Cotswold Line redoubling: 2008 - 2011

[whole diary]

[Richard Fairhurst]

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

Confucius say: man who cannot spell "Charlbury" probably not best qualified to comment on it.

Charlbury, and the surrounding area, is London commuter territory and has been for decades. Even if you pulled out a couple of stops, Evesham is still - at a very, very generous estimate - 30 minutes further down the line (38 minutes at present). That's an hour's extra commute each day.

To remove direct fast London services from a major commuter railhead, just to slightly speed up the service to somewhere well out of commuter belt, would be the height of insanity.

[Burty76]

I don't think anyone is suggesting removing Charlbury stops.

Its the stopping every train at Hanborough, Honeybourne and Pershore that I have issue with.

If you want to live in a village, then you shouldnt expect an hourly HST^▸ (High Speed Train) to London !  A stop every 15 minutes is plenty - if you want an hourly direct train to London, drive to Charlbury !  If you dont want to do that, then catch a local to Oxford and change.  Simples.

[willc]

But if you are someone at FGW^▸ (First Great Western) HQ^▸ (Headquarters) working out how to maximise your income, you do it by stopping trains at the places that bring in money in a regular, reliable stream - that's even simpler.

Why shouldn't you expect an hourly train to London, if your community is lucky enough to have a station on a line with regular London services running on it? And is already being offered an hourly off-peak train by FGW during the periods of the day when they operate hourly now on the Cotswold Line. All those towns and villages north of Cambridge on the King's Lynn-London line get one - and two an hour in the peak.

As I said previously, one of the reasons behind the extra peak stops at Pershore, Honeybourne and Hanborough was to help ease the pressure at Evesham and Charlbury caused precisely by people driving in - as you suggest they should - to catch the morning peak HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) from Hereford, who were overwhelming parking facilities that cannot be expanded without major expenditure. Indeed at Evesham, I just don't see where you could extend parking, short of buying up all the former Midland station site from its current users.

While it would be nice to have some sort of stopping service all along the line, as Don suggests, the fact is it is a line of two halves, with loadings dropping off west of Moreton.

Between Moreton and Hanborough (excluding the halts but including the Wychwoods stations), there are six pretty well-sited stations, in the towns and villages themselves, or a short walk/cycle ride away. I know Kingham looks like it's out in the fields, but it sits mid-way between Kingham and Bledington villages. Oxford is the local centre for work, shopping and leisure for all these places except Moreton - where we can pick and choose among Oxford, Cheltenham and Stratford - so if you can achieve a roughly 30-minute frequency most of the day, there's every chance it will do well. A (refurbished, please) two-car 165 should fit the bill for a shuttle. And while it might be logical to make London connections at Oxford, if it ran through to Didcot, that offers plenty of interchange opportunities too.

In the particular case of Hanborough, the road takes a roundabout route to Oxford, so the train wins hands-down journey time-wise. Beef up the service here and you will dominate the local travel market and sell a lot of tickets, the value of which will come out well ahead of adding three or four minutes on to journey times to Worcester.

The Vale is a different matter. To begin with there are just three stations. While Evesham itself has a well-sited station and big population, Honeybourne is a small community, even with recent housing development alongside the station, and Pershore station is a mile-and-a-half from the town centre and it's a matter of luck if the trains connect with buses here. I would be surprised if these three could sustain more than an hourly off-peak service to and from Worcester, despite the time advantage rail enjoys.

But there should be some sort of effort to do better for the Vale at peak times, rather than the take-it-or-leave it approach at the moment, though in the morning that clearly owes much to the difficulties of pathing anything through the current single-line sections against the flow towards London.

If the LM150s - and the new DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) - give some much needed breathing space to the West fleet, then maybe a 150 could be found to run on peak Honeybourne to Malvern cross-Worcester shuttles. Can't see any great need to run it to and from Moreton, though if Chipping Campden eventually reopened that would change the equation.

[Btline]

I agree Willc, local travel along the Western part of the line should be exploited more.

[stebbo]

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.

Don't dispute that it would be good to redouble Kemble to Swindon. Just I've always thought the Cotswold redoubling far more important as in my experience the Cotswold line is a bigger source of misery

[Andy W]

In days of old there were 2 TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) on the Cotswold line Thames & FGW^▸ (First Great Western). At that time the Thames trains stopped at most stations most of the time FGW ran long distance trains which didn't stop at the likes of Pershore, Honeybourne and Hanborough.

