Cotswold Line redoubling: 2008 - 2011

[whole diary]

[stebbo]

Oh and a third point following my post just now, contrary to what a previous post said, I've never been held up on the Swindon to Kemble stretch - although I use the line randomly but reasonably regularly.

[Btline]

Unfortunately, I don't think there are enough HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) to run a 2 hourly service to Hereford. I, too, think it would be a good idea.

Be grateful that LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) have magiced some 170s out of thin air to run an hourly service into B'ham! (and while their wand was out, they somehow managed to transfer the Rugely - Walsall - B'ham services to 170s and double the frequency! ). Life has some mysteries.

I think FGW^▸ (First Great Western) could do with borrowing LM's wand.

[willc]

Unfortunately, I don't think there are enough HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) to run a 2 hourly service to Hereford. I, too, think it would be a good idea.

Be grateful that LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) have magiced some 170s out of thin air to run an hourly service into B'ham! (and while their wand was out, they somehow managed to transfer the Rugely - Walsall - B'ham services to 170s and double the frequency! ). Life has some mysteries.

I think FGW^▸ (First Great Western) could do with borrowing LM's wand.

They didn't have a magic wand, they just got a lot of new class 350s for the Liverpool trains among other things, which freed up the class 170s that previously ran the service all the way under the wires.

Why would it be a good idea to run lots more empty HSTs to Hereford? Could one of you please explain how this makes sense, other than looking nice and neat on a timetable? Even if they did run and drew a few more passengers, they will never pay their way - not a strong argument for them when FGW is staring down the barrel of hefty premium payments to the Government, especially in the current financial climate.

The population of Hereford is 50,000. It has always had some sort of through train service to London (five each way on weekdays at present). Wrexham, which didn't for a very long time, until getting five W&S^▸ (Wrexham and Shropshire (Open Access Operator)) and a Virgin service in very short order last year, has a population of just under 132,000. But you seem to be saying Hereford should be getting 10 trains a day each way.

Pure economics is the reason for extra stops between Oxford and Worcester, because the custom that part of the line generates is how the service pays its way. The reason there are mid-evening services from London now is because Thames Trains pushed a couple of trains beyond Oxford to Moreton as an experiment, then, having found there was sufficient custom, extended them on to Worcester. In its turn, though the need to keep a train at Hereford overnight also played a part, these experiments some years ago could be argued to have eventually led to the change last December that now sees the 19.22 run all the way to Hereford.

As I said previously, the 1960s service was provided by PORTION working, typically a BSK^▸ (Brake Standard Corridor (carriage)), SK and a corridor composite - a grand total of 120 seats Hereford-Worcester, even with armrests up in the SK and BSK - and it wasn't very fast either, including 10 minutes or so shunting at Shrub Hill.

Frankly, it makes little sense to run lightly-loaded HSTs as far as Worcester and Malvern in the middle of the day now but when FGW has such an inflexible fleet, with nothing in between HSTs and Turbos, with the last three 180s on borrowed time, there aren't any other options.

RE^▸ (Religious Education) Kemble-Swindon, my colleague has often arrived at Kemble station to put his children on a train towards Gloucester to see a late-running Swindon-bound train pulling out, with the westbound service held at Swindon, meaning it is going to be a good 20 minutes late. Stebbo, you may just be lucky with your journeys, others aren't.

And if the single line there is not a problem, as you seem to suggest, why is every MP^▸ (Member of Parliament), council and passengers in that part of Gloucestershire demanding a rethink of the ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) refusal to sanction redoubling? Only last week the MPs were told that DafT has sanctioned spending ^900,000 on further engineering development work after they went mob-handed to see Lord Adonis to protest about the ORR decision.

[IndustryInsider]

Why would it be a good idea to run lots more empty HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) to Hereford? Could one of you please explain how this makes sense, other than looking nice and neat on a timetable?

I agree Will. It would never make sense financially, or even environmentally, but you could argue that from a regular, high-quality service standpoint it would make sense. Depends on what your definition of what a train service is for I suppose. It's largely an academic argument though as the money talks standpoint isn't about to change any time soon.

