Cotswold Line redoubling: 2008 - 2011

[whole diary]

[stebbo]

Lot of good points regarding the Hereford services here. Just to reinforce the points made:

1. I was for many years a regular user of the Cathedrals Express as - generally - it was "roughly" on time within acceptable bounds. No Pershore, Honeybourne, Hanborough, Didcot, Reading stops.

2. First of all, the Cotswold line got more congested and reliability declined.

3. Then the extra stops came in and it became quicker to drive to Swindon or Cheltenham - or even Bristol Parkway.

4. I worked in Birmingham - on a business park close to the airport - for 2 1/2 years. If I had to go to London, I often stayed over with my mother in Stratford and caught the train from Warwick Parkway to Marylebone, getting the train that runs fast from Bicester (although not always so fast as the through lines at High Wycombe, Beaconsfield, Gerrards Cross, Denham were taken out). I did use the Hereford train once in my first week in the Brum job back in 2004 and I was half an hour late for an important meeting - only ever used it once since (late again).

5. All I want is one tolerably fast train to London in each direction. I don't care if it stops at Pershore and Honeybourne cos they have large car parks - just cut out Evesham and Moreton to compensate. And leave the Hanborough brigade to the Turbos. As a compromise I don't even mind stopping at Reading but surely we can give Didcot a miss just twice a day.

6. And the point about the loss of the Adelantes was well made. They were, if properly maintained, ideal for the daytime runs up to Hereford. Why you could have run two units to Oxford or Worcester and left one unit to continue to Hereford. That could have worked well for the peak hour trains like the Cathedrals Express.

7. One more thing, how about redoubling Shelwick Junction to Ledbury (and the rest of the Cotswold line).

[willc]

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

Charlbury has a population of 2649 so your point is?

Putting that figure back in the context it was used in, the point was that a place the size of Hereford was hardly likely to be able to sustain the two-hourly London service that some posters here are advocating - but have yet to justify beyond saying they think it would be a good idea. Wrexham is more than twice Hereford's size, but until last year no-one in the rail industry thought it was worth one through train to London. It wouldn't be the end of the world if the five through London trains from Hereford were mixed in with slick, reliable connections the rest of the day between hourly Cotswold Line and the hourly Birmingham-Hereford trains, which should be the case after the redoubling.

Charlbury - and all the other places nearer Oxford that upset you all so much - are a much better business proposition for FGW^▸ (First Great Western) - regular, reliable, high-volume custom, which is exactly what they need to bring in the revenue they must find to make premium payments to the Government. Those fares from Hanborough soon mount up when they sell lots of them. And the service there was improved precisely because of the prospect of selling more tickets to Oxford and other places. Your 'delay' is also a revenue-generating opportunity in the eyes of railway managers.

One or two faster trains from points west may well bring in extra custom and cash from those places but if you cut someone else's service, or make them change at Oxford, you're likely to lose those very gains elsewhere. And these trains will have to fit in with the regular interval pattern and timings that are now rigidly enforced from Didcot to London to try to keep all the extra trains that are out there these days on the move. Unless wires go up, you are stuck with a 55-minute timing Oxford-London for some years yet.

Redoubling and a recast timetable could well deliver a typical two-hour London-Worcester timing, based on Industry Insider's indication of likely time savings, but with the HST^▸ (High Speed Train) fleet stretched to the limit now, even the supply of Turbos not infinite, and the new batch of DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) not due until 2012 and no certainty as to how many the Thames Valley will get, there will still have to be compromises between trying to match the needs of different stations and markets with the available rolling stock.

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

Cities is the word we are looking for.

It wan't the word I was looking for. County town is an idiomatic English expression - we don't say county city, do we? Most county towns are cities, but some aren't, eg Taunton.

As I said yesterday, the Kings Lynn comparison was not mine, it was Modern Railways - and I still think it is a far more valid comparison than a crude 'look how far you can go on an out-and-out express route' - it wasn't pretending to be precise, of course, but many of the flows the services handle (both London-bound journeys and local commutes, especially into Cambridge, cf Oxford) and the types of communities served are not dissimilar. Whether or not you like FCC^▸ (First Capital Connect)'s rigid standard pattern service, combined with a higher frequency than the Cotswold Line gets, is up to you.

