Great Western Coffee Shop

I know I've posted on this subject elsewhere, but I really believe something needs to be done to speed up the Hereford/Worcester services to Paddington.

Yesterday I went up to London from Hereford with my eldest daughter. For reasons of timing, we travelled up via Newport but came back on the 1621 ex Paddington, having just missed the Swansea train with connection at Newport. Imagine our horror to discover it stops at Slough and Shipton u Wychwood apart from Hanborough/Honeybourne/Pershore. (At least we didn't have to stop at Didcot).

For heaven's sake can't FGW provide at least one fast service each way to Worcester and Hereford? A family bound for Malvern Link also seemed pretty tee'd off with our progress. Also doesn't seem the best way to use an HST with all the stopping and starting. Also, after Oxford, only Shrub Hill and Hereford have platforms long enough to accomodate the entire train.

If trains really must stop at Hanborough, Honeybourne, Pershore then can't some other stops get ditched? I noticed two passengers get off at Shipton and one at Colwall and not that many at Hanborough, Honeybourne or Pershore. And why stop at Slough?

And things were compounded by a 15 minute delay outside Shrub Hill because a London bound HST was waiting in the down platform. There are two platforms at Shrub Hill, so why the London bound one can't use the up platform beats me.

If it doesn't stop at Slough it will only catch up with the 1618 to bedwyn which is limited to 90mph. Also, you'd have Slough passengers moaning that their fast services were being cut. Would it be faster if Cheltenham services got extended?

Good idea, but possibly marginal. Paddington to Cheltenham is 2hrs 15mins, so allowing approx 25 mins Cheltenham to Shrub Hill, plus 50 minutes Shrub Hill to Hereford gives 3hrs 30mins (assuming all the stops between Hereford and Worcester).

I understand that during the Cotswold closures this summer, they'll be running some Hereford trains via Cheltenham, so we'll see. Can't remember the old timings when the Cathedrals Express ran via Cheltenham following the loss of one train set at Ladbroke Grove - although I used it a couple of times.

One other possibility would be to run to Hereford via Newport.

The real solution is one proper fast in each direction each day, ie cut out some of the Cotswold stops.

I also meant to say in my original post that my daughter goes to uni in Newcastle and it "only" takes her four and a half hours to go from Newcastle to Cheltenham (where we usually pick her up). Took us nearly four hours to go from London to Hereford yesterday with the delay at Shrub Hill - absurd.

And what if that one fast train didn't fit in with your journey? If there was one to Hereford on a Saturday, it would be far more likely to be the 18.21 anyway.

The 16.21, whether you like it or not, is also a 'shoppers going home from Oxford' train (departure 17.19) and the stop at Shipton is a franchise requirement and long-standing feature of the weekend timetable. Do they somehow have less right to a service than someone travelling further? On Saturdays, just as with off-peak weekday services, everything from the Cotswold Line stops at Slough as part of the Oxford fast trains standard pattern and for Windsor branch connections.

This train is booked to spend seven minutes sitting at Shrub Hill anyway but I can only assume that last night there was some sort of signalling or points problem at Shrub Hill, putting a platform out of use, as the other HST was only doing what the timetable says it should - sitting at Shrub Hill from 18.47 to 19.00, so as to clear the single line to Foregate Street for the 16.21.

I'm not sure what your point about Newcastle is. It's an entirely different kettle of fish. Long-distance train, running for long stretches at 110-125mph on lines built to be fast direct routes between large population centres, which generate lots of traffic. The Cotswold and Malvern lines are hardly laid out for high-speed running and the population centres they serve are pretty modest by comparison.

You need to fill the seats to pay for the service. CrossCountry can do that easily (and not just because their trains are too small). Hereford and Worcester aren't big enough places to fill London trains on their own, so that's where all us inconvenient types living along the way to Oxford come in. For example, how many people were on board last night beyond Malvern?

Dear or dear, what is the world coming to. Credit crisis, global warming, and worst of all the Worcester train stopped at Slough and Shipton.

I think that a peak train which missed out stops would easily be filled.

Slough need fast trains (just like Worcester and Hereford), so you can't cut their stops - unless you put them on the Cheltenham service instead.

When the Didcot - Morteon shuttle starts, the Shipton won't need calls on the express trains. (except perhaps one peak train)

However, putting a Slough stop on the Cheltenhams would hold up the Worcesters, as it only leaves three minutes in front.

Slough may need fasts - so why not run Turbos with limited stops as was done for many years when I lived in Ealing Broadway.

As for numbers still on train at Hereford, actually quite a few. Of course, an Adelante would have been ideal

And thank you for the sarcasm about global warming - I could exchange 4 hours in a train for 3 hours in the car. I know quite a few people around Herefordshire who drive straight to London or to Bristol or Brum to get the train. I used to drive to Swindon. Now I work in Cheltenham, I often drive to Cheltenham to get the train, especially if I have to meet colleagues in London. In fact, one of my colleagues lives close to Evesham so we could co-ordinate our travel plans, but we are agreed that using the Cotswold line to travel to business meetings is too risky.

Also, a number of colleagues habitually drive to Hillingdon and catch the tube into central London.

Plain fact is that if places like Hereford or Worcester don't get reasonably fast/reliable train services, then the punters will get on the roads.

Maybe it was a bit sarcastic, but the word "horror" didn't seem appropriate when leading on to stating that your service made stops at two more stations than you're used to. It's hardly the stuff to raise questions in the House or a fare strike by More Train Less Strain is it?

Well maybe you ought to try looking at the actual punctuality figures they are achieving now, not what was happening early last year or in 2006 or 2007. Some days I gather that the Cotswold Line and Thames Valley area generally is hitting 96-97 per cent on time and overall it's well into the 90s. The figures on the FGW website from February 2 are distorted by the effects of the snow at the start of that month.

Things have changed but we will have to wait a bit longer for speeded-up journeys - though arrangements at Worcester will still pose problems for some years to come.

The punctuality comes at the price of spending time gazing at the architectural wonder of the (almost) new pedestrian bridge at Moreton and other extended stops. The FACT is that while trains are both excessively padded and stop frequently for the Oxford Park and Rider brigade you will not get the long distance business, throwing in the chance of a Turbo turning up is the icing on the cake. - end of.

William, however much your enjoy your role as FGW cheerleader that's the reality.

Punctuality figures may be fine but since the mid 90s, on the few occasions I've used the Cotswold line, I've ALWAYS been late. So, simple experience says avoid the line if you can.

Maybe it was a bit sarcastic, but the word "horror" didn't seem appropriate when leading on to stating that your service made stops at two more stations than you're used to

Six more stops than I was used to when I felt I could rely on the service - Slough, Reading, Hanborough, Shipton, Honeybourne, Pershore.

