All was going well this morning until something happened with the 07.15 from Severn Beach, which left right time, but was then 17 minutes late away from St Andrew's Road. Someone may know what that was all about.
It doesn't appear to be about timetabled running times, acceleration of the 166, dispatch methods or anything like that - just look at the first couple of hours' service today until something went wrong with that 07.15 departure and all the meets at the loops were thrown out as a result.
Timetabling on the line is so tight that once that happens, trying to recover is near impossible, unless you turn back short or knock out a service or two. Once that was done after 10am today, things have settled down again.
Last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, the morning peaks all passed off without any issues, indeed on Friday all was going pretty much to plan until mid-afternoon, then the afternoon peak was a mess, before mid to late evening was also fine.
So I can't see an emergency timetable would really serve any purpose. The tight turnarounds don't help but without wrecking the entire timetable it's hard to see what could be done, unless another unit was put on the circuit to ensure right-time starts from Temple Meads, with the inbound service then laying over until the next departure, but that approach would probably run into the issue of platform capacity at Temple Meads. Roll on the removal of the signal box...
Are the current issues perhaps down in part to staff who are still getting to know the trains and their quirks, things which Thames Valley staff would probably take in their stride, whereas the Bristol train crews are on a fairly steep learning curve and immediately fear the worst if something crops up?
Rather as you worry instantly if a yellow or red light comes on in an unfamiliar car.
The 166s can't suddenly have become iffy the instant they left the Thames Valley, where they are a byword for reliability.
