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The use of HST sets taken from the Paddington/Cardiff off peak service to provide for Glastonbury folk raises the question is a half hourly service between Cardiff and Paddington really justified in todays economic climate especially when HST services are particularly overcrowded on say the Paddington/Penzance route at this time of year.

My answer would be yes. Having got a half hourly service it is in my view counterproductive to reduce it in an downturn because when the economy recovers and people start travelling again it will not necessarily be reinstated immediately due to the long lead time to revamp the timetable and work out stock diagrams.

If as you say the stock was used on the West of England line then the West Country would get very upset if their services were then cut to reinstate the half hourly Cardiff's.

No the old adage of investing in a recession to be ready for the upturn applies. Don't forget a lot of improvemnts like the Westbury and Frome bypasses and the four tracking South from Tysley (since foolishly been removed) were carried out by the GWR in the middle of the 30s recession.

6% Network rail 20 year bonds for electrifcation.

How long has the half hourly CDF-PAD service run? It hasnt always been half hourly.

It needs to be remembered that the service not only serves Cardiff but Bristol Parkway as well. Does Bristol Parkway also deserve a half hourly service? I think the half hourly service should remain as when things pick up, there will no doubt be the number between Cardiff, Bristol and London to justify the service levels.

It could remain half hourl peak and hourly off-peak, could free up a couple of sets, we could then have an hourly pnz-pad service!

Thats what I thought,surely a better use of scarce resources.

In theory you could always stop the Cardiff service and run one of the London - Bristol TM services on to Bristol Parkway, Newport and Cardiff, freeing up an extra HST for Cornish services or anywhere else as needed. The Cardiff trains might be extended by about 20 minutes but there's always the faster Swansea service every hour anyway.

On the other hand it might not be that easy - a reversal at Bristol Parkway, services to Weston would be affected (especially in the peak) plus finding an extra path on the cross-Bristol section. Plus as noted above, the Welsh Assembly would not be delighted.

If running via Temple meads then surely no need for a stop at Parkway? may aswell just continue via Patchway.

Also when the Cheltenham National Hunt Festival takes place in March, several Cardiff trains are diverted to Cheltenham.

Don't quite work that out. If it's half hourly in the peaks, then the only time any units are free is between 1000 and 1600, which is hardly enough to get a unit one way between Padd and Penzance.

 

I'm sure that some service frequencies are in place based on "quiet but will grow through the franchise." 

I can find you a certain service (!) that was quiet in Autumn on 2001 but had grown to busy by Autumn of 2006 - growth rate compound 10% to 35% depending on what measure was taken! A huge mistake was made in taking that service off (to all intents and purposes) in December 2006, based on the usage figures for the old times when the service had been quiet, and with an assumed growth rate on 0.8% So although the half-hourlies are quiet at present, it may well be that they are there for planned growth and by 2014 they too will be "nesting" (Nearly Every Seat Taken). 

Now - I'm sure that FGW and the DfT will be looking at / revising estimates based on the economic situation changes (and also the negative effect that reducing a service to hourly would cause).  There is some sense in borrowing the alternate trains at times that other lines have excpetional loadings when the 2nd Cardiff / Bristols don't;  Gold cup and Glastobury, yes - but perhaps also high summer.  And someone should be analysing the unthinkable to see if it has any merit in it ... "Paddington, Reading, Didcot, Swindon, Chippenham, Bath, Lawrence Hill, Abbey Wood, Severn Tunnel Junction, Newport and Cardiff" hourly, together with an hourly Weston and an hourly Swansea.   What a shame about the double reversal to take in Temple Meads and Parkway in place of Lawrence Hill and Abbey Wood. How long would that take if there was an extra driver who simply took the other cab for that short section up and down every day?

An interesting idea, but if you added frequent tram/trains from Portishead through the town centre to Severn Beach/Yate using the extra pair lines up the bank Lawrence Hill would be an ideal interchange station to relieve Temple Meads.