I don't care what the stats say. I still have to factor in Cotswold time and FGW time - often, it is a good job that you do. And the stats only apply to the final destination - so people getting off before the end could still be late, but the train arrives on time due to the slack.

When the 180s go (have they gone already?), it'll mean more Turbos. When there is an hourly service - even more. This will put off even more long distance passengers, who will drive so they can catch an HST (Chelt/Ditcot/Swindon) / a Pendolino (B'ham Int) or a Clubman (Warwick P'way).

Stebbo - I take you point about Pershore, Honeybourne, Shipton and Hanborough. But you can't start removing Slough and DEFINITELY not Reading. :o

I also think that splitting trains should be looked at. This happens a lot in Kent, Sussex, Surrey etc, where extra train paths closer to London are unavailable. In most cases, one portion serves all stops, whilst another portion runs fast, calling at the main towns only. e.g. London Victoria to Portsmouth Harbour and Bognor Regis (Bognor bound coaches detach at Horsham and stop everywhere, whilst the Portsmouth portion continues fast to give Chichester etc. a fast train), and London Charing Cross to Hastings. Splits at Tunbridge Wells. One portion is an all stopper, one is semi fast.

So when the IEP comes to FGW, why not have the Hereford and Worcester trains as 2 x 5 car trains. Split at Oxford. One semi fast to Hereford, one all stops to Shrub Hill. Both would be filled.

Perfect solution for you then, 166+165 Paddington - Oxford 166 continues semi fast, 165 stops at the shacks...

 ;)

Well that will give them a laugh in the FGW press office.

I'm just giving them - and Network Rail - some credit for turning things around. I think frequent journeys between Moreton and Oxford, slap bang in the middle of things, give me a pretty fair sense of how things are working.

Trains that are late reaching Moreton from the west or late leaving Oxford for Worcester are, as a general rule, going to stay late - but that very rarely happens nowadays, whereas 12 or 14 months ago late running was par for the course.


I'll believe that when I see it.


Define semi-fast.

Unless the first train ran non-stop to Worcester (meaning it would not be full, unless hundreds of people a day really are driving elsewhere to get trains), everyone wanting any intermediate station it stopped at between the two places would all pile on to the first train - causing delays at Oxford while they get into the right set.

As a result, the second train would be near-empty (and very empty beyond Hanborough), especially if your semi-fast called at Charlbury, Kingham, Moreton and Evesham, which seem to be the only places occasionally exempt from the near-pathological hatred some of you seem to have for those of us who don't live in Worcester or Hereford and dare to set foot on trains, thus ruining your clearly far more important journeys.

In the Oxford-bound direction, you would have to have two departures within a matter of minutes at any intermediate stops, with perhaps a five-minute gap at Charlbury. Where's the sense in that?

And where are all the extra train crews coming from to operate this timetable?

Maybe in a couple of years' time you could all club together to set up an open-access firm to take up the fourth path every hour with a non-stop train from Worcester to London. It would tear through the single-line sections flat out and you could wave at all us shack-dwellers as you speed past - at least for a few weeks until it goes bust.

Semi-fast: Oxford - Morteon - Evesham - Worcesters - Malverns - Ledbury - Hereford.

Stopping: all stops, minus halts, to Worcester Foregate Street.

BOTH units would be full - the first with the Morteon, Evesham and all the other long distance traffic (which would dramatically increase); the second with the local "Oxford Park and Ride" traffic AND local traffic to Worcester.


It works in many other parts of the country!


That's just plain silly. Not even the original Cathedrals Express did that! Why do you "shack dwellers" seem against InterCity trains? Here is a solution which would keep services for all.


As has been pointed out elsewhere on this forum: FGW appear to be getting IEPs in excess to their current number - plenty for the Cotswold Line. (unless you want them reserved for the Dicot - Morteon shuttles, which I am sure will be jam packed)

They were due to be handed back last week, but that was extended to this week I believe? Whatever the reasons regarding leasing costs and reliability, it is a shame to see a potentially very useful train for FGW move elsewhere.

180s are still here - or at least were last night on the 17.51.

Why do I object to all your wheezes about faster trains? Because they all involve someone else getting a worse service than they do at present, either by missing out their stations, or making them sit at Oxford going nowhere until the super-train has cleared the single line.

I can just see the marketing slogan - New Cotswold Line timetable - faster trains for Worcester and Hereford, slower trains for almost everyone else.

I wouldn't be cheerleading for FGW if that was their pitch - nor would the other people living along the route who make the current level of train services to Worcester viable - the inconvenient fact you all continue to ignore. And even if all the people you say are driving elsewhere came back to the Cotswold Line, that would still be the case.

Who would want to be the FGW manager summoned to explain to Mr Cameron why his constituents should lose out? - "Well Prime Minister, there are these people in Worcester who are going through unique suffering at our hands, so we must do something about it, never mind all your voters in Charlbury paying us thousands of pounds every year for season tickets."

What about Huddersfield, in Yorkshire, which has a bigger population than Worcester and Hereford combined? It last had direct trains to London in 1977, one portion working a day each way, which went when HSTs arrived on Leeds services.

How do you justify Moreton getting stops by your fast train ahead of far busier Charlbury?

In the case of the Hastings line, which you cite as an example, looking at the current weekday timetable, I can see a grand total of two trains a day each way which perform this type of manoeuvre, one of which appears to be little more than a stock positioning move to get an extra set back to the coast after the morning peak - hardly a compelling case.

IEP is a plan, nothing more. If electrification gets moving, that plan will have to change. It's also a British Government-led procurement programme and these things hardly have an inspiring track record. Just about every computer system you care to mention is late, way over budget and doesn't do what it's supposed to. The same goes for every weapons procurement programme the MoD runs. Why should the people who killed XC services north of Crewe and made people on many other journeys change at Birmingham New Street do any better?

There are a lot of services in the South East that split, however I think they are a bit of a misunderstanding, as they split and head off in totally different directions. As you say don't know of many that split and go same place albeit one a bit faster.

In the rush hour several London to Weymouth services split at Southampton, with the front half running fast to Bournemouth and beyond, whilst the rear portion forms a stopper to Bournemouth.

There is a regular service towards Chichester which divides to provide a fast service and an all stopper.

I'm sure the residents of Charlbury can cope with a extra few minutes on the timetable - think of Hereford passengers!

And I think that Evesham would soon re-overtake Chal as the biggest place on the line with faster trains!

And there you have it - special treatment for Worcester, where people can't cope with a few extra minutes on the timetable, but that's fine for other people.

