally that this is a 'bunded' reservoir raised above the nearby land on all sides, rather than a dammed valley. So you'd be locking up into the reservoir, crossing it, and then locking down again, losing water from the reservoir at each end.

I don't blame WBCT for asking for a fully constructed canal, and a bit of smart planning would see it funded by new housing and commercial development at locations along the way. But realistically I think the most they'll get is a channel of the relevant width and a promise not to block navigation in the future, and even that's a stretch.

(I'm reminded of the Droitwich Junction Canal, which was fortuitously able to make use of the Body Brook culvert under the M5 - constructed some 30 years before restoration - because someone in the Worcestershire county surveyor's office managed to get a 7ft width written into the plans...)

 

Experience suggests that the majority of delays to station openings are caused by delays in local highways issues, but IIRC the public realm is all the developer's responsibility and reasonably straightforward.

Its a pretty standard Network Rail design - similar to Ashley Down, Charfield, Okehampton Interchange etc, so should be pretty much "tried and tested" by now.

IIRC, the service is already running but currently terminates at Filton, so hopefully no issues with rolling stock availability. 





 

 

Yes, all installed and ready to go AFAIK. There are definitely photos online.

As it happens, I took a detour on the way to work and walked past it this morning. The university plaza looks very smart indeed with paving and planting complete, just a few workers applying finishing touches.

Incidentally, the floating walkway along the river from the university to Temple Quay looks nearly complete, I think they just have the final ramp at the Temple Quay end to level and pave.

 
Thank you, and yes. That is what I was referring to.
Some way to go? A very long way to go.

Do we still have ORR to re look at this issue I wonder, or is it all being woven into GBR, so nothing to be done for another long while!

 

This may be what you're after?

https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=29248.0

There's a NR report from 2024 within the thread which details how they acknowledge that the Thames Valley/Paddington is a "critical corridor" and how they intend to improve its reliability.

I'd say they still have some way to go.

 
I make it that GWR are at least 4 serviceable trains down today. A sample from each diagram

18:59 Gatwick Airport to Reading due 20:30
18:59 Gatwick Airport to Reading due 20:30 will be cancelled.
This is due to more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time.

16:23 Okehampton to Exeter Central due 17:07
16:23 Okehampton to Exeter Central due 17:07 will be cancelled.
This is due to more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time.

16:20 Truro to Falmouth Docks due 16:44
16:20 Truro to Falmouth Docks due 16:44 will be cancelled.
This is due to more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time.

15:15 Penzance to Plymouth due 17:18
15:15 Penzance to Plymouth due 17:18 will be cancelled.
This is due to more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time.

07:19 Paignton to Exmouth due 08:49
07:19 Paignton to Exmouth due 08:49 has been cancelled.
This is due to a fault on this train.

There are some crew shortages cancelling trains Exeter <-> Penzance, and something under investigation on the Severn Beach lie with trains turning round at Clifton Down for - according to Journey check - for most of the rest of the day.

 

I've been reading into this a bit more - a blog from Lichfields - in particular, travel-to-work areas, distances from stations, and services there.

The top 60 travel to work areas in England have been expanded to 80 and notable additions in the South West are Trowbridge, Newbury, Poole and Cheltentham.  Most of the South East and Central Southern England is included, but further South West only the south of Devon through to Plymouth makes the grade.  Notably, Bath and Salisbury are not included.  Station service wise, the specification is two trains per hour acheievable in the peak direction, and we are looking as I read it as development totally within 800 metres of the station.

Where does that leave us in our region?  If there are sites near existing town stations such as Trowbridge, there's an assumption to favour development, as there is near Dilton Marsh and Avoncliff, both of which have multiple peak hour trains that could call.  Freshford is in the Bath travel to work area which is not a top one, and I question for Melksham as to whether 2 trains per hour can be achieved in "peak" direction - towards the named town in the area, perhaps, with a gap from 06:29 to 09:09 and nothing running through that could have a stop added.   We do have 2 trains in the hour to Chippenham and Swindon - 07:21 and 08:02 and I wonder if they meet the criterion even though going out of area?

Looking wider in the Bristol region, Pilning seems to be an obvious choice with 4 (and soon to be 5?) trains per hour passig through with 2 each to Parkway and to Temple Meads which could have a stop added easily enough, and a lot of presently-green fields close to the station.  The NPPF talks about travel TO work area and from comments I have seen nothing about travel FROM work, so it would appear that for people going home to Pilning, a bus from Severn Beach or doubling back at Severn Tunnel Junction would allow the presumtion to allow development to be met. 

Futher afield still, stations I identified earlier at Menheniot, St Erth and Bedwyn are outside designated travel to work areas, but  Mottisfont and Kintbury are in.  Don't know about Dean - the trains stop in a top TTWA but the passenger exit is outside it.

 
Cancellations to services between Truro and Falmouth Docks
Due to more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time between Truro and Falmouth Docks fewer trains are able to run.
Train services running to and from these stations may be cancelled. Disruption is expected until the end of the day.
Customer Advice
-
What has happened?
-
One of the trains that operates the Truro to Falmouth Docks service has developed a fault that needs mechanical attention. We do have another train that is operating the service, which means we can only operate half of the service for the rest of today.
If you are wanting to travel to Falmouth, please check your journey and if there is not a service, we recommend take a local bus, where your ticket can be used at no extra cost.