Worcestershire Parkway Station project - ongoing discussion

[whole diary]

[CLPGMS]

The Cotswold line is too infrequent and unreliable to provide East to South connections.

The best solution as I've said before is to extend a Snow Hill service from Shrub Hill to Gloucester every hour. Same platform interchange at Cheltenham = job done. It would probably just require a couple of extra units.

For once, I agree with Btline.  If passengers from the Stourbridge/Kidderminster/Droitwich Spa areas are to be persuaded to leave their cars at home and use the train to travel south, rather than drive down the M5 Motorway, then a through service to Gloucester or even Bristol T M is essential.

On another matter - fares - some of those in the Worcester area are a complete mess.  ChrisB asks whether tickets to Worcester cover both stations.  They do, being to "Worcester Stns".  If Parkway is included in this grouping, then a massive anomaly will be created on the North-South route.  The present Off Peak Day Return from Ashchurch for Tewkesbury (about 9 miles south of the Parkway site) to Birmingham is ^24.00.  A similar fare from Worcester Stns, even after the fare increase in September, will only be ^8.90.  The Ashchurch fare is set by Cross Country.  The Worcester fare is set by London Midland.  An OPDR from Pershore to Birmingham costs ^12.30 (LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) fare). Evesham is a similar distance from Birmingham to Ashchurch and the OPDR from there costs ^14.20 (LM).

[ChrisB]

XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) is going to have something to say about that before they start stopping, I reckon

[Surrey 455]

I wonder how many tickets will be mistakenly sold with Worcester Park (London) as the origin or destination?

[ellendune]

On another matter - fares - some of those in the Worcester area are a complete mess.  ChrisB asks whether tickets to Worcester cover both stations.  They do, being to "Worcester Stns".  If Parkway is included in this grouping, then a massive anomaly will be created on the North-South route.  The present Off Peak Day Return from Ashchurch for Tewkesbury (about 9 miles south of the Parkway site) to Birmingham is ^24.00.  A similar fare from Worcester Stns, even after the fare increase in September, will only be ^8.90.  The Ashchurch fare is set by Cross Country.  The Worcester fare is set by London Midland.  An OPDR from Pershore to Birmingham costs ^12.30 (LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) fare). Evesham is a similar distance from Birmingham to Ashchurch and the OPDR from there costs ^14.20 (LM).

Not adding Parkway to the Worcester Stns group will not solve that mess, unless, unreasonably, the permitted route from Shrub Hill to Birmingham excluded via Parkway.  

Lets face it the whole ticket system is a mess! Fixing it is going to please a lot of people who are paying over the odds (e.g. long distance outside the old Network SE area) and at the same time upset a lot of people who are really paying too little.  Lets face it 8.90 off peak for a 60 mile round trip is too low.  The same fare from Swindon to London (154 mile round trip) is ^48.  That seems more in line with the Ashchurch fare!

Of course LM can always offer a LM only fare!  

[Worcester_Passenger]

On another matter - fares - some of those in the Worcester area are a complete mess.  ChrisB asks whether tickets to Worcester cover both stations.  They do, being to "Worcester Stns".  If Parkway is included in this grouping, then a massive anomaly will be created on the North-South route.  The present Off Peak Day Return from Ashchurch for Tewkesbury (about 9 miles south of the Parkway site) to Birmingham is ^24.00.  A similar fare from Worcester Stns, even after the fare increase in September, will only be ^8.90.  The Ashchurch fare is set by Cross Country.  The Worcester fare is set by London Midland.  An OPDR from Pershore to Birmingham costs ^12.30 (LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) fare). Evesham is a similar distance from Birmingham to Ashchurch and the OPDR from there costs ^14.20 (LM).

Ashchurch is mostly served by the two-hourly FGW^▸ (First Great Western) service between Bristol and Great Malvern. CrossCountry have very few trains that stop there. Indeed, it's a bit much for them to even offer an OffPeak Day Return from Ashchurch to Birmingham. The ticket is not valid outward until 09:30 or after, so the first train on which you could use it is the 13:07.

And when you travel home again, there's two CrossCountry trains, at 16:30 and 17:30 from Birmingham. The Offpeak Day Return isn't valid on either of them, being restricted to before 15:30 or after 18:15.