Evesham would certainly get busier, because all the people who use Pershore and Honeybourne now would go there instead - or rather, back there, recreating the early-morning pressure at Evesham before more stops at the other two were brought in - since they would get home a lot earlier, or could set out a bit later if the stopping pattern you suggest were followed. You would probably also get a similar effect with Kingham passengers switching to Moreton.

So, as I said, the first train out of Oxford would be jammed, while the second would be near-empty within 10 or 15 minutes of leaving Oxford. And your later faster train towards London would see the same effect in reverse.

This "regular service to Chichester" appears to have just one stop in common between the services after they split or before they join at Horsham - at Barnham - as the stopper goes to Bognor, not Chichester. Substitute Worcester for Barnham and it looks a lot more like my one train non-stop to Worcester and one stopping everywhere else scenario than what you suggest.

On the Bournemouth line, this method of operating probably has as much to do with the demand for train paths in and out of Waterloo in the peak as it does with overall journey times. Eg the 17.35 ex-Waterloo splits and its fast portion, non-stop from Southampton, is in Bournemouth at 19.20, while the stopper, after leaving So'ton three minutes down, gets in at 19.40. The 18.05 departure does not split, calls at most stations between Southampton and Bournemouth and gets in at 20.02. So the fast portion cuts a grand total of 12 minutes off the end-to-end time - not sure the speed-hungry types from Worcester and Hereford would be impressed by that.

Pot....Kettle....Black

What is surprising about the SWML evening peak period is that there are actually fewer trains from Waterloo to Southampton than in the off peak. Ideally the half hourly 'fasts' would run to Bournemouth and split there, with the third off peak train, the current Poole service, providing the stopper west of Southampton, but this train becomes a second Portsmouth service in the evening peak, leaving Waterloo in its normal path, but diverted after Eastleigh. This is the main reason why the Weymouth services have to drop a portion at Southampton, rather than Bournemouth.  Of course for stations such as Winchester the overall capacity is still there, it is of no concern to those pax where the train goes on its way further south. Complicating things a bit more are various fill in services that run from Basingstoke - Southampton, and Winchester to Totton, providing a peak only local service for that part of the route.

Paul

As I started this topic, can I try and get back to my basic request.

When I moved to Hereford in 1990, the London trains took about 2hrs 40mins to London and were pretty reliable. Now, in 2009, they take over 3hrs and are highly unreliable. So, without wanting to be accused of being pompous, because I am a businessman who normally travels by train to London for business purposes, I avoid the Hereford to London services because they take longer, cost a lot more and don't get me to London on time. There are quite a few people I know who live around Hereford and Worcester who think the same. Despite what some contributors to this site think, the Hereford and Worcester areas do have a considerable number of business travellers who would like to use the train but who are currently wary of doing so for the reasons I mentioned. They therefore take to their cars - either driving to London or to Birmingham/Bristol/Swindon, or even Newport.

Personally, I don't expect a non-stop Worcester to Oxford service as some have suggested. If the demographics say Honeybourne is a better source of revenue than (say) Moreton because of car parking capacity, then fine: stop at Honeybourne but cut out one other stop to compensate (although I agree that having more stops on the single line is not helpful). But I'm afraid that, personally speaking, adding stops at Shipton and Hanborough takes the biscuit - sorry if you live there, but that's my personal opinion. So far as I can see, the Shipton stop entered the equation because of some daft issue about door opening - grow up FGW and find a way to fix the Turbos, but don't stop a complete 8 carriage express.

I also agree that splitting trains would have been ideal. The Adelantes would have been great. One unit from Hereford to Worcester or Evesham, then two coupled through to Hereford. But that's gone because, as I understand it, FGW couldn't handle the maintenance (or their procurement guys fouled up in the first place with the technical spec - I'm not an engineer but a 125mph DMU with mechanical drive sounds like pushing the envelope in the first place).

To sum up, there are a quite a large number of people who travel from the Hereford and Worcester areas to London. Currently the service is way below what we enjoyed in the early/mid 1990s and all I asked for was one train each way per day that gets near what was achieved back then. Partial redoubling may help punctuality but we still need lower journey times.

Sorry, two units coupled through to Paddington......

stebbo can I just say that I am with you on this one and there are others out there who would agree that services are slower than they used to be because trains stop at more stations along the way and its very annoying. I'm all for providing a decent service from each station but thanks to Dft specifications its got to the point where many 'Intercity' routes are now more like SE commuter routes stopping at every station, why? because there isn't enough rolling stock to provide both fast and stopping services as in the case of services in the West for example.

I don't see this changing much now because if you cut services stopping at certain stations there will be an outcry from those easily forgetting the almost non existent service they used to suffer in the days of BR.

Like I say, I'm all for providing a decent service to every station where it can be justified. I just think Dft, and before them the SRA, made one rule for every station along the route regardless of usage and said to the TOCs you must stop there every hour, half hour etc without looking at every station on it's own merit and whether it justifies having every train stop there.

I give up - I'll just crawl back into the Turbo which is clearly all that I and all the other people using stations too short to accommodate a full-length HST deserve to be allowed to use for having the temerity to get in the way of the Worcester and Hereford business community - even on a Saturday afternoon.

I have a lot of sympathy with the folks of Hereford and Worcester, but doesn't everywhere in the FGW region have a slower service to London than it did 20 years ago? (Apart from places like Honeybourne and Ivybridge that have gained direct services.)

Of course, hopefully Shipton and Hanborough stops will be removed from off peak (and most peak) once the shuttles come in.

An hourly service for Hanborough is more than generous!

As has been said before though, Shipton only has one 'express' train calling at it a day anyway, and so if you remove Hanborough stops you will save around 2-3 minutes maximum. Hardly revolutionary stuff! I can't see a shuttle running all day mopping up Hanborough passengers, though I can see a couple during the peak bolstering the service. I think hourly for Hanborough off-peak (the long distance trains from Hereford/Malvern) and roughly every 30 minutes during the peak will be the way FGW go with this one, rightly or wrongly!

To make the kind of improvements this thread was started for you'll need to only have trains stopping at Evesham and probably two of Moreton, Kingham or Charlbury. You'll then need to have other trains serving the likes of Honeybourne and Pershore to meet with the Service Level Commitment. With the current economic climate, FGW's upcoming franchise payments, and a shortage of rolling stock, I'd be very surprised to see much changing, save for the natural speeding up that can occur given the greater flexibility the redoubling will bring.

Sorry to return to this when I think the subject has been done to death....

I lived for a while in Oxford so know the surrounding area. To be honest, if I lived in Hanborough I think I'd have long got used to driving into Oxford. It's not that far and probably more convenient. And if I lived in Shipton (it's not that big a place - smaller than Hereford.....(sorry)...) I think I could cope with a drive to Kingham or Charlbury.

