Great Western Coffee Shop

From The BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41051440)


Very interesting article ... goes on to explore further


Do any of our members have 1962 (ish) timetables to hand to make comparisons for our towna and cities?

1974 is the earliest printed timetable I have, so post steam but pre-HST.

The 1965 western region timetable is available to view online here: http://timetableworld.com/book_viewer.php?id=12&section_id=15

London Midland Region summer 1963 so I have had to compare limited cross-country traffic via Reading

Pines Express 1963 (already moved from the beloved S&D) versus XC last Wednesday 23/08/17. I tried a table, but failed ...

Note that the 1963 route is via the ex-GWR via Shrewsbury and Wellington so not a fair comparison on that interval.

Station : depart 1963: depart 2017: notes

Manchester Piccadilly: 10A00: 1127: A= reservations available 2/-
Wolverhampton LL: 12u18: 1241: now HL
Birmingham Snow Hill: 12u43: 1304: now NS
Leamington Spa General: 1309: 1338
Oxford: 1404: 1415
Reading West: 1446: 1446: now reverse RDG
Basingstoke: 15a08: 1510
Southampton Central: 15a52: 1543
Bournemouth Central: 16a32: 16a11: 1963 terminate Bournemouth West 16a44

Chester General to Manchester Exchange 1963:

Stopping train 1:25, Express 1:05 all via Warrington BQ

There's a 1962 London Midland on Timetable World too - almost certainly the source of that article.

That shows only two trains per day via Warrington that get under an hour, by only stopping there, one taking 56 minutes. Mainly it's 1:10 for all seven stops, and a typically erratic 90 minute service interval. Now its "an hour" (i.e. give or take five minutes) with all seven stops, every hour, so the two faster ones would arguably not be worth running.

The slower trains, via Knutsford, used to be once an hour plus commuting and Saturday extras, taking 1:15. Now it takes longer, nearly 1:30, because it can't go from Altrincham to Manchester Central along what's now Metrolink, so it takes a long dog-leg via Stockport. However it (rather unBeechingly) makes more stops - sixteen - on the way, so at least it serves more places.

So which is better?

Just checked, 17:45 Paddington to Bristol 1hr 55m on the Blue Pullman with one stop at Bath.

Current 18:00 Paddingotn - Bristol 1hr 43m with 5 stops.

The argument whether the North gets a raw deal, or not, is very annoying. Everywhere outside of London gets a raw deal. It is not just the North.

I would go as far as saying that the wider Bristol area has had a particularly bad deal, even compared to much of the Midlands and north.

Exactly that point made in today's Observer article: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/aug/26/all-aboard-northern-rail-powerhouse-crossrail-2-midland-main-line

The North are getting new trains as part of the new franchise agreements started or about to start.

Northern
Transpennine
West Midlands

Here in the West Country we're getting  the casts off from the Thames Valley. As good as Turbos are, they aren't new trains. To conclude, I think those in the Bristol area and Southwest travelling on local services have a right to say 'we're getting a raw deal'.

This reminds me of the story that was appearing in various local papers recently, "Town X to London is the slowest/most expensive train journey in the whole country" with cherry-picked routes to match.

Hear, hear! The North, or at least parts thereof, gets a raw deal. So does Bristol and the south west. You can start with the postponement of electrification, move on to Portishead, then capacity on the Severn Beach line, Henbury, and the despicable MetroBust to "make up for" the lack of light rail, and not be more than half an hour from the centre. Then there's Dawlish avoidance, Okehampton, the Tarka line, just about everything in Cornwall, Taunton to Barnstaple, and so on.

South Devon seems to have found way to buck the trend with the South Devon Metro, in actual effect, being built now if you look at the recent progress with Newcourt and Cranbrook stations now open and new ones at Marsh Barton and Edginswell seemingly imminent.
It seems to be down to regional political will combined with effective cooperation with local business and other interest groups.
Some lessons to be learnt by other regions?

Devon provides an impressive demonstration of very positive public transport update and development.  It involves impressive people, backed up by (or perhaps provoking) a general regional will.  Yes, there are good lessons to learn / examples to adapt and follow.

And very effective those stories can be at times when you want to stir a press story.

Time was (2007 to December 2013) that if you travelled by train from London to Melksham, catching the first available train of the day, you would arrive in Melksham later than had you travelled from London to Fort William by the first available train of the day.  (Fort William arrival at about 16:09, Melksham at 19:18).   Made a wonderful headline, but what an utter nonsense - anyone with an ounce of sense knew to take a train to Chippenham, walk across the town to the bus station, and catch the x34 or the 234, or travel on a Saturday when a 15:21 arrival at Melksham Station from London was possible.

