Worcester Parkway project

[whole diary]

[IndustryInsider]

Getting this back onto the original topic, I wonder whether any plans have been produced showing the layout of the proposed station and its car park and the access to it.

The following link gives quite a lot of detail.  No plans, but proposed platform lengths, car park sizes, passenger projections and construction costs, etc.

http://www.business-central.co.uk/cms/pdf/2.%20Parkway%20WLTB%20Bid.pdf

[mjones]

It describes a single platform on the Cotswold line, and I didn't see any reference to provision, passive or otherwise, for future re-doubling. Presumably the design wouldn't involve anything that would make future doubling more difficult or expensive? Other than increasing the number of stations needing an additional platform...

[IndustryInsider]

There seems to be very little appetite for that section to be redoubled.  At least the single platform at 256m should be (just) long enough to accommodate a 10-Car Bi-Mode IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) train allowing all doors to be opened.

[ChrisB]

Persuading FGW^▸ (First Great Western) to stop will be difficult.

Not likely to be redoubled until the Worcester resignalling takes place. That's again been put back well into the 2020s...

[IndustryInsider]

Persuading FGW^▸ (First Great Western) to stop will be difficult.

What makes you say that?

[ChrisB]

FGW^▸ (First Great Western).

They don't want to stop twice on that single line.

[IndustryInsider]

Then there's no point building the station as they'd be the only possible operator that would be able to stop there in Phase 1.  Anyway, I'd have thought it would be Network Rail that would be more concerned with stopping twice on a single line section than FGW^▸ (First Great Western)?

I suspect they will be persuaded - maybe not every train - but may not need too much persuasion anyway should the projected passenger numbers be correct.  I guess, as always, time till tell!

[Andrew1939 from West Oxon]

The above document gives some estimates of people and car numbers using the station, 93,000 bp.a. made up of 49,000 rail users, 37,000 car users & 7,000 generated people users. 7,000 out of 93,000 seems a very small proportion of generated, presumably new users. Am I correct in thinking that 86,000 will be users (of both rail and car) abstracted from other stations and that therefore other stations will suffer a distinct loss of business? The remaining financial parts of the document show how the total income that would be generated, presumably from car park charges and rail fares is sufficient to give a generous BCR^▸ (Benefit Cost Ratio) of 3.54. There seems to be no account taken in the document of the income that would be lost from other stations. There are lot of mystery figures shown but it seems to me they are rather optimistic, unless I am showing my natural pessimism. To me it looks very much like a document made to support a political decision already made in principle, that probably shows my natural cynicism.

[mjones]

'Generated' refers to travel that didn't previously take place, but has been created by the opportunity provided by the new station.  The 'rail' and 'car' lines refer to modes used by users of the new station who have transferred existing journeys there, so while the 'rail' line is existing users abstracted from other stations, cars' refers to those who have switched mode to rail. Therefore, the total for new rail users is 'cars' + 'generated', ie. 44,000 for Phase 1.

[Btline]

This station isn't the answer. Improve the service to Cheltenham and Birmingham New Street by providing 2tph to each.

Add extra car parking at Shrub Hill.

Provide cross Worcestershire links from Kidderminster and Bromsgrove in the North to Evesham and Twesksbury in the South.

This new parkway will just

1) abstract from existing stations (Malvern Link, Shrub Hill and perhaps Droitwich and Pershore
2) slow down and overcrowd existing XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) services to Birmingham

If XC don't stop to prevent this, the station becomes pointless!!!

[JayMac]

Franchise specifications decide stopping patterns, not operators.

If it's written into a franchise the operator must comply.

[ChrisB]

But if its not, franchisee can choose to...

[grahame]

Franchise specifications decide stopping patterns, not operators.

If it's written into a franchise the operator must comply.

But if its not, franchisee can choose to...

It's not necessarily quite as cut and dried as that, either way, is it? It depends on what's written into the franchise - usually a "service level commitment" which may (for example) say there must be a service from before [early time] to after [late time] with a maximum inter service gap of 3 hours with one extension to 3.5 hours allowed, or perhaps that there must be at least two trains from "A" to "B" during the day, not necessarily giving a time.   The franchise operator can then choose to run more services / stop more, but only if the stock is available to him for the trains, and that the line capacity is such that the stops can be accommodated.

[IndustryInsider]

Some CGI^▸ (Computer-generated imagery) images of the new station, as proposed, are contained within this article:

http://www.eveshamjournal.co.uk/news/11504760._/

Dipping down to the comments at the end of the article, mostly moaning as usual, but Roger5's comment caught my eye and it wouldn't surprise me if his prediction came to fruition.

[grahame]

http://www.ludlowadvertiser.co.uk/news/regional/11673636._/?

A SHOCK legal wrangle over building a new ^19 million Worcestershire Parkway railway station could be on the cards, it has emerged.

Your Worcester News can reveal how council chiefs are trying to prise the land needed to build the station, in Norton, from the grasp of a private developer.

Worcestershire County Council says "should it not be possible" to acquire the land it will use a Compulsory Purchase Order - a legal power to take the site without permission from its owner.

We can exclusively reveal how the key land needed to build the station, which has been called for since the 1970s, is controlled by Norton Parkway Developments Ltd.


The firm insists it has its own plans to deliver a rail station on the site and has recruited a private partner to bring forward proposals along the same timescale as the council, but cheaper.

The company says it is happy to negotiate on a 'joint agreement' over the development, but that it will not be bullied into handing the site over.