Stebbo, since December hardly any Cotswold Line trains call at Didcot, just a couple of early morning and late evening services, and not many more did before that, as FGW realised very fast it had screwed up by adding stops in the disastrous December 2006 timetable. And I'm glad you don't mind stopping at Reading - one of the busiest stations in Britain outside London and an interchange for many routes - some people from Worcester and Hereford might want to go there too.

[Btline]

No-one is suggesting cutting services to the villages. Just that in the peaks, an extra fast service is slotted in.

If Evesham had a reliable and faster service to London, I think you would soon see passenger figures go back up. Worcester and places West would also contribute more.

How about splitting 2 180s at Oxford, 4 times a day for the Hereford trains? One continues to Hereford calling at Morteon, Evesham, Worcester Shrub Hill and all stations; the other continues to Worcester Shrub Hill calling at all stations minus Ascott, Coombe and Finstock.

For the rest of the day, a general hourly all stations (minus the halts) service runs to Great Malvern.

Additional Turbos for halts.

[John R]

But there won't be any 180's left!

[Burty76]

Just to clarify a couple of things:

* Im not advocating a 2 hourly service to Hereford.  5 a day is fine - but at better times (see a previous post)

* Im also not saying that the level of service to Hanborough (or Pershore or Honeybourne) should be cut - certainly not in the peak.  What I am suggesting is that, off-peak, a 2 hourly level of service to Han, Hon and Per is more than adequate, up to hourly in the peaks.

Therefore a timetable something approximate to : (from London, similar in reverse)

Pattern A Even hours - Reading, Oxford, Charlbury, Kingham, Moreton, Evesham, Shrub Hill, Foregate St. Mal Link, Gt Malv (with some extending to Hereford)
Pattern B Odd hours - Slough, Reading, Oxford, hanborough. Charlbury, Kingham, Moreton, Honeybourne, Evesham, Pershore, Shrub Hill, Foregate St.

from london peak :

15.52  Pattern B
(Halts train Oxford to Moreton between these trains)
16.52  Pattern B
17.22 Pattern A to Hereford
17.52  Pattern B
18.22  Pattern A to hereford
18.52  Pattern B
19.52  Pattern A to hereford
20.52 Pattern B to Malvern
21.52 Pattern B


Surely this should keep everyone happy? 

[Btline]

Yes, no cuts, but some "pattern A" trains in between Bs during the peaks to speed up the journey. I also like the idea of "pattern A" trains skipping Slough.

Remember, faster trains will take the pressure of the slower trains, allowing more Hanborough commuters to get a seat.

[willc]

Burty, others did say they thought it should be two-hourly to Hereford.

As I have said, you can't divorce the Cotswold service from what happens beyond Oxford and Didcot. The Slough stops are part of the standard pattern off-peak timetable between Oxford and London, and provide the London fast services for Slough and the connections from Paddington for the Windsor branch. If you don't do it with the Oxfords, then you would have to make those stops with something else instead.

An hourly peak service at Hanborough, Honeybourne and Pershore would be a cut - Hanborough and Pershore get four trains (three Londons plus the halts service) in a roughly two-hour period in the morning and Honeybourne three now. If you take the evening peak as being the 15.51 to the 18.22 period, the H's get four trains and Pershore all five.

And you wouldn't want to drop the 19.22 as a Hereford service. I use it about once a week from Oxford at the moment and it loads well, especially Fridays. A Hereford arrival before 11pm is psychologically important. Lose the current padding (five minutes at Evesham, four minutes at Shrub Hill and four more Foregate St-Malvern Link) and it would start to look even better.

Off-peak, if there is to be a cross-Oxford shuttle, then it has to form part of a roughly 30-minute interval, all through the period of the day it operates, which means the London trains calling at Hanborough every hour off-peak. The whole point is to provide a service you don't have to look up the times for. As soon as people have to think whether it's the hour when the train doesn't stop, then they start thinking about driving.

Btline, how will faster trains take pressure off others? If there's a train departing every 30 minutes in the peak, people will use the one that arrives at the place they are going at the time they want to be there - and get the first available one home - not go early just because the previous train has a shorter journey time (and end up having to kill time before work or whatever) or wait for a later, faster train on the way back that still gets to the destination after the first one.

