Gloucester - station, facilities, services, events & incidents (merged posts)

[whole diary]

[stuving]

NR^» (Network Rail - home page) do have a plan tucked away in a drawer for platforms on the main line. This was their summary from the Western Route Study:

The Route Study has reviewed the provision of main line platforms at Gloucester to enable services on the Bristol or Swindon to Worcester or Birmingham axis to call at Gloucester, without the reversal and journey time penalty currently incurred. The option is relatively expensive due to the location of the site and the works required to provide access. There is also an issue if and how the platforms would be connected to the existing station platforms and/or city centre to maintain connectivity particularly for passenger access other than by car.

In the details about Route Section N, the time penalty for a Gloucester call with reversal is given as 12 minutes. The assessment of option N2 is:

N2:
   Mainline platforms at Gloucester
Conditional Output:
   Capacity
Timeframe:
   Longer Term, however there may be a case for passive provision in 2019 – 2024 (Control Period 6)
Purpose:
   • would enable more main line services to call at Gloucester without incurring a journey time penalty as at present
   • reduces timetable conflicts across the area
Description:
    Provision of an additional two-island station providing four platform faces on the Main Line.
Indicative Cost:
   • £50m – £100m
   • cost of passive provision not known
Relates to other options:
   All other options in this Route Section N

Analysis:

The Gloucester Station area is complex and offers opportunities for rationalisation when resignalling takes place in CP6^▸ (Control Period 6 - The five year period between 2019 and 2024). There are also opportunities to consider alternative ways to serve rail passenger demand in the Gloucester area.

Gloucester Station is located off the Bristol to Birmingham Main Line. Currently, to serve Gloucester Station trains need to leave and rejoin the Main Line; the crossing moves at Gloucester Yard Junction and Barnwood Junction impose a limit on the capacity which would otherwise be available and extend journey times. This means that a number of services on the Bristol – Birmingham axis do not call at Gloucester due to the reversal requirements and additional journey time which this entails. London Paddington/Swindon – Cheltenham Spa services do call at Gloucester, and incur a journey time penalty of approximately 10-12 minutes as a result. However, Gloucester Station is well sited for the city centre and bus station, facilitating access on foot.

An option exists to provide additional platforms for Gloucester on the Main Line. This could be in the area of the triangle of railway lines east of Gloucester Station. If additional services were to be provided on the Bristol – Birmingham axis then this would allow those trains to call at Gloucester without incurring the reversal/journey time penalty. The costed option is a two-island design, providing four platform faces in total. This is a relatively expensive option due to the cost of providing new island platforms, realigning track and providing footbridges and associated infrastructure.

Other, more local train services could continue to serve the existing Gloucester Station for the pedestrian connectivity.

The case for the platforms is dependent on additional services on the Bristol – Birmingham axis, which would be difficult to accommodate on the 2019 infrastructure at each end of the route.

[Robin Summerhill]

I’ve told the first part of this story on here before, but for completeness I’ll tell it again.

Under Beeching, Eastgate was chosen to be Gloucester’s only station. To facilitate the closure of Central, the old down main platform was extended allowing it to connect to Eastgate. This also allowed the long footbridge that connected the two to be closed and dismantled, opening up that site for redevelopment.

As a result of increasing traffic congestion in Gloucester on the level crossings on the Tuffley loop, and especially the chaos caused by Barton Street gates over a main arterial road into the city, Gloucester City Council started agitating towards closing the route. This happened in December 1975.

Moving on to today, Gloucester (Central) is exactly what it says on the tin. The bus station is less than 100 yards from the station entrance, and beyond the bus station is the main retail area in the city centre. It would be hard to imagine a more perfect location for a main railway station in any city.

Google Maps tells me that the closest the main line gets to Gloucester Central is at Metz Way, and that is 1.2 miles away from Central station. By definition (see above) it is much the same distance away from the bus station and the city centre shops. Put ”railway folk” thinking to one side and look at it from the general public’s perspective. How many of the general public are going to prefer a station 1.2 miles away from where they want to go to one that they can fall out of and be where they want to go?

How many of the general public are prepares to walk 1.2 miles each way to anywhere? How many additional car journeys would be generated because the “main” station is no longer right next to the bus station? How much land would be needed for parking at the new station? Even if there was a shuttle bus (or train) service, how would that be any more convenient than what is already there?

As regards time penalties, there would of course be new ones as trains that normally rattle through non-stop would have to make a station stop. Has that been factored into the equations?

I think that questions like this need to be addressed before we start worrying about which budgetary period the money will come from.

