As flagged yesterday, the 06:43 Worcester Shrub Hill to Paddington service was a five car short-form, as was the first up service of the day, the 05:16 Worcester Shrub Hill to Paddington train.

 

Indeed ... and that sets me going with a whole thought chain about services that call at intermediate stations from Newbury to Taunton and how they *might* look in the future in a regime that has stations at Somerton/Langport and Devizes Gateway, and where extra Westbury -> Reading capacity is provided using a redoubled relief line via Melksham.

 

Yes - it has always been the case that the older generation decries modern youth.   However, the report and prosecution statistics (if I read them right) relate to arrests made and offences proven, and could the dramatic reduction in the numbers relate to how we and the systems have changed and far fewer of the still-occurring-at-the-same-rate incidents are actually reported / investigated?

 

 
With ad driven social media and news media outlets I'd say there's and increased reporting of 'feral children' stories.

In the year ending March 2024, there were around 35,600 proven offences committed by children which resulted in a caution or sentence at court. The number of proven offences was 61% lower than 10 years ago.

There were 58,900 arrests of children in the year ending March 2024. 46% lower than 2014.

So, the perception of an 'increasing prevelence' isn't borne out by the statistics. Even with today's social media and instant news hasn't it always been the case of older generations decrying modern youth?

 
The 18:36 made an additional stop at Kintbury because the 18:08 Pad to Frome was cancelled hence the slight delay arriving into Westbury.

 


Makes sense - 20:07 arrival from Paddington ; connection left at 20:10.   The 18:36 from Paddington is due into Westbury at 19:58 - an official connection with some good advance fares, but all too often leads to a long wait at at Westbury.

 
Bristol Live is carrying the story too, much of it saying the same things but it also goes on to talk about possible resistance from the Port of Bristol.  Councillor Weston observed that there needs to be some give and take and in that respect the balance is somewhat one sided.  Here's the link to the story.

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/two-parts-bristol-could-connected-10569881

 
Round and round?  - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwypj9le4j7o

 
St.Erth is like that now. It takes ages for buses to pull off the A30 and back on via the traffic lights and road junction even worse in the summer.
Before the large station car park bus stops were on the A30 with a short walk for the few people that transferred to the train. Buses very rarely needed to stop.

 
Good stuff, BobM ... and I totally agree with there being too many meetings for - err - meetings sake, and too many people not as prepared as they should be for meetings.  The ease of calling an online meeting and the lack of investment in travel time to get there, perhaps, tend to make people not prepare as seriously as they should.

But - there are meetings, and then there are meetings.  I am going along on Thursday evening to a meeting of the Melksham Historical Association which apart from a few announcements will be a talk on "The Trials of the Revd Barnwell". I have done minimal/no preps and don't expect or think I need to. But then Lisa, who is giving the talk, has been building up to it and preparing for a - err - very long time.

Perhaps meetings are like trains - they all have more or less the same basics, but the character varied hugely

 
I can understand both "sides" of this ... it sounds depressingly familiar.  It feels like madness but yet when you talk to the bus companies, you can understand why - at least we can / could locally where we have a similar situation.  That's a bus stop at the station, but it's only used for rail replacement services.  Service buses pass by 150 metres away at the top of Station Approach, though it is 450 metres to the nearest stop (271/2/3) and 550 metres to the stop on the x34. And it's about 650 metres to the Town Bridge.

Diverting the 271/2/3 via the station bus stop would cost somewhere from 3 to 5 minutes. The x34 would be 3 minutes northbound and twice that southbound. And that would mean not only would through passenger journeys be slowed down, but also that an extra vehicle would be needed for the 27x, and an extra vehicle for the x34 - or frequencies reduced and no longer would the services run clockface.

There is - err - some confusion locally about how far from the station it's realistic to have a bus stop / walk.  A Wiltshire Councillor who represents a ward on the 271/2/3 route that's on the opposite side of Melksham to the station tells me that the 450 metre walk from the station to the bus stop is reasonable and should not put anyone off, but the 650 metres to the town bridge and town centre is not a reasonable walk.  My own view is that for a transfer from the bus, this is really too far - especialy as it involves crossing a busy A road at a point that there's no crossing and traffic appears quick and blind, but then the distance to the Town Bridge, which does not involve crossing any roads on the level isn't a problem if you're headed to the Town Centre.

Of course, the look is for solutions. 

* The local authorities (ours, and up north) could cross palms with silver - or perhaps it would need to be gold - to make it commercially worthwhile. 

* A bus service could run that actually terminates at the station, and indeed this is a solution for Melksham.  We lost our 2nd town bus vehicle during covid - "driver shortage" and it never came back - it could so usefully now fill the gap with an hourly route leaving the station just after the train calls, and gettig back there just before the next train.

* Bus stops could be added at the top of Station Approach. Very easy in the x34 both ways, and inbound on the 271/2/3 - in all three cases two traffic lanes, and no need for pedestrians to cross on the level. The fourth is a bit of a problem, and perhaps the outbound bus towards Bath COULD divert down Station Approach at the request of passengers onboard.

