Call for faster, non-stop expresses from Wales to London

[whole diary]

[grahame]

So if both the additional London - Bristol Parkway - Bristol TM^‡(resolve) trains run non-stop as well (Have I remembered this correctly?) Swindon gets a reduced service from electrification. 

That is how I read it. Swindon to London, down from 9 trains every 2 hours to 8 every 2 hours.

Current -
2 ex Swansea
2 ex Cardiff
4 ex Bristol via Bath
1 ex Cheltenham Spa

Appears to become -
2 ex Cardiff
4 ex Bristol via Bath
2 ex Cheltenham Spa

[didcotdean]

There are hints of an hourly shuttle service in the indicative post-electrification timetables & service outlines that could run Paddington-Reading-Didcot off-peak, extended to Swindon peak time to 'compensate' for the reduction of stops at Didcot & Swindon on the South Wales services. This is probably no issue for London direction commuters but not so for those commuting westwards. Indeed some of these timetables have suggested no stops at Didcot on any South Wales service.

[ellendune]

The slight reduction in services to London is not an issue. But only an hourly service from Swindon to Bristol Parkway and South Wales that is the big change. 

[Btline]

Ellendune - Oxford services stop at Slough, so they shouldn't be given any more stops. The Slough calls should be removed.

Graham - I agree that everything (bat some peak services) should stop at Reading, including Oxford fasts.

[Electric train]

Ellendune - Oxford services stop at Slough, so they shouldn't be given any more stops. The Slough calls should be removed.

Graham - I agree that everything (bat some peak services) should stop at Reading, including Oxford fasts.

The only problem with removing all these fasts from Reading and Slough the Relief Lines just don't have the capacity to carry all the extra people, not even extending the 10 car Crossrail services to Reading, unfortunately those who chose top live 120 or more miles from London will just have to put up with the extra 10 mins on their already 2 hour plus journey knocking out the stops on these services will not help because semi fasts on the Mains will have to be introduced.

[IndustryInsider]

Regarding the stops at Swindon, I'm all for much quicker services, but not at too big a cost in connections from the intermediate stations.  Perhaps a good compromise would be one of the two services each hour stopping at Swindon and the other at Reading, so the four trains per hour could be:

1x Bristol TM^‡(resolve), Bath Spa, Chippenham, Swindon, Didcot, Reading, Paddington
1x Bristol TM, Bristol PW^▸ (Permanent Way), Swindon, Paddington
1x Bristol TM, Bath Spa, Chippenham, Swindon, Reading, Paddington
1x Bristol TM, Bristol PW, Reading, Paddington

Added to that the South Wales/Cheltenham trains:

1x Swansea, Neath, Port Talbot, Bridgend, Cardiff, Newport, Bristol Parkway, Reading, Paddington
1x Cardiff, Newport, Bristol Parkway, Swindon, Didcot, Reading, Paddington
1x Cheltenham, Gloucester, Stonehouse, Stroud, Kemble, Swindon, Didcot, Reading, Paddington

That has the following benefits:

• Keeps the Swindon stops as similar to now (though one more from Bristol rather than Swansea, so not quite as good), but the odd extra train to/from London due to the hourly Cheltenham service.
• Connectivity towards Bristol/Cardiff from Didcot and Oxford is maintained.
• The fast service from Bristol to London (via Parkway) is almost maintained as one train skips Swindon, the other Reading.  I really can't see a big enough market for two trains non-stop from Bristol to London each and every hour for much of the day.

And an added luxury would be a 4-car 110-115mph EMU^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit) running hourly between Bristol TM to Bedford, calling at Bath Spa, Corsham*, Chippenham, Wooton Bassett*, Swindon, Wantage Road*, Didcot (?), Oxford, Oxford Parkway, Bicester Town, Winsford, Bletchley, Woburn Sands, Lidlington and Bedford.  Stations marked with a * are reopened and have a suitable service as a result, and that might enable the odd stop at Didcot to be removed from the trains listed above without spoiling connectivity.

[Btline]

The only problem with removing all these fasts from Reading and Slough the Relief Lines just don't have the capacity to carry all the extra people, not even extending the 10 car Crossrail services to Reading, unfortunately those who chose top live 120 or more miles from London will just have to put up with the extra 10 mins on their already 2 hour plus journey knocking out the stops on these services will not help because semi fasts on the Mains will have to be introduced.

