Great Western Coffee Shop

It seems (so far) that FGW have got their act together on unit allocation for the Cornish branches, Newquay now booked 3 car (used to be a 150, in Wessex days was a single 153!!), and St Ives is now 3 cars (used to be 2 until end of june then 4).
I believe Looe is to be a 150 from the end of the month aswell.

St Ives won't cope with 3 cars in the Summer! :o

It needs 5!

It goes to 4 at the end of June, my point is that it is 3 cars NOW, it used to jump from 2 to 4 overnight!

That's good/ a relief! :D

I suppose FGW don't have the stock to make it 5 car.... I think LM have most of the 3 car 150s.

St Ives doesn't need to be 4-car right now and in the summer 4 car is fine really. Trains are busy all the time but that is just the nature of the line.

4 cars has usually just sufficed during past summers, however, if this summer carries on the way it's going then we will have trouble with 4 this summer holiday! 5 cars would be nice but would need to be a 3 car 150 and 2 car 150 as 153's are a pain in the bum with holiday makers who never seem to be able to work out how to open the sodding doors!!!!!

But if you have a three car 150, you would have no corridor connection, so equally as useless.

I doubt much revenue protection occurs on a packed train  ???

Yes you do! (unless FGW's 3 car 150s are very different to normal)

When I travelled on the line over 5 years ago, the four cars could barley cope! Heaven knows what it's like now...

For a start, there aren't any FGW 3 car 150s. The only ones are with London Midland which FGW should be getting, they have no corridor connections. Four cars can cope though, the trains are busy, but they cope. As for revenue they are actually pretty hot on it on St Ives.

Revenue not a problem on St Ives, temp barrier staff at Lelant Saltings, Carbis Bay and St Ives during July/August as the guard got no chance with 3 mins between stops!

where are these units coming from?

Had a very very annoying Conductor on the Falmouth this morning, Could happily have bought single to Penryn and caught the bus. Really really got my back up. Have written to FGW customer services to complain.

If they can make 3 car 158s you can just as easy make 3 car 150s as long as you used 150/2s no problem at all with corridor connections.
Centro had 3 car 150s but that was a 150/2 car placed between 2 150/1s so no corridor connections either end of the train.
Or why not place a 153 between two 150/2 coaches, just as much fun.

With the extra units being allocated to the Branch Lines you want to be the poor mug who has to shunt them at night at Penzance etc to get them into the desired order.

As for annoying conductors this is not a personal comment on Rail Cornwall but there are even more annoying passengers travelling on the Falmouth line especially of the younger generation.

Even though it looks as though they are trying to settle things down, i have recently seen 4 used on the Newquay line and a 150 used on the Falmouth with a 153 doing the other work.

Care to expand?

I will do when I get a reply.

None of that is bad though, more capacity available.

Thanks for your first post, Rob T - and welcome to the Coffee Shop forum!  :)

Does anyone know whether there has been any progress on the following? :

I believe the new St Erth P&R has been put on hold for now. I suspect that it will be revisited post recession. The whole Cornwall situation has been confused by the creation of the Unitary Authority. There'll be considerable competition between the 123 councillors based on the old Districts over the coming 12 months for resources. The main transport issue that will be taking up their time is that of levelling up (and down) of the parking charge and time regime across the County.

You would have thought the Credit Crunch would make improvements to the line more important.

With fewer people going abroad, and more staying in Britain.

Hmm.  Having ^5,000,000  (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7660741.stm) still 'frozen' in an Icelandic bank account may restrict Cornwall County Council's ability to pay for such 'nice to have' improvements?  ::)

123 councillors!?! That's really simplified things there then.

tell us more!