I hope and expect that Newsham has various options such as these; I also hope that they can get them sorted in a tiny fraction of the time that we have been pushing, nagging, campaigning for an attractive bus <-> train solution

 
Cross Country is an absolute basket case of a TOC and I’m sure the government is only too happy that it’s one of the last to come back to public ownership so Arriva can continue to carry the can for the absolute state that it’s in.

 
Love the road sign!

 

 

In the 1930s there was a cafe by the fork in the road, ‘a cheap flashy little building'. See here.

 
Press release: new trains, more seats.

Mark

https://press.chilternrailways.co.uk/news/new-chiltern-railways-trains-set-to-unlock-10-000-more-seats-a-day

 
From the BBC:

 

I hadn't read it like that ... and there is absolutely no guarantee of results!   Just making it clear to all readers (including perhaps those who have received a copy of the letter in the process of their work) that this isn't a matter they can defuse with just words, or just by letting time pass and the complaint about the horrendous service they are providing at the moment fading away.

Interesting that as I write this, the 12:17 round trip from Westbury has been cancelled.  The previous train at 09:46 ran, and we'll see about the next train at 14:16.   

 
Sorry Graham, I didn't mean to imply that your considerable and much appreciated efforts won't produce results.

 

 

Yes, we can hope. But "we" can (and are) looking to do rather more than just hoping - suggesting, informing, and looking to help oil the wheels to get the Transport Secretary's intention of providing a reliable service [across the rail network] to be reflected and implemented on individual services such as ours.

 

This reminds me of the infamous American who asked why did they build a Windsor castle under Heathrow's flight path

 
The mayor of WECA has laid into the poor experience of XC Cross country trains.

Per Bristol Post article (quote)
The mayor of the West of England region has complained about having a miserable experience catching CrossCountry trains. The operator runs services from Bristol Temple Meads up to Birmingham and Manchester and down to Devon and Cornwall.

Helen Godwin said the customer experience is 'incredibly poor' on CrossCountry services. Passengers will be all too familiar with delays, overcrowding and cancellations, while people travelling for work can struggle to get any work done without connecting to the internet.

She told councillors on the overview and scrutiny committee that she drafted an angry email to the managing director of CrossCountry, but has not yet sent it. The company was owned by Deutsche Bahn, but was recently bought out by a private equity firm.

She said: “I had to travel on the CrossCounty line five times last month and every single time I was either delayed or it was cancelled. You can’t make a phone call, you can’t send a text, let alone do any business on those trains. They are hot and it’s miserable. The customer experience is incredibly poor.

“Prior to this role I was travelling to Manchester and Leeds for work, I was losing six hours a day of work time because I wasn’t able to connect on those trains. I have an email drafted in my phone which was probably written in anger and it’s a good job I didn’t have the managing director’s email on me at the time.”

The Labour mayor sat next to the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, on a CrossCountry train recently, and has already discussed the issues with her. CrossCountry is owned by Arriva, which itself is owned by I Squared Capital, an American private equity company. The operator’s franchise runs out in 2027, when the government plans to take it back into public ownership.

Ms Godwin added: “I’ll reach out to the other mayors to discuss this as well. I had the pleasure of sitting with the Secretary of State for Transport on a CrossCountry train a few weeks ago. So we have discussed this informally. But I’m really happy to reach out to the government.”

A huge focus for the new mayor is improving suburban trains within the wider Bristol region. Several new stations are planned, including at Portishead, Pill, Henbury and Charfield. Services should also start running more frequently too. But for many people travelling further afield, catching the train can still be an arduous and exorbitantly expensive experience.

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/miserable-crosscountry-trains-incredibly-poor-10571399

 

That ECS was a pretty speedy run via Stroud, arriving at Shrub Hill just after 1800 just in time to start the London-bound journey. I was planning on getting the 1841 from Charlbury, saw that was cancelled, and decided to run for the 1807 rather than assuming the 1909 would turn up on time after its South Cotswolds perambulations.

The (North) Cotswold Line service does seem to fall apart in autumn, year in, year out.

 
Brian has replied:
We can always hope

 
There are a lot of good points here.

Perhaps the most important is "Do we need a meeting?".  Often the answer is yes, but increasingly I find since the advent of online gatherings a lot of meetings are called simply because it is so easy.   Often a five minute phone call or an email exchange would achieve as much if not more.    Internal meetings where people look at a shared calendar and see what they perceive as a gap leave you with little time to do things apart from meetings!

You also run the risk of burnout.  I work with a lot of groups who rely on volunteers and so meetings are held in the evening.  An online meeting for an hour and a half or so starting at 5.30 or 6 virtually writes off the evening.  Do you have your dinner before or after is another issue.  This week I have an evening meeting every night bar Friday.   Three on line and one about 20 minutes away.  Two of those I would classify as worthwhile ahead of them - the others simply because it is the second full week of the month and we "always do".

I also find with online meetings there is an increasing trend of people not preparing properly for them.  I swear often I can see people reading the reports as we reach them on the agenda.  The discipline of physically travelling to a meeting often focuses the mind better.

 
It was A bit silly building Stonehenge so close to the main road.