Finally, a tale of what happens to new railway services that are perceived to be worse than the one they replaced. My parents told me that my pram and me were often put into the guards van when they went shopping from Staple Hill to Bristol St Phillips. In September 1953 (I was 15 months old at the time so blissfully unaware of any of this at the time!) the railway decided they didn’t need St Phillips any more and diverted services to Temple Meads.  My parents then stopped using the train because Temple Meads was “too far” from the shops, and I went in a push chair on the bus. And my old man was a railway carpenter, but he still wouldn’t use the train after that!

Before you try to mend something, first check to make sure that it is indeed broke...

[grahame]

From just an observation of timing / reaping a piece of data while it was available, I seem to have stirred up a great deal of interest.    I don't know if anything is broken or not;  I do know of plans to add a second local train in each hour arriving from the Bristol direction, and I'm aware of aspirations for a second hourly train arriving from the Stroud direction - just worth gathering evidence at a time that disruption allows it to be gathered.

You'll always have a balance / decision to make where a train approaches a junction with potential destinations on both legs ... do you split the train, do you run to "one" or "t'other" and if you do that latter, do you alternate destinations, or double back across the top of the triangle?   Do you even complete the triangle with the train running back whence it came having served both points in succession?   Would a station relocation at or near the split help in any way?  How about a new station so that trains approaching from various directions can alternate in which leg they take, with passengers having a quick change if the service they're on happens to be going the wrong leg?

My understanding is that trains cannot be reversed from the south in the platforms at Cheltenham Spa (I am subject to correction on that) and if they could, the time taken would create a significant pinch point on the two track railway towards / from Birmingham (I am subject to correction on that too).  There were plans for extra terminating platforms at Cheltenham Spa for trains from the south, I recall.  This they have gone away (yet again, subject to correction).

Don't know if there is a problem.   I do recall the MEP^▸ (Member of European Parliament) for the South West, Molly Scott Cato, telling of her train trips from her home in Stonehouse to parts of her constituency such as Exeter and Plymouth - how after leaving on the train, reversing at Gloucester and changing at Cheltenham Spa, she passed back through Stonehouse on the other line there some 40 minutes into her journey.   Stroud Valley to Bristol and beyond is perhaps another topic ...

[Robin Summerhill]

At the risk of being accused of stating the obvious, if you want to go from A to B by train then you have to do it the way the railway goes. Gong from Stonehouse to Exeter via a double reversal at Gloucester and Cheltenham and then virtually going back past your house may seem a little odd to a layman, but there are of course alternatives.

Go via Swindon, or get thee hence to Cam & Dursley and change at Bristol; at least with the latter route you start off going in the right direction and keep doing it.

I have had a similar situation in the past going from Chippenham to Swansea via Swindon. About 45 minutes after leaving Chippenham I am within 6 miles of my house as the train goes through Hullavington. There are plenty of other examples around the country.

But back to the topic at hand, I am far from convinced that there is anything broke at Gloucester that needs mending. There is at present a GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) hourly service going direct to Bristol, and another XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) service running hourly changing at Cheltenham. Gloucester’s opportunities for travelling north are many – XC services on the Cardiff to Nottingham service; GWR services to Worcester and Malvern and, of course, a further hourly GWR service terminating at Cheltenham.

Furthermore the service frequency on virtually all these routes is far in excess of anything provided in the pre-privatisation era. I am not going to wider the issue to whether this is because of, or in spite of privatisation, of course – that is one for another day and another thread.

[Bmblbzzz]

As an addition to Robin Summerhill's post on the centrality of Gloucester, I grew up in Stroud. Until my parents bought a car in 1983, we would go to Gloucester on the train; but if we went to Cheltenham, we would always take the bus, because Cheltenham station is not at all central whereas the buses go right into the middle of town.

[Robin Summerhill]

As an addition to Robin Summerhill's post on the centrality of Gloucester, I grew up in Stroud. Until my parents bought a car in 1983, we would go to Gloucester on the train; but if we went to Cheltenham, we would always take the bus, because Cheltenham station is not at all central whereas the buses go right into the middle of town.

Precisely. And in a way it also reflects the situation between Bristol St Phillips and Temple Meads in the 1950s.

Also see how many people get on and off Valley Lines trains at Cardiff Queen Street compared to General.

As an aside, if you did a straw poll on a northbound SW/NE train of passengers who were actually going to Gloucester, I wonder how many of them would actually know that they would pass through its suburbs on the way to Cheltenham (not everybody is interested in geography)!

On reading that report posted by Stuving again, It becomes very clear that this was written from a purely railway perspective with no regard being taken of how the travelling public might react. There is one short sentence about the well-sited situation of Central, but lots about building stations, reducing conflicting movements, additional calls being made at Gloucester, remodelling track and resignalling programmes. I am beginning to doubt that customer experience, needs and desires were ever properly considered, let alone taken into account.

Nobody has ever increased passenger numbers by making a train service less convenient.

Perhaps they should be let loose on another report to prove that, as Bath station is on a cramped site and has capacity issues, it would be far better to give the city a roomy brand spanking new station. At Bathampon junction...