The trouble is the "bean counters" lack the vision, every public trnsport scheme has to be self sufficient. "Cross subsidy" is frowned upon although in practice every transport system in the world relies  on "cross subsidies" of some form or other to survive.

Even our "highly efficient" road transport industry has to "cross subsidise" empty runs if there is no return load for a particular traffic flow.

I don't see any point having a half hourly service to Cardiff if the trains that terminate there arrive just a few minutes before the Swansea services, which would be the result of the suggested detour through Bristol. A reversal at Parkway would be ridiculous; substituting Filton or Patchway for Parkway would be detrimental, as people travelling to and from the north Bristol area aren't going to want to be alternating between stations.

I see no prospect of millions being spent converting Lawrence Hill, Filton or Patchway into a major station -- I don't see millions being spent on any rail projects in the greater Bristol area, but if they were, I'd rather see it go on increasing capacity or re-opening Portishead. I feel it's a simple choice between keeping the half hourly Cardiff services, or reverting to hourly as it was a few years ago. And who's to say that if the extra trains were withdrawn that FGW would re-deploy them? maybe they would just take the opportunity to reduce their leasing costs.

There won't ever be an hourly London-Penzance service either (at the moment they can't quite manage to give Plymouth an hourly service). It seems to me that what Cornwall needs most is a half hourly local service on the mainline -- more intercity services would be nice, especially XC ones, but the economics of it just don't work. There's a reason why Cornwall is England's poorest county: remote regions can only have the sort of services that more central areas have if the government provides hefty subsidies, but Cornwall is not in Wales or Scotland or the "north" so however poor it gets it will go largely unnoticed by governments.

I think you may be confused as no Cardiff service terminates a few minutes before the service to Swansea. During peak hours, there is an hourly service to Swansea with an hourly service to Cardiff creating the half hourly frequencies for Cardiff-London. And surprisingly, whenever I am in Cardiff, there always seems to be a large number of people boarding the HST towards London so obviously there is demand.

I think what also needs to be taken into account is that the London-Cardiff service is the only regular intercity service that Cardiff recieves which is pretty poor considering the city of its size and the fact it is th capital of Wales. The only other intercity service is the token Crosscountry service which runs one service each way most days. If the half hourly frequency was withdrawn then it would be a PR and politcal nightmare.

I think Bemmy's comment about services arriving any a few minutes apart applies to what would happen if half the paddington-parkway-cardiff servcies were axed and half of the BTM services extended to Paddington.  They would take longer to get to Cardiff and consequntly would not be too far behind the next direct service.

Cardiff is smaller than Sheffield which only gets an hourly service to London.

I can see the case for axing a few of the very empty services to Cardiff.  If...

a) enough sets were released for long enough to improve services to/beyond Exeter/Plymouth at times peoples are likely to use them.

b) half of the Temple Meads trains are extended to Cardiff (although not via Parkway because two reversals will just slow things down and i doubt that parkway gets much off-peak custom and there are XC links from Parkway to BTM).

c) extra Chipenham-Bath-TM-Newport-Cardiff-Swansea capacity provided by b) was provided at sensible times to fit into the existing inadequate service.

if those condictions could be met, a reorganisation would actually improve overall service levels, provide some new journey oportunities (ie, Chippenham to Swansea direct) although I admit that Cardiff-London would suffer slightly. 

Someone needs to do the sums and find the answer. 

Oh it is flamingo but I can't help but make a quick comment on why everyone wants to cram into the middle of the train when there are five other perfectly good and less crowded carriages. Almost always plenty of space in coach A so long as you keep it quiet!

I think it should be seen as a compliment to FGW that people wish to travel on their trains when they could use ATW  ;). Tbh I feel that the best way of dealing with the problem has recently been handed back to the ROSCO by FGW. I am obviously talking about the 180s which love them or loath them, were ideal for Cardiff/Bristol-London freeing up hsts for longer distance services. If someone high up had been thinking properly, the south west could of had the hsts which are currently on the hourly Cardiff-London trains which would be ran by the 180s increasing services overall.