[Btline]

Central Bristol to central Birmingham by car is 1 hour 40 mins if you get a clear run. Last two times I did a similar journey (actually from nearer the M5 in North Bristol) it took 2 hours.

The train needs to be significantly faster to compete effectively. By the time you add on door to door travel, car will generally win - although I agree the M5 can be a nightmare. Bham and Bristol are not like London, the vast majority of commuters drive in.

The aim should be to raise line speeds and electrify to get journey times closer to an hour. Then rail will be significantly faster and modal shift will occur.

[CLPGMS]

Ashchurch is mostly served by the two-hourly FGW^▸ (First Great Western) service between Bristol and Great Malvern. CrossCountry have very few trains that stop there. Indeed, it's a bit much for them to even offer an OffPeak Day Return from Ashchurch to Birmingham.

That is not the worst scenario.  Cross Country is responsible for setting several fares in the Worcester/Evesham area where there is no XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) service on which passengers can possibly travel.  For example, fares from Ashchurch to all stations from Worcester to Ledbury (inclusive) are set by Cross Country.  Unbelievably, the fares from Ashchurch to Hereford are set by Arriva Trains Wales, who also do not provide any train services on the route.  The intermediate fares between Worcester and Hereford are controlled by London Midland.  Really, it would make sense if Great Western took over the fares from Ashchurch to the Worcester/Hereford route and brought them into line with London Midland's Worcester/Hereford and Worcester/Birmingham ones.

Getting back onto the topic, I wonder whether the new station will be included in "Worcester Stns".  I understand that it is to be called "Worcestershire Parkway", not "Worcester Parkway".  Fares from there need to be in line with those from surrounding stations, whoever sets them.

[Adelante_CCT]

An update on Worcester Parkway

http://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/14607538.Full_steam_ahead_for_Worcestershire_Parkway_as_Government_signs_off_railway_station_scheme/

[ChrisB]

Interesting comments on that article!

[IndustryInsider]

Probably all from Btline 

[Chris from Nailsea]

"You may very well think that: I couldn't possibly comment."   

[simonw]

Very interesting comments, but they seem to miss the point.

Anyone who does not live in the Birmingham catchment area has to access Birmingham New Street Or Worcester Foregate on on a slow stopping service that is not frequent.

The addition of a station that is capable of getting trains every 30 minutes from Cheltenham/Bristol and every 60 minutes from Cheltenham/Cardiff, with frequent connections to Worcester Foregate, Worcester Shrub Hill, Bromsgrove, etc.

So, provided Cross Country can be persuaded to add this station to its regular stopping pattern from Bristol and Cardiff, it should prove very successful.

[IndustryInsider]

Indeed, anyone who currently commutes from Worcester to Birmingham has a minimum 45 minute journey time from either of the current stations, and the time it takes to battle through Worcester's city centre in the morning - I don't know how bad that it, but can't imagine it's great.

Contrast that with a probable 35-40 minutes journey time from a parkway station with great access off of the M5 and anyone who lives in east or south Worcester, or the surrounding villages, or Pershore may well find commuting a much more appealing prospect.  Added to that, journeys (providing connections are good) from Evesham, Pershore, Moreton to Cheltenham and Gloucester will be much improved over the current haphazard service via Shrub Hill.

Whilst I don't think it will be an amazing success story, I do think it will prove popular enough to warrant stopping the Cardiff to Nottingham XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) service (plus perhaps the odd longer distance XC service) and probably all of the North Cotswold Line services.

[ChrisB]

All the North Cotswolds (as the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) has leaned on GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)) and the Cardiff-Nottingham's are more than likely (ditto, still happening, I hear) - but XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) I hear are seriously holding out on stopping anything else simply coz they're a long distance service, not a commuter service on the trains to/from the SW - so expect to change at Cheltenham for the SW

[simonw]

There is scheduled to be a large housing development in the area, and with the close access to the M5, with rail services to Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, London and local stops it is bound to be successful, and potentially remove some current traffic from the roads and reduce its future increase.

The difficulty is defining success. I am sure some people will moan that it is in the wrong place, costs too much money, spending on roads, bus services, etc.