When FGW took the Thames franchise rather than keep the old model they have burdened the long distance traffic with the Oxford park and ride brigade which means a significant number of Hereford / Worcester passengers travel on other routes. All I'm saying is the old model was far more attractive for long distance (INTER CITY) travel.

This is the same model that runs on the Oxford Banbury route where only FGW stop at Tackley & Heyford with XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) going straight through. Why aren't the XC services forced to stop at the 'village' stations to provide yet more Oxford park and ride custom? Because it's bad business.

Confucius say: man who cannot spell "Charlbury" probably not best qualified to comment on it.

Charlbury, and the surrounding area, is London commuter territory and has been for decades. Even if you pulled out a couple of stops, Evesham is still - at a very, very generous estimate - 30 minutes further down the line (38 minutes at present). That's an hour's extra commute each day.

To remove direct fast London services from a major commuter railhead, just to slightly speed up the service to somewhere well out of commuter belt, would be the height of insanity.

Confucius also say: railhead is end of line - trains that go past end of line finish up derailed - exactly what the FGW policy is west of Moreton.

If you start on the rational that 'high speed trains' must stop at every station that is a 'major commuter railhead' as passengers won't change trains, then stations such as Pangbourne and Goring & Streetly could put up a better case than most stations on the Cotswold line.

[willc]

Since when have Pershore and Honeybourne been sources of Oxford park-and-ride traffic? I suspect the large majority of tickets issued to passengers boarding London-bound trains at both points are for journeys all the way, especially in the morning peak - to the type of people who used to swamp Evesham and would do so again if the other Vale stops were dropped. And the Cathedrals Express still doesn't stop at Hanborough in the morning.

Such was the demand for the type of limited-stop service that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) offered from 1997-2006, that it was itself very limited - two peak trains out and two back, the same BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) had offered for years before as well - I discount FGW's lone off-peak service up to 2004, because after the Southall crash, it used a borrowed Turbo and stopped everywhere except the halts anyway. If there is the huge pent-up level of demand for fast trains from Worcester and Hereford that some seem to suggest there is, then why didn't the newly-unshackled private operator add more trains while there were still some paths available at other times of the day?

The Oxford-Banbury route is a quite different situation. The main fast flow between the two has always been separated out, because the village stations are just that - they only serve the immediate local communities, which are small - population of Tackley parish is about 1,000 v 3,000 for Hanborough (which is also widely used as a parkway station for Witney people off to London). In addition, Kings Sutton has always had direct London trains to Marylebone and people from Heyford drive to Bicester (10 minutes away) to get London trains rather than use the Great Way Round via Reading. Cotswold Line stations act as railheads for a wide area around them, as well as the communities they are in. PS railheads aren't always at the end of a line - that would be called the terminus.

The stations between Didcot and Reading are on a line which can sustain a far higher number and wider mix of trains, so FGW has more choices about what they can offer them - which does include peak high-speed services. The 6.12 from Didcot and 7.10 from Oxford are booked for high-speed stock and serve those stations - indeed the 7.10 misses Reading entirely - and the 18.33 return is also marked H on the timetable. An Adelante often appears on the latter at present.

Cotswold trains have to serve a series of different markets and as a result, stopping patterns have to be a compromise - and as I said, without the level of demand generated at the eastern end, the western end would not have the frequency of service through the day that it does at present. Thames ran a number of trains that terminated at Moreton, some of which were later extended throughout, because traffic at the eastern end made extending them to Worcester viable. We pay, you gain.

[Burty76]

Cotswold trains have to serve a series of different markets and as a result, stopping patterns have to be a compromise

Quite so.
A compromise is exactly what Im suggesting.  Where we disagree is on the level of off-peak service.  Hanborough, Pershore and Honeybourne do NOT need an hourly service to London throughout the day, just at peak times.
And whatever the reasons for operators not running fast trains to Worcester, the fact is that the comparotavely low revenue at the Westenr end is simply because the service offered is so poor.  I know a great many people in the Worcester area who regard the London service as a joke, and always have done.  And many buinessmen, including my Dad before he retired, preferred to go to Birm International or Bristol Parkway for a PROPER inter-city service.
In summary - give the Western end a proper limited stop service and they will use it.

