Lack of imagination on Cotswold line

[whole diary]

[Richard Fairhurst]

As far as bikes are concerned, a message on the PIS^▸ (Passenger Information System) and perhaps an announcement before the train arrived (have FGW^▸ (First Great Western) installed auto PAs^▸ (Public Address) at the village stations?). Of course, it is different depending on the stock (Thames Turbo, 180 or HST^▸ (High Speed Train)).

I think there's already the option of a stock-specific announcement for HSTs indicating the location of First Class (and, of course, the screens know what type of stock it is because they say "Formed of 3 coaches" or some such... though splits at Oxford tend to confuse it ).

It shouldn't be too hard to record a slightly longer announcement. So, at Charlbury platform 2, add "Passengers with bicycles should load them by the footbridge."

Agreed with II that the signs are only obvious if you're in the right place to begin with. At Berwick on Saturday I noticed that East Coast have a large "how to travel with your bike" poster as soon as you enter the station.

[IndustryInsider]

An example of some of the slack in the schedules.  This train, a peak hour service, left Great Malvern 27 minutes late this morning.  It has little or no time booked in stations, but still managed to get to Paddington only 5 minutes late.  Twenty minutes was recovered after Charlbury!

[grahame]

An example of some of the slack in the schedules.  This train, a peak hour service, left Great Malvern 27 minutes late this morning.  It has little or no time booked in stations, but still managed to get to Paddington only 5 minutes late.  Twenty minutes was recovered after Charlbury!

There's an irony here. That's a good recovery from a schedule which is receiving some criticism for being too slack.   And that may well be justified in the case of the Cotswold line;  I'm not qualified to comment.

But I am aware of a local willingness on another line - the TransWilts here in Wiltshire - for potential passengers to have a service that includes a generous margin for recovering from earlier delays, with the margin inserted within the centre section of the line which has virtually no passenger trains at present.   Five extra minutes on the approach to Chippenham (Northbound) and five extra minutes before Trowbridge (Southbound) would be reasonable.

Why?   Because an allowance such as this would mitigate the possible effects of delays on the Portsmouth to Cardiff main line being transformed into delays on the Paddington to Bristol line.  We really don't want a TransWilts service that's more reasonable than the current one to cause delays elsewhere, especially bearing in mind the cost of delaying an HST^▸ (High Speed Train).   And we would rather go for reliability and a good frequency than a service that's a few minutes faster, but only runs at rather silly times before dawn and mid-evening.

Our view may come to change further down our growth curve, when we get to the point of a similar scheme to the Cotswolds redoubling on the single line section of the TransWilts.

[Btline]

Interesting that the train made it from Worcester to London in exactly 2 hours.

All day every day please!!

(Ok, I'll settle for 10 minutes slack...)

[Chris from Nailsea]

Are you feeling quite right, old boy?  Btline apparently accepting the need for slack in a timetable?  Whatever next?? 

[Andrew1939 from West Oxon]

It tends to confirm thinking that there is slack. However the quoted recovery time of over 20 minutes took place off the CL indicating that the CL timings for this train are not excessive. Whilst this schedule shows a 15 minute journey time from Hanborough to Oxford (07.37 to 06.52) plus 4 minute dwell at Oxford, this is sometimes needed because of a south bound Cross-Country train using Wolvercote junction close to a CL train timing. However I think that in this case, the previous south bound train to this departs Oxford 20 minutes earlier at 06.36, so the question is why does it need 15 minutes when at a push it can be done in around 8. In some cases extra time between Charlbury could be justified if there is a Down train using the single track just before the 06.28 Charlbury departure but it seems there are no Down trains using the single track at this time of day. It looks from this schedule that similar generous timings were presumably lengthened several years ago when the single track increased the likelihood of delays to CL trains. FGW^▸ (First Great Western) might well say that increased congestion south of Oxford has still increased the need for more generous timings. Of course the real reason might be that TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) get punished financially for trains being late.

[Btline]

Hopefully once Crossrail, Reading, electrification and IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) are done the whole timetable can be rewritten. I'd expect ~10 minutes to come off London to Oxford at a shot. Reducing unnecessary slack could mean a near 2 hour journey time is possible or at least for a peak train each way.

[IndustryInsider]

It tends to confirm thinking that there is slack. However the quoted recovery time of over 20 minutes took place off the CL indicating that the CL timings for this train are not excessive.

True enough, the redoubling should (or could in most cases if the timetable was recast) remove the need for excessive timings - which after all is mostly between Hanborough and Oxford on this particular train as you've identified.  1h 03m from Oxford to Paddington with stops at Didcot & Reading is a little excessive but you'd probably not want to trim more than 5 minutes off of that.

No shortage of trains with slack actually on the Cotswold Line though - one example, Saturday's 18:35 GMV to PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains) (which is one of the few Saturday trains that would make an ideal Adelante working - if they're being allowed out a weekends?).  It sits at WOS^» (Worcester Shrub Hill - next trains) for 12 minutes, EVE for 10 minutes, before having 9 minutes wait at OXF^» (Oxford - next trains) - so potentially it could be 30 minutes quicker just by cutting out station dwell time.  That is by no means the only example.

Let's hope things improve soon!

[Andrew1939 from West Oxon]

I understand that the Adelantes, when introduced, will normally only operate Monday to Friday services. It will be back to Tubos at weekends for most off-peak services. Presumably with only 5 Adelantes available, routine maintenance on them will be done at weekends.

[IndustryInsider]

It's a bit of a shame that the extra comfort can't be enjoyed by passengers at weekends, but I thought that might be the case, and I suppose it's a bit of a trade off.  The majority of the Turbo operated services on Saturday and Sunday are now too full (between Paddington and Oxford) to be an Adelante and operate as 5 or 6-car formation on that busiest stretch. 

[Richard Fairhurst]

And much though I like the Adelantes, Turbos are much, much easier to load a bike onto, so personally I'll be glad to keep them at weekends!

[Btline]

HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) should be used instead. There should be enough available on a Sunday instead of bleeding the Cotswold line dry as usual.

I've been on Turbos bursting at the seams - they seem to forget that Sunday is a busy day for rail travel. Instead passengers, often with luggage, have to put up with sardine like conditions, with no air conditioning as the train crawls down the line.