Fascinating feedback - thank you gents. Lisa and I have cruised from Southampton, and met and talked with many of the customers who use the products of P&O, and also Celebrity, from there. The dining arrangements we've chosen have meant we've eaten with three more couples - and different ones - every night and conversation has naturally flowed to where people live. Near the beginning and end of the cruise, often talking about the journey to and from the ship and I have not been averse if the conversation has strayed, or been encouraged, in that direction during the middle of the cruise too.
You are dead right on some of the issues. It's not all about London - in fact that tends to be a minority of passengers in line with that spread of the
GB▸ population or perhaps even biased away from London. Which is why a terminating Cross Country train that runs right up the spine of England is not only the operational obvious train to use, but also the best one for customers.
Taking a look at the 10 largest urban areas in GB (many "big place" lists at
https://www.citymetric.com/skylines/where-are-largest-cities-britain-1404 ), no fewer than five would be directly and practically served by the Cross Country services, with four more accessed with just a single change. For only one it would not be sensible to use the Cross Country service – and that's Southampton itself as you're already there!
1 - 1. London – 13,709,000 (Basingstoke or Reading)
0 - 2. Birmingham-Wolverhampton – 3,683,000
1 - 3. Manchester – 2,556,000 (Birmingham)
0 - 4. Leeds-Bradford – 2,302,000
1 - 5. Liverpool-Birkenhead – 2,241,000 (Birmingham)
0 - 6. Newcastle-Sunderland – 1,599,000
0 - 7. Sheffield – 1,569,000
x - 8. Southampton-Portsmouth – 1,547,000
0 - 9. Nottingham-Derby – 1,543,000
1 - 10. Glasgow – 1,395,000 (Birmingham)
Taking the next 10 big urban places, 7 are served logically with a single change off the
XC▸ train, one with two changes, and Brighton and Plymouth are realistically different TOCS from Southampton.
1 - Bristol (Reading)
1 - Leicester (Birmingham)
1 - Cardiff (Reading)
1 - Stoke-on-Trent (Birmingham)
2 - Bolton (Birmingham and Manchester?)
* - Brighton
* - Plymouth
1 - Hull (Leeds)
1 - Coventry (Leamington Spa)
1 - Teeeide (Darlington)
Would people use the train on the day? I believe, yes, they would. The 11:11 Westbury to Southampton is an interesting train - connection from Plymouth at Westbury, into Southampton at lunchtime, it typically conveys dozens of passengers for cruises when there's a ship leaving - and that's most days. Passenger do refer to sleep i their own beds on the night before the cruise, get up early to travel to Southampton. And this traffic is already there in spite of the need for a taxi from Central Station to the boat, and in spite of the facility being more a consequence of what trains are running than a plan, and certainly not marketed or guaranteed to catch the boat. Other indicators or significant boat traffic at Southampton Central include signage about porterage ... and when there at the end of a cruise, lots of familiar faces with luggage on the platforms. I do worry about the Plymouth traffic after 15th December, with and extra change needed on a Plymouth to Southampton (or Portsmouth) journey; it's a further case of improvement to London journeys at the expense of regional ones.
So - people do (and would) travel out to the ship in the morning / at lunchtime before she sails. I have no doubt of the general metric there. There is, indeed, already a network of coach services from south Wales, and from the North of England and Scotland that bring people to the ship. From the far flung spots, they set off at silly O'Clock to arrive in Southampton at around lunchtime, then head back with the people who have just completed their cruises. And indeed the presence of this network both solidifies the view that directer and marketed trains would work, but also sews a seed of worry that the trains would be abstractive of the market that's already developed. I would suggest that most would prefer a train rather than a coach, especially as the train hits city centres with onward connections, where in many places the coaches call on the periphery - our local one here (for example) is at the motorway service area wit a friend's lift or a taxi being necessary, and the logistics of getting on at one junction and off at the next to contend with.
You DO have an issue with "which terminal" at Southampton - probably the elephant in the room. I'm loathe to suggest a minibus for those not headed to / from the Mayflower and yet ... with one or two meeting staff from the cruise company as the train arrives taking luggage from people (just as they take it as you get out of taxis) it might not be such an issue. Open mind on that one.
Open access? No - sharing a train. I never received the promised slide set from the
TWSW» talk at Taunton a couple of years back by Cross Country showing along-route loading, but I suspect that the trains selected above are not the busiest of the day, and a wedge of passengers from (or to) Southampton in the middle of the day would not be adding peak loading onto peak loading.
And finally - will the boat wait? If the connection is supported by the cruise line then, yes, it could. There is a precedent that the connection from the coach is guaranteed, as at intermediate points are returns from official trips. Our departure for the USA on 1st September was delayed a couple of hours, as (during that trip) was our departure from Newport, Rhode Island. In both cases, relating to just a handful of people. No big deal really - it's a very different matter waiting in port an extra hour on a late-leaving ship where activities and holiday are underway anyway than to standing crammed on the 16:30 at New Street to Cardiff while crew is awaited. And cruise ships tend to have schedules set which are significantly below what the ship can manage - more important (and better) to arrive in the next port at breakfast time than in the early hours. So delays can and are made up routinely.
Long post; not a campaign, but more an explanation of how the Port Miami news triggered a wonder about Southampton, and a test of my own sanity for wondering. Feedback (above in this thread) hugely appreciated - excuse me not quoting individually as it's the total picture - all the jigsaw pieces that need looking at as they interlock with each other.
Click on the map to explore geographics