Oh and as an afterthought - what about a service via Cheltenham 5 times a day ?  This would give many advantages :
* A 2 hour Worcester to London journey time
* Direct service to the capital from Ashchurch for Tewkesbury
* Limited station stops
* A half an hour reduction on journey time for Cheltenham to London

Just a thought....

[IndustryInsider]

The comparative road journey is pretty poor too, so Worcester, Malvern and Hereford folk really do have a short straw when it comes to travel options to the capital.

[G.Uard]

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!!)

WillC
 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.

But if you are someone at FGW^▸ (First Great Western) HQ^▸ (Headquarters) working out how to maximise your income, you do it by stopping trains at the places that bring in money in a regular, reliable stream - that's even simpler.

I find myself agreeing with WillC here.

 

Look at Towns with a population of over 150k.  Swindon, Luton, Northampton etc. and then consider Cities like Wells, pop c10,000 and Chichester c24,500. 

Reading has an urban population of >230k and remains a town. St David's in Wales has a population of <1,5k, but is a city.

http://www.lovemytown.co.uk/CityStatus/CityStatusTable1.asp

As such, it is not merely the 'status' of an urban area which gives claim to an enhanced rail service, but more, its population, hinterland and therefore potential as a revenue generator.  Perhaps, with the rise of Unitary Authorities, the old definitions regarding City status are set to become even more obsolete, just as the Inter City branding has become, at least in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom).

[IndustryInsider]

Indeed G.Uard - in fact there's villages (such as Kidlington) that have a larger population than several Cities - even if you ignore St. David's and the City of London.

There's a list here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallest_cities_in_the_United_Kingdom

Hereford's 14th on the list and Worcester is 21st. InterCity is more snappy than InterPlacesWithASignigicantEnoughPopulationToWarrantARegularTrainService though... 

[Andy W]

PS railheads aren't always at the end of a line - that would be called the terminus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railhead

Or are you confusing railheading?

Trains west of Moreton are lightly loaded - the reason is well understood outside FGW^▸ (First Great Western) if not by the likes of WillC & II.

My office is a 2 minute walk from Pershore station but it is far better for me to drive to Warwick Parkway and use Chiltern.

Why?

Better rolling stock - no filthy Turbos
Normally Cheaper
Faster as not stopping to let the bike riding Oxford commuters on
Far more frequent
And the staff at Warwick are excellent.

Others from Worcester use Birmingham International - and it is a significant number of people who pay a great deal more than ^1.60 for their tickets.

FGW are the losers beleive me.

As for "we pay you gain" - you pay we go elsewhere.

[willc]

Oh and as an afterthought - what about a service via Cheltenham 5 times a day ?  This would give many advantages :
* A 2 hour Worcester to London journey time
* Direct service to the capital from Ashchurch for Tewkesbury
* Limited station stops
* A half an hour reduction on journey time for Cheltenham to London

Just a thought....

How would you get a two-hour Worcester-London time via Cheltenham, and, in particular, cut 30 minutes off Cheltenham-London without running non-stop? And bypassing Gloucester, which is rather bigger than Worcester?

FGW^▸ (First Great Western) hardly runs anything, anywhere, that you could call limited-stop any more, because the HST^▸ (High Speed Train) changed the map of the part of England it served, stretching the commuter belt far beyond Reading and Oxford, and, over time, changing the type of train service required. It would be interesting to see how many London season tickets were being sold from places such as Swindon, Chippenham and Bath pre-1976 and the numbers today - I'll wager the percentage increases are enormous.

Birmingham and Bristol have what you call 'proper' inter-city services (though Bristol trains typically make about four or five stops these days) - because they serve very large cities, which can support fast, frequent trains without the help of revenue from intermediate stops. The same cannot be said for Worcester and Hereford.

If Chiltern's route ended up at places the size of Hereford and Worcester, they would be making lots of intermediate stops at places like Denham Golf Club, because it wouldn't be worth separating out the long and short-distance flows in the way they can now.

And is what you all want a faster peak train or two, or faster Worcester trains all day? There seem to be different views in that part of the world. It's just that it seems to be the smaller Vale stations and Hanborough that are doing all the compromising - and losing the level of service they already have, both peak and off-peak, which is no way to encourage rail travel, whether or not anyone from Worcester changes their habits.

