Great Western Coffee Shop

According to this badly written local news item, which suggests the train company is being scrapped…  ::)
Not much of a consultation?
https://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/people/railway-service-company-to-be-scrapped-at-chichester-worthing-and-brighton-3584763

It would not be a surprise if this was one of the services blanked out in the FOI response we got from the DfT in October when we enquired about their unconsulted culling of the Bristol Temple Meads to Waterloo service. 

There is strong leisure traffic love of this service through from the South Coast east of Portsmouth to and from the Bristol and Bath area - the very sort of traffic that's going to be very much part of the railway's future.  So it would seem perverse to take off these through trains; from experience, though, just because something is perverse does not mean it won't be done.

Real Time Trains for 5th May shows a 13:40 call at Warminster on the way from Great Malvern to Brighton, but for 19th May shows the train terminating at Warminster at that time, and asking for trains all day from Warminster to Brighton reports on the service on 5th May but nothing all day on 19th ...

Sad but not unexpected. Be interesting to see how this is spun as a good news story.

One assumes that members of the currant administration are unlikely to go on holiday by train, or even for a day out. So not really a future they would see or recognise.

You're raisin an interesting issue there.

And on Twitter this morning
https://twitter.com/coastway_will/status/1496979397420765184?s=21

From the major stations with other services via London there are at least alternatives. But this barbequeues any principle of 'Levelling up' as far as towns are concerned.

Wrong company, but the railway is supposed to be a network, so perhaps we could bear in mind that Sandy C. Gull probably has an interest in this because who hasn't been robbed of an ice cream at one of any number of South Coast towns. If Sandy lives in Trowbridge, I'm sorry on her behalf for the ongoing decline in the provision of rail services from that town.

Mark

Providing an “extremely handy service for [Brighton] commuters too” is not GWR’s purpose - just as it wasn’t SWR’s purpose in the Bristol area.

I remember years ago a franchise consultation noted there were capacity issues into Brighton in the morning peak, and one solution proposed was for FGW to lengthen their inbound service, the one that started short from Fratton back then.  I thought at the time the proper solution was for SN to run a decent sized EMU service, eg 4, 6 or 8 cars long…

Suggestions elsewhere the single 158 saved on weekdays will just allow for the loss of the unit written off in November after the Salisbury collision.

Paul

More these types services will I suspect get the axe as the DfT (aka Treasury) reduce funding, they have the view the services should be self funding from their revenue or Local Authorities should subsides services from their budget.

In this article in the Bristol Post, several issues conspicuous by their absence. That the DfT used Covid to kill the Bristol to W'l**s. Followed by losing the (again well used) through trains to Brighton in May, a minor impact for some and rather more important for the people who will have relied on them. And has Bristol still no through services to Manchester (and no good connections either)?

Mark

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/rail-firms-ramp-up-timetables-6725547

XC will need to get back to the 2tph service before Bristol get direct trains to Manchester - just as Oxford getting their Newcastle services back will do. Can’t see it anytime soon unfortunately. The DfT seems to see nothing wrong with changing trains

Increasingly hypothetical given the russian Putin situation but...
Bristol to Manchester: the first trains of the day (March 16th) the National rail site has the following:

Bristol 7:06 arriving Manchester 11:11 (Via Newport, 15 minute connection there)
Bristol 7:35 arriving Manchester 11:05 (2 changes, Birmingham and Stoke on Trent)
Bristol 7:35 arriving Manchester 11:23 (1 change at Birmingham, 1 hour 1 minute wait at Birmingham)
Bristol 7.42 arriving Manchester 11:23 (2 changes - Gloucester and Birmingham)
Bristol 7:55 arriving Manchester 12:13 (Via Newport, changing there with a 32 minute connection)

Can't recall the pre-Covid times, not particularly brilliant... but an around 10am first arrival?

Fares: all of these involve peak time travel so, anytime return via Newport, £93:60 or via Birmingham £203.00 - the latter being cheeky given the hour's connection time i.e. no provision of a decent service.

Thanks to the poster here who have flagged Megabus (Direct with a stop at Birmingham - 1st of the day from Bristol being 07:00, arriving only ten minutes later than the first train connection of the day and currently selling at £17:20)

Mark

07:00 from Bristol Temple Meads, through train scheduled to arrive at Manchester Piccadilly at exactly 10:00
Looks like there was a three minute "fudge" in there as the running time from Stockport is a bit long.

