From Plymouth Live


Confirming good news - but will it really "transform South West travel"?

 
From Birmingham World

 
Each individual toc scorecard uses the same pair of (negative) quotes from passengers pulled from the general pool, which does emphasise two valid passenger concerns but perhaps it would be better if those quotes were related to the individual TOC. It would improve the, er, focus.

Mark

 
Here's a link to the survey. Not straightforward to take this in at a glance, need to dig.

Mark

https://www.transportfocus.org.uk/insight/rail-passenger-scorecard/

 

Trigger's broom.

 
Apparently 57305 and 57311 are being hired in for a year to cover 602 and 604 which are both due heavy maintenance exams.
Hopefully that will improve reliability, however time will tell!

 

The best I could find was at https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2017-10/great-western-main-line-electrification-cardiff-to-swansea-outline-business-case.pdf which is very old costings - my reading is that the cost of electrifying on current costs Cardiff to Swansea would be several/multiple times that of revamping Cardiff Central Station.

 
An hourly service with a running time of just over 1 hour Bristol to Oxford - 3 trains in the "cycle" - extend it to Milton Keynes and the running time looks like it would be around 1 hour 45 minutes, so 4 trains in the cycle (educated guess - looking at the running time of the Verney Venurer as shown on Six Bells Junction).  With the extra train required for this, we must note that it would / will be one of the Oxford - Milton Keynes services anyway, so that the it's not really an "extra" train. 

For sure, ChrisB, more peoeple coming into Oxford from Swindon would get off than stay on, but quite a number would stay on and many more would join.  Rather like the Cardiff - Portsmouth service has major changeovers at Bristol and at Southampton.

 

 
Would the money be better spent on electrification from Cardiff to Swansea/Carmarthen

Not sure of the cost of Cardiff to Swansea electrification though

 

Taken to extremis, this is a pretty good - err "CrossRail 3"

Weymouth
Dorchester for Poole and Bournemouth
Yeovil Junction Lower Platform for Salisbury - Exteter line
Castle Cary for Taunton, Plymouth, Cornwll
Westbury for Reading, Newbury, Bath, Bristol
Chippenham for Bath and Bristol
Swindon for South Wales and Gloucseter
Oxford for Banbury and Leamington and for Worcester and Hereford
Bicester Village for Bang & Olufsen, Barbour, Beauté Prestige International, Belstaff, Benefit Cosmetics, Bonpoint, BOSS and many more
Bletchley for Northampton, North West, North Wales, Scotland
Bedford for Leicester, Derby, Nottingham and Sheffield. Also for Luton
Sandy for Peterbourough, Doncaster, Leeds, York and Newcastle
Cambridge for Kings Lynn and for Ipswich and Harwich
Norwich for Cromer, Sheringham, Lowestoft
Great Yarmouth

 

People could travel there to connect with other services and destinations plus this service would allow people to avoid have to travel across London or even changing at Birmingham new street etc

 
I wonder if someone high up has noticed my comment at https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=29251.msg352532#msg352532

And realised the big problem that has developed over the last few years.

 
As this very welcome 'news' discussion develops, I've removed the link to last year's specific date in our calendar and expanded the heading of this topic - purely in the interests of clarity and ease of future reference.

CfN. 

 
Looking at the earlier picture of Plockton, I reckon no. 5 is there too. The curvature is the same, and so is the platform surface - just a bit drier. All it requires is to sneakily crop the image to exclude the bridge and warning sign at the end of the platform ...

 
I don't think either are designed for Newquay to Falmouth journeys but for intermediate trips. The bus and train serve different routes.
At the moment there are 5 buses an hour between Truro and Newquay via different routes with Go bus being the quickest.

 
Very backward step with no through buses from Falmouth and Penryn to the hospital at Treliske. The way First are going one can only hope they will pull out of Cornwall soon.

 

Quite agree.  The more East-West rail becomes a true East-West service over time - Bristol<>Milton Keynes/Bedford/Cambridge and perhaps beyond to Norwich/Ipswich - the appeal grows and an ideal route for a 5-car IET.  Not dissimilar to the Cardiff<>Portsmouth or Norwich<>Liverpool routes where relatively low numbers of people are travelling the whole route, but taken as a whole with people joining/alighting at various points en-route, it's difficult to not see it being extremely popular.

