Cotswold Line redoubling: 2008 - 2011

[whole diary]

[IndustryInsider]

Hopefully, as platforms will be longer, dwells will decrease as there will be no SDO^▸ (Selective Door Opening).

There won't be much difference there, after all the only longer platforms will be at Charlbury and Honeybourne in one direction only.

[IndustryInsider]

When will the benefits be felt? Will it be the December 2010 timetable?

I gather that due to a requirement to advertise for contractors in Europe, there may be a delay which would push this back to the May 2011 timetable. 

That might be a more realistic target to be honest. It might also be prudent to have the new track and signalling infrastructure up and running for a couple of months before any new timetable adds extra trains into the mix.

[willc]

Of course you have to get your hours right.

And therein lies one of the main problems. For many years now on this route, people have got used to being pretty much able to turn up for any (roughly hourly) train and know it will stop pretty much everywhere along the line. In the past couple of years, FGW^▸ (First Great Western) have actually reinforced this, by stopping most of the Hereford peak trains at Honeybourne and Hanborough as well.

If you don't give a damn about your passengers, then yes, you can do the kind of thing Virgin has in recent weeks and tear up established calling patterns, but you will soon find your name is dirt and your customers have gone elsewhere - the Chiltern line or the car.

It's very easy to indulge in an armchair exercise of sitting there striking out Hanborough, Honeybourne and Pershore stops - and hey presto, you have a super express to Worcester and beyond, but the world has changed and these places bring in good money.

If Hanborough weren't such a constricted site, it would long ago have been developed into a proper parkway station for places north and west of Oxford, with a huge car park - that traffic has developed as it has is a tribute to NSE^▸ (Network South East), Thames and FGW management down the years, aided by the county council's help on expanding car parking to the absolute limit.

Were you to drop stops in the Vale, then you would go straight back to the old situation of everyone driving into Evesham and parking in residential roads around the station, so they wouldn't have to worry about which train to catch to get home.

And if you're going to discriminate against these places, then what about intermediate stations west of Worcester too? They produce far fewer passengers for London trains than the stations east of Worcester. Make it Great Malvern only and you could get to Hereford quicker too....

[signalandtelegraph]

Plans I have seen include passive provision for stations at Chipping Camden and Worcester Parkway

[dog box]

Wiilc.....you mention earler about diversionary trains being extentions of Cheltenham services, very much doubt this will occour as peak cheltenham services are really busy at times.
probably the services will be diverted with limited stops, missing out gloucester, with road transport taking passengers either to shrub hill or Oxford

[Burty76]

Thanks for your replies guys, espescially willc.

A couple of things in reply to will's posts.

The 10.10 Paddington in Malvern in 1986 stopped as follows;  Reading 10.35, Oxford 11.00, Charlbury 11.14, Kingham 11.23, Moreton 11.30, Evesham 11.45 and Shrub Hill 12.02.

Also you mention that 5 through trains a day to Hereford is the best ever.  In the sixties and seventies there were 7 or 8 through trains at two-hourly intervals.

I totally take your point about revenue at places like Hanborough.  Surely though the bulk of this revenue comes from commuters in the peaks.  With the track doubling there would be provision in the peak for 2 HST^▸ (High Speed Train)'s to/from London calling at all stations (except the "halts") and 2 fast HST's to/from Hereford.  Outside the peak then its perfectly reasonable to have an hourly service, alternating between stopper from Worcester and fast from Hereford.

[willc]

But in the 60s most of those Hereford 'trains' were portion working, with a handful of coaches, not a full train (and there weren't all those LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) Birmingham services on the route back then), which surely better reflected the available traffic west of Shrub Hill. When I caught the mid-afternoon HST^▸ (High Speed Train) back from Hereford one day last year, everyone on board by the time it reached Worcester would have fitted in a couple of coaches, with many seats to spare.

As I said, and the recent meddlings with Cotswold services indicate, FGW^▸ (First Great Western) just doesn't have enough HSTs to run its advertised service now with any certainty, so won't be sending any more off to and from Hereford off-peak with a load that a connecting DMU^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) could easily carry and then not stopping at stations further east where there is custom available, especially if the intention is to offer people travelling to and from Oxford a half-hourly service south of Moreton-in-Marsh - getting towards turn-up-and-go.

From most stations on this section, the train beats driving or buses into Oxford almost all day (and from Hanborough with a Cotswold Railcard off-peak is an absolute bargain at about ^1.60 return), even with the short walk to the city centre (which has some of the most expensive car parking in Britain) from the station.

I expect that what emerges post-redoubling will be a basic hourly Worcester-London pattern Monday-Saturday, with a roughly half-hourly peak service through to and from London (with various extensions to and from Malvern and Hereford) - ie not that different from now, but with the gaps in the off-peak service filled.

Hopefully this will be backed up by some sort of cross-Oxford shuttle between Moreton and Didcot, that would provide the halts service in the peaks. And an improved service for commuting between the stations in the Vale of Evesham and Worcester, where passengers have been poorly served for many years.