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/nrtt20/Table%20051.pdf

There's been a 2-hour gap in anything heading from Reading/Oxford to Birmingham between 06:15 and 08:15 (Reading timings) for a while now.  There would traditionally be three trains in between that gap.  Looks like an 07:15 is returning in the middle of next month.

There's a strange token additional from Banbury to Newcastle at 12:28 which has been busy providing a service of little use for most of the pandemic timetable - a great shame that can't run through from Reading via Oxford so at least one direct train a day is provided.

XC are offering up the worst timetable of all the operators IMHO.  I appreciate that a large percentage are double length (though less than there were) and that they are just operating what the DfT are authorising...but still, it's pretty rubbish.

Confirmatiopn this afternoon that GWR will be running nothing east of Portsmouth after the new timetable.

So are you announcing the end of
... services calling at Fratton and Cosham
... Reading to Guildford, Redhill and Gatwick
... Reading to Paddington
... Twyford to Henley-on-Thames
... Maidenhead to Marlow
... Slough to Windsor
... West Ealing to Greenford
... Theale, Pangborne and Bramey to Reading

Ha ha….

It's a direct service Bristol to Leeds IIRC, via Manchester with no stop at Birmingham. There is another service via both Birmingham and Cheltenham. It's still about four hours sitting on a coach but then again it's only £20-ish... I'd rather go by train though.

Was their or DFT’s reasoning given?
Did they explain if SN will be required fill the peak capacity gaps?

IIRC with the SWR Bristol withdrawal they did attempt to explain what GWR would provide instead…

In fact is it online anywhere yet?

Paul

No, unfortunately not.

These National Rail contracts provide a budget that TOCs have to stick too, or they get penalised. These are set lower than current spend - note the ‘reduce costs by 10%’ that is regularly in the news.

So what’s best to cut? Costs that don’t leave anywhere without a service, hence these removals of ‘duplicated’ services. Also promo costs like Nectar are going. The operator left can make cases for additional trains IF they can back up the request with positive budget figures to cover the cost of that service (including serious overcrowding dissuading passengers from travelling)

We’ve got to get used to this simply because the current cost to the taxpayer is astronomical & can’t continue. Life has changed, commuters aren’t travelling daily & income has gone through the floor. Savongs have to be made

Indeed they do, which is why the 'easy targets' such as contracted out catering are going.

Yep, the ancillary, nice-to-have, but not strictly necessary, things that don’t prevent the current, or even ‘normal’ train service offering.”

So Nectar ooints, contracted out catering, duplicate services. To maintain other services wherever possible.

I’ve always had my doubts about the importance of the Brightons, as I’ve posted quite some years ago the 2007ish introduction of the hourly SN Brighton - Southampton (7/7 in the normal timetable), was probably when it should have been first reviewed.  I’m pretty sure DfT first proposed removal in a franchise consultation maybe ten years ago.

Paul

Fast forward a year, perhaps a moment's reflection for the one Southampton and three Warminster to Great Malvern weekdays-only through services which (is it next Friday?) will run for the last time.

More services Bristol to Worcester of course, but a change at Bristol... I've not checked if there will also be antics involving connections that would involve a sprint between Shrub Hill and Foregate - Worcester's not unknown for those. On the plus side, at least the possibility of finding a connection via Worcestershire Parkway.

Was Great Malvern always an odd direction in which to take the trains from Brighton? Were these trains formerly Cardiff to Brighton?

It's put me in mind of this memorable sign from Bath Spa. Cheltenham Spa - Great Malvern - The North ...

Mark

(https://i.postimg.cc/yNCcfQzn/Great-Malvern-and-The-North.jpg)

Yes, it was

Through local trains across Bristol Temple Meads from Westbury to Gloucester came about, I understand, to avoid long layovers rather than because of through traffic.  I remember hearing of Arriva when they bid for the franchise spending time at Bristol Temple Meads observing through traffic and being approached for suspicious behaviour.

Similarly, the extension from Worcester to Great Malvern was because the train was there and rather than lay over for a long time, it ran the local run to save Central Trains a diagram - or so I am told.

Brighton ... yes, better to Cardiff and also perhaps to Exeter. But of course that latter is far better with a class 33 and carriages, or a pair of Hastings units.