Great Western Coffee Shop

Message from Bedwyn Trains Passenger Group
 
On March 2nd Bill Wells and I participated in a conference call with GWR. The MD of GWR, Mark Hopwood, spoke first and delivered some very bad news. Our Paddington direct IET off-peak services are permanently being axed from May and replaced by diesel shuttle services to Newbury.
 
In short the DfT, who took financial control of the railways from the start of the pandemic, have told GWR to cut costs. To do this GWR have decided to retire older diesel trains in the West Country and replace them with the three IET trains that serve Bedwyn, Hungerford and Kintbury. You may recall these trains are something we fought hard for from the announcement, in 2009, of electrification to Newbury to their rollout some ten years later. Initially, when electrification was announced, our entire service would have been a diesel shuttle service to Newbury. It was a long fight and in December 2019 we ended up with the best service we ever had. This was then hit by Covid in March 2020 and cracks in the IET fleet. We were hoping our IETs would fully return to service in May and end the additional diesel shuttles to Newbury we have been enduring. But instead we are an easy target and we are being sacrificed again. Add to that we often get sacrificed by missed connections at Newbury and it doesn't bode well.
 
It will leave us on the worst timetable since June 1992 (when the pre-Turbo fleet was retired). The direct commuter peak morning service will be fairly good (with stops on through trains), but we will only have two direct trains back in the evening. Everything else will be hourly diesel shuttles between Bedwyn and Newbury only, some of which have decent connections to and from Paddington, while some have journey times between Bedwyn and Paddington of up to two hours and in one case more.
 
The diesel shuttles from Bedwyn will connect in with the Class 387 Paddington to Newbury service. These latter trains are electric only. Ironically our three IET trains (which are bi-mode, running on electric to Newbury and diesel beyond) will be redeployed to a non-electrified area of the network. So that’ll be circa £200m of rolling stock designed for electric traction unable to make use of it. Additionally the Bedwyn siding was extended, at a cost in excess of £1m, to accommodate the IETs. The extension will now be a white elephant. You couldn’t really make this up.
 
The MD of GWR acknowledged this was far from ideal and it would be an aim of his to get our service back. However, we did feel these were words of comfort when there is no plan for this. GWR would need to find extra rolling stock and, in the current climate, it’s unlikely to be found.
 
During our campaign to retain our direct Paddington service, post electrification, there were three options:
 
1.       Extend electrification to Bedwyn: This was something we didn’t champion. BTPG have always been very cautious about bringing the ugly overhead wires and gantries through the Kennet Valley.
2.       The bi-mode IET solution: This was the one that was implemented and we thought would be with us for many years.
3.       Kitting the Class 387 trains with batteries so they could run onto Bedwyn. GWR were seriously considering this before going for option 2.
 
Given the Class 387s are now operating to Newbury, Bill and I feel point 3 is what we will now campaign for.
 
The last two years have shown us that connections at Newbury don’t work. The connections are not guaranteed and the fact you even have to change trains is off-putting. We have made it very clear to GWR how unhappy we are and that connections at Newbury are not reliable enough. GWR have promised to look at better ways of getting the connections to work. But, given we have campaigned on this point since we formed sixteen years ago, we can’t see any great improvement.
 
Beyond May Bill and I will campaign for additional stops on through services and improved connections at Newbury. We will additionally start a campaign to get batteries added to the Class 387 units so the Paddington / Newbury service can be extended to Bedwyn.
 
What can you do?
 
1.       Please let us know which trains are currently essential for school and college travel. We are awaiting the ‘final’ May timetable from GWR and we want to be sure this works for school and college children.
2.       Write to your MP: laura.farris.mp@parliament.uk or danny.kruger.mp@parliament.uk
3.       We’ll need more support for our campaigns so we need to expand our email list. If you know of fellow commuters/users please can you ask them to contact us and be added to our email list: info@bedwyntrains.org.uk
 
Best wishes
 
Steve Smith
Bedwyn Trains Passenger Group

At least they managed to avoid getting the route wired, that must be a relief…

I think the wires are ugly as well,but what is the solution in the many years too come for "the wires"

Batteries

Digging a trench where the train lines are,so the wires can't seen?

According to this Newbury News (https://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/newbury-mp-confident-of-electrification-to-bedwyn-9173840/) article the Bedwyn Train Passengers Group was circulating a petition in 2015 campaigning for electrification to be extended as far as Bedwyn supported by the then MP for Newbury Richard Benyon.

Sorry to be downbeat, but if the Bedwyn Rail Users opposed electrification, this might be a classic example of "be careful what you wish for"

During our campaign to retain our direct Paddington service, post electrification, there were three options:
 
1.       Extend electrification to Bedwyn: This was something we didn’t champion. BTPG have always been very cautious about bringing the ugly overhead wires and gantries through the Kennet Valley.

It isn't too difficult to find blogs of individuals that were opposed to Bedwyn electrification not so much on aesthetic grounds but a feeling that it would increase road traffic to the station (& associated parking problems) for the improved service. No indication this was related at all to the Passenger Group though.

I believe the trench was already dug before the railway arrived. The Kennet and Avon canal isn't particularly suited to electrification though.

It isn't too difficult to find blogs of individuals that were opposed to Bedwyn electrification not so much on aesthetic grounds but a feeling that it would increase road traffic to the station (& associated parking problems) for the improved service. No indication this was related at all to the Passenger Group though.

Parking has been a massive controversy and has spilled over into the whole "do we want better trains because it will bring more people?" question.

A Hungerford stop on the 2-hourly semi-fasts that pass through would be a sensible gesture IMHO.

Good news for those wanting to head west from Hungerford as that will be much easier (best ever service?). 

Hello All,
 
Thank you to everybody who has written to their MP regarding the loss of our direct Paddington off-peak services from May. Thank you too to everybody who has recently joined our email list.
 
What’s been happening:
 
1)      Our initial email has been picked up by various press outlets, including Penny Post, Newbury Weekly News and the BBC.
2)      Bill Wells and I did a TV interview for South Today. This aired on March 3rd.
3)      We have a Zoom meeting with our local MP, Danny Kruger, booked for Monday afternoon.
4)      We are due to meet GWR face to face w/c 21st.
5)      We have been examining the proposed timetable and have put our concerns to GWR. This is aside from the fact that we don’t agree with the cuts. Instead we are at least trying to get the May timetable to work for Kintbury, Hungerford and Bedwyn. At present the shuttle service (Bedwyn to Newbury) has a number of, shall we say, strange timings in it.
 
In preparation for our meetings with our MP and (separately) GWR we have prepared the attached timetable summary document. It shows three timetables:
 
1.       The service we should be getting (i.e. the pre-Covid December 2019 service).
2.       The service we are getting today.
3.       The service proposed from May.
 
It indicates quite clearly how much the Bedwyn service level is being reduced with the direct services to Paddington being reduced from 19 to 6 and the return journey directs from 16 to 3. As mentioned before the connections at Newbury do not work very well, so the situation is even worse than it looks.
 
Although the document is prepared for Bedwyn, it’s very similar for Kintbury and Hungerford.
 
Best wishes
 
Steve Smith
Bedwyn Trains Passenger Group