tbtc
Veteran Member
How would you like to organise West Coastway services, given the flat junctions/ competing demands between a variety of places/ fixed number of paths into London etc?
For all of the discussions about minor rural lines (and reconnecting tiny villages etc), we don't discuss busy routes like the West Coastway very often (or, when we do, it's in the context of quirky services like Brighton to Great Malvern or putting Sussex back on the XC "map" rather than day-to-day passengers)
That's a shame, because the West Coastway is a fascinating bit of line - given the different demands spread between London (via Gatwick, via the Arun Valley), Brighton, Portsmouth, Southampton and also the two short branches to Littlehampton and Bognor) - the lack of grade separation at junctions, the lack of overtaking facilities - it's quite the conundrum
There's currently (or, at least, pre-Covid, there was - I'll admit I've not kept up to date with the various changes over the past eighteen months) a fairly frequent number of stops at each station - IIRC only a few served by the Littlehampton to Portsmouth stopper had only one train per hour - but not a lot of frequent services (generally a combination of a few hourly services)
It's impossible to link everywhere to everywhere (I don't think there was a direct service from Brighton to Bognor?) - the fact that Brighton/ Littlehampton/ Bognor/ Portsmouth are all dead ends makes it even tougher
At the same time, there's demands for faster services between the bigger places en route (a route like Brighton to Portsmouth is at the kind of 30mph average that is almost NorthernRail-esque in it's low speed) - indicative perhaps of a lack of investment in infrastructure in the south east that doesn't directly involve London journeys (see also how poor the A27/M27 corridor is compared to roads that lead to the capital)
I appreciate that there's possibly an element of there not being huge demand between some similar sized places (whereas a direct service to Gatwick/ London may be more important because that offers something *different*) - I don't want to fall into the trap of assuming that two places within fifty miles of each other "deserve" a frequent train service because I accept that local travel patterns don't always work like that (although, as someone who's spent all of their life living in Central Belt Scotland and Northern England, my only visits to the south coast have been fleeting so I'm not wanting to make the outsider's assumption of "There Should Be A Regular Direct Service Between X And Y Because They Look Close On The Map")
So, what could be done (without breaking the bank)? I know of plans for passing loops in places like the Hope Valley, but are there options for loops on the West Coastway that would allow for increased services/ reduced journey times? Presumably it'd be political suicide to try to remove direct London trains from Littlehampton/ Bognor and replace them with a shuttle between the two towns so that more "big" trains could run between the bigger places? But, if no surgery then do we have to accept that the timetable pattern has to be pretty much set in stone because the infrastructure cannot accommodate anything more (other than tinkering at the edges, e.g. removing the token GWR service to Brighton), since we don't want to rob Peter to pay Paul?
(I've focussed this more on the Brighton - Portsmouth sections as I appreciate that there was a thread about the Southampton end of the route a while ago - although I don't know if locals class the Coastway as running all the way to Southampton?)
For all of the discussions about minor rural lines (and reconnecting tiny villages etc), we don't discuss busy routes like the West Coastway very often (or, when we do, it's in the context of quirky services like Brighton to Great Malvern or putting Sussex back on the XC "map" rather than day-to-day passengers)
That's a shame, because the West Coastway is a fascinating bit of line - given the different demands spread between London (via Gatwick, via the Arun Valley), Brighton, Portsmouth, Southampton and also the two short branches to Littlehampton and Bognor) - the lack of grade separation at junctions, the lack of overtaking facilities - it's quite the conundrum
There's currently (or, at least, pre-Covid, there was - I'll admit I've not kept up to date with the various changes over the past eighteen months) a fairly frequent number of stops at each station - IIRC only a few served by the Littlehampton to Portsmouth stopper had only one train per hour - but not a lot of frequent services (generally a combination of a few hourly services)
It's impossible to link everywhere to everywhere (I don't think there was a direct service from Brighton to Bognor?) - the fact that Brighton/ Littlehampton/ Bognor/ Portsmouth are all dead ends makes it even tougher
At the same time, there's demands for faster services between the bigger places en route (a route like Brighton to Portsmouth is at the kind of 30mph average that is almost NorthernRail-esque in it's low speed) - indicative perhaps of a lack of investment in infrastructure in the south east that doesn't directly involve London journeys (see also how poor the A27/M27 corridor is compared to roads that lead to the capital)
I appreciate that there's possibly an element of there not being huge demand between some similar sized places (whereas a direct service to Gatwick/ London may be more important because that offers something *different*) - I don't want to fall into the trap of assuming that two places within fifty miles of each other "deserve" a frequent train service because I accept that local travel patterns don't always work like that (although, as someone who's spent all of their life living in Central Belt Scotland and Northern England, my only visits to the south coast have been fleeting so I'm not wanting to make the outsider's assumption of "There Should Be A Regular Direct Service Between X And Y Because They Look Close On The Map")
So, what could be done (without breaking the bank)? I know of plans for passing loops in places like the Hope Valley, but are there options for loops on the West Coastway that would allow for increased services/ reduced journey times? Presumably it'd be political suicide to try to remove direct London trains from Littlehampton/ Bognor and replace them with a shuttle between the two towns so that more "big" trains could run between the bigger places? But, if no surgery then do we have to accept that the timetable pattern has to be pretty much set in stone because the infrastructure cannot accommodate anything more (other than tinkering at the edges, e.g. removing the token GWR service to Brighton), since we don't want to rob Peter to pay Paul?
(I've focussed this more on the Brighton - Portsmouth sections as I appreciate that there was a thread about the Southampton end of the route a while ago - although I don't know if locals class the Coastway as running all the way to Southampton?)