It may be the case that some Worcester trains run independently of the Cheltenham service during the closure but there is of course that lovely bit of single line between Swindon and Kemble with all the problems that poses for pathing extra services.

If they can squeeze them through, great, but remember that summer peak travel falls off a cliff, especially in August. Peak HSTs with a single Mk3's-worth of passengers departing Moreton are not unknown at that time of the year, so I suspect you could accommodate people on Cheltenham services if necessary.

[dog box]

In my experience the single line section between Kemble and Swindon single line junction takes about 12 min and causes only occasional delays

[Don]

I gather that there may be up to three turnback sidings (to turn reverse a turbo and send it back to Oxford) in the new track plan, One is certain at Moreton, whilst those planned for Ascott and Charlebury, may happen, or one, or both, may be removed before the track is laid.  The plan is definitely to run some kind of extra Oxford local trains and to try to move more of the traffic to/from Oxford away from the car and onto the trains.

Having said that, one wonders where the car parking is going to be found.

On another note, recently, the word "Didcot" and phrase "MGR coal trains" are being attached to the phrase "Cotswold Line".  so perhaps this is also on the cards in the future.

[Btline]

I totally take your point about revenue at places like Hanborough.  Surely though the bulk of this revenue comes from commuters in the peaks.  With the track doubling there would be provision in the peak for 2 HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) to/from London calling at all stations (except the "halts") and 2 fast HSTs to/from Hereford.  Outside the peak then its perfectly reasonable to have an hourly service, alternating between stopper from Worcester and fast from Hereford.

I think this would be viable. 1 peak HST (Cathedrals Express) from Hereford which skips the halts, Pershore and Honeybourne; which has a faster journey time. And 1 peak HST from Worcester which stops everywhere except Ascott, Combe and Finstock. Turbos serve the halts and perhaps an extra Turbo into Worcester from Evesham and Pershore.

Off peak, 1 tph from Great Malvern calling every where except the halts. Turbos serve the halts.

Evening peak - reversal of above.

[Don]

I wondered if the HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) would be non-stop from Moreton to Oxford with Turbos providing connecting services - all stations from Moreton to Oxford.

This would provide a faster service for Moreton, and beyond whilst providing a frequent connecting service for all the other stations.

No factual basis for this, just a thought.

[Btline]

Would be nice, but no. Because Charlbury has the highest passenger usage on the line, and passengers south of Morteon need direct trains to London as well as Oxford.

[Don]

Yes I wondered about Charlebury.  But I could see a turbo all stations from Moreton arriving at Oxford a few minutes before a Malvern-Paddington train is due as a option for the train planners.  Whether the locals like it or not.

I guess that the Malvern-Paddington service would be 14+ minutes quicker as a result of missing three station stops, in addition to the further time saved by the reduced headway and faster speeds of the new track.  Perhaps Malvern to Paddington could be as much as 30 minutes faster.

[willc]

Well you'd better wonder about Kingham and Hanborough as well as Charlbury - lots of London (and Reading) seasons, lots of car park revenue, lots of passengers to keep happy, all built up on the back of through trains - and lots of reasons why the line can sustain the service frequency it does along the full route - it's not because of the custom from Worcester and Malvern and even a faster train or two won't change that.

If a stopping service out of Oxford is to make sense, it is as part of a half-hourly frequency, otherwise nothing will have changed and no-one will be leaving their car at home, or the station.

Charlbury's car park can be extended - at some expense admittedly though the county council may well help - by filling in the allotments hole between the station approach road and the Burford road - and people do walk from the town; Kingham may be tricky, as all the spare land has now been sold off but there are usually some spaces available; Ascott (if it gets more trains) would be walk-up traffic, as the station is right next to the village; which leaves Shipton needing a proper car park, though there is a bit of room around the Oxford-bound platform to do something - and a footbridge would also be needed for returning passengers. Hanborough is a problem, but if the idea is to attract off-peak Oxford custom, then that may well be walk-up from the village too. Beyond the Oxfordshire boundary, there are usually spaces available at Moreton too and trade from the town itself tends to be walk-up.

As for freight, why not? The lack of a diversionary route whenever Oxford-Banbury-Leamington is shut is a long-standing problem, so even if it is a bit of a great way round via Worcester, it would make sense.

Swindon-Kemble only causing occasional delays? I can hear the hollow laughter from someone I work with who lives near Cirencester and whose children use the line to get to school.

[stebbo]

Couple of interesting points in the last few posts:

1. Somebody else agrees with me that Hereford used to have a basic two hourly service (for which I got ridiculed by another member on another post);

2. Herefordshire dwellers like me will shy away from the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) Hereford services for so long as they don't run fast services - I've resolutely avoided the service since they started introducing stops at Pershore and Honeybourne, let alone Hanborough. Easier to drive to Cheltenham or Swindon. Mind you I might just change my mind if the redoubling improves timings.