Anyway, I don't post that often on this site and I'm pleased that I've managed to provoke a lively debate, whether you agree with me or not.

Perhaps Hereford and Worcesterites can only wish for more frequent problems on the cotswolds section.  This usually results in a diversion via Stroud and NO STOPS between Reading and Worcester! I arrived at worcester 15mins early once thanks to a "disruption"!

Yes, it has been done to death, but people will keep trotting out the same half-baked stuff about the supposed horrors of calling at almost any station between Worcester and Oxford bar Evesham.


On the basis you moved to Hereford in 1990, you probably have little idea what rush-hour traffic in Oxford is like these days - gridlock much of the time.

Stagecoach's No 11 bus is allowed an hour to get from Hanborough into central Oxford via Eynsham at this time of morning - cars aren't that much quicker.

If you lived in Hanborough, would you rather pay FGW ^3.70 for a peak day return (and less with a season) and a sub-10 minute journey or battle through the traffic and pay the city council ^17-^20 a day for six to eight hours parking, or over ^22-^24 if you're there for more than eight hours? Granted, many employers, mine included, offer free parking, but why waste your life stuck in traffic when the train beats the car hands down?

Btline, for the umpteenth time, lots of people using Hanborough at all times of the day travel to or from Reading or London, traffic built up on the back of through trains over the past 16 years - they are not some recent invention.

Since I began commuting in 2001, a grand total of one extra morning peak train has begun calling at Hanborough, the first train from Hereford, from December 2006 - and the Cathedrals Express still flies past at 100mph. Yes, both return Herefords call, but mean a far better spread of services out of Oxford than there was before 2006 - while the 17.51 has lost its Hanborough and Honeybourne stops.

As for "an hourly service is generous" what nonsense - with a more frequent service between Hanborough and Oxford backed up by proper marketing, FGW would be coining it - eg, at present there isn't a train into Oxford from 8.01 until 10.16. Anyone can see that a train running not far behind the Cathedrals Express, calling at Hanborough and reaching Oxford before 9am would be a good earner - it might also take a good few Oxford-bound people off the express, who often have to stand from Charlbury, but before anyone gets any ideas, lots joining at Charlbury are also going all the way to London.

The only current morning call at Shipton is by the halts train, while in the afternoon and evening peak, the return halts train and the 17.51 stop - and that's hardly a great imposition on a service that is far quieter than the Herefords which sandwich it - and with only two or three coaches unlocked, checking doors are shut there is a swift business, even with an HST on a Saturday afternoon.

Even in 1989 the traffic in Oxford was bad. I lived in Summertown and walked to work in the City centre. On a Friday, I'd leave St. Giles at the same time as a bus to Woodstock and arrive in Summertown before the bus. It was pretty bad too when I was a student in Oxford in the 1970s.

But a partner in my firm used to drive in from Woodstock area; another drove in from Islip and neither complained.

A whole different topic, but perhaps Oxford needs a tram system. Anyone for another blog....?

Its not that - FGW and their unreliability have caused me to lose at least 2 contracts in the last four years.  Maybe I am wrong to rely on a service that claims to get me to Pad at a certain time but failed to.

Now, with the padding, there are contracts I cannot even consider because the journey time is so long - and not all journeys to london have got longer - I remember taking 5 hours to get liverpool to Euston - not its about 2!

As for the intermediate stations - thats what you get for living in the sticks.

My local station is a stick - there are no expresses on that line but iof there was, then I wouldnt expect an intercity express to stop there. 

Major populations should be served by express trains and intermediate by stoppers.  Sorry for those at hanborough, shopton etc who seem to think they need to have an express service

A service arriving at 9 am would create an hourly service! And it should not be an express filling that gap.

When you compare Hanborough to other places in this country, a half hourly service is excessive. Hourly is generous. HSTs should not be stopping at these places at all off-peak. If you want to get to London - change. It is what you do in this country if you use such a village station! Why does this line have to be the odd one out?

FGW would generate far more income from speeding up the Worcester/Hereford trains, and getting a large amount of regular business travellers, (inc First Class season tickets) as well as those occasional leisure travellers who will actually use the service!

Further south, the copious amounts of Oxford P&R customers can use the shuttles.

I did not suggest the express should be making that stop - or isn't "a train running not far behind the Cathedrals Express" clear enough for you?


Why is it excessive, if the revenue is there for the taking? Which it is in the case of Hanborough, for the reasons I outlined previously. The traffic into Oxford may be easier off-peak, but the parking fees are still sky-high - an hour's on-street parking in the city centre (a mere ^2) costs more than an off-peak return from Hanborough using a Cotswold Railcard. And, I repeat, lots of people boarding at Hanborough are travelling past Oxford and have driven there from places like Witney.

As I've said in the redoubling thread, other village stations, like those between King's Lynn and Cambridge, get a half-hourly peak service to and from Cambridge and London, and an hourly off-peak train. And, to cite the example you threw at us earlier, the village stations between Hastings and Tunbridge Wells and between Horsham and Barnham have hourly trains to and from London most of the day. The Hastings line service is half-hourly in the peaks.

Or is that because they aren't between Worcester and Oxford, they are exempt from criticism? Should they also be stripped of this apparently extravagant level of service?


In terms of British cities and towns, Worcester and Hereford are not major population centres (combined population not dissimilar to Tunbridge Wells plus Hastings, to take one example) - and the overwhelming share of the growth in passenger numbers and revenue along the length of the Cotswold Line for the past two decades has been from Evesham and the stations east of there.

Neither BR, nor Thames Trains, nor FGW has ever shown any inclination to step up the number of fast trains from Worcester, even when there were still spare train paths available on the route. That speaks for itself in terms of their analysis of the likely prospects of boosting income by such an approach.

As for out in the sticks, all our well-used stations bring in the money that allows Worcester to enjoy the level of all-day service that it does at present, so you can park and ride from your bit of the sticks. For example, it's not that long ago that if you missed the 18.20ish off Paddington, then that was it if you wanted to travel beyond Moreton until the last train of the day. The recently-introduced 5.02 from Worcester is an extension of a train that has run from Moreton at about 6am for many years.


So although off-peak Cotswold HSTs are carrying around lots of empty seats already, they should now miss out station stops and so carry even fewer passengers. That's the economics of the madhouse.

And what level of shuttle service develops, if any, remains to be seen. With the pressure on local government finances in the next few years, the ability of Oxfordshire County Council to offer support for them isn't clear - and they won't be serving Honeybourne or Pershore anyway.


Doesn't sound like the best plan to be relying on in the current economic climate - and hardly anyone commutes regularly on journeys taking as long as Worcester - even if you sliced off 15 or 20 minutes, that wouldn't change.

