What Might Happen - The Full Plan
0920 Seaton to Axminster
Axe Valley 885 : arr 0945
Basingstoke arr 1155
1209 GWR Basingstoke to
Reading arr 1236
The journey planners will not give you that four minute connection as it is less than that designated for Reading. But fbb will have a go. The journey planner offers a 1248 arr 1301 but not on the table as extracted above. That will be the back up.
So now, the bus timetable must be examined..jpg)
The X36 is the quicker journey via Steventon.
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1332 X36 Didcot Parkway to
Charlton arr 1411
The 1302 is a tight possibility.
Or there is the longer X35 which does a double run via Harwell. It looks a slightly more interesting route.
1318 X35 Didcot Parkway to
Wantage Market Place arr 1403
So an earlier arrival than the 1332 X36.
What Actually Happened On Friday
The fbbs' drove to Axminster and paid for parking.
Disgraceful!
The reason was simple. They were coming back today (Sunday) when there are no buses of any shape or colour between Axminster and Seaton. A taxi costs up to £20 and weekend parking is four days at £9.
Here's how the rest of the journey went. Actual times are shown first, followed by scheduled reality.
1009/1006 Axminster
two car unit ONLY
omitted Andover stop
1200/1155 Basingstoke
fail/1209 Basingstoke
1234/1234 Basingstoke
What happened to the 1209?
No information given
The fbbs sat on the train
from 1205
1305/1301 Reading
1330/1326 Reading
train reduced from 9 to 5
coaches.
Reservations cancelled
CHAOS
1343/1339 Didcot Parkway
Then No 1 son collected his aged and travel-weary parents from Didcot by car!
Disgraceful!
Also disgraceful is the sad fact that of three journeys planned, ALL THREE were in some way inadequate. Even worse was that at least two of the three were "excused" as "stock shortage".
Why were SWT and GWR (both First Rail companies) unable to supply the correct number of trains? Possible reasons?
Poor quality of fleet
Poor maintenance of fleet
Interference by Government
e.g. getting rid of the "Castles" HSTs
Generally incompetent management
Saving money by over-using trains
What will it be like going home today?
Next Latvia blog : Monday 14th October
When I worked at Axminster station for 6 months some years ago the then parking checking/ticket issuing contractor for SWT had been suspended/not re-appointed for the entire time, so, if the punters were “in the know” it was free parking! Concerned drivers would come in and ask if they were ok to park outside for 20 mins etc and I’d pull a face and say “yes, you’ll probably be ok for that, or just a few minutes longer” etc!
ReplyDeleteGWR here: Not enough trains, so yes, government policy is a factor. And getting parts for the aging diesel fleet is not getting any easier
ReplyDeleteIt's no excuse to say parts aren't available. These things should be taken into consideration when rolling stock is purchased. They are supposed to be running a proper train service not a model railway.
ReplyDeleteI wonder where FBB got his Basingstoke to Reading timetable from. It’s not the same as the one on the GWR website which says it’s current from June to December. The GWR TT has trains at 1153 and 1232 but not at 1209. So it’s no surprise that there wasn’t one then.
ReplyDeleteHe's looked in the wrong direction. The timetable is current ... from Reading to Basingstoke!
DeleteFor some reason, I couldn’t get my comment to publish from my laptop, so it’s in two parts from my iPad.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised to read that the 1006 train was only 2-car, given Salisbury depot’s reputation for reliability. Real Time Trains (RTT) says that it was 6-car Monday to Thursday. The diagram starts at 0610, so they would put out whatever was available if they had problems with the booked stock early on Friday. A short train is better than a cancelled one.
Why try to squeeze onto a long-distance train to do a short hop from Reading? RTT says that there were Didcot terminators, both 8-car 387s, at 1320 and 1355, which would have been lightly loaded.
158s to Exeter are becoming more common annoyingly as more keep breaking down.
ReplyDelete