We could say the same about Wiltshire!

There is a very good reason why London and the Southeast gets the lions share of investment, if you take NR Southeast Route it has a route 25 to 30% of all of the passengers on the National network, Southwest Route is not far behind that.  Its quite simple something like 60 to 70% of all rail (national network) passenger journeys start and finish in the London and Southeast area.

Crossrail in part is being funded by a levy on the London business rates and local council tax payers also the City of London has invested in it, the same is being proposed for Crossrail 2, so when the Government says Northern Powerhouse you need to seek the funding the Government are not saying they will not contribute they just will not pay for it lock stock and barrel

Wiltshire used to be regarded as just about the worst county for public transport support, but it's far from that now.  However, it has moved (so far) from being one of the worst to middle ground, rather than (as yet) an example of shining achievement all around.  There is momentum there, there are excellent / impressive people (who I won't embarrass by naming) but there are also significant pockets who do things in a certain way "because we always have", or carry on with old ways "don't want to risk anything new / don't have the time".

Wiltshire - "most improved in this decade" - quote possibly.  "One of the best counties for a modern appropriate public transport system" - not yet.   On trains, a couple of new stations, services that run slightly varied and appropriate routes, with some frequency increases, that connect well with other trains and buses.   On buses, services that run as a network without disparate ticketing issues, that connect with each other and trains, that run when people want them, with centralised information and well labelled buses and bus stops. And that encourage multiple use of the same vehicle / route for local, school, senior and visitor flows so that the whole thing is welcoming and economic.

Yes, however that is to some extent a circular argument.  London gets the investment so passenger numbers grow so it gets more investment.....

While other parts of the country that need investment don't get it, so passenger numbers don't grow.....

There is an argument that Scottish, Welsh devolution is not the solution, its the whole of the rest of the country that needs devolution from London (though I am not sure where you would draw the boundary)!

Trans-Wilts has shown what even a small investment can do so the trains are overcrowded, now with some investment .....

There are other examples elsewhere in the country outside London

You may have noticed a little thing called HS2?

Being pedantic here but I doubt whether anyones noticed it yet, heard of it as,  proposed HS2, but until its built no one can notice it !!!!

You're absolutely right..................................very pedantic!!!  :D

A huge proportion of the HS2 budget is assigned to rebuild parts of North London. The original idea for HS2 was to rejuvenate the Midlands and North, but it appears a large proportion of the money is being spent in London.

Why not build HS2 Birmingham to Manchester first, then HS3 from Liverpool to Hull/Newcastle.

Because the greatest need for capacity release on the WCML is south of Birmingham and also it will give the quickest benefit to number of routes where journey times will be reduced.

And how much better would it be with proper investment to actually improve things in the way the local leaders see necessary? (MetroBust excluded, obviously).

As a Lancs/Bucks hybrid my narrow view is that the Northern 3 Regions, only a little less in population than London and the South East do get a raw deal. However you need to look at the totality of transport spending (and the North's choices) to have a balanced view.

The Inter City rail electrifications probably drained rather than fed the North's economies as they only pointed South and did not include lateral routes. HS2 will probably continue this. Even today, the TP scheme, arguably connecting more population than CrossRail is in doubt. Scotland is a contrast in the Glasgow blue train and now multiple central belt wirings. Some would say that the SNP should have extended to include the Northern Regions. The best heavy rail achievements are the Merseyrail system and the North Leeds wiring of four routes. The North has had light rail in Newcastle, Sheffield and Manchester and would have had one in Liverpool if the 18km scheme had not come in at £450M. The latest 5km extension of the Sheffield system is costing £125M.

If you drive in parts of the North you will appreciate the extent of roads investment over the last century. Liverpool has dual carriageways everywhere - two ring roads (Queen's Drive and the M57) and most "A" roads are thoroughly improved. Skelmersdale is a road constructor's Nirvana with no station but grade separated junctions on housing estate roads! They are still relatively depressed areas.

If you back the wrong horse you lose your money.

OTC

All the papers were at it again today. This time the source of the "research" was PA, though the Times for one didn't see fit to mention that. I think they all stuck close to the supplied text, at least at the start (but not that dire headline). PA's own site only has this teaser:

Doesn't that wording just shout "junk research"? I mean, who chose those 19 routes, and what do they represent? One was London-Reading, which was the 93 mph, while Liverpool Central-Chester (Merseyrail) was the 20 mph - hence the ratio of four:one. Does that look a reasonable comparison?

