Should Heart Of Wessex Transfer To South Western Franchise?

[whole diary]

[bradshaw]

The services from Gt Malvern to Weymouth have a poor record of punctuality:

https://www.recenttraintimes.co.uk/Home/Search?Op=Srch&Fr=Great+Malvern+%28GMV%29&To=Weymouth+%28WEY%29&TimTyp=A&TimDay=4p&Days=Wk&TimPer=12w&dtFr=&dtTo=&ShwTim=AvAr&MxArCl=10&TOC=All&ArrSta=5&MetAvg=Mea&MetSpr=RT&MxScDu=&MxSvAg=&MnScCt=

Often turned back at Worcester in order to reclaim time, they still have to negotiate the junctions at Abbotswood and Gloucester. At both of these they are subordinate to XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) services and will be held which could delay them further.
One has to wonder if it would be better to return to running Weymouth to Bristol to avoid this delay. Perhaps one could include Gloucester but one has to ask whether there is a demand from the south for a Gt Malvern service.

[devonexpress]

It would make more sense, it would also allow for a more frequent timetable.

[grahame]

It would make more sense, it would also allow for a more frequent timetable.

Whoever runs it will need rolling stock and line capacity.

The work done by SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) earlier this year (looking at handling the Yeovil to Bristol flow) for the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) as part of their franchise (4 other cross border routes looked at too) has gone into some detail.  Rolling stock can be somewhat found by releasing resource that's inefficient in its current use in Wiltshire, added to which a second local (MetroWest) train service into Westbury in each hour gives timing options.   Whether the trains are St Phillips Marsh or Salisbury based (so SWR or GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)) is academic in terms of frequency though, as neither depot has a thin air machine ...

There is a trend towards clock face services these days, and (with rolling stock) you could run an hourly Bristol to Yeovil service and an hourly Yeovil to Weymouth service. Slight problem being that you couldn't join them up with just a couple of minutes for every train at Yeovil while it let passengers off and on.   A train every 90 minutes might be possible ... but by the time you're doing that you're going to move some existing services so much as to adversely effect people's daily lives and actually thin out rather than thicken the service in peak flow directions - such as reducing the number of trains into Weymouth on a summer weekend morning.

[bradshaw]

Another factor to be considered is the use by SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) for their services and the paths needed for GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) diversions. These will reduce potential occupation by Weymouth services between Castle Cary and Yeovil
.
There is a plan to add section signals between Yeovil and Castle Cary, as was done at Crewkerne. This will allow fleeting of trains in each direction.

One thought, which would need further investigation, is the possibility of splitting and joining the service at Yeovil. One would run to Weymouth and the other to the Junction. On return from the Junction, it joins up with the next Weymouth service. However, as I mentioned it would need a more detailed look at the timings.