And I just looked this up for a laugh - and I did - a first class annual season (Cotswold Line only) between Worcester stations and London is ^13,708. If you want to have the option of travelling via the Stroud Valley line as well, then that's ^15,872. Even if the journey time came down, I can't see those selling like hotcakes. If you earned that kind of money, you would buy a home nearer London and save yourself the travelling.

AFAIK, all journeys to London from the FGW area have got longer in the last 20 years or so.

It's what you get for living west of London and south of Birmingham.  ;D

The Hastings line actually has 2 tph. One semi fast and one slow. Thus the larger places on the route (and Hastings) get faster trains. In the peaks, some trains split to increase frequencies further, without eating up any more paths.

Is it just me, or is this like wrestling jelly?

Just in case you have forgotten, you wrote the following - which didn't appear to me to be about what the overall level of service on a route was, it was about the service offered at a type of station.


So just such a level of service is provided at other village stations on other lines elsewhere in this country - and indeed is better than that at Hanborough, where the current service isn't quite half-hourly in the morning peak (6.14, 6.42, 7.34, 8.01 towards Oxford) and more like hourly the other way in the late afternoon and early evening. The Hastings line also gets extras in the peak to and from Cannon Street, making it 3tph at these places out in the sticks.

And yes, Hastings does get faster trains - but all its trains, fast or slow, are operated by one type of EMU, with 1/3 and 2/3 doors, which aren't exactly inter-city and not at all, I'm sure, the kind of thing certain people on here want to see whisking them from Hereford and Worcester to London.

If some sort of shuttle does emerge, giving a half-hourly frequency at the eastern end of the line and it pays its way, then it may very well be that, just as happened in the late 1990s with mid-evening trains extended beyond Moreton, the numbers might stack up in favour of extending that frequency all the way to Worcester - or help make the case for further redoubling as part of Oxford and Worcester resignalling schemes to make such a service easier to operate.

If that were to happen - and FGW or any successor gets a new, more flexible rolling stock fleet - then a Hastings Line-style timetable might emerge but until those circumstances arrive, an hourly off-peak service, stopping everywhere but the halts and a half-hourly peak service in the direction of the main morning and evening flows, with one or two faster trains skipping the odd place - and hopefully some shuttles - is what is likely to emerge post-redoubling.

Hmm - I did - for most of the time for five years straight.  2004 thru 2008 - ok I did it monthly so you dont notice the cost as much (and I did have month or so breaks in there)

I think it fair to say there are more people living in the SE than around Shipton and Honeybourne, hence more stops on the Hastings line.

Plus, Hereford may not have a large population within the City itself but it has a large "hinterland". I know of people who live 20-25 miles from Hereford who come in to catch the train.

And all the stations along the Cotswold Line east of Evesham have hinterlands, as you put it, and are, I would dare to suggest, more likely to draw more regular travellers, more often, than those out in the Marches. And, according to HM Government, Shipton and Hanborough are in the South East.

I will spare you the population stats for places like Robertsbridge, Battle and Etchingham, but they look a lot like Moreton, Charlbury and Honeybourne to me.

As for hinterlands, Honeybourne draws from Bidford-on-Avon and Broadway and the sub-Edges and Mickleton; Moreton also serves Blockley, Chipping Campden and - in competition with Chiltern at Banbury - Shipston-on-Stour in Warwickshire; Kingham village is small, but then add in nearby Bledington, Stow-on-the-Wold, Bourton-on-the-Water and Chipping Norton; Charlbury is park-and-ride from Burford.

And finally, Hanborough is five minutes from Woodstock and 10 or so from Witney - which, whether Btline wishes to acknowledge it or not, puts a population about half the size of Hereford just up the road, that's why BR, Thames and FGW have all added stops at Hanborough. It used to be called Handborough for Blenheim - these days it ought to be Hanborough for Witney. Unless they are catching a train before 7.30am, no-one from Woodstock or Witney is going to risk driving to Oxford station these days, due to the congestion, and even then, Hanborough is obviously quicker and easier to get to.

Mookie, I know you used to do that journey, but I don't buy the proposition that there are vast numbers of people crying out to do it. How many other people were joining you from Worcester day-in, day-out, in first class?

Kingham's hinterland must include Shipton and Ascott

Charlbury's hinterland must include Finstock, Coombe & even Hanborough

So can we close four of those, and speed up the service for long distance users?

Note that Shipton, Ascott, Finstock and Coombe all have less passengers than Honeybourne put together.

Shipton is a reasonable size, but as hardly any trains stop there - guess what, it doesn't have many passengers. It would be a bit strange to recommend Kingham as the railhead for Shipton when the latter is in the middle of nowhere (and 3 miles in the wrong direction), when there's a perfectly good station at the edge of the village.

Well we seem to have a lot of stations a just a couple of miles apart from each other.  What would be sensible is to have just one or two that people can easily get to.  None of these stations are far away from Kingham or Charlbury and closing them would increase overall train time and therefore, to some extent, provide an increase in trains paths - especially the three on the single line. 

Kingham might be in the middle of nowhere, but it already has a well used station and sizable car park, and nobody has the money to move it to a more sensible location.  Shipton might be more profitable if it had a car park rather than a couple of roads, but with so few users at present, that seems unlikely.

Ascott, Finstock and Coombe together produce less than 20 passengers per weekday, why the heck do they have a train service at all.  It would be cheaper to put on a few taxis than to stop the trains.

Src:  DfT 2006-8

Don ... I'm going to make a general point here, and not one that relates to these particular stations as I'm not from the area and don't know them.

If you consider / advocate the removal of a train service completely, you need to base your decision on many, many more factors than the current passenger levels ... especially if the station concerned has a very limited service at the current time. 

I've make some quite detailed studies of a 'parliamentary' type service in my own area, where the numbers leaving and joining trains are frankly pathetic - but I have the big advantage of knowing what the true usage figures were prior to it be cut to the current level. I can say with a fair degree of certainty that (in our local case) an increase from 2 trains each way a day, timed to that a daily commute / round trip is impractical, to six trains each way, timed to give true travel opportunities, would rocket usage figures from a level that has previously been compared to the Oxfordshire halts to a level at which a 153 would be inadequate in a year or two and we would be looking at a 150, and even more services.

There is a clearly burning issue here / on this thread between the people who are looking for a fast end to end service, and those who are looking for a useable service at their own locale.  I don't know the answer - there has to be compromise, I suspect.  I *have* been reading parts of the thread with interest, and thinking about other lines which are long and busy enough to justify a fast train - slow train alternating process, and I have been wondering whether a more general thread on this would be appropriate. 

If there are fasts followed by slows should the fast set out just ahead of the slow?  Should they be timed so that they're at an even interval in the middle of the line?   Should alternate trains be fast at the east end then slow, and slow at the east end then fast?  Should the fasts overtake the slows somewhere?  Perhaps it's poll time!