So how many are we stopping - remember each call reduces the max 16 tph by at least 1tph.
So Oxford fasts stopping at Slough removes 2 paths. If they stop at Maidenhead too , that's another 2 paths, so we're already down to 12 tph.

We already have too long a journey time! We should be aiming for 45 minutes to Oxford in the future, with a stop at Reading.

Other TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) have reduced journey times, which is why it is now quicker to travel to Banbury than to Oxford.

[grahame]

So how many are we stopping - remember each call reduces the max 16 tph by at least 1tph.
So Oxford fasts stopping at Slough removes 2 paths. If they stop at Maidenhead too , that's another 2 paths, so we're already down to 12 tph.

How does that work?   I can see 9 trains per hour on the relief lines out of Paddington and a total of 53 intermediate stops made on those relief lines as they go all or part of the way to Reading.  I would suspect that a single intermediate stop on the main lines, carrying 16 trains per hour maximum, would indeed reduce the capacity to 15 trains in the hour, but you can't then extrapollate on to say that any more stops added each cost a further train as they interact. Your algorithm would leave the relief lines with negative capacity  .

[Btline]

I'm talking about the fast lines.
(It is different for the slows, as trains are stopping at most or all stations. If all trains stop at a station, there is no loss of path.)

A train path is generally 3 minutes (as in train departures occur at 3 minute intervals). NR^» (Network Rail - home page) like to leave a spare path every 15 minutes for reliability, hence there are 16 paths. If you stop a train it adds on about 3 minutes to the journey time, effectively "eating up" the next path. You can also eat up the following path if you run a 90mph Thames Turbo instead of a 125 mph HST^▸ (High Speed Train))

If an Oxford fast departs at xx00 and calls at Slough, you can't have a train departing at xx03 as it would get held up. The next free path is xx06.
Of course, if the xx00 stops at Maidenhead you can run an xx03 stopping at Slough. But you have still lost the next path xx06!

I'm sure an expert can explain better. But it's why there are limited Watford Junction and Milton Keynes calls on the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line) fast lines!

[anthony215]

Regarding the stops at Swindon, I'm all for much quicker services, but not at too big a cost in connections from the intermediate stations.  Perhaps a good compromise would be one of the two services each hour stopping at Swindon and the other at Reading, so the four trains per hour could be:

1x Bristol TM^‡(resolve), Bath Spa, Chippenham, Swindon, Didcot, Reading, Paddington
1x Bristol TM, Bristol PW^▸ (Permanent Way), Swindon, Paddington
1x Bristol TM, Bath Spa, Chippenham, Swindon, Reading, Paddington
1x Bristol TM, Bristol PW, Reading, Paddington

Added to that the South Wales/Cheltenham trains:

1x Swansea, Neath, Port Talbot, Bridgend, Cardiff, Newport, Bristol Parkway, Reading, Paddington
1x Cardiff, Newport, Bristol Parkway, Swindon, Didcot, Reading, Paddington
1x Cheltenham, Gloucester, Stonehouse, Stroud, Kemble, Swindon, Didcot, Reading, Paddington

That has the following benefits:

• Keeps the Swindon stops as similar to now (though one more from Bristol rather than Swansea, so not quite as good), but the odd extra train to/from London due to the hourly Cheltenham service.
• Connectivity towards Bristol/Cardiff from Didcot and Oxford is maintained.
• The fast service from Bristol to London (via Parkway) is almost maintained as one train skips Swindon, the other Reading.  I really can't see a big enough market for two trains non-stop from Bristol to London each and every hour for much of the day.

And an added luxury would be a 4-car 110-115mph EMU^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit) running hourly between Bristol TM to Bedford, calling at Bath Spa, Corsham*, Chippenham, Wooton Bassett*, Swindon, Wantage Road*, Didcot (?), Oxford, Oxford Parkway, Bicester Town, Winsford, Bletchley, Woburn Sands, Lidlington and Bedford.  Stations marked with a * are reopened and have a suitable service as a result, and that might enable the odd stop at Didcot to be removed from the trains listed above without spoiling connectivity.

