Rail travel boost for Westbury

[Theo C. Cupier]

The latest issue of our  local freebie paper carried this story which has been on and off the cards for a few years.   The final line of the extract below  is ironic given the recent re-modelling of the station.

"Rail travel in Westbury could get a boost from a new train operator proposing a significant addition to the rail timetable from summer 2020.

The proposal from GO-OP – an independent co-operative society – will bring an additional six services a day to the town

The service will connect Westbury to the West Midlands, with the service going as far as Nuneaton, via Oxford, Leamington Spa and Coventry. The service will also offer additional connections to Somerset, stopping in places like Frome, Castle Cary, Taunton and Yeovil.  

Alex Lawrie, the operations director and a founder member of GO-OP, told White Horse News, “This will make Westbury a real hub for interchange and puts the station in a very interesting position – it may mean more investment in the station as it is currently only a three-platform station. "

 

Full article here

[37114]

Nice April fools joke...

[Theo C. Cupier]

Very elaborate though..       Go-Op have been plugging  it for a few years now.  :-)

 

 

Edited April 2, 2019 by Theo C. Cupier
Add image

[Joseph_Pestell]

Yeovil - Nuneaton. Sounds a bit improbable doesn't it, but I can see that it does offer some useful potential connections. Enough to make it viable as a fully commercial service, I doubt it but I would like to be proved wrong.

And could be difficult for track capacity now that SWT runs trains via Westbury to Yeovil.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Note from the Go-Op website that they are now aiming to get some 769 units. A 319 from Taunton - Nuneaton!

[The Stationmaster]

Sounds almost like  'son of Swindon - Peterborough' which was very much under development in the early 1990s and was actually considered to be a viable proposition.  In connection with work I was doing I even included the trains at an hourly interval on one of my planning graphs for the new coal flow from Avonmouth to Didcot, complete with a station stop at Wantage/Grove Parkway.

[Gordon Connell]

There was a small piece in the April Railway Magazine and there's a little more info here: https://www.railwaygazette.com/news/news/uk/single-view/view/co-operative-proposes-wessex-open-access-train-service.html.

[Metr0Land]

On 02/04/2019 at 13:18, Joseph_Pestell said:

Note from the Go-Op website that they are now aiming to get some 769 units. A 319 from Taunton - Nuneaton!

 

I wonder if they've worked out how to rescue a stricken 769?

 

TfW have inherited the Arriva order and the first one is at Cardiff Canton.  Current thinking is that they would need 4 (yes folks that's the number between 3 and 5) Class 150 units to rescue it.  Much scratching of heads currently going on as there's no way they'd want to cancel 4 service trains (not to mention getting the units to the right place).  Presumably someone will come up with something.

 

Where's Baldrick when you need a plan?

[Steadfast]

Is there a BSI to tightlock coupling converter that would allow a sprinter to couple to a 769?

This cooperative reappears every couple of years. One of the previous ideas was using class 50s

 

Jo

[Joseph_Pestell]

2 hours ago, Steadfast said:

Is there a BSI to tightlock coupling converter that would allow a sprinter to couple to a 769?

This cooperative reappears every couple of years. One of the previous ideas was using class 50s

 

Jo

 

Well at least that would bring out a few rail enthusiasts to boost the local economy.

[TomJ]

I suspect that in order to boost the local economy what you really need to improve is the links to London. That’s where the money is, to make it commutable (if that’s feasible). Look at all the car parks at Peterborough on the ECML. 

 

Not many people will regularly commute from Wiltshire to the West Midlands and people changing trains at Westbury wont bring anything to the local economy