I do know that there are some crass pattern situations that result from the need to meet specifications in this area.  I'm thinking of the Bristol - Salisbury leg of Cardiff - Portsmouth, which passes the previous slower train at Westbury which then carries on (on some hours) to Dilton Marsh and Warminster.  The Portsmouth train calls at Warminster anyway, so the stopper is really just serving Dilton Marsh.  Unfortunately, many of the Dilton March passengers used to go to Salisbury and that's now a journey that involves a change and a 50 minute wait at Warminster ... so (surprise!) the railway has lost that traffic.  Far better (IMHO) in that case to make alternative use of the resource released and if it doesn't end up passing through DMH, stopping alternate Portsmouths there are giving it a decent-er service.  ((DMH sits between two rapidly growing / urbanising areas that are running into each other and is a good example - going back to the initial thoughts that Don had - of a station that should absolutely NOT be judged on current ticket sales!))

The thing is, all four halts should have closed in the 60s.

They would have - had they not been in a marginal constituency. (ditto for the "Heart of Wales" line)

"Good", you might say - and on first glance (as a supporter of rail) I would agree. But 40 years have passed, and still all of the stations have just a paliamentry service, minimal passenger numbers and poor facilities. In other places where lines were shut, the roads (including those to the nearest railhead) are clogged and populations/housing has increased - justifying the need of the rail service. I see none of that in the "halts' " area.

That is the reason why the halts still have a bad service - I am sure either BR, TT or FGW would have attempted to "unlock" the potential of these stations. (as Willc points out, they have done this at other "village" stations) The fact is - they should have gone, and they only remain because no-one has the guts to shut them.

I say close at least 2 of them, and improve the stations that remain. (more car parking, better facilities, longer platforms etc. and thus more trains - aka the proposed shuttle) This will improve the transport of the area a lot more, than wasting money keeping 4 stations open with one train a day. On their own - they can't justify any money spent, or more trains. Club the catchment areas together, and you have a case.

I would rather have a station a little further away with better facilities and more trains, than a station at the bottom of my road with one train a day that barley fits on the platform.

_{NB, I know that Shipton has more calls; I have ignored this to simplify my post.}

I understand that a three car platform is to be built at Ascott as part of the redoubling. What a waste of money. Why not close it and spend the money elsewhere?

Hi, BtLine ... my point (got rather lost in a long post) was that current traffic levels shouldn't be the only thing element that's considered when looking at a station closure.  Your answer goes further, thank you; I'm not in a position, personally to know if and how strong any counterarguments should be weighed, and having made the point that struck me I'm going to quietly resume my watching brief.

P.S. I wouldn't be so sure about FGW looking to unlock potential directly if it were there.  It is far more profitable for them to see how much money they can get from the local councils instead. It was very interesting to hear of their senior team visiting all the councils in the area and doing a "please Sir, can I have some more [money]" just after they had won the franchise and were to be taking over from Wessex, to a much reduced service level specification.  Low service levels may be due to low potential demand, or they may be due to the failure to agree buybacks even where they would make sense.

That Combe and Finstock survive may be thanks partly to Labour and the Tories hoping for political advantage in the 1960s and early 1970s, because BR applied to close every intermediate station except Moreton and Evesham at one point in the early 1970s, but in recent times is down to a procedural error and a change in the law in 1994, when BR last applied to close them.

As John Boynton explains in his Oxford Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway, on March 11, 1994, BR published closure notices, citing the grounds that it would not be cost effective to improve the platforms to meet new safety standards. But they failed to inform the HSE of this view and that May the closure notice was ruled out of order as a result of this. In the meantime, on April 1, the section of the 1962 Transport Act under which the closures had been proposed was repealed by part of the 1993 Railways Act, which paved the way for privatisation, and the closure notices were never reissued under the new act.

That they both survive is frankly a nonsense, especially given the good bus service that Combe village, which is a mile from the station, gets nowadays. It's an easy enough drive to Hanborough if people do want a train to London and that is indeed where many do go, because of the frequent service there. Finstock people drive to Charlbury for the same reason and there is also a railbus link in the peaks.

But, as I've said before, the Wychwoods are a different matter. Beyond their railbuses, some to Charlbury and some to Kingham, bus services are poor, not least to Oxford.

Ascott station is right next to the village and would, I'm sure, be better used if it had a better service - I'm not suggesting vast numbers, just a few extra trains, at sensible times, to see what happens, much as Graham suggests. The same is true of Shipton, even if it's right out at one end of the village. Its population, combined with that of adjacent Milton-under-Wychwood, is greater than that of Honeybourne. Some people from Burford would surely happily switch here from Charlbury if the service wasn't so unbalanced, indeed it was shown in timetables for many years as Shipton for Burford.

That the service at both these places is the way it is is down in large part to the combination of three-car Turbos without SDO on most trains for a long while and two-car platform.

Westbound, Shipton has had four or five weekday stops for many years - because it has a three-car platform there. That the railway system in this country is incapable of coming up with a simple, cost-effective and safety-compliant way of extending platforms a matter of 20 metres or so - knocking the SDO issue on the head so long as you stick to running three-car Turbos or similar - is a disgrace.

These two places have potential, but nothing like that presented by Hanborough, nor Pershore, of course, which also had one train a day for part of the 1970s, a nonsense that was rightly addressed much sooner. Honeybourne got lucky, because it was a reopening, so got a decent length platform, indeed had a contractor not botched infilling work and knocked down part of the rail-side retaining wall, it would have been four-car or longer, not the three-car it ended up with. I trust they won't be inviting the same firm back to have a go at renovating the island platform!

But there is now an opportunity to do something positive in the Wychwoods as well. So build a new three-car platform at Ascott - and extend the other one and the up platform at Shipton too. If there are shuttles, they will more than likely be two-car sets, but the day will surely come when the only one set available at Oxford one morning will be a three-car and we'll be back to the same old nonsense, whereas with three-car platforms at the Wychwoods and that length or longer everywhere else between Oxford and Worcester, only Combe and Finstock, should they survive, would present any problem - a problem which Don rightly says a taxi would solve.

This post has been fascinating to read and I'm still not sure that I know the answer.

As someone who thinks rail travel (preferably on all an all electric railway) is the way to go, then conflict of providing express trains from regional towns to London or other major centres  and serving the local staions with very limited infrastructure (even after redoubling) is almost intractable.

Perhaps the provision of loops at Charbury or Kingham to allow a fast to overtake the stopper? But nobody is going to pay for that. Maybe electrifcation is the answer and with increased acceleration, braking and line speeds to get more trains through in a given time.