Correct..... sorry matt473, I should've put a relevant quote to make that clear.
But Cardiff is more of a regional centre than Sheffield: it serves a large population in the valleys, while Sheffield has a smaller hinterland, being relatively close to a number of other large cities.

Although more trains to London doesn't make up for the lack of intercity trains to other places. The simple solution would be to upgrade the hourly Birmingham service to intercity status.

[/quote] Although more trains to London doesn't make up for the lack of intercity trains to other places. The simple solution would be to upgrade the hourly Birmingham service to intercity status.
[/quote]

They have made a start by having a small First Class section on Cardiff-Notts service. Although yes it takes more than that to make an intercity service.

I'd say its fairly Intercity:

Cardiff - Newport - Gloucester - Cheltenham - B'ham New Street

It's not InterCity. It stops (and should stop) at local places such as Tewkesbury (aka Ashchurch).

It is run by 170s. Hardly InterCity rolling stock.

Well, it is, as it is long distance. It should not be stopping at small places such as Tewkesbury. The idea of the service is that people are able to travel to the Midlands from South Wales and Gloucestershire, not local passengers commute into Birmingham/Cheltenham.

By your own reasoning (based on your opinions of the Cotswolds) local passengers should be on a local service and subsequently change ;)

But it is Ashchurch's service to Birmingham! Besdies, Tewkesbury is a fairly large place.

If XC want to offer an additional fast service, so much the better. If this requires people to change, so be it. But the current service is the local service for places between Newport and Gloucester.

Coming back to the question, a pax count of the 1055 Cardiff to London today showed around 140 standard class pax between Swindon and Didcot. 

I would expect at that time of day the heavier flow is still into London, so maybe the reverse workings would be even quieter?   

Could it be that everyone knows that you're safer in the middle of train? You're also usually nearer the paltform exits on most through stations. Plus closer to the Buffet if there is one.

Also you don't have to walk so far at Padd. Try Coach A Padd to Slough on an HST you walk miles both ends.

Of course, that's not always the case...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYubpuIe3cw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYubpuIe3cw)

Well, more like 200 metres, but it is the case that some regular passengers on short routes like Padd-Slough would rather stand for the 15 minutes or so than walk down the far end of the train where there are plenty of seats. A strange concept for me to grasp, but it does happen!

If I was asked to estimate the number of people who unnecessarily stand on FGW services, then I'd guess it was somewhere between 25-40% of the total standees - i.e. a large number of people! Split between those who choose to stand and those who don't realise there are seats in a different carriage. Some TM's could do a lot better at informing passengers that there are seats further down the train.

I agree.  From my understanding of intercity services, they call at cities or major towns i.e. Cardiff - Padd calls at Newport, Bristol P, Swindon, Reading.

The Cardiff to Notts service calls at cities and major towns only (apart from University which it seems to call at every hour).  Its only very occasionally it calls at places such as Chepstow, Lydney, Ashchurch, Willington and Beeston.  There is a local service between Cardiff-Cheltenham which calls at smaller stations and I think XC also run an hourly service between Brum and Notts which calls at smaller stations.

When Central Trains ran this service it called at many more stations including Ashchurch and Beeston every hour. I believe it was branded "citylink" by Central Trains. Since XC took over its become more intercity, possibly because XC run so many other long distance services.

Plenty of passengers waiting for the 1555 as well - the 1545 Notts service departed a few mins late but plenty of people still stood on platform 1 waiting for the 1555 to arrive.

Apologies, was referring to the fact that coach A is the quiet coach.

How about the CDF - Padd off peaks turning into BPW - Padd's instead!  BPW still gets a half hourly London service!

Should release a couple of sets then!

Not enough platform space for a terminating HST

xx15 Paddington - Reading - Didcot Parkway - Swindon - Didcot Parkway - Filton Abbey Wood - Bristol Temple Meads

Perhaps?

Platform 4?

Would probably clash with the Weston terminator. Besides, the turnaround would be 50 minutes so might as well run it further. Temple Meads being ideal.