whats important to you

[whole diary]

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

i never go near the Cotswold Line but this seems to be a flash point between users and think it would be interesting to see main issue

[Mookiemoo]

faster service

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

faster service

please vote above 

[Mookiemoo]

note: the fares are very reasonable especially the season tickets.  THere is sufficient FC^‡(resolve) seating in the peaks.  And you know something, even in the morning peak there is often seating available even after reading in SC - I often look as I walk to the elevators to move over to plat 10.  

I remember a few years ago, even after oxford there were people sitting in the vesdtibules of FC because everyhere else was rammed.

I think almost everyone would agree turbos are just not designed to be sat in for 2.5 hours!

[Mookiemoo]

faster service

please vote above 

I DID^» (Didcot Parkway - next trains)!

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

faster service

please vote above 

I DID^» (Didcot Parkway - next trains)!

as soon as i wrote that it popped up must be a delay on votes, only 2 people have voted so far

[Btline]

Difficult choice, but faster service will always win.

At the end of the day, it is the only one to get people out of their cars. If Worcester people knew they could get to London in 2 hours, the passenger numbers would boom.

[Chris from Nailsea]

It's interesting that you've posted your poll in 'across the west', relex109, yet you seem to have made it specific to the Cotswold line. That may be why you've received so few responses?

No problem: I'll reply on the basis of my own perception of what I generally look for on journeys 'across the west' - in which case, I'd tend to agree with previous posters, and voted for 'faster service'. 

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

I'm glad you noticed as I wasn't sure where to put this please could you move it for me :-) btw in okehampton today if you can make it

[grahame]

I'm glad you noticed as I wasn't sure where to put this please could you move it for me ....

Topic duely moved ... and I have posted a "please go and vote" advertorial where it was ...

[willc]

What i would want, as would most people, if asked - is an utterly reliable, punctual service - which is not an option here. Note that the number of posts to the Charlbury commuter blog has fallen off a cliff in recent times, because FGW^▸ (First Great Western) are doing a good job of delivering on that front - whether or not some people want to acknowledge it. I wonder what West Coast customers would say they want - a Virgin flier once a day each way, or a service that does a bit better than 21% on time, which is how bad it has got some days recently due to infrastructure failures.

Allied to that would be plugging the holes in the current timetable - sort of addressed here - better provision for commuting in the Vale of Evesham to Worcester and some sort of shuttle at the southern end of the line to produce a 30-minute frequency for much of the day.

Difficult choice, but faster service will always win.

At the end of the day, it is the only one to get people out of their cars.

So why are Virgin running trains every 20 minutes on the Birmingham and Manchester routes? Following your logic, one train an hour running at Virgin's headline timings should suffice. With slower FGW journey times on most routes, in recent years, traffic should have been falling if you are right - it hasn't, until recently perhaps, and that's nothing to do with the speed the trains are running at.

And some people go on and on about "park-and-ride" passengers from Charlbury and Hanborough. If you put on more frequent trains, then you would get plenty of cars off the roads between those places and Oxford - a reliable service with a turn-up-and-go frequency is a far better traffic builder than a headline timing achieved by one train a day.

As for "lower fairs" - is this some kind of attack on the Cotswolds' penchant for village fetes?

[Btline]

So why are Virgin running trains every 20 minutes on the Birmingham and Manchester routes?

Unfair comparison for 2 reasons:

1. All of the VT^▸ (Virgin Trains - former franchises) services are fast.

2. Apart from plugging the gaps, there is no scope for frequency improvements for Worcester - London trains. Even I am prepared to admit that 30 minute frequencies Worcester to London would be excessive! Some extra commuter trains from Evesham to Worcester would be good, but the majority of Worcester people will want journey time and reliability improvements first.

As for "lower fairs" - is this some kind of attack on the Cotswolds' penchant for village fetes?

[willc]

Let me remind you of your own words:

Difficult choice, but faster service will always win.

At the end of the day, it is the only one to get people out of their cars

Faster is not the only way to get people out of their cars - that's why Virgin run high-frequency, it gets people out of cars and also gets them off planes - the number of Manchester-London flights is in rapid decline, in part because the trains are faster, but also because - so long as NR^» (Network Rail - home page)'s rubber bands stay on for the day - after years and years of disruption for engineering work on the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line), it offers a reliable service, and you don't need to look at a timetable, just turn up at the station. Therefore, speed is not the only factor at work.

