KingEdwardII

OO gauge?

7 hours ago, RobAllen said:

Have I missed anything obvious in this thinking?

The problem with using Wells as a prototype is that it has *3* separate goods yards for the one small town. And the SDJR goods yard you are focussing on is not the biggest of them. The East Somerset yard on the east side of Priory Road had the Gasworks, while Tucker Street yard to the north west had a large feed mill. Not quite so rural - and these industrial premises were dependent on the railway.

It is true that the railways were built on the edge of these small market towns - and that it took some time for development to surround the lines. However, I think that it is common for one side of the lines to have housing/buildings next to them - the railways encouraged the development of housing between the old town centres and the lines/stations in Victorian times. This can be seen by the presence of classic Victorian houses in those areas - I can see this in Station Road in my local town of Romsey, for example. I doubt that the areas near the station really looked rural.

Note that Wells already had a major building on the south side of the railway even in Victorian times (see your first map) - this was the local Workhouse. By the 1930s, as well as the 3 streets of houses on the south side, there were at least 2 industrial enterprises in that area - which were just off the bottom of the later map that you have, beyond the houses.

Yours, Mike.

11 hours ago, Mallard60022 said:

I still think of it that way as a fast and exciting route west,

It's a good route west, but it is certainly not fast. Part of the problem is that the trains now more or less stop everywhere - there are no express trains as on the ex GWR route west from Reading through Taunton. This is made harder by the extensive single line sections and the lack of passing loops at stations. On the other hand, the line offers a good reliable route to the towns it serves. Having said that, there is currently a set of major track replacement works that are closing the line for about 2 weeks...

Yours, Mike.

At least now, the line is in rude health. Indeed, there is a need to redouble some of the sections of track to ensure a smoother operation of the current timetable.

Yours, Mike.

3 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Is there not a XC service to New St via Reading?

Yes, but that would be from Winchester (or Soton Parkway). Problems there:

o using the car to get there would mean a seriously hefty parking charge (for a week's stay)

o using the bus to get to Winchester means a long wait on the outward journey, the return journey or both, plus a walk of 1/2 mile to get the bus - not fun with luggage

o taxi to/from Winchester = somewhat expensive

o train from local station via Southampton is possible, but adds more time

Plus, depending on the train, a long wait at Birmingham, e.g 59 mins for the 10:09 from Alnmouth, although thankfully they are not all like that.

The "quickest" journeys are of course all through London - but as I have said before, London is more like an obstacle course than a transport connection for folk with luggage.

The local station at Romsey on the Portsmouth-Cardiff route works out better than Winchester apart from the unfortunately long layovers at Bristol.

Yours, Mike.

29 minutes ago, Mallard60022 said:

the services were well timetabled

I'm not so sure about that. Some of the timetables I've read from the 1930s and 1950s are unfathomably random. I wonder how much of that factored into declining usage that led to Beeching.

There is a lot to be said in favour of the interval timing common in the modern timetables, although in some cases better thought could be applied to the timing of connections. It's not much fun sitting cooling your heels for 50 minutes. Connections like that put me off the Hampshire to Northumberland route via Bristol Temple Meads - we go by car.

Yours, Mike.

My son and his partner are an example of one target market for train travel: they are young city-dwelling professionals who don't own a car. In cities like London, owning a car can be a burden more than a means of transport, plus travel within the city by public transport is often easy and relatively cheap.

They do take a reasonable number of leisure trips each year - sometimes to see us in Hampshire, others for UK vacations.

They took the train to Cornwall for a recent vacation in St Ives and Bodmin, although they did rent a car for some of the time they were there since there are places they wanted to visit that are not so easy to reach with public transport.

They often take the train to visit us in Hampshire, but on the most recent visit over a weekend, they hired a car since there was engineering work on the line for the return journey on a Sunday.