My view is that it would be nice to see one more through train each way to give a better spread of arrivals at Hereford; 11:47, 13:48, 20:37, 21:36 and 22:57 could then turn into 10:47, 13:47, 16:47, 20:37, 21:37 and 22:57 and would close the gaping 7hr gap in through trains in the afternoon. A post-redoubling journey time of 3hrs would be attractive, and an Adelante for traction on the first three arrivals would have been ideal too!

[Burty76]

willc, i'm guessing you live near the Oxford end of the line !
I do agree with your point on through Hereford trains - I wasnt suggesting we had a 2 hourly service now, just that there used to be one.

I'd suggest 5 trains a day is fine - leaving Hereford at approx 6am, 7am, 10am, 1pm and 5pm.
And leaving London at approx 7am, 10am, 2pm, 5pm and 6pm

It's all very well saying that commuters at Hanborough have got used to through London trains - thats true, but its come at the expense of limited stop expresses.  What Stebbo says is quite true - many people avoid the Cotswold Line from Hereford and Worcester because they dont want to be stuck on a train stopping at every village in the Cotswolds on its way to London, and taking almost two and a half hours to London from Worcester ! (You can get to Darlington from London in less time on the train!!!)

 My dad preferred to drive to Birmingham International and get a train to Euston because, as he put it "I may have to drive for half an hour, but at least when Im on the train it doesnt stop every 5 minutes!".

I dont see why this scheme cant provide the best of both worlds - through commuter trains to London from the smaller stations, mixed with expresses that are sub-2 hour from Worcester and 2h45 from Hereford.

[Btline]

willc, i'm guessing you live near the Oxford end of the line !
I do agree with your point on through Hereford trains - I wasnt suggesting we had a 2 hourly service now, just that there used to be one.

I'd suggest 5 trains a day is fine - leaving Hereford at approx 6am, 7am, 10am, 1pm and 5pm.
And leaving London at approx 7am, 10am, 2pm, 5pm and 6pm

It's all very well saying that commuters at Hanborough have got used to through London trains - thats true, but its come at the expense of limited stop expresses.  What Stebbo says is quite true - many people avoid the Cotswold Line from Hereford and Worcester because they dont want to be stuck on a train stopping at every village in the Cotswolds on its way to London, and taking almost two and a half hours to London from Worcester ! (You can get to Darlington from London in less time on the train!!!)

 My dad preferred to drive to Birmingham International and get a train to Euston because, as he put it "I may have to drive for half an hour, but at least when Im on the train it doesnt stop every 5 minutes!".

I dont see why this scheme cant provide the best of both worlds - through commuter trains to London from the smaller stations, mixed with expresses that are sub-2 hour from Worcester and 2h45 from Hereford.

Exactly, Chiltern seem to have got the hang of this. The longer distance peak services are non/mostly non stop south of Banbury (ok, it's because the trains are full as well - but why are they full?!), and they run additional peak trains to serve the other big commuter towns. Virgin as well. A non stop B'ham to London train, which is followed by another which calls at the cities in between.

There is non reason why peak trains can't be expresses.

[Btline]

They didn't have a magic wand, they just got a lot of new class 350s for the Liverpool trains among other things, which freed up the class 170s that previously ran the service all the way under the wires.

Wrong. Even Central Trains ran Desiros on the B'ham to Liverpool service (part of their "Citylink" brand) - I saw one of these at Wolverhampton once. Where Desiros were unavailable, Class 321s and even Class 323s stepped in. 170s would not be able to keep to the timetable, or be long enough.

The new Desiros arriving recently have all been used on the new B'ham to Euston (replacing 321s), Euston - Crewe services (new).

The only other LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) route 170s are used on is the Shrewsbury to B'ham route. And in December, LM successfully "squeezed in" an additional peak train in each direction! So that another unit conjured from nowhere.....

[willc]

How can you compare lines purpose built for fast running (even in the 19th century) and linking major conurbations, with a rural route, through difficult terrain, serving small communities and two of the smallest county towns in England? Even Bristol-London trains typically make four stops these days. Are they still expresses?