However, if we look over the horizon there is a possible interesting development which might put the usage of all the small stations from Moreton and maybe further West into grave decline. That is Chiltern's plans to open Water Easton station next to the North Oxford Park and Ride with services to both Oxford and Marylebone. With a se3rvice to Marylebone service in under the hour..

Looking at the road atlas this station looks to be far better situated in relation to the M40/A40 and the other major roads converging on North Oxford than Hanborough.

Chiltern are predicting increased custom at Water Eaton from North Oxfordshire, South Warwickshire and East Gloucestershire many of whom could be existing or potential users of the halts. Even out  as far as Warwick. This would seem to be shooting themselves in the foot but actually gives them increased capacity at Warwick Parkway, which is currently having increased carparking added. By diverting passengers from the South/West who might currently drive to Warwick to Water Eaton capacity is freed up to attract more users from Coventry and South Birmingham from Virgin and LM.

Chiltern know their market and they cultivate it, even having the cheek to give out leaflets on their services at Bourne End station. Although, to give them their due they have apologised to FGW and won't  be using that agency again.

Chiltern's plans thus fulfill DaFT's dream of rail competing with rail, which is a diversion of scarce resources (routes  and train paths) when the real competiton is road transport. But in my opinion Chiltern's plans should be allowed to go ahead particularly as it gives a boost to reopening through to Milton Keynes with all the connections available from there. Once open the impact on the halts can be measured then decisions can be may on their their future.

The major obstacle is that DaFt obsession with competition within the rail industry means they are not  doing the integrated planning of rail services to provide a well connected network serving the whole country. This includes electrification, new lines, new stations and new services on existing lines. In this integrated planning it maybe that one or two lightly used stations will close but only if there is a better service within a reasonable distance served by public transport.

But until this my  wild dream comes to fruition I don't know how you solve the dilemma of the halts and faster trains from Worcester and Hereford. Unless the Hereford's run via the Severn Tunnel and Worcesters via the Golden Valley.


 

Willc, I agree with you about Combe, Finstock and Shipton. But surely Ascott is too close to Shipton to justify more calls? (unless adequate car parking attracts more users)

Re: Chiltern - it looks like an aim of privatisation - competition - will be fulfilled soon. Meanwhile, Warwick P'way will continue to grow...

Well, don't trust what you see on a road atlas. The entire area where the A34, A44 and A40 meet at Wolvercote roundabout and Pear Tree interchange is one of the biggest rush-hour traffic bottlenecks in Oxford. While it may appear that you can zip across from west Oxfordshire up the A40, then a quick sprint on the A44 under the A34 and then on to Kidlington and Water Eaton, it really isn't that easy in the peaks. The traffic tailbacks along the A40 both ways from Wolvercote roundabout are legendary. There is a plan to build a cut-off from the A40 to the A44/A34 junction but that's all it is right now, a plan. From Witney, getting to Hanborough is a piece of cake, even at busy times.

Water Eaton will, as has been said previously, be great for people from Kidlington and the north and eastern edges of Oxford, but that's about it. Why do Chiltern think people will drive from miles away? In Warwickshire, they will go to Parkway, Leamington or even Banbury if they are in the south of the county, in N Oxon, to Banbury or Bicester, or, if the less frequent stops there suit, Kings Sutton. It's just PR fluff really.

At the end of the day, Chiltern want a chunk of the Oxford-London action - and from that eastern fringe, a lot of people currently drive to the Thornhill park-and-ride next to the A40 just past Headington and get on the express coaches using the M40, rather than battle across town to the station. Chiltern would like to persuade them to go the other way, up to Water Eaton and park there instead.

By the time the first Chiltern train turns a wheel, there will have been a good couple of years of post-redoubling Cotswold Line services and if they are delivering the goods, people won't be interested in getting in their cars and driving elsewhere if they can go to the local station with the certainty that their train will do what timetable says - something FGW now seem to have grasped, thanks to Messrs Haines and Hopwood.

Re the Shipton/Ascott situation, yes they are close together, but are separate communities. If there are to be more Moreton stoppers infiltrated into the service, then I would envisage pretty much all of them calling at Shipton, which could do with some effort to provide proper car parking - the key problem here is the lack of a footbridge, but it may be that the trains have to come first, to prove the case, before someone can find the money to tackle crossing the line without the hike back to parked cars on the up side via the road overbridge.

Ascott would be very much village-only traffic, but I would say it could do with a judicious few extra trains, at times that are likely to draw custom, eg getting into Oxford around 9am should a stopper be doing that sort of trip, an Oxford shopper opportunity out mid-morning and back mid-afternoon and something else early evening after the 17.31, to allow a later day out in London than at present, plus an evening out opportunity in Oxford. I don't think it would be the end of the world for the 21.48 to call, it's not exactly going like the clappers through Ascott now, as it is already easing off for the Shipton stop. And a restoration of some Saturday trains might be nice. It always used to get as many Saturday stops as Shipton, but when the DafT stroke of a pen timetabling team moved in, it was put in the same bracket as Combe and Finstock and now gets absolutely nothing.

As regards future service patterns, the Cotswold and Malverns Transport Partnership (county councils along the route, Network Rail, FGW, LM and the CLPG) is about to start work on a survey of passengers and communities along the line to establish a detailed picture of people's travel patterns, both locally and further afield, to help determine service patterns post-redoubling.

See http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/headlines/4271265.Survey_will_help_shape_new_Cotswold_Line_timetable/ (http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/headlines/4271265.Survey_will_help_shape_new_Cotswold_Line_timetable/)

I think someone asked somewhere about usage at Shipton. Having consulted a colleague who travels in from there on the halts train three or four days a week, there's a solid base line of half-a-dozen, but it can often be twice this (eg students off back to university on Monday mornings) and when it snowed at the start of February, there were a couple of dozen for a few days as the roads were so iffy - suggesting there is definite potential, if there was more than one train into Oxford (I discount the recent experiment stopping the first train from Moreton, when it was Adelante-operated, as it called at Shipton at about 6.10am).

Return traffic is harder to judge, as there are two peak trains back, the halts and the 17.51 from London, plus the 21.48 calls, so it's more in dribs and drabs - I have know about 10 get off the 17.51 some Friday evenings, though much of the rest of the time it's three or four. The stopper usually drops about half-a-dozen.

Lets hope the survey gets completed by enough people from Worcester and further West to show that the 20% increase in journey times and adding of 2 or 3 stops to through London trains is not accepatable and needs to be reversed.

And before willc gets on his high horse, faster trains with less stop alongside stoppers will be perfectly possible in the peaks.

Climbing aboard straight on board, I should remind you that the key point of the project is delivering rock-solid punctuality on the Cotswold Line and the routes it shares tracks with beyond Didcot.

