I was walking past Aldermaston Wharf this morning and went across the station footbridge. On either side was a small blue notice and a much larger yellow banner displaying a plan showing where replacement bus services for both directions stopped - about a hundred yards away

 

Perhaps GBR could get back into shipping, the railways could contract one of the trip boat operators to timetable a rail replacement boat to serve Avoncliff, running a shuttle to and from Bradford-on-Avon.

Mark

 
Charlbury is half a mile away up a steep hill. The two locations actually have different CRS codes: CBY for the station, CVG for the RRB stop. (The latter was derived from “Charlbury Village”, but it was pointed out that Charlbury is officially a town, so the stop is now called Charlbury Nine Acres Lane.)

The reason is that the road from the town to the station has a weak bridge over the River Evenlode, so buses can’t access the station without a long detour. In practice Oxfordshire County Council turns a blind eye to RRBs using the bridge, but for week-long closures the CVG stop is used.

 

Agreed - Dovey Junction (and perhaps Berney Arms, Altnabraec and Corrour) is / are the stations where it most makes sensed for pickups / droposffs to be at the nearest road, some distance on foot from the platform at which the train calls.   Though Dovey Junction is, I think, unique in being somewhere that people change trains.  It's my understanding that at Rail Replacement Bus times, Macynellth is the point at which you change between the train and the pseudotrain.     If, for example, the line onward to Aberystwth were closed, passengers from Shrewsbury would not take kindly to having to get off the Pwllheli train at Dovey Junction and walk up to the main road for their ongoing bus.

There is some sense in St Keyne Wishing Well, and Cynghordy, having a bus stop in the village as there's nothing much around the station; the occasional person is bound to get caught out and thus irritated.   Avoncliff is different.  There's a community within a short distance of the station - houses and even a couple of businesses, on both sides on the Avon.   And that cluster around the station is the source of/ destination of passengers there.  To have the buses stop "miles away" on the road through the next village is understandable for reasons of geography and efficiency (read also cost), but is a significant issue for the community.

 
St Keyne wishing well halt rail replacement pick up is a good mile up a very steep hill from the station.
Or in other words the station is at least a mile down a steep hill from the main road and village it serves.
Villagers who fail to check could find themselves walking a mile, to have to walk a mile back for the bus!
Rail replacement is more convenient for the village than the train. I suspect most villagers would use the 73 bus rather than the train.

 
I tend to carry a copy of the local Ordnance Survey map when I'm out travelling. Even if I don't need it for geographic location purposes, it gives me something to read during any delays. Image not available to guests Image not available to guests Image not available to guests

 

As in this case, there sometimes appears to be an assumption that people know where the station is. In this case I didn't, in relation to the local road system.

 
You'd reach the station along that road unless arriving by helicopter/parachute, so the bus stopping there does make sense!  Replacement buses serving the centre of a town/village rather than the station some distance from anywhere also makes sense, provided it's clearly signposted, along with warnings on journey planners.

 
Dovey Junction is a mile along the footpath to the A487 - the nearest road.

 

I take it that a RRB for Berney Arms would be a Rail Replacement Boat.

 

Courrour?

Berney Arms doesn't even get a RRB, passengers are told to go to Reedham or Great Yarmouth instead.

 
We are fortunate at Nailsea & Backwell station, in that any Rail Replacement Bus services use the regular bus stops - both of which are within just a few yards walk of the railway station.

Perhaps even more fortunately, we seldom have any need for replacement buses, being on the Great Western main line and only 9 miles from Bristol. Trains tend to be put through here, almost no matter what else is going on. Image not available to guests

 
On a couple of occasions before Lockdown I turned up at Tilehurst on a Sunday hoping to catch the first train to Paddington, only to find there was a replacement bus. On the first occasion I naively assumed that the bus would draw up on the station forecourt where there was a delineated space for buses that at one time provided a service direct to the station during the rush hour. Only the first time the bus stopped on the main road. A year later there was also a replacement bus, so I hovered hopefully outside the station, only to see the bus whizz past me and stop at a regular stop 200 yards down the road - too far for me to run to catch it.  Subsequently the electronic board at the station did direct one to that stop.

 
Christs Hospital. Was on an RRB from Horsham and was dropped in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere. Fortunately I was not immediately concerned about the station, just doing one half of the Downs Link on the bike.

 
From a Facebook post concerning Cynghordy  where the bus now calls (according to a comment) on the main road.


In the Great Western area, Avoncliff has become almost as bad - with the rail replacement buses calling in Westwood, some distance from the station and the walk to the bus is a significant uphill along a road under the trees that's very slippery in leaf fall season.   Are there any other stations where the RRB calls only a significant distance away?