The fast train from Swindon which is non stop through Reading which you have proposed I think would be very popular since you coudl potentially cut Swindon - London down to just 45-48 minutes.

Greenguage in their report on the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) wants the London - Swindon journey time cut to around 40-45 minutes.

The hourly emu between Bristol and Bedford is another great suggestion and could provide a 30 minutely local service between Chippenham & Swindon when combined with the TransWilts services from Salisbury/Westbury. A 110-115mph emu should be able to fit between the GW^▸ (Great Western) high speed services and help take some pressure off those services during rush hour as well as reducing overcrowding at Didcot when passengers can change @ Swindon.

[Btline]

Yes, all this looks good.
But I'm confused. How many South Wales services are there to be? If it's two, that'll be no capacity increase, so they'll need stops removing instead.

[anthony215]

The DFT^▸ (Department for Transport) proposed timetable has south wales getting 2tph  with 20 or 40 minutes gaps between services with most services from Swansea running fast Newport - Reading although early morning/late evening services call at Bristol Parkway & Swindon.

[Network SouthEast]

Looking at the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line), it isn't a ridged 3 minute headway. There is an exception with a two minute gap off-peak day time between the xx:18 Bedwyn and xx:20 Oxford/Cotswold services on the Down Main.

The xx:20 services stop at Slough. In theory you could have the xx:18 services stop at Maidenhead without slowing down the service behind. But I don't think such a thing would happen because catching the xx:20 service from Paddington to Slough gives ample time to overtake and catch a Reading stopper at Slough station, and the existing xx:18 services are a little comfortable already.

To give some idea as to how the future IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.), Thames Valley and Crossrail services might fit in the the GWML, Network Rail have outline their preferred option A5 in the London & South East RUS^▸ (Route Utilisation Strategy). Whilst it doesn't explicitly outline calling patterns for South Wales trains, it might be of use to some, so I'll paste what it says. It says this in particular:

This option is based around a new 4tph Reading/outer Thames Valley to London Paddington
peak service, with Heathrow Airport served by a 10tph Crossrail service.

An indicative peak 20tph main line service specification would be:
^ ten trains from long distance destinations (9 IEP, 1 HST^▸ (High Speed Train))
^ six trains formed of high capacity EMU^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit) stock from outer destinations such as Oxford and
Newbury, all of which would be able to run non-stop from Reading (or potentially beyond)
^ four new trains formed of high capacity EMU stock running from the Reading area. These
would call at Twyford (alternate trains), Maidenhead and Slough (alternate trains).

Based on implementation of Option A3 most of the outer suburban EMUs would be 12-car
length, with a high seating capacity and capable of at least 100mph operations (110mph
preferred). The four additional trains would cross from the relief lines to the main lines at
Maidenhead or Slough, with the other 16 trains running on the main lines from Reading.
To free up the capacity necessary to operate the above increased main line service level the
existing Heathrow Express service would be replaced by a significantly increased Heathrow
Airport to Crossrail service (10tph rather than 4tph as currently planned), all of which would
run, at peak times, on the relief lines. At peak times the Heathrow Airport services would
need to be skip-stop to maximise relief lines capacity overall, whilst in the off-peak four trains
per hour could run non-stop on the main lines.

As well as providing increased peak capacity on the GWML a further aim of the option is
to improve services between much of Central London and Heathrow Airport, by increasing
frequencies to a total of 10tph and running all of these through the Central London
Crossrail tunnels.

The resulting peak 16tph Crossrail service pattern has been assumed to be as follows, though
other variations may exist:
^ 8tph Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 (running limited stop on the relief lines)
^ 2tph Heathrow Airport Terminal 4 (running skip-stop on the relief lines)
^ 4tph Reading (running skip-stop on the relief lines), based on Option A1
being implemented
^ 2tph Slough (running skip-stop on the relief lines).

The number of Crossrail services terminating in the Westbourne Park area from the east
would be further reduced from the currently planned 14tph to 8tph at peak times.

[TonyK]

And an added luxury would be a 4-car 110-115mph EMU^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit) running hourly between Bristol TM^‡(resolve) to Bedford, calling at Bath Spa, Corsham*, Chippenham, Wooton Bassett*, Swindon, Wantage Road*, Didcot (?), Oxford, Oxford Parkway, Bicester Town, Winsford, Bletchley, Woburn Sands, Lidlington and Bedford.  Stations marked with a * are reopened and have a suitable service as a result, and that might enable the odd stop at Didcot to be removed from the trains listed above without spoiling connectivity.

