West of England Line 7-day Closure Leads to 1 to 2hr Waits at Yeovil Westbound

[embers25]

The line from Gillingham (Dorset) to Yeovil Junction is closed for 7 days at the end of Feb and on the weekdays, instead of diverting all day via Westbury as normal, and as advertised on stations, they are instead only diverting occasionally. The rest of the day it's buses only but the buses arrive into Yeovil as the train leaves and so are useless!

Westbound only 6 trains a day divert which are the 0711, 0924, 1124, 1316, 1921 and 2124 from Salisbury. Apart from that, their own journey planner suggests going via Bristol which certainly isn't valid with Network Cards and actually isn't valid with most tickets.

To use the bus you have between Salisbury and Exeter changing at Giliingham and Yeovil you have a choice of:

1352 arr 1642
1447 arr 1849 (66 min wait in Yeovil)
1556 arr 2042 (118 min wait in Yeovil as misses train by 4 mins!)
1647 arr 2042 (68 min wait at Yeovil!)
1801 no connection as misses train at Yeovil by 7 mins
1921 arr 2145 diverted
2124 arr 0005 diverted

So after 1316 direct, you have 1352 via bus then no sensible option until 1921!! Why is this so bad as usually they divert every 2 hours with busses properly connecting in between

 

[Snow1964]

Also appears engineering work is Salisbury-Southampton on 22nd and Warminster-Southampton and Westbury-Castle Cary on 23rd. With buses instead.

So rather a mess if want to travel from central southern England on those days.

Does seem rather daft to shut both West of England routes on 23 Feb

 

[embers25]

Agreed, but at least there are fast direct buses to Yeovil that do connect both ways only adding an hour which and with no long waits in Yeovil. It's during the week it goes bonkers and this work happens every year and this has never happened before.

 

[DelW]

The line from Gillingham (Dorset) to Yeovil Junction is closed for 7 days at the end of Feb and on the weekdays, instead of diverting all day via Westbury as normal, and as advertised on stations, they are instead only diverting occasionally. The rest of the day it's buses only but the buses arrive into Yeovil as the train leaves and so are useless!

Westbound only 6 trains a day divert which are the 0711, 0924, 1124, 1316, 1921 and 2124 from Salisbury. Apart from that, their own journey planner suggests going via Bristol which certainly isn't valid with Network Cards and actually isn't valid with most tickets.

To use the bus you have between Salisbury and Exeter changing at Giliingham and Yeovil you have a choice of:

1352 arr 1642
1447 arr 1849 (66 min wait in Yeovil)
1556 arr 2042 (118 min wait in Yeovil as misses train by 4 mins!)
1647 arr 2042 (68 min wait at Yeovil!)
1801 no connection as misses train at Yeovil by 7 mins
1921 arr 2145 diverted
2124 arr 0005 diverted

So after 1316 direct, you have 1352 via bus then no sensible option until 1921!! Why is this so bad as usually they divert every 2 hours with busses properly connecting in between

I wonder if those 66 & 68 minute waits are actually correct?

A few years ago I met an issue at Blackwater on the North Downs line. Buses from Guildford were connecting to trains to Reading every hour, with a 7 minute connection. This was reliably achieved, with GWR staff present to assist and ensure all passengers were on the buses before they left. BUT, the journey planner had a minimum 10 minute connection time, so it showed a 67 minute wait for every connection. I've found the same problem in other locations since as well.

 

[embers25]

I agree but these won't make the train as the connection is minus 7 mins not plus.

---

Eastbound there are some zero minute connections that will also be missed as they can't hold the bus without missing the connection the other end.

 

[heart-of-wessex]

Are these connections on rail replacement stopping services? If there's 2 vehicles on one service, one usually runs express to meet the train at the other end, and the stopper tries its best to run to schedule too. Not always but I've found some timetables I've had to be quite slack on the last part, arriving into the last station a few minutes early.

Not saying that's what will happen, it could also be a very tight timetable

 

[embers25]

There's only 1 stopping coach. Whenever they do Gillingham-Yeovil works there is usually only 1 all stations and not a fast. Only when they do full Salisbury=Yeovil closures do fast coaches run too, as they are doing this time at the weekend.

 

[30907]

With an hourly service, the path West of Yeovil is fixed, and the RRBs logically connect at Gillingham from/to London (it looks to work well in the other direction)

The absence of Salisbury-Westbury-Yeovil (but not vv!) workings in the afternoon is puzzling, as is the missing 1639 Yeovil-Exeter.

How has the problem of buses not connecting been handled differently in previous years?

 

[embers25]

The other way trains are diverted every 2 hrs so I wonder if it's an error.
This is all just odd as eastbound things don't change from normal and the Exeter train just takes up the path of the slow into Waterloo. Why the same can't happen westbound and why they've changed every train westbound I just don't know. Basically they've just massively overcomplicated the simple process they normally do.

 

[30907]

The other way trains are diverted every 2 hrs so I wonder if it's an error. ... Why the same can't happen westbound and why they've changed every train westbound I just don't know. Basically they've just massively overcomplicated the simple process they normally do.

Running the xx50 as the stopper would appear to be workable Westbound except for the 1150 where there must be some sort of pathing issue. As you say, odd - I would have though cutting one train at Overton etc would be less inconvenient than altering the whole timetable there by 30min!