Great Western Coffee Shop

From Leeds Live (https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/yorkshire-news/yorkshire-train-journeys-take-longer-20940155)


What comparisons should we look at in the South West?

Should we consider regularity and frequency of service changes alongside the fastest journey times?

Service frequency is probably more important than "pure journey time" - especially if the gain / loss in the latter is a matter of minutes. Quotes of "fastest journey time" are often misleading as they may well have referred to one train a day - it's all very well trumpeting a fastest time of 45 minutes, but that's of little use to me if that's only achieved by the 06.43, I don't need to be there until 11 o'clock but have still got to be on the 06.43 because the next train - the 09.43 - takes an hour and twenty minutes. A standard hourly departure - even if it takes an hour and 5 minutes, rather than 45 minutes - is much more use to me. The chances are also that the wonderful 45 minutes journey time achieved by our mythical 06.43 was at the expense of all the intermediate stations, whose passengers either had to wait for the 09.43, or catch the even more abysmal 05.14 "parly".
What ultimately counts is time required between leaving "home" and arriving at "destination" - and the speeding up of a railway service by the odd minute will often not change that one bit. Increasing frequencies / optimising connection times usually will!

For each of those routes there were now closed routes.

From Bradford to Wakefield GN via Gildersome. In fact the East Coast London trains used to split for Leeds and Bradford at Wakefield Westgate I believe up to early BR days before the GN line closed.

There were also two closed more direct routes from Huddersfield to Bradford both L&Y via Cleckheaton or Clifton Road as well as the current longer route via Halifax.

Dewsbury to Bradford also had a now closed shorter GN  route via Birkrnshaw & Tong.
Presumably todays route is change at Leeds.

Source Railway Atlas Then and Now 3rd edition.

So was he comparing like with like?

If considering the total time from "home" to "destination" then I believe that the position is now much worse than otherwise suggested.
With today's complex fares the only affordable option is often restricted to a single train.
Therefore the intending passenger has to allow a very generous safety margin to avoid a huge "fine" if they miss the booked train.

Minehead to London takes in practice at least an hour longer than study of the bus and train timetables would suggest. The bus may fail to arrive or be delayed en-route to Taunton. At least an hours safety margin is prudent to be reasonably certain of catching the booked train.

The only line in the South West that I can find where you can travel faster in 1910 than now is Salisbury to Exeter Central, where the 12:36 from Salisbury took 1 hour and 43 minutes.  These days, nothing faster that 1 hour and 45 minutes - but there's a train at or close to that timing most hours and not just the "crack" train of the day only.

Weymouth to Castle Cary is another one I looked at ... 1 hour and 4 minutes on the daily "Weymouth Express" in 1910, but there's a faster train now that whips along in just an hour and 3 minutes. And there are other trains (but, sadly, not every hour) just a little slower.

Where train travel is likely to be slower than it was over 110 years ago is where direct lines have been closed - journeys like Truro to Newquay, Yeovil to Taunton, and Templecombe to Poole.