[Don]

We seem to be talking exclusively about trains to/from Paddington.  With track doubling and a new signaling system designed to increase capacity, what perhaps we are looking for, and may possibly get, for the main part of the day is:

- An express service from Hereford/Malvern/Worcester stopping at major towns in the northern end such as Evesham and Moreton;

- A local turbo service running perhaps hourly, all stations between Worcester and Moreton and linking to the express London service; and

- A second local turbo service running, perhaps half-hourly between Moreton and Oxford linking again at both Moreton and Oxford with express trains to London. I gather that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) has already stated that it wishes to run something as frequently as this with the turbos continuing beyond Oxford perhaps as far as Didcot.

Obviously the above is a more of a specimen idea with some peak expresses stopping at one or more certain extra stations as current loadings suggest, but lets not forget that the high loading that places like Moreton, Charlebury and Hanborough currently get are the result of getting a good service.  There is no reason why Worcester (pop 110,000), Evesham (pop 32,000) and perhaps even Pershore (pop 16,000) can not provide a greater income than little places like Charlebury, if FGW wishes to try to market to these areas. 
 

[stebbo]

Thanks for the info on Didcot stops, Willc. I'm not up to speed with where the Hereford services stop now as I've stopped using them. I might risk it again when they've finished the redoubling.

Incidentally, driving from Stratford to Cheltenham this morning I noticed, as I passed under the line between Honeybourne and Moreton, pallets of materials laid out alongside the track. Something's beginning to take shape.

[Electric train]

From an interal NR^» (Network Rail - home page) news item last updated: Wednesday, 18 February, 2009 15:19 GMT

"New tracks on the double for Cotswold

The Cotswold redoubling scheme, which will bring new tracks between Evesham and Charlbury, has entered the final stages of design, moving a step closer to delivering work on the ground.

Once complete, the scheme is set to bring about huge improvements in train punctuality, from 76 per cent to 92 per cent ^ the highest performance standard set by the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about)). The capacity boosting scheme will also enable more passenger trains to run on the line.

Mike Gallop, route enhancements manager, said: ^In this final stage of design, detailed improvement work for the next two-and-a-half years will be nailed down. We have a big task ahead to bring the scheme to commission, and will continue to work hard to progress these improvements.^

Delivery of the work, which will begin in July 2009, will be staged so that parts of the railway line can remain open while improvements are carried out"

[Btline]

You could always extend the Oxford HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) to terminate at Hanborough (obviously requiring more infrastructure).

Even if an hourly service is a cut - it is still a very good service for the village!

I am not sure how many fast trains Slough gets in total, but they should be confined onto the HSTs which terminate at Oxford, thus speeding up the longer distance trains.

If there are faster trains to Worcester, people will time it so they catch those trains, thus taking the pressure off the slower trains.

[IndustryInsider]

I am not sure how many fast trains Slough gets in total, but they should be confined onto the HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) which terminate at Oxford, thus speeding up the longer distance trains.

And I think that's where the issue that Willc was trying to raise becomes clear. Sometimes it's one train an hour terminating at Oxford, sometimes it's two. With the Cotswold Line trains slotting into the half-hourly Oxfords that means Slough (and Windsor) get a regular half-hourly fast service throughout the off-peak. You probably get between 30-50 people for that stop alone on an average train. If you were to alter the timetable to remove Slough stops then the whole balance of the timetable would be removed.

The other option is to run three trains to Oxford an hour, two that stop at Slough AND one that continues down the Cotswolds (pathing and stock issues galore), or you remove the Slough stop on one of the trains per hour and then make that service far less attractive to locals and tourists.

For the sake of two minutes in the schedule, I'd be very surprised if the status quo doesn't remain.

[Btline]

Ah - ok, if Slough gets 2 tph the Cotswold stops should remain.

[Don]

Incidentally, driving from Stratford to Cheltenham this morning I noticed, as I passed under the line between Honeybourne and Moreton, pallets of materials laid out alongside the track. Something's beginning to take shape.

This is new cable troughing that is currently being laid/sunk alongside the single lines to take the existing cables, moving them away from the course of the new double track bed.

Incidentally, I heard today that the Paddington-Cheltenham HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) will definitely be extended to Worcester during the blockade

[Don]

You could always extend the Oxford HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) to terminate at Hanborough (obviously requiring more infrastructure).

Oxford is getting a new bay platform at the south end of the station, designed to take the Oxford-Paddington HST service (and long enough to take the IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) trains). This will free up the main through platforms and save moves to and from the carriage sidings.  Both of which will help the Cotswold line service (with the upgrade of the goods loops) by increasing capacity at Oxford.