Virgin's trains are 'faster' because the few places they stop at are a whole lot bigger than Hereford or Worcester (eg Coventry is twice the size of the two combined, MK^▸ (Milton Keynes) is fast heading that way), so they don't need to make so many stops to pay their way. That simply doesn't apply on the Cotswold Line, never has and never will. Even one super-fast HST^▸ (High Speed Train) a day, with 472 people from Hereford and Worcester filling every single seat before it leaves Shrub Hill, will not alter the economics of the route, which are reliant on money from the intermediate stations.

And here you are saying there is no scope for frequency improvements on the Cotswold Line, yet you have on many occasions in the past advocated either booting intermediate passengers off Worcester trains at Oxford or splitting trains at Oxford, with the following stopper, or the rear portion of the train, then making the full journey through to Worcester - and the whole process being repeated in the other direction - which looks to me rather like a doubling of the frequency - and a doubling of fuel bills, train crew costs and wear and tear on the track - but then of course, so much new money will flow from Worcester that it will all pay for itself - silly me for forgetting that.

How much more reliable than 94.5 per cent do you want FGW^▸ (First Great Western) to be? Even Chiltern, Merseyrail and c2c are now stuck at 96-97 percent, with far less complicated networks than FGW runs

[Mookiemoo]

Let me remind you of your own words:

Difficult choice, but faster service will always win.

At the end of the day, it is the only one to get people out of their cars

Faster is not the only way to get people out of their cars - that's why Virgin run high-frequency, it gets people out of cars and also gets them off planes - the number of Manchester-London flights is in rapid decline, in part because the trains are faster, but also because - so long as NR^» (Network Rail - home page)'s rubber bands stay on for the day - after years and years of disruption for engineering work on the WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line), it offers a reliable service, and you don't need to look at a timetable, just turn up at the station. Therefore, speed is not the only factor at work.

Virgin's trains are 'faster' because the few places they stop at are a whole lot bigger than Hereford or Worcester (eg Coventry is twice the size of the two combined, MK^▸ (Milton Keynes) is fast heading that way), so they don't need to make so many stops to pay their way. That simply doesn't apply on the Cotswold Line, never has and never will. Even one super-fast HST^▸ (High Speed Train) a day, with 472 people from Hereford and Worcester filling every single seat before it leaves Shrub Hill, will not alter the economics of the route, which are reliant on money from the intermediate stations.

And here you are saying there is no scope for frequency improvements on the Cotswold Line, yet you have on many occasions in the past advocated either booting intermediate passengers off Worcester trains at Oxford or splitting trains at Oxford, with the following stopper, or the rear portion of the train, then making the full journey through to Worcester - and the whole process being repeated in the other direction - which looks to me rather like a doubling of the frequency - and a doubling of fuel bills, train crew costs and wear and tear on the track - but then of course, so much new money will flow from Worcester that it will all pay for itself - silly me for forgetting that.

How much more reliable than 94.5 per cent do you want FGW^▸ (First Great Western) to be? Even Chiltern, Merseyrail and c2c are now stuck at 96-97 percent, with far less complicated networks than FGW runs

Is it too much to ask........

One service in each direction be an express

I suggest the 0630ish in the morning and the 1830ish in the evening - (yes its selfish! but I would adapt if other services were more appropriate)

Just give worcester area passengers the chance to get to london in two hours - we know its possible - it used to happen

I was asked how many people even contemplate what I do - that is only because of distance.  How many people in the SE commute nearly two hours each way - large number I suspect.  Give us a fast service - more maybe would.

[willc]

And as Industry Insider has already demonstrated, you are highly likely to get something nearer to 2hrs post-redoubling, with the trains making stops much as they do now - I don't believe five or 10 minutes past that mark really is the end of the world and I don't think most people in Worcester would be that bothered either, if they knew the train was going to get them there on the dot of the published time - though I agree a London arrival time about 8.35-8.40 for the first Hereford is needed.

How many people with a two-hour commute actually want to do it? And unless you work around Paddington, you need to add cross-London time in too, along with travel to and from the station at the other end. You are a pretty rare case and I really don't think that's going to change - even when it was 1hr 20mins for the fastest train between Moreton and London, regular commuters were rare birds and no more common than they are now - and they usually catch the first two trains of the day, which have never been the quickest, not the Herefords.