Great Western Coffee Shop

1236 from Bath Spa to Portsmouth was a 4 car today.  Anyone know if this is a one off or signs of things to come ?  (Was 2  2 car 158's)

Shortage of 3-car 158's. They've been coupled since Sunday. Doubt they'll split when we want them to now !! Sadly not a sign of things to come.

The 16:36 Bath Spa to Bristol Temple Meads service (a Portsmouth to Cardiff train) was a three car 158 today.

Interestingly, it was moderately loaded - and soon after leaving Bath Spa, a member of train crew walked down the length of the train, doing an apparently detailed passenger count.  No ticket checks, though.

Seen on the return trip and thought if only. It wouldn't take much to provide the service the route deserves.

On my recent journeys (Friday lunchtime and Sunday evenings) between Bristol and Portsmouth, the services don't seem as busy as they were this time last year.

I'm not sure whether this correlates to my observation that advance fares in the cheaper categories don't seem to have such a high availability as previously.

New approach?  Reduce the loading but keep the revenue by charging more per head?

My recent journeys between Southampton & Bristol have welcomed heavy loadings throughout. Dread to think what it would be like if it were a 2 car railway like back in the dark old days...!

[1710 Soton - Cardiff (friday) & 1910 Bristol - Pompey (sunday) for comparison purpose]

Just more units that the company (and country) hasn't got !!

A fact that most of the general public don't seem to understand. Every week I here something along the lines of "Why don't they put on an extra carriage when they know it's going to be busy?" ::)

On the Pompey Cardiff's just another 4 158's would allow it, although I stand to be corrected on that as I understand that the service requires 8 units. The 4 car has been running about for a couple of weeks as far as I am aware. Would be handy if it was available on Fri afternoons through Bristol, and weekends.

A couple from the 1700 that were mooted not that long ago is not too much to ask is it.

the ports-card line needs 9 sets at current capacity.
FGW have a fleet of 11 and need 10 in service,1 card-taunton the rest on the ports-card route.

From those 11 3-car class 158 sets you could make:

• 1 3-car set (the one that really is a 3-car set)
• 7 4-car trains (2-car set + 2-car set)
• 1 2-car set

That's 8 trains, find another 4 2-car units and you have enough trains (9 + 1 spare) for Portsmouth - Cardiff, albeit one remains 3-car. That doesn't cover the Taunton route if one unit is out of service but there is a 2-car unit left over from re-forming the artifical 3-car sets, which could be handy somewhere. Is there anywhere in the UK where 2 or 3 2-car 158s are coupled together to form a whole train with no reversals or dividing on route? If so, especially if 3 units are so joined, a LCHS operation could free up those 158s.

Personally I would like to see even more 2-car 158s made available so that every other hour the 4-car Portsmouth - Cardiff could have 1 unit extend into west Wales (prefrablly Fishguard since the current service is near-useless to locals) via the Swansea district line. This would restore direct links from west Wales to the south of England and reduce journey times between Carmarthen and Cardiff.

I'm sure in the not too distant future we will see 4 car 158s operating Cardiff-Portsmouth as soon as there is enough cascaded rolling stock to allow this to happen but don't expect that for another couple of years at least.