Thanks to all for the replies.
With many thanks for your update, Kempis, I've now also moved and merged here some previous posts from another discussion, in the interests of completeness.
Thanks, Chris, and apologies to Oliver for missing his earlier update.
There are other examples of none-direct services. Compare mileage as the crow flies from Weston-super-mare to Newport, of if you feel that's a special case from Helmsdale to Wick or from Frome to Bath Spa. The latter being very much on the WECA» border ...
Regarding the indirectness of the route to Bristol, I think this will be an issue for many people. Although well used in the peak hours, outside of these, the Frome to Bath service is only lightly used, and the bus alternative is as fast or not faster. So I suspect a Thornbury rail service will be more used by those aiming to get to Bristol Parkway, and thence for many to London, etc.
Point taken,
grahame. As
froome says, the question is how attractive the journey time would be. It would be interesting to compare the prospective journey time by rail (I've heard 48 minutes quoted) with that by road. Peak bus journeys are timetabled to take between 70 and 80 minutes. Does anyone know how long it takes to drive from Thornbury to Bristol at peak times? I know the A38 and M32 get congested.
I know it's a practise that's faded out in GWR▸ territory - but how about portion working, splitting and joining trains at Yate? Such practise needs a reliability of crewing, and running to schedule to avoid some very awkward delays - so perhaps not a viable option this year? But I do note GWR moving towards more train splitting / joining en route with 10 car IET▸ formations shedding and gaining ECS▸ portions to Bedminster at Temple Meads.
They do it a lot on the local stoppers anyway, as quite often in the peaks a Worcester to Weymouth service will pick up an extra unit between Bristol and Westbury. So it certainly wouldn't be something new!
Hadn't thought of that. Could be the answer! Would an extra platform at Yate be needed?
Looking at Westerleigh Jct: I wonder how the cost:benefit case would stack up for making a connection between the remaining stub of the Midland line after in passes south under the GW▸ line, looping round to west and joining the down GW line to the east of Ram Hill? Southbound trains would still have to cross over at Yate to access the Midland line, but that as I understand it is not where the bottleneck lies.
Interesting idea. I see that, in addition to the old Midland main line, there's also what I presume is the alignment of an old mineral line looping round near Ram Hill. So your suggestion might be easier than creating a new flying junction at Westerleigh. Speaking of flying junctions, I believe there was originally one at Yate South too; it's hard not to feel regret at what has been lost. But I suspect there are other locations with a greater need for a flying junction -- Didcot West comes to mind. I understand there have in the past been discussions between the MetroWest team and Network Rail about junction improvements at Westerleigh, but I don't think much progress was made.
For a lower startup cost an ultra light rail shuttle along the line, scheduled to arrive just before as many arrivals at Yate as possible might be worth considering. Not only would it avoid rail path issues (apart from platform dwell time) but it would also allow for a relatively inexpensive start to test the market yet still be able to expand. Think of Parry People Movers or similar, there's a lot of new stuff developing apparently, start with very simple platforms along the line of the prefab bolt together variety and you may have a workable affordable proposition.
I think a shuttle service would work well. Trains in and out of Yate are hourly in both directions and within 10-15 minutes of each other, so should be fairly simple to timetable.
Yes -- I'd wondered about a Parry People Mover, or perhaps a 153. But I think the preference locally is for through trains to Temple Meads.
Also, I think both Frome and the proposed Thornbury station, whether on the town ring road or the A38, share a common weakness of being rather uncentral to their towns.
Yes, but if the powers that be want to add housing for 10K people, with all the recent housing that has been added over the past 10 years, then there is a very good case to place a levy on all new houses to re-establish the line and to run two trains per hour from Temple Meads.
quite. If the station can't move closer to the town maybe the town can grow to meet the station.
Yes -- the planned development at Buckover (which I understand is controversial locally) is to the east of Thornbury, north of Tytherington. And the suggested location for the station would be as close to the housing in the south and east of the town than the original station site would be.
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