They have a flexible approach to the means of transport they use and will turn to any means that works for them. In this regard, the current ongoing strikes and weekend engineering works play very badly and are teaching them all about the other means of transport that are available. It's not only price that is a factor - speed and reliability are right up there as considerations.

Leisure travel is a very different market from commuting and the railways will have to behave differently in order to be attractive.

Yours, Mike

3 hours ago, adb968008 said:

As a parent, with spouse and kids what is the right way in thinking ..?

I was being specific that ignoring seniors, as stated in your previous post, was very much the wrong idea. They are a big part of the population these days.

As I said in my previous post, I have no problem with actions to encourage families with children to use trains.

Yours, Mike.

37 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Encouraging more seniors to travel, probably isnt the way

That's not the right thinking. There are more seniors than ever and their numbers are increasing. They have a lot more time for travel and have more disposable income than you might think, since their everyday expenses are typically lower than working age folk. I'm not against encouraging families to travel by train, but that is only part of the picture.

Yours, Mike.

44 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

its currently £192 return Wat to Exmouth

By contrast, we did our jaunt from Hampshire to Exmouth in June for £29 return all-in for the two of us - using senior railcards. The fuel for the car would have cost more.

Yours,  Mike.

On 21/11/2023 at 14:32, Ben B said:

I reckoned the day of the 'holiday train to the seaside' passed

Well, us retired folks used the train to go from home to and from Exmouth earlier this last summer, staying in a classic seaside location right on the prom with a view of the beach from our bedroom window. The journey worked a treat from our local station with 3 trains each way, changing at Salisbury and Exeter.

Points to note about the journey:

o We travelled midweek both ways. Being retired, we don't need to plan around weekends.

o We travelled out mid morning and back mid afternoon, nowhere near any rush hours.

o We used Advance tickets which gave us a very good price.

o We travelled with cabin-bag sized luggage and there was always space in the overhead luggage racks.

o The seating on the Salisbury - Exeter leg is excellent and well upholstered perfect for a long journey.

o Exmouth is blessed with a very frequent service, once every 30mins during the day

o The railway at Exmouth provides a good means of getting around the local area while you're on holiday (Exeter, Dawlish, Newton Abbott, Torquay & Paignton are all an easy journey)

We have looked at similar holidays in the south west by train - Dartmouth, Dawlish, Barnstaple are some other examples.

Yours, Mike.

The problem with a connection from Wisbech to March is that the trains from March to Cambridge don't look like they are set up for commuting. The service is 1 per hour, with no extra rush hour trains - and they only stop at the main Cambridge station, not Cambridge North (Cambridge South does not exist yet). They take 33 mins between Cambridge and March, which is good, but the number of folk using the train to commute currently cannot be that large given the limited availability of trains.

Wisbech is larger than March (~30K vs ~20K poulations), but you'd probably need a direct Wisbech - March - Ely - Cambridge North - Cambridge - Cambridge South service in the rush hours to make it appealing to commuters from Wisbech. It would make sense from the perspective of relieving housing pressure on the immediate vicinity of Cambridge.

Yours, Mike.

41 minutes ago, Mark Saunders said:

The biggest problem with luggage

...is that rail operators are taking a Ryanair view that luggage is damned inconvenient and should be discouraged at every opportunity.

The contrast between UK trains and Eurostar is instructive - the Eurostar coaches have a substantial area at each end of every coach dedicated to storage space for large items of luggage, with plenty of luggage rack space above the seats for smaller items.

Tourist traffic simply demands space for luggage - you can't stay overnight or longer without it.

Yours, Mike.

59 minutes ago, Forward! said:

For working people it's usually that the bus services are completely impractical

Not just working people. I'm old enough to have a bus pass and there is a bus service from near our village to Winchester which enables us to catch the train to London. However, we have only used this once in recent times and instead much prefer to use our car to get to the station, even though this involves a hefty parking charge. The buses are simply not that covenient and when we did use the bus on that one occasion, we ended up sitting twiddling our thumbs for nearly an hour at Winchester station waiting for the next bus.