Oh, of course you need to measure the distance in a straight line, otherwise you don't get as low as 30 mph for Cardiff-Bristol. But we all know about the government's penny-pinching refusal to build the Bristol Channel bridge, don't we?

There is a point, no doubt, to be made - just not that way. Once you've pointed out that long-distance lines were built and still run from London, and they have fewer stops and (partly for that reason) are faster, what would be good comparisons? I understand that York-Darlington in The North - that's over 100 mph, which proves...?

I wonder what PA's motive is for putting out this kind of stuff. Is it mostly staffed by splenetic scousers?

Very well put, Stuving.

As well as the fact that there would not be capacity for HS2 services on the WCML south of Birmingham if you did it that way, you would have to redesign HS2 as even when phase 2 is complete there will not be a direct route from Birmingham to Manchester, unless by 'Birmingham' you mean somewhere with Birmingham in the title in which case you are looking at a line from Manchester to 'Birmingham International' A.K.A. 'Birmingham Interchange'.

When I have mentioned this before somebody posted that some London-Birmingham services would reverse and continue to Manchester, but the service patterns I have seen in HS2 Ltd. published documents have them as seperate London-Birmingham and London-Manchester shuttles, with a change required in Birmingham. Either way, there will be no long-distance passengers on these services (because they'll be on the services that bypass Birmingham) so in my opinion these shuttles do not justify the engergy required to run them at 200mph plus (wheras if there were no Birmingham bypass line and trains to Manchester, Crewe, Glasgow etc. ran through central Birmingham there would be long-distance passengers on from London too). If you could run the shuttles at 140mph I'd be less annoyed with the poor design of HS2, but they'd get in the way of the 200+mph long-distance trains if you did that and you still wouldn't be able to justify HS2 trains to certain destinations (north Wales for example wouldn't generate enough passengers from London to fill HS2's long trains, but if the train could call at Birmingham on the way it could also serve the Birmingham to north Wales market which would help fill the train and save a path (because there would just just one London-Birmingham-Wales train on HS2 instead of seperate London-Wales and Birmingham-Wales trains on the classic network)).

There is perhaps also an argument that phase 1 should have been London to Manchester without a break in construction or the authorisation process to ensure the London-Birmingham line cannot be built while there is still a risk the government may cancel the northern half.

I agree completely with that last sentance; it's related to what I'm saying above about HS2 in Birmingham. If the London trains could call at Curzon street on the way there would at least be links with Birmingham not just with London so rather than drain, but ideally there would also be improved Manchester-Birmingham-Bristol and Leeds-Birmingham-Bristol services too (electric and using HS2 north of Birmingham, though the Leeds trains would have to use New Street rather than the HS2 station in Birmingham). All a missed opertunity now that the HS2 Birmingham terminus plan is final, London-centric HS2 here we come (now what happens when the GWML and ECML are as full as the WCML?).

Good question; if you add up all transport funding (not just rail) do the other regions still get a raw deal compared to London or is it just that transport funds are generally spent more-sensibly in London (on public transport) compared to transport spending elsewhere (on roads)?

One of the issues justifying HS2, and not allowing it to use New St is the lack of capacity in the West Midlands area, hence the desire to redevelop and use Curzon St.

Why not implement a rail loop in the West Midlands to stop many local trains going to New Street, improve the local transport infrastructure in the West Midlands to make it more attractive.

As a country we must invest more in regions outside of London, be it South West, Midlands, North West, Yorkshire and North East, improve links to these areas whether adding new lines or improving capacity at bottle necks like New St station in Birmingham.

At no point have I every been against investment in London, it is needed, but at the expense of the rest of country? No!

There is no point in sending decent trains up north. They will get stuck in snow drifts for weeks, and then damaged by polar bears trying to break in and eat the frozen corpses.
Better to stick to horses, at least you can eat a horse if trapped and hungry, you cant eat a DMU!

Returning to the case of regional trains to Chester, I note that Chester has about the  same population as Winchester, Chichester and Canterbury combined and has a total, including surrounds about equal to that of the Reading-Wokingham conurbation , i.e 300k. The Northern economy differs from that of the South East in that it is distributed not centralised and so peer to peer networks are needed. The only service from Merseyside (and hence to North Wales) is at present the worthy Merseyrail Metro-style offering, involving 15 stops, until the Halton curve may be reinstated. The two Manchester routes are a little better but the results - technically Inter City services - are a National scandal (and not alone). The 319 flexes would improve things for this (Great Western) city and might even justify overhead wires, being close to the new Frodsham feeder.

These iced horse-burgers are delicious!

OTC