Different routes call for different solutions and what this route needs is a reliable hourly service all day, stepped up to half-hourly in the peaks (towards London am, towards Worcester pm), with a consistent stopping pattern that means the average passenger (ie not most people on this board, I venture to suggest) can grasp that departures are the same time every hour, and turn up and go, without fear of zooming past the place they want to get off - rather like the current timetable attempts to do in its slightly disjointed way.

Unfortunately for those further west, that means consistently stopping at all our lovely 'village' stations, which produce the money that means Oxford-Worcester gets 15 trains each way now, hopefully going up to 17 or 18 post-redoubling.

Have your super-trains by all means, but if someone were to start breaking down the revenue generated from different sections of the line, the bean-counters would probably decide it was a good idea to turn back a good few trains at Moreton - so no hourly service (or even half-hourly in the peak) for Worcester, even if it is too slow for your tastes.

This breakdown would, of course, be rather like the situation that prevailed until 2004, when Thames and FGW^▸ (First Great Western) shared the route. The express operator, FGW, added not one train to its service and seemed quite happy with its slice of the Orcats take. The operator providing the bulk of trains and serving all the stations, Thames, was the one that built up services and took up the spare paths that then existed.

However, with the strange powers LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) apprently possesses, maybe they could be brought in to turn logic on its head and show that Worcester and Hereford truly are the source of all income from the Cotswold Line - even if everyone living there drives to Birmingham International, Warwick Parkway or Cheltenham.

[Btline]

The reason why passenger levels are so low at the West of the line is (a) the poor reliability/punctuality of the service and (b) the fact that the service is so slow!

You would find that passenger numbers would rise if you slashed journey times.

PS: Any idea where the 170s came from?

[Don]

The reason why passenger levels are so low at the West of the line is (a) the poor reliability/punctuality of the service and (b) the fact that the service is so slow!

You would find that passenger numbers would rise if you slashed journey times.

As a Worcester person, I agree entirely.
 
Also remember that the car service to London is hampered by:
1. No good direct good roads / Motorway to London
2. The London congestion charge and parking in London

This provides opportunity for growth of the London service from Worcester and Hereford and I for one hope that future fast services only stop at Evesham, Moreton and then Oxford, on their way to and from London, so long as local stopping trains are pathed to meet the fast trains and serve the small stations.

[Btline]

I agree. I know of people who drive, instead of taking FGW^▸ (First Great Western) from Worcester.

Yes, they could driver to Kidderminster, Warwick Parkway and Birmingham International. But once you are in the car.....

Look at other towns/cities a similar distance from London: Peterborough, Salisbury, Leicester, Warwick....

They all have good rail links - hence lots of commuting.

I wonder why the London commuter belt has not extended to Worcestershire? The SLOW rail link (and lack of motorway, which should be EMBRACED by the rail operator).

[willc]

Given what London commuting has done to inflate property prices around Oxford, Charlbury and Kingham, you should be profoundly grateful the service deters commuters from Worcestershire.

If you care to consult the First Great Western service commitment - the specification for all its passenger services -  then without getting it rewritten by DafT, FGW^▸ (First Great Western) cannot withdraw any current stops at Charlbury, Kingham, Moreton and Evesham. And they will not choose to miss the honeypots of Charlbury and Kingham. Never, ever.

They can allow four weekday trains to skip Hanborough each way (four already do Oxford-bound, two do so in the other direction) and two can skip Honeybourne (as is the case both ways. I believe the 05.02 from Worcester, which would make three, is exempt from this count, because the section of its journey as far as Moreton is not a specified requirement). One each way can miss Pershore but none do (except the 05.02 again).

Should you wish to see the document, it's at http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/passenger/publicregister/current/fgw/fgwcommitment2b.pdf
The Cotswold Line section starts at page 53 but it obviously includes specs for the rest of the FGW system.

A while back, Modern Railways did a very interesting comparison of the Worcester-London and King's Lynn-London routes, on the peg of both having largely rural outer reaches but calling at the two old university cities en route. I suspect it has been closely studied at FGW Towers by people planning for post-2010 on the Cotswold Line.