At least in the initial stages, they are not likely to risk that by trying to jam up every available path in the morning peak. Far more likely will be a more regular spacing of the Oxford and London-bound services and ensuring that the Worcester-bound trains actually get there - unlike this morning.

And there will be faster trains, simply because of the operating improvements that redoubling brings. But running more trains will be harder, because until the new DMUs arrive in late 2011, or early 2012, the Thames Valley fleet is not going to see a single extra train - unless some more HSTs suddenly come on the market. Off-peak, it will be much easier to find stock from the existing fleet.

And since everyone from Worcester and Hereford seems to have abandoned the Cotswold Line anyway, how will they ever manage to survey you? Plus the naughty people now using Pershore and Honeybourne may say how acceptable they find it not having to drive into Evesham in the mornings.

Whilst Pershore, Honeybourne and Hanborough are important stations, I can't see why there can't be one peak train there and one back that misses them out. (when you consider - it is not a lot to ask!)

It would shave the best part of 10 minutes of the schedule (assuming 2-3 minutes per stop).

If marketed well, (Cathedrals EXPRESS etc.) the pair would become known as the Worcester/Hereford businessmen's trains. They WOULD be filled. There is a demand for a fast service for the two county cities.

Off peak, a full hourly service is required, stopping everywhere bar the halts. (as far as Great Malvern, with a few extensions to Hereford) But get rid of the slack to cut the journey time! It shouldn't affect punctuality if the operations are tightened up. If anything, punctuality will go up!

FGW are missing this key market, and the potential they can unlock from this line.

What's the point until the line has been doubled?

The insomniacs special at 5.02 from Worcester misses Pershore and Honeybourne and the 17.51 misses Hanborough and Honeybourne. Unfortunately, due to the pathing problems and token changes, the 5.02 waits 14 minutes at Moreton and the 17.51 currently sits for six minutes at Oxford, four at Moreton and five at Evesham and could easily shave a couple more minutes off between Oxford and Charlbury (and usually does with a clear run through Wolvercot), a couple between Charlbury and Shipton and three or four more between Pershore and Worcester.

Industry Insider has already demonstrated that with this kind of nonsense removed from the equation, services will be speeded up - and I think most people would regard timings of two hours or just over that mark between London and Worcester and three hours for a Hereford run as perfectly reasonable.

As for this one peak train thing - it's neither here nor there how fast it is if it doesn't get to London when someone wants to get there, or doesn't fit in with the time they are setting off home.

If you have a meeting at 9.15, you won't be getting the Cathedrals Express, nor will you be using it to get home if you arrive at Paddington by 17.15 or 17.45.

The type of train you describe hardly exists anywhere on the rail network any more, so why on earth do you think two such small places can justify it? Between Leeds and Kings Cross, there are two or three morning peak services that take about 10 or 12 minutes off the usual timing. In the evening, everything northbound from Kings Cross is on the same timing. From Manchester to Euston, I think there's one morning train that loses a bit of the padding between Watford and Euston, but that's about it. Northbound the timings are the same.

On both these routes, Pullmans, flyers and anything else of that ilk has effectively been consigned to history, with frequency the selling point, just as it is a key part of Chiltern's marketing pitch.

If you were to tell the businessmen (and women) of Worcester that they could have one speeded-up train, amid a hotch-potch of other trains with various departure and arrival times, against services every 30 minutes towards London from 5am until 7.30  or 8am, and the same back from London between 4.30pm and 7.30pm, guess which they would pick, and which would far more effectively build the market for FGW.

William check the Chiltern timetable - you'll see that their fastest Warwick Parkway / Marylebone trains skip all stops south of Banbury ( including Bicester ) on their peak services to offer the best times for the long distance traffic. That is the type of service that is being suggested.

I'm not sure that is what anyone is suggesting, as even the most ardent campaigners here seem to concede at least four stops between Worcester and Oxford

And on the Chiltern Line, there are frequent, fast, limited-stop trains starting and ending their journeys from Banbury and Bicester.

FGW simply don't have enough rolling stock - or staff - available to put in lots more trains and to guarantee punctuality, you are likely to be looking at two Oxford-bound and one Worcester-bound train each hour in the morning peak.

If they choose to squeeze something else in - and have the resources - fair enough - just don't count on this happening. And even if it does, don't count on getting a limited-stop express, because one of the top priorities is likely to be to offer a better peak frequency at - yes, I'm going to say it - Hanborough!

Yes, the peak Chiltern train skips Jewellery Quarter, Warwick, Bicester North, Princes Risborough and High Wycombe.

And Virgin operate many limited stop trains into Euston in the rush hour (e.g. one Wolverhampton - Euston train which runs non stop after Birmingham New Street!)

This is all done to speed up journey times for commuters and business travellers, whilst removing longer distance passengers from the trains before/after - allowing more space for shorter distance commuters.

Perhaps when the luxury of double track and 5 minute signalling headways between trains arrives on the Cotswold Line in the year 20xx, you'll see a similar service pattern begin to form?  ::)

As I said before about Manchester, and which you blithely ignored, presumably because it doesn't fit with your world view, running times from Birmingham New Street to London in the peak, all the way from 5.50am to 8.50am, are remarkably similar, 1hr 22, 1hr 25, 1hr 27, 1hr 24.... check on a journey planner if you don't believe me.

Yes, the 7.30 from New Street does it in 1hr 12, but frankly, in a sequence of Pendolinos every 20 minutes, over a three-hour period and then the same ever onwards off-peak, that one train is neither here nor there. They don't even bother with a single train doing a quick run in the return direction in the late afternoon and early evening.

I'm sure saying 'London in 72 minutes' looks fine and dandy in mailing shots to Birmingham businesses, but that's about all the value it has. It's just the 2009 equivalent of the couple of BR trains that did the run in 92 minutes in the 1980s and gave rise to the huge sign on the postal depot at Curzon Street - 102 minutes was more like it the rest of the time.

A rather more accurate comparison for the Chiltern service pattern south of Banbury would be Oxford, where both fast and slow London trains start and beyond which Cotswold Line peak trains make just one stop at Reading. Equally on the WCML, there are several LM-run fasts starting at Northampton and Milton Keynes.

For goodness' sake, please tell me you aren't seriously trying to equate the volume of traffic generated for Virgin and Chiltern by the population of the West Midlands metropolitan area and Coventry, Leamington and Warwick, with that available from Hereford and Worcester?

If you don't think a sequence of Worcester-London and return trains every 30 minutes in the peak - with pretty consistent timings of say 2hr 5min-2hr 10min - would be attractive to the expense account classes of Worcester with their ^129 first class returns, could you please explain why - instead of coming up with yet more chalk and cheese comparisons.