Great Western Coffee Shop

December timetable is now in Avantix machines, Newquay see's the most improved service with departures from Newquay at 0657, 1011, 1303, 1454, 1722, 1920 and 2125 which allows a first arrival into Plymouth at 0852 and Truro 0824 so both commuter flows (currently trains from Newquay are 1017, 1259, 1452 and 2025!!), Falmouth see's an extra trip at 1525 Tru-Fal and 1558 Fal-Tru, Looe is almost hourly, Gunnislake gets an extra trip in the evening and also a through train from and to Penzance, the one to Penzance is also an extra mainline service 1814 from Plymouth 2020 into Penzance, St Ives is Half hourly from 0923 siv-Ser right through until 2025 Siv-Ser, currently the evening service is very sparse. Mainline departures from Penzance are more evenly spaced giving a virtual hourly service.

Crosscountry have only two trains from Penzance to "up north" an 0625 Pnz-Edb and an 0940 Pnz-Man and a 2207 Pnz-Ply stopper.

The up sleeper departs earlier at 2135.

Although all of the above may still be ammended.

There is also an extra evening service from Falmouth Docks to Plymouth (all stops) arriving at 2325.

Any chance of smuggling one of those Avantix machines up to our chap at Nailsea & Backwell, vacman?  ;) :D ;D

I presume this service will replace the XC 17:55 out of PLY which has to sit at reds at St Austell, Truro & Camborne following the FGW 17:25 HST from PLY which runs like a slug meaning I have to catch a bus to complete my journey.
 

Arghhhhh !!!!!!!!!!!!!

The December timetables appear on the planner at http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/ (http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/)

St ives to Plymouth used to be 1:55- 1:59, from December it's 2:15 - 2:25.

UP's from PNZ  start 10 minutes later and arrive even later.

The evening 'Down' XC's have disappeared.

Deja vue again - lots of standing only from Plymouth on 15x one or two car, Voyagers missing Coach B.

Life is good.

   

And they said they were planning to remove padding!

I hate to think what they are planning for the Cotswold Line!

Will the Gunnislake unit only be two coach, because if that is the case the 1814 will be a nightmare for passengers, and I would personally invite Andrew Haines to travel on this unit, and imagine the chaos if the 1725 is running late, which has been known to happen, or gets terminated at Plymouth because of a train fault. The gap from just before 1600 is too big with only the 1706 to Liskeard running. It would be equivalent to the Wessex trains that run to Truro in the morning a couple of years ago or possibly worse.

Problem is being caused by CrossCountry terminating this servic at Plymouth though, and not extending it to Penzance.

Give them some credit, FGW have altered the 1812/1814 to run right through to Penzance. Lets hope they can make it a three or four unit train, and that some people decide to get the 1725 ex Plymouthm which still has a little bit of slack in terms of capacity.

Longer term it would be sensible to extend the 1706, a bit further, to Truro, if not Penzance and shift some that wait for the 1725, that could catch the 1706, out of Plymouth a little earlier.

It would be a good idea to extend the 1706 to Truro, but even better to Penzance, but this would then be like 1710 that used to run and that was always full, when it was a 2 car unit, as I don't know how full the 1706 currently is, does it have capacity to go all the way to Penzance, without exceeding overcrowding recommendations.

Perhaps a service similar to (below) might be useful;

1600 Exeter
1613 Dawlish
1618 Teignmouth
1625 Newton A
1638 Totnes
1653 Ivybridge
1708 Plymouth
All shacks to Truro/Penzance?

True, I remember that well, it was horrible! Although a 150 has a few more seats than a 158.

1706 is usually about half full. I think it would make sense certainly to extend it further than at present, but maybe Penzance would be too far with just 2 units. Truro might just be the limit to cope with passenger numbers.

Don't want to make it any later off Plymouth, though.

This service might be useful, especially if it combined with the unit that makes up the 1706 to possibly depart plymouth at 1710 heading to Penzance. This would require the service that comes back from Liskeard to be scrapped and the following service that currently runs to Exeter St Davids would need to call additionally at Menheniot. This would only increase the gap by twenty minutes for people from Looe branch line stations, Liskeard, Menheniot, St Germans and Saltash.

It has to be said that we (Saltash and St Germans ) would probably only support such a move with stops on the 1600 ex Penzance.