Yours, Mike.

2 hours ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Catch points are one of the things I look for on layouts;

There were 7 of them in the real-life S&D Priory Road station at Wells in the 1930s, all controlled from the signal box, with associated ground signals. Together, they represented about 1/3 of the levers in the box at that time.

Yours, Mike.

2 minutes ago, RobAllen said:

and Wells

Wells made much more complex by the fact that while it was a terminus for the S&D, it also had a GWR line running right through it on the branch from Yatton to Witham. GWR trains used to run right through the S&D station on the single road past the platform at Priory Road - although the GWR had its own Wells station at Tucker Street. The GWR line to the west cut right across the S&D goods yard. The S&D loop actually straddled the junction of the S&D and GWR lines.

A measure of the complexity here can be gained from this signal diagram from the 1930s:

http://www.trainweb.org/railwest/images/sb-diag/wells-a-30.jpg

Yours, Mike

1 hour ago, F-UnitMad said:

why has the modeller fitted the insulators upside down on the nearest pole?

Friday afternoon job, I think...

4 hours ago, ITG said:

seems like I can use thinner wire than I was planning

Indeed - the current draw of the MP1 is pretty small, so thin wire is just fine. Voltage drop is not going to be an issue.

Yours, Mike.

Those telegraph poles look rather unconvincing - no wires running from the insulators on the cross bars.

12 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

if we were still in the EU and Schengen,

We have never been in Schengen, even when we were in the EU. There have always been passport checks when travelling between UK and EU - they have just got a bit more stringent when entering the EU since Brexit.

Yours, Mike.

4 hours ago, ITG said:

it’s one less wire, 8 times over.

I just use small 3 core flex (0.5mm2 or less) from the DR4018 to the MP1. Simple and straightforward. I'd consider doing a common more complex and more of a faff, especially if you get a failure anywhere.

Yours, Mike.

1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Our local Aldi just has checkout queues.

Interesting - our local Aldi has self-service and checkouts, with checkouts for the larger shops - ie. folk with trolleys are not supposed to use the self-service tills. The local Waitrose has no such restriction and you can use self-service for any size of shopping. Other (larger) places even have separate self-service tills for baskets and for trolleys - like the local Asda.

I'm sure that facilities are partly down to the size and layout of the supermarket. Which is perhaps the same idea for stations - many are too small for anything other than a machine - and some of those have nothing, with passengers expected to buy on-train if they don't have pre-purchase/electronic tickets.

Yours, Mike.

1 hour ago, Nick C said:

Booths supermarkets are getting rid of the self-service checkouts

Well, that would put me off, if I were a customer. I've got used to the speed and convenience of self-service checkouts - those using hand scanners are even better. Most supermarkets offer both self-service and manned checkouts and I think that's a good idea.

Yours, Mike.

1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

complexity in trying to work out the cheapest fare for the journeys you want to do.

Well, to be fair, the National Rail website and app both lay out all the fares pretty clearly. The NR website shows a list of the available trains including connections (if you wish) and you can display all the available fares for each train, including Travelcards. You can easily decide for yourself to go for the cheapest fare or the most convenient train which fits your budget.

The main thing to remember is that typically you need to plan ahead to get the lowest fares - and also sacrifice flexibility since Advance tickets tie you to particular services. Having said that, I have been offered an Advance fare on day of travel - presumably there were few bookings for the trains concerned - but this is a rare experience.

Yours, Mike.

18 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

the Advance fare is the same to Waterloo as to the boundary ( Surbiton )

The fares are much the same from Winchester to Surbiton as they are to Waterloo - both for Advance and for the Travelcard.

There is one twist - there are a set of really low priced Advance tickets that work out at £28.90 to Waterloo, which are not available to the other stations on the line, like Surbiton, Clapham Junction, etc, where the lowest fare is £30.00.

Yours, Mike.