Great Western Coffee Shop

There will be changes to the Looe timetable from May to provide much better connections at Liskeard to/from Plymouth throughout the day, a good pre-09 00 arrival in Plymouth for commuters and a better spread of request stops at Sandplace, Causeland and St Keyne.  This follows local requests and liaison between ourselves (Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership) and GWR.

The aim is to provide 6 (or near to) minute connections out of Looe and the same for inward except out of London services where the aim is to provide 10-13 minute connections. The exception is the last connection of the day from London where 20 minutes has been deliberately allowed for robustness.  Currently day trippers from Plymouth to Looe on the key services have more than 20 minutes at Liskeard in both directions. 

To enable these changes, the number of trains a day will reduce from 15 to 13.   The first train will leave Looe at 07 33 instead of 06 30 now.  The 07 33 will give a Plymouth arrival of 08 44 with a 6 minute connection at Liskeard.  We and GWR have counted passengers on the line’s service and the existing 06 30 is little used (indeed the September Tuesday we did our counts, there was just one passenger).  Currently you can either arrive in Plymouth at 07 43 or 09 08.   The new 08 44 arrival should be attractive. 

A further bonus of the new timetable is that the last train will leave Looe at 21 55 on weekdays, 18 minutes later than now.   This will make a 7 minute connection at Liskeard for Saltash and Plymouth.

Thank you for posting that advance notice here, RichardB.  ;)

What a pity it’s taken these D&CRP inspired TT improvements (and resultant train operating cost reductions) so long to be implemented; it should have happened several years ago.

I feel for that 1 passenger on the 0630. First & Last trains should be sacrosanct if *anyone* is regularly using them, since you can guarantee that they're only on them regularly if they *have* to be on them.

And that 1 passenger does use that train every day.

Each to their own but it really isn't a good use of resources to run a train that is used by just one person.  It's not same person every day and the few people who ever take that train may well be using it because the next one currently gets them to their destination just too late e.g Plymouth at 09 08 and will find the 07 33 will work fine for them.

It's no small thing to cut the first or last trains.

Having said that, we did not fight GWR's decision to cut the 05:17 Westbury to Swindon (05:33 at Melksham) a couple of years back - first train now 07:05 from Westbury / 07:21 from Melksham.    We lost the ability to get to London at 7 a.m. which (however) we had only had for a couple of years.  A big concern was that it knocked out long distance (and lucrative) journeys being a "peak" train, and knocked out return journeys on other trains that were running anyway.   What we did ask for (and have received) was an extra train at the other end of the day and the 21:16 from Westbury (21:32 at Melksham) is new.  I was on it last night - 2 car train, about 10 in my carriage, half of whom got off in Melksham - not busy but ten times the passengers I ever saw on the 05:33.   Huge care needed - but this might well be the right decision for Looe; I trust RichardB to be fully informed and to have let us know this change is one to work as a modernisation for the future with, rather than protest.