This service did make calls during the High Summer of 2007, because the 1706 was turned into a 1655 ex Plymouth to Penzance. I really can't remeber what that was like, but there was also a 1626 ex Plymouth to Penzance so loadings were all a bit strange.

At Saltash there were often 20+ getting off, and a fair amount heading towards Plymouth, so I think a Saltash call can be justified.  The journey took 2 hours 2 minutes Penzance to Plymouth, today it is timetabled at  2 hours, so they managed to squeeze two extra stops into two minutes back then...

Still wouldn't really want to see the 1706 departing Plymouth later. The gap to the previous westbound service is already too big. The 1725 could however drop back a little, closer to the CrossCountry 1755 slot in an attempt to catch some of those passengers.

1725 comes from London though, so adding extra time for a few commuters isn't really desireable

I don't know your area of the timetable very well, and if extra stops are required on the 1600 ex Penzance to allow a more sensible time gap for services into Cornwall from Plymouth, I would support it.

The 1600 from Penzance goes to London Paddington, so not sure how that would benefit service entering Cornwall?

I suggested scrapping a service that stops at Saltash and St Germans which the 1706 forms once it arrives at Liskeard. Which would then increase the gap between services for Saltash and St Germans, which is where the 1600 from Penzance comes in to fill in this gap.

The 1725 of Plymouth does not need to call at STS or SGM, never seen more than a handfull of people getting off and with FGW now saying that it cost's an extra ^100 in fuel to stop and power up from each station then hopefully we can have some "express" services back! sorry Richard but with services from Plymouth to Sts and Sgm at 1555, 1706 and 1812 then theres no need to slow down an already slow 1406 Padd-Pnz for a handfull of people that have another train 40 mins later! 1600 from Pnz connects perfect with the 1749 Lsk-Ply so whats the point in slowing that one even more?

As for the 1814, if the current 1812 Newquay service is anything to go by then two cars will be more than adequate!

Well I use that train everyday, and would say that more than a handful alight at Saltash with quite a few boarding. The stop does not cost ^100, I suspect that figure is for a stop/restart from say 80-100mph. As the linespeed at this point is just 15mph, the fuel cost and probably more importantly the time cost is much less. Certainly a DMU stop costs just 1 minute on the timetable, a HST stop cannot be much more.

For me a train that actually runs almost 50 minutes, later, not 40 is not acceptable, I like to see my family!

As for the 1600 ex Penzance, that was only a requirement if the 1749 were to not run, although it would give a much better spread of times. As I said when it did stop, when there was no 1749 ex Liskeard in summer 2007 it was very popular.

As far as the 1812 is concerned, it will be the 1814 to Penzance and will have to carry any passengers alighting the CrossCountry service that currently leaves Plymouth at 1755, we shall have to wait and see..

Maybe for Saltash but what about St Germans?

Isn't St Germans approach speed severely limited by the viaduct ?
I hate using the 17:25 service as it dawdles through Cornwall, taking the 17:55 is generally just as bad as it is often held up by the 17:25 sometimes as early as Liskeard then St Austell, Truro, Redruth and most frustratingly at Penponds.
Both services are quite good at missing the St Ives branch.
Flippin annoying when I've been travelling for 8 hours to get in a couple of hours birdwatching in Devon.
 

Theres a new 17.55 in the timetable now operated by fgw to replace the xc service.


engine and coaches maybe ????????????????

65mph over St Germans viaduct.

The National Rail Timetable shows:
06:25 To Edinburgh
08:28 to Glasgow
09:40 to Manchester

In the down direction there are arrivals at PNZ:
20:17 from Glasgow
21:50 from Aberdeen
22:51 from Edinburgh

I heard a rumour that XC are reviewing which trains they intend to operate with HSTs. Anyone any news on this?

TJ
 

The plan for HSTs was as follows.

1V19 06.00 LDS-PLY > 1S51 12.21 PLY-GLC
1V23 06.32 YRK-PLY > 1S55 13.21 PLY-EDB
1V31 06.08 EDB-PLY > 1E63 15.21 PLY-YRK
1V39 06.32 DUN-PLY > 1E73 17.21 PLY-LDS

Can't say i've heard any rumours of change as the diagrams are fairly sensible from a maintenance perspective with two sets finishing at Craigentinny and 2 in Neville Hill.

"65mph over St Germans viaduct."

Its 50MPH Down and 70MPH up :)