PLEA FOR FASTER HEREFORD/WORCESTER TRAINS

[whole diary]

[Btline]

Whilst Pershore, Honeybourne and Hanborough are important stations, I can't see why there can't be one peak train there and one back that misses them out. (when you consider - it is not a lot to ask!)

It would shave the best part of 10 minutes of the schedule (assuming 2-3 minutes per stop).

If marketed well, (Cathedrals EXPRESS etc.) the pair would become known as the Worcester/Hereford businessmen's trains. They WOULD be filled. There is a demand for a fast service for the two county cities.

Off peak, a full hourly service is required, stopping everywhere bar the halts. (as far as Great Malvern, with a few extensions to Hereford) But get rid of the slack to cut the journey time! It shouldn't affect punctuality if the operations are tightened up. If anything, punctuality will go up!

FGW^▸ (First Great Western) are missing this key market, and the potential they can unlock from this line.

[devon_metro]

What's the point until the line has been doubled?

[willc]

The insomniacs special at 5.02 from Worcester misses Pershore and Honeybourne and the 17.51 misses Hanborough and Honeybourne. Unfortunately, due to the pathing problems and token changes, the 5.02 waits 14 minutes at Moreton and the 17.51 currently sits for six minutes at Oxford, four at Moreton and five at Evesham and could easily shave a couple more minutes off between Oxford and Charlbury (and usually does with a clear run through Wolvercot), a couple between Charlbury and Shipton and three or four more between Pershore and Worcester.

Industry Insider has already demonstrated that with this kind of nonsense removed from the equation, services will be speeded up - and I think most people would regard timings of two hours or just over that mark between London and Worcester and three hours for a Hereford run as perfectly reasonable.

As for this one peak train thing - it's neither here nor there how fast it is if it doesn't get to London when someone wants to get there, or doesn't fit in with the time they are setting off home.

If you have a meeting at 9.15, you won't be getting the Cathedrals Express, nor will you be using it to get home if you arrive at Paddington by 17.15 or 17.45.

The type of train you describe hardly exists anywhere on the rail network any more, so why on earth do you think two such small places can justify it? Between Leeds and Kings Cross, there are two or three morning peak services that take about 10 or 12 minutes off the usual timing. In the evening, everything northbound from Kings Cross is on the same timing. From Manchester to Euston, I think there's one morning train that loses a bit of the padding between Watford and Euston, but that's about it. Northbound the timings are the same.

On both these routes, Pullmans, flyers and anything else of that ilk has effectively been consigned to history, with frequency the selling point, just as it is a key part of Chiltern's marketing pitch.

If you were to tell the businessmen (and women) of Worcester that they could have one speeded-up train, amid a hotch-potch of other trains with various departure and arrival times, against services every 30 minutes towards London from 5am until 7.30  or 8am, and the same back from London between 4.30pm and 7.30pm, guess which they would pick, and which would far more effectively build the market for FGW^▸ (First Great Western).

[Andy W]

The type of train you describe hardly exists anywhere on the rail network any more,

William check the Chiltern timetable - you'll see that their fastest Warwick Parkway / Marylebone trains skip all stops south of Banbury ( including Bicester ) on their peak services to offer the best times for the long distance traffic. That is the type of service that is being suggested.

[willc]

I'm not sure that is what anyone is suggesting, as even the most ardent campaigners here seem to concede at least four stops between Worcester and Oxford

And on the Chiltern Line, there are frequent, fast, limited-stop trains starting and ending their journeys from Banbury and Bicester.

FGW^▸ (First Great Western) simply don't have enough rolling stock - or staff - available to put in lots more trains and to guarantee punctuality, you are likely to be looking at two Oxford-bound and one Worcester-bound train each hour in the morning peak.

If they choose to squeeze something else in - and have the resources - fair enough - just don't count on this happening. And even if it does, don't count on getting a limited-stop express, because one of the top priorities is likely to be to offer a better peak frequency at - yes, I'm going to say it - Hanborough!

[Btline]

Yes, the peak Chiltern train skips Jewellery Quarter, Warwick, Bicester North, Princes Risborough and High Wycombe.

And Virgin operate many limited stop trains into Euston in the rush hour (e.g. one Wolverhampton - Euston train which runs non stop after Birmingham New Street!)

This is all done to speed up journey times for commuters and business travellers, whilst removing longer distance passengers from the trains before/after - allowing more space for shorter distance commuters.

[IndustryInsider]

Perhaps when the luxury of double track and 5 minute signalling headways between trains arrives on the Cotswold Line in the year 20xx, you'll see a similar service pattern begin to form? 

[willc]

And Virgin operate many limited stop trains into Euston in the rush hour (e.g. one Wolverhampton - Euston train which runs non stop after Birmingham New Street!)

This is all done to speed up journey times for commuters and business travellers

As I said before about Manchester, and which you blithely ignored, presumably because it doesn't fit with your world view, running times from Birmingham New Street to London in the peak, all the way from 5.50am to 8.50am, are remarkably similar, 1hr 22, 1hr 25, 1hr 27, 1hr 24.... check on a journey planner if you don't believe me.

Yes, the 7.30 from New Street does it in 1hr 12, but frankly, in a sequence of Pendolinos every 20 minutes, over a three-hour period and then the same ever onwards off-peak, that one train is neither here nor there. They don't even bother with a single train doing a quick run in the return direction in the late afternoon and early evening.

I'm sure saying 'London in 72 minutes' looks fine and dandy in mailing shots to Birmingham businesses, but that's about all the value it has. It's just the 2009 equivalent of the couple of BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) trains that did the run in 92 minutes in the 1980s and gave rise to the huge sign on the postal depot at Curzon Street - 102 minutes was more like it the rest of the time.

A rather more accurate comparison for the Chiltern service pattern south of Banbury would be Oxford, where both fast and slow London trains start and beyond which Cotswold Line peak trains make just one stop at Reading. Equally on the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line), there are several LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise)-run fasts starting at Northampton and Milton Keynes.

For goodness' sake, please tell me you aren't seriously trying to equate the volume of traffic generated for Virgin and Chiltern by the population of the West Midlands metropolitan area and Coventry, Leamington and Warwick, with that available from Hereford and Worcester?

If you don't think a sequence of Worcester-London and return trains every 30 minutes in the peak - with pretty consistent timings of say 2hr 5min-2hr 10min - would be attractive to the expense account classes of Worcester with their ^129 first class returns, could you please explain why - instead of coming up with yet more chalk and cheese comparisons.