The withdrawal, in 2003, of the direct Bristol - Oxford service was sadly missed, but not by sufficient numbers of people. Some say it was done more to remove the need to maintain a single curve and free up an HST^▸ (High Speed Train) than because of low passenger numbers. The idea is gaining support in Oxford, with a local MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) having raised it, and the new stations and continuation to Bedford would make for a very worthwhile route, with many journeys over different bits rather than just Bristol Bath or Swindon to Oxford. The previous service knocked a minimum 15 minutes off the via Didcot option.

[Rhydgaled]

I would suggest something like this (a slight modification of IndustryInsider's suggestion):
1tph Bristol TM^‡(resolve), Bath Spa, Chippenham, Swindon, Didcot, Reading, Paddington
1tph Bristol TM, Bath Spa, Chippenham, Swindon, Reading, Paddington
1tph Bristol TM, Bristol PW^▸ (Permanent Way), Swindon, Reading, Paddington
1tph Bristol TM, Bristol PW, Reading, Paddington
1tph Swansea, Neath, Port Talbot, Bridgend, Cardiff, Newport, Bristol Parkway, Reading, Paddington
1tph Cardiff, Newport, Bristol Parkway, Swindon, Didcot, Reading, Paddington
1tph Cheltenham, Gloucester, Stonehouse, Stroud, Kemble, Swindon, Didcot, Reading, Paddington

You might have trouble adding the extra stops into the via Parkway Bristol services though, as they may be relying on keeping passengers from intermediate stops off the trains to justify their insanley large fleet of 5-car IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) units, much less capacity per unit than the current IC125s. Would be ok if the IEP fleet was all 9-car.

In regard to the topic title, it would be nice if 1 PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains)-CDF^» (Cardiff - next trains) train per day was extended to Swansea calling only at PAD, Newport and Cardiff, with an extra PAD-CDF on the normal stopping pattern to compensate, but if it causes capacity problems it's not worth it.

The key barrier to growth is getting Crossrail open, extending it to Reading and switching the Heathrow Express to run as part of Crossrail.

Or, if we had a HS2^▸ (The next High Speed line(s)) spur from Old Oak Common to Heathrow, instead of the proposed HS2 Heathrow spur from the north, you could replace Heathrow Express with a Javelin-style service on HS2. You could later use that line as the first part of a later HS^▸ (High Speed (short for HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) High Speed Services)) line towards Bath.

Perhaps the west of the capital needs a London - Bristol Parkway HS3 line
... I am aware that this is unlikely to happen due to cost; I am simply demonstrating how an HS line could help the region.

The other big problem with a HS line to the west is that the Euston terminous proposed for HS2 wouldn't have spare capacity for more routes feeding into it. As I'll have said already on the HS2 thread, I think it should be a Manchester - Birmingham - Euston Cross - HS1^▸ (High Speed line 1 - St Pancras to Channel Tunnel) route, with passive provision for later lines: one to the north-east and one to the south-west (first phase as far as Heathrow).

  . . . and do not forget Didcot with its enormous and continually growing employment centre at Milton Park. Although there are Didcot people who work at Milton Park, I t5hink the majority of its workers come from miles around. There are certainly many who come from Cotswold Line area but only a small proportion use public transport because they have to change at Oxford and then at Didcot for the shuttle bus, meaning that it is usually quicker to use a private car (A34 foul-ups excepted).

Again, returning to the topic of south Wales... The service from Cardiff to London (and probably to Bristol) is a similar speed to car travel isn't it? Further west however, the suituation is very different. MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) for north Pembrokeshire (Mr S. Crabb) has recently praised plans for work on Port Talbot Parkway, claiming it is an important gateway station for Pembrokeshire. Pembrokeshire  has many stations of it's own, so Port Talbot shouldn't be considered a gateway station for the county. I blame journey time, you could save 15 minutes if you introduced additional trains on an express calling pattern (missing out Swansea, Neath and Bridgend). I would place speeding up Pembrokeshire - Cardiff services above speeding up Cardiff - London, as the latter is already fast enough to beat the competition.