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Topic: Melksham line use for diversions this morning (Read 2976 times)
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Nick Field
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Just spoken to Dave. Due to some overunning engineering works between Swindon and Didcot that section of the main line is closed. The train he was on went from Chippenham to Swindon, then back through Chippenham to Westbury then to London via the line througth Melksham. I am not sure if this had any knock on effect to local services.
Nick.
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David Preston
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This is correct,
the line at Swindon was blocked for most of the morning rush hour, therefore the Melksham line became a VITAL diversionary route for London bound trains.
I went through Melksham on my HST at around 6:55 am
cheers,
Dave.
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Graham Ellis
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Yes, it has had an effect on the local service ...
We had a customer due on a course this morning and we got a phone call from Swindon to say that the train was late / they didn't know by how much of if it was going to run. She got a taxi ...
I never cease to be amazed that if they're diverting trains through they can't actually stop them at Melksham rather than running roughshod over the loyal local users. I know ... it's been explained to me that they don't have limited door controls but I can remember many times in the past stopping in stations with insufficient platforms, and where the doors were NOT secured. Can't people just walk along the train these days?
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Nick Field
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Hi Graham
I think I may know why your client was having problems - I read on BBC Ceefax last night an article about the overrunning engineering between Swindon and Didcot and it also mentioned that the problem was made worse by a broken down local service between Chippenham and Swindon. I assume as the Swindon to Southampton service would be the only local on this stretch of the line that it was probabaly the one your client intended to use.
It does seem that if there are any problems then the expresses seem to take priority at the expense of everything else which is kind of understandable as they have the most passengers but why they cant pause at Melksham (especially if they have taken away the local services) is beyond me. I feel that this may be one of the consequences of privatisation - I remember many moons ago (sometime in the early 90's I think) when everything was run by BR I was catching a train from Chippenham to Bristol which happened to be severely delayed. The next train through was not due to stop at Chippenham but a group of passengers lobbied the station staff and managed to get the second train to stop - I cant see anything like that happening nowadays. Perhaps when its one company running greater western they might then, that is if we still have a regular service
Nick.
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« Last Edit: November 22, 2005, 02:41:50 PM by Nick Field »
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Graham Ellis
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Hmm ... that sould explain why the online timetable didn't show it up as cancelled until very late on!
We have a customer drop-off this evening and another pick up tomorrow morning .... let's see if it works a bit better!
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Graham Ellis
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It's only two weeks since this thread was written ... and yet I can come up with two more sets of diversions effecting / using our line in thosw two weeks. On one day, a problem at Box tunnel caused main line trains to be diverted via Badminton and all the Chippenham passengers for Bath were sent via Trowbridge. And something was going on at Swindon last Friday morning but I don't know the details of that one.
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