But for now I'll be very happy for a new hourly Bristol<>Oxford service.  With a presumed target journey time of 70-75 minutes, three IETs would be needed with sensible layovers at each end of the route.  Platform 5 at Oxford should be ready by then and IETs should be available by then with Class 175s taking over existing IET diagrams in the west.  Crew availablility remains a slightly thorny issue, but drivers wise some Oxford based crew are about to 'sign' as far as Swindon and that would be the logical depot, along with Bristol, to work it.

 

On its own, it wouldn't.  But if you add the people attracted to Milton Keynes to the people attracted to Oxford, you may get better mass transit which is combining all the flows along a flow and sharing costs between all the various bums on seats.

 

I think the 1st timetable they proposed which was 4 or 5 coaches per day was acceptable.  The T1.does get very busy in fact it seriously needs later services  especially a 2100 from Carmarthen up.to lampeter at least.

This express should run-through to Swansea at least I think especially serving Crosshands

 
Not what I was hoping for could really have done with more especially the proposed bridgedeck like Readings at the western end of te statio  to cope with the crowds.

These proposals still see the bottlenecks caused by the two subways. No.idea too.if platform 0 is going to be extended like tfw and network rail want.

As well is this is do hope Cardiff West junction is sorted

 
Why would Milton Keynes be a more attractive destination than Oxford?

 

Long overdue I think it will prove quite popular especially if it ran beyond Oxford to Milton keynes

 
The current through route was only introduced 2-3 years ago, along with St Austell/ Newquay to Penzance/st ives, which have both been cut.

It was an initiative to save buses, as they were all terminating at Truro college to serve Treliske Hospital previously.
It combined Falmouth to Truro college with Truro to Newquay via Truro college, which saved several buses off the peak requirement, with big cost savings.
The problem is knock on delays, get delayed in Newquay it affects the Falmouth side. The new schedule no longer sees Falmouth buses continuing to Treliske and Truro college.

 

Coincidentally(??), the same train as was on the 17:50 Gloucester to Salisbury yesterday (165132 according to RTT).

Swapping units at Westbury this morning caused an eleven minute delay to the TransWilts train, but presumably there were working toilets on the substitute train (and an extra carriage), so not all bad news (unless you were on the Castle Cary to Filton train without a working loo from Westbury….)

 
This look attractive to fill the gaps

https://www.interrail.eu/en/plan-your-trip/trip-ideas/recommended-routes/classic-routes/london-istanbul-train-route

 
Possible progress, with an hourly Bristol-Oxford service hoving in to view. Hopefully.

Mark

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cedlxqg7ex5o

 
This should probably be half in "The West but not the West's trains" and half in "Diary"

https://grahamellis.uk/blog1533.html

Looking forward to being able to re-allocate the red time (and all the prep that goes with it) to purple and black time, and being able to get rid of most of the sleepless nights that come hand in bloody glove with the red items.

 
no.1 -  not too many. on the occasions I've done it, probably once a month, there's been about half a dozen-ish.

no.2 - Perhaps I've been lucky but it's been ok, when I've used it. There was quite a bit of disruption when the A30 was being rebuilt last year and it got to a stage where the delays were bad, especially during the summer that they did split the journey to maintain a regular Truro - Falmouth service but that project is just about complete so shouldn't be a factor. Perhaps First are being cautious.

no.3 - using my experience if it has fair loadings throughout, even mid-winter. Some sections are busier than others. Falmouth to the Uni campus in Penryn always tends to be the busiest. Then pick ups at Devoran & Playing Place into Truro before generally emptying. From Truro bus station people get on for the Railway station then Treliske Hospital (Cornwall's main Hospital) and Threemilestone. After that it is quieter but, especially during the holiday season, it can get quite busy again as it calls at St Agnes (alternate services) and Perranporth and Perran Sands Holiday camp taking people into Newquay.

no.4 You would hope not. During the Roadworks on the A30 when the service was split they did keep through ticketing. The difference then was both parts of the service operated under the same number U1 / U1A. Now it's going to be two different services I'm not optimistic.  I think I'll ask the question.