swt_passenger
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I agree, wasn’t really being serious.
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Salisbury to Romsey blocked by a land slip.
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Kite159
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Agreed, it's a bit like the Liverpool - Norwich services which have a good turnover of passengers at Manchester.
Upgrading the signalling for platform 5 at Southampton central to passenger standards might be an "Easy" win to reduce diesels over 3rd rail.
HamworthyGoods
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On that basis termating all West of England services at Basingstoke/ diverting them to Reading would be a much bigger “easy” win with EMUs instead running to London.
Nobody would ever dream of that because of the passenger inconvenience.
Likewise the same with regard to chopping Portsmouth off to the West, yes there is a churn at Southampton but generally around 50% of passengers travel across Southampton, similar to Bristol which has a churn but also passengers travelling on to Cardiff.
whilst we’re at it, bin the cross country off at Basingstoke. Would be silly to have them running over 3rd rail,
PHILIPE
Veteran Member
It was a Maintenance swap with a similar formation going to St Philips Marsh and which ran through the landslip site.
For goodness sake, let’s just get on with OHLE electrifying Reading to Southampton via Laverstock. Who cares if there’s wires over third rail at Basingstoke anyway?
HamworthyGoods
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Need for a second unit as a spare if necessary to rescue the other one!
PHILIPE
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I think there may already another one down there
Dougal2345
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Hmmm, all getting a bit sarcastic. But it seems to me that we just accept Portsmouth-Cardiff as a 'route' because that's how it's always been. If the fast train from Portsmouth-Southampton had always turned left and proceeded fast to Bournemouth and Poole, I suspect there'd be equal derision if I suggested it should stop going to Bournemouth and be re-routed to Salisbury and Cardiff instead.
Basically Southampton and Portsmouth are big conurbations within about 20 miles of each other, which people want to commute between for work, and travel between to meet family and friends.
These two should be connected by fast and regular modern electric services, and the infrastructure's in place for that.
But the choice of train transport is either a pleasant but glacially slow EMU stopper, or the grim, cramped and filthy experience of a 30-year-old GW DMU.
And the reason for this is the 'traditional' requirement that the fast train then heads off into 100 miles of nothing-very-much (apologies Salisbury & Bath) before it gets to anywhere else of significance, taking far too long to get there to be any use for people commuting for work.
And it usually gets delayed or cancelled on the way back, making the Southampton to Portsmouth service even more unreliable.
Yes, the fast trains from Portsmouth to Southampton should be 444s or 442s, possibly continuing to Bournemouth and beyond. And the train from Cardiff should become the 'Romsey Rounder', giving any passengers for Portsmouth two chances to change (Southampton and Eastleigh).
HamworthyGoods
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We accept it as a route because there is considerable cross Southampton traffic from Portsmouth to Salisbury, Westbury and beyond and passenger services run to satisfy demand. Yes ideally they would be run by bi-mode trains.
Right Away
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They should, but why not in addition to the GWR through regional services instead of replacing them? It's similar to saying that Cross Country shouldn't run between Basingstoke and Bournemouth owing to the presence of third rail electrification infrastructure, ignoring the needs of through passengers. The two aspect signalling between St Denys and Fareham I acknowledge is a capacity limiting factor and could do with upgrading.
I would hardly call Bath nothing much! The station usage figures for last year may surprise you. Salisbury and Westbury are also interchange points for South Coast to South West passengers. The service is an important regional service that connects seven cities together. Traffic flows overlap along the entire route. It is more of a cross country style route than a local one. I am struggling to understand the commuting to work comment as there are various flows from end to end.
A regional express service should become a local stopping service at one end just because it has got to third rail territory? The 'Romsey Rounder' service might be better integrated with the Westbury to Swindon service to provide a second train per hour south of Westbury in addition to the hourly Cardiff to Portsmouth services and vice versa.
The original suggestion also ignores the fact that both crew and rolling stock are provided from Fratton. What alternative fuelling and stabling facilities will be provided in the Southampton area, as well as requiring the relocation of a train crew depot, unless running through to Portsmouth is acceptable for these purposes?
swt_passenger
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Does anyone know why the Romsey to Romsey circular doesn’t or can’t run hourly all day? Seems in the middle of the day it’s being dropped to 2 hourly with the second unit sitting in Southampton Central P5 during the relevant period...