[Celestial]

Also see how many people get on and off Valley Lines trains at Cardiff Queen Street compared to General.

General?  You're showing your age now.

With Queen St, as it's the first of the two when coming down from the valleys, and it's adjacent to one end of the shopping centre, it's not surprising that shoppers will get off there. But one can then work one's way through the centre, through the retail emporia of St David's Centres, both 1 and 2, through John Lewis, stop at the chippie in Caroline St (maybe not) and then walk the couple of minutes to Central rather than retracing ones steps laden with the spoils of a morning's retail therapy.

For office commuters, the position is also a little more balanced, with quite a lot of relatively new offices around Callaghan Square just south of the main line, as well as now in Central Square since they built over the bus station (don't get me going on that one!).  There's also a lot of offices on the north side of the centre, which is better accessed from Cathays from the Taff line, but obviously via Queen St from the Rhymney Line. 

How full those offices will be in future is another question mind you, though even more off topic than this digression.

[Robin Summerhill]

Just a short update after I looked at Google Maps.

The obvious, if not the only point on the line from Gloucester Yard to Barnwood junctions that you could put a new station is on the site of a brand new Morrisons supermarket.

How much would a Morrisons cost I wonder?

[infoman]

Went to bus station in Bristol City centre asking above question

We can only get you as far as  Berkely!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OR National Express to cheltenham then a local bus back to Gloucester.

Checked with stagecoach and that involves THREE bus's

These are the reasons that train is best

[grahame]

Went to bus station in Bristol City centre asking above question

We can only get you as far as  Berkely!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OR National Express to cheltenham then a local bus back to Gloucester.

Checked with stagecoach and that involves THREE bus's

These are the reasons that train is best

Local buses simply aren't designed for regional journeys ... at best one town to the next.   You don't mention the much longer taken by bus in most cases.   Try comparing Swindon to Chippenham, or Chippenham to Bath.    There are exceptions such as Scarborough to Whitby which is much quicker by bus.

[chuffed]

There was a time when the 308 ran up to Gloucester along the A38 using Stroud valleys dual purpose green and cream bus/coaches when they were part of Bristol Omnibus. You could also catch the X72 direct to Worcester with Midland Red, Newport and Cardiff with red and white, and Bath and Salisbury with Southern National on the X4.
However there always seems to have been a bus desert between Bristol, Bridgwater and Taunton, with no overlap between Western National and Bristol Omnibus.

[Bmblbzzz]

Yep, I remember very occasionally using that Bristol Omnibus service as a kid.

OR National Express to cheltenham then a local bus back to Gloucester.

They seem to be inspired by Cross Country.

[Red Squirrel]

I started a couple of Days Out on the 05.40 (I think!) 529 Bristol to Gloucester. I say 'I think' because it doesn't appear in my 1974-5 timetable; maybe it wasn't advertised because no-one in their right mind got up at that time in the morning... The driver would stop at the 'News Stop' newsagent in Horfield to pick up his paper, and have a chat and a fag.The 529 took just over two hours to get to Gloucester. As an alternative, you could have taken the 526 which went via Wotton and Dursley, was described as 'scenic' and took about half an hour longer.

There was a 419 Bristol to Swindon that left Bristol at 04.something, which I think I may have caught once, though I'm not sure how I got to the bus station in time as the first No.3 rolled into the Haymarket just before 6am. Maybe I walked?

[Bmblbzzz]

You probably sleepwalked.

[DaveHarries]

I started a couple of Days Out on the 05.40 (I think!) 529 Bristol to Gloucester. I say 'I think' because it doesn't appear in my 1974-5 timetable; maybe it wasn't advertised because no-one in their right mind got up at that time in the morning... The driver would stop at the 'News Stop' newsagent in Horfield to pick up his paper, and have a chat and a fag.The 529 took just over two hours to get to Gloucester. As an alternative, you could have taken the 526 which went via Wotton and Dursley, was described as 'scenic' and took about half an hour longer.

There was a 419 Bristol to Swindon that left Bristol at 04.something, which I think I may have caught once, though I'm not sure how I got to the bus station in time as the first No.3 rolled into the Haymarket just before 6am. Maybe I walked?

Just had a look online. One website has a Time Table (TT) for the 418 Bristol to Swindon: first one from Bristol given as leaving at 0645 in the Time Table (TT) valid 15/06/1969, journey time on that was 2.5hrs. IIRC^▸ (if I recall/remember/read correctly) there was, until a few years ago, an X54 Bath - Swindon on Sundays and Bank Holidays.

I had never heard of the 526 though (too old to have done so I think: when did it last run?):first from Bristol was 0651hrs, journey time approx. 2hrs 20min.

Dave

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying abbreviation