pompeyfan said:
I’m pretty certain Yeovil junction is already permissive working, there is several detachments and attachments taking place under Covid timetable.
If it is now possible to join trains in passenger service that is very recent, as it requires permissive working to be authorised by the ORR. Splitting has always been possible.
pompeyfan said:
could you also clarify something too, earlier you said the unit would be able to do the round trip within the hour but you also stated on a previous page that the unit would have 40 minutes turnaround at Okehampton. Surely either the unit has a decent turn around and there’s another 6 cars out in the 1L circuit or it has a tight turnaround and potentially not only smashes the Barnstable single line, but the other 4 sections of single line.
I never said anything about an hourly service to Okehampton or doing the round trip in an hour. Others have been bigging that up. Frankly I think hourly to Oke is for the birds other than in the really long term future if it really takes off as a parkway.
All the info out there suggests, if it happens, it will be one every two or three hours, 5-8 return trips a day.
Hence the train can layover at Oke for ~30-40 mins instead of Exeter for 40 mins and goes back to London an hour later. Yes you need a single 159/158 to do that, two if you form it from a 5/6 car train.
The existing arrival and departure times for Waterloo at Exeter St Davids align almost perfectly with the line free time between Crediton and Cowley Bridge.
Roughly speaking, Crediton to Cowley Bridge is occupied by Barnstaple trains from 20-39 mins past the hour.
With an assumed 35 minute journey time to Okehampton, the Waterloo train arrives at St Davids at XX:43 as now, can go straight onto Crediton at XX45 and arrive at Okehampton at approx xx20. It then sits there for approx half an hour before setting off back to Waterloo at approx xx48 (possibly a minute or two earlier to clear Cowley Bridge before the next down Barnstaple), arrives at XX23 and forms the XX25 to Waterloo. It does not cross with anything at Crediton in either direction.
As Amlag pointed out on message #91 of this thread "It is no coincidence that the hrly Waterloo trains arrive at St D at almost entirely 43mins past each hour and depart from St D at almost entirely at 25 mins past each hour AND that paths [to Okehampton] already exist or can be made to exist with just a minute or two adjustments."
Bye the bye I doubt that all the Okehampton trains would go to Waterloo. I would expect a couple might be formed from extensions of the peak hour Exeter to Honiton shuttles and others would likely start or terminate at Exeter.
pompeyfan said:
You’re certainly persistent on trying to ensure it’s an SWR service to okehampton even though others have tried to explain why GWR makes more sense.
considering SWR are currently struggling as it is with diesel availability, good luck finding an extra 6 by May
It was the MD of SWR presenting a slide to MPs on 10th November suggesting extending SWR services to Okehampton, which was subsequently published by said group of MPs, which started this off, I only joined this group so I could get access to a decent copy of the slide and ask what the source was. I doub't the MD of SWR would have presented it if it was impracticable or hadn't been thought through or they hadn't previously discussed it with GWR (both owned by First)
It would need a single extra two or three car unit, at most two three car units at certain parts of the day, not six units. Also I suspect it being open by May 2021 is highly unlikely. I would have thought Dec 2021 at the earliest, possibly May 2022.
I'm sure similar chaff would have been thrown up by some several years ago,had we had a similar discussion about extending SWR trains to Yeovil Pen Mill, via both Sherborne and Bruton.
It is also quite possible, as the slide alludes to joint GWR/SWR cooperation, that some of the services will indeed be worked from Okehamton to Exeter by GWR using a GWR unit, but that at certain times of the day GWR need the unit elsewhere or would have to terminate it at St Davids for pathing reasons, and SWR can spare a 3 car unit to extend a Waterloo service out and back to Okehampton to cover it. We will find out soon enough.
They can do that regardless of whether the railway is open or not.
Indeed, but if its a third party and the railway is out of use, it becomes a bog standard building site where any contractor competent in building it and CDM compliant can do it, or even competent volunteers, with 24/7 free access to the site.
Once it is a working railway all sorts of shift limiting constraints, extra personnel needed and rail certification of staff is needed which has a dramatic effect on the cost.
Which is why the Bluebell Railway's new Station at East Grinstead, very similar in size and platform layout to the proposed Okehampton Parkway, cost about £250,000.