I didn’t see any publicity about this, just noticed when I left Southampton towards Eastleigh there was no sign of the opposite direction service on the displays. A check on RTT shows alternate services “CANcelled” without replacement.
I didn’t see any publicity about this, just noticed when I left Southampton towards Eastleigh there was no sign of the opposite direction service on the displays. A check on RTT shows alternate services “CANcelled” without replacement.
HamworthyGoods
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I would hazard a guess it’s down to resourcing issues. A part train service cut off from its natural traincrew depot at Salisbury (who think are the only Depot to sign the who circuit) will always be less efficient especially as road transport will be required to/from Salisbury.
spot on, Fratton sign Totton - Romsey but not the Test Valley. It must be tricky trying to get what I assume is extra crew to work these trains.
theironroad
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Not sure how true the 'rumour' is, but heard a few times that Fratton are losing all diesel work. Fact or fiction?
swt_passenger
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That has come up a few times, there were posts a few years ago that reckoned certain services in the Portsmouth area were operated by DMUs purely to maintain traction knowledge, so would have to continue for that purpose whatever happened to EMU availability. I remember asking if that was a bit of a chicken and egg situation, but the DMU diagrams that got to Portsmouth or Fratton did gradually reduce year by year, down to none at all...
Right Away
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Some SWT Fratton drivers used to sign to Salisbury (and even Dorchester to Castle Cary) for RHTT operating purposes. The loss of this work to Balfour Beatty will have seen a contraction of route knowledge.
HamworthyGoods
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Route and traction knowledge evolves over time - it’s always a balance, ideally everyone would go everywhere but then that’s difficult to keep up the knowledge and constantly swapping crews to retain knowledge imports delays from one route to another. Will we every find a happy medium, probably not is there actually one?
Regarding routes - Fratton’s (SW) knowledge has changed massively over the years, loosing Victoria via Barnham work but instead gaining work to Poole!
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Right Away
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Spot on.
PHILIPE
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Romsey circles now cancelled for the rest of the day due to shortage of traincrew
444001sdf
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I didn't know that are they being diverted through anywhere or is the service just not running
swt_passenger
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There’s no actual diversion anywhere, they are supposed to be running a Romsey to Romsey service with 2 units. Which is a completely normal alternative service, seen on many previous occasions during planned engineering work...
Hopefully one day we will finally get a sensible DMU service through a Westbury.
SWR Pompey - Bristol limited stop
GWR Swindon - Southampton - Romsey
GWR Weymouth/Westbury - Cardiff
If I recall correctly, these suggestions are regularly made including by former SWT management to the DfT.
You would cover all major flows with best stock allocation.
Romsey
Member
Cancelled by 0700 and no attempt to recover the service later in the day.
Considering the school and college loadings outside the traditional peak hours this is a serious inconvenience to many people. Eastleigh station didn't have any info of replacement buses apart from the SWR web site by late morning.
Chichester and Fareham have run this week, on the normal route according to RTT, along with a few trains between Westbury and Eastleigh/Southampton and some intermodal trains. Has the slip been fixed enough for freight to pass or is it not as bad as first thought?
paul1609
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If you are going to split the Portsmouth to Cardiff service at Bristol it needs to be diverted from Temple Meads to Parkway so you don't lose the through service to Filton Abbeywood.
Bristol city centre isn't a big attraction from the south coast, most leisure traffic on the route will get off at Bath.
All the business traffic is now along the A38 viz a viz;
MOD headquarters at Abbeywood (next to the station)
Rolls Royce at Filton
Cribbs Causeway
Aztec West a lot of the Maritime Industry training course are held in the hotels there because of M4/M5 interchange makes it a central location.
You also have the UWE behind the MOD
Parkway would give you a good connection with the London to Cardiff/ West Wales services as well as all the xc services.
Temple meads really doesn't cut the ice because the traffic congestion means you sit in a taxi for an hour trying to get to your destination, if you do that you may as well drive from the South Coast.
Ah that’s interesting to know, thank you. Originally no loco traffic was permitted, this has obviously been rescinded at some point.
HamworthyGoods
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A regular service between Swindon and Salisbury to link with the Romsey service isn’t possible without doubling the Melksham line. All previous reports have carefully ignored the multitude of freight traffic which uses this line and holds at Thingley Junction awaiting paths onto the Box route.
The line is at near capacity and that is why you have the current irregular pattern passenger service as it’s the best that can be fitted round long standing freight traffic. Double the line and it becomes possible but that’s actually quite expensive....
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