It all sounds rather like the brilliant wheezes of BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) Western Region back in the late 1960s, when everyone was going to drive into Worcester or Oxford to get trains, that led to the singling of the line (and Salisbury-Exeter) and the attempts to close every station between Worcester and Oxford, except Evesham and Moreton. The steady improvements in the level of service provided ever since have come on the back of increasing services at the intermediate stations, which have also benefited Worcester, whether or not Worcester is grateful for that. In the late 1970s, the entire service was something like seven or eight trains that made the stops you like, plus the Oxford-Moreton halts service, and Hanborough and Pershore were little better off service-wise than the halts. Honeybourne didn't even have a station.

I don't believe anyone would want to go back to that but I do believe that most people in Worcester and everywhere else on the rest of the line would rather have a regular, reliable and punctual service, running throughout the day, than a grandstanding train or two that cut 10 or 15 minutes off the typical timing.

Especially when redoubling offers the prospect of recouping a chunk of that time across the board anyway, instead of the erratic timings many trains suffer at present, especially for anyone travelling east from Worcester in the late afternoon and early evening - eg, it doesn't take 18 or 20 minutes to get from Hanborough to Oxford, or 50 minutes from Moreton to Oxford with two or three stops. Sorting out that kind of silliness is far more important, along with the options the new track gives the timetable planners to even out the intervals between trains in the peak and slot in extra ones if they think they can fill them - none of which you can do with things as they stand now.

PS Railheading may be the practice described, but what word other than railhead would you use to describe the places it happens at?

[IndustryInsider]

A couple of points, Andy.

Depending on where you look on the internet, the term 'Railhead' can mean all sorts of things. Wikipedia is not always 100% accurate.

On one site it has two different meanings: 1. a railroad depot in a theater of operations where military supplies are unloaded for distribution
2. the end of the completed track on an unfinished railway. (taken from http://www.audioenglish.net/dictionary/railhead.htm)

If you use either of those definitions then there are no passenger Railheads in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) that I can think of. I would suggest that it is more in use in the USA as a term rather than in the UK.


As for the service along the Cotswold Line, I fully support the idea of a more intensive, quicker service on the Cotswold Line west of Moreton. My issue is how you achieve that aim whilst striking the best compromise between capacity and frequency. Warwick Parkway does indeed have an excellent train service to London. It didn't until the whole of the Chiltern Line was redoubled, and until the WHOLE of the Cotswold Line is redoubled AND the antiquated signalling at Worcester is replaced then you are not (in my opinion) going to be able to improve things too much.

It's at least 1h 30mins from Warwick Parkway to Marylebone plus at least 30 minutes drive from Pershore, so how is that 'far better' than the average of 2h 10 mins from Pershore? I can appreciate the frequency argument, and I can appreciate not wanting to travel that far on a turbo (although a Chiltern Clubman IS essentially a turbo) - bearing in mind many trains are HST^▸ (High Speed Train)'s from Pershore offering a nicer environment than a Clubman.

Can I ask what sort of service from Pershore to London you would consider appropriate? What stops it would make, and what sort of journey time. After all, it's one of the three station on the route (with Hanborough and Honeybourne) that people on here are suggesting should see more trains missing stops.

The redoubling will result in a decrease in the journey time, achievable by removal of tokens, less waiting for other trains to clear single line sections, improved crossover speeds at places like Moreton and Ascott. But as I said, I doubt that wholescale removal of stops like Pershore, Honeybourne and Hanborough will take place as it doesn't provide the best compromise in my opinion.

I'm working on a sample timetable showing what might be achievable through the redoubling. Until then, feel free to show us what you think it should look like - and I don't mean a vague list of aspirational journey times. I mean a fully workable timetable which doesn't involve conflicts on the single line sections, AND works well with stock and crew diagrams. You'll find it rather a challenge - as I am finding out... 

[Don]

Writing a sensible timetable taking everything into consideration is a great task.  Hats off to "Industry Insider" for trying.  It will be interesting to see how yours compares with the one that FGW^▸ (First Great Western)/NR^» (Network Rail - home page) will come up with.  Perhaps you could end up with a change of job.