FCC^▸ (First Capital Connect) run a basic hourly pattern all day but with a 30-minute interval running with the peak flows, with 22 trains each way and an extra evening train to the country on Fridays. The trains call everywhere north of Cambridge (five intermediate stops at intervals of six to nine minutes - sound familiar?), irrespective of the size of the community, then run fast to London King's Cross in about 55 minutes (usually calling Royston and Letchworth - aka Reading and Slough). And XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) runs additional trains Ely-Cambridge (like a Moreton-Oxford shuttle?)

Where this service scores over the Cotswold Line is that the performance of the electric traction makes mincemeat of the frequent stops in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, giving a typical 1hr 50min timing Kings Lynn to London. So what would actually suit everyone's needs along the line is redoubling, swiftly followed by electrification.

PS Class 170s. Haven't come from any other operators, so can only assume it's better stock utilisation by LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) and that the repaint/clean-up programme has finished now, giving an instant extra set. They were already operating a good number of Rugeley trains anyway - cutting out running Rugeley TV to Stafford helps (took about 30-35 minutes for a round trip including turning round at Stafford) - and getting a set off Walsall-Wolverhampton.

[IndustryInsider]

If you care to consult the First Great Western service commitment - the specification for all its passenger services -  then without getting it rewritten by DafT, FGW^▸ (First Great Western) cannot withdraw any current stops at Charlbury, Kingham, Moreton and Evesham. And they will not choose to miss the honeypots of Charlbury and Kingham. Never, ever.

That SLC^▸ (Service Level Commitment) will of course be totally rewritten after the redoubling. Just like it was when HST^▸ (High Speed Train)'s replaced the Adelante's to take into account the additional journey times. Whether stops at Charlbury, Kingham, Moreton and Evesham would ever be removed is unlikely though in my opinion, especially given that all four stations will then be on double track sections of the line.

If extra trains mean that the same frequency of service could be provided as is now, I think that FGW will look carefully at whether all trains in the peak hours would need to stop at Honeybourne and Pershore, and possibly Hanborough. That (along with time taken up with such things as token exchanges and waits at Evesham for trains the other way to arrive, no longer being a problem) would allow some Worcester-London times to be reduced by about 15 minutes potentially. Enough to tempt a few people back onto the trains I'm sure.

[Andy W]

WillC
"The population of Hereford is 50,000."

Charlbury has a population of 2649 so your point is?

WillC
"two of the smallest county towns in England?"-

Cities is the word we are looking for. A train that runs between cities is an INTER-CITY

What are some of the features of an INTER CITY? It doesn't act as a glorified park and ride. (^1.60 Hanborough - Oxford is cheaper than a park and ride!!)

By all means have your Oxford park and ride - but not on a long distance train .

II
"Worcester-London times to be reduced by about 15 minutes potentially. Enough to tempt a few people back onto the trains I'm sure."
Not if they run Turbos it won't.

[Burty76]

Sorry willc, not wanting to get into an argument here !

I do take on board a lot of the points you make, but youre comparison with the Kings Lynn line is as inappropriate with mine comparing London to Darlington (which wasnt intended as a compare the route- more "look at how much further you can get in the same time it takes to get to Worcester!").

If London to Worcester was opeated by Electrics with quick acceleration, and stopping at all stations bar "the halts", every hour, then it would only take 2 hours, and no one would complain about stops every 6 or 7 minutes to Oxford.  An hourly electric service to the capital in 2 hours from Worcester, would be extremely marketable and attract lots of new custom.

But the fact is, the route is operated by diesel HST^▸ (High Speed Train)'s, which have poor acceleration and are designed for express operation.  Therefore stopping at more stations delays the journey and is extremely off-putting to customers at the Western end of the line.  Why do you think the bulk of the custom on the route is at its Eastern end - because the service to Worcester and beyond is off-putting slow and unreliable.

Hanborough has gained a huge amount of revenue in the last few years - because its service has been drastically improved.

What I, and others here, are compaigning for is, a similar improvement for longer distance travellers.  And that means, a fast, limited stop INTER-CITY service from Hereford and Worcester.  The re-doubling gives the opportunity to implement this.