May 2022 Timetable Changes

[Mainline421]

The timetable lists 1tph calling at Branksome and Parkstone https://www.southwesternrailway.com/plan-my-journey/timetables

 

[Thunderer]

I think the same and used the word collusion in my last post.
I have posted several times about Reading - Southampton - Bournemouth remaining 2 hourly on Saturday and that with numerous trains per hour running north of York some XC services should be terminated there so the sets can run to the South Coast and South-West.



Right now there is no suitable stock available. Only time will tell where the DfT decide to reallocate the West Coast Voyagers and the MML Meridians when they are released.
Further as I understand the HST's are rostered for fewer services.

Most of the time at least 3 HST’s are parked up for days or even weeks on end doing nothing. Then when they are pressed into long distance service, they become unreliable after days or weeks of idling. No point in having HST stock if you don’t use it? Yes we all know they cost more to run, but on Summer Saturdays these services are very popular. As before, get 4 out of 5 of them on the rails for a Summer Saturday to provide extra Holiday Trains to/from Devon and Cornwall. For me, there is no real need for 75% of XC services to go further north than York. Perhaps retain a few early morning and mid afternoon services to/from Edinburgh? LNER/Trans-Pennine provide a very good service for the remainder of the ECML going north. This would free up more Voyagers to provide some additional Manchester-South West and even a few York-Southampton/Bournemouth services, to avoid those extra changes for people who would like to go direct from Yorkshire to the South Coast or Manchester/Stoke/Wolverhampton to the South West. Unfortunately as we can all see, this XC timetable is not about making things better for passengers, if anything its forcing more and more onto alternative transport which is very sad. I intend to e-mail XC direct to enquire more regarding this “anti-passenger” dubious timetable.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

The timetable lists 1tph calling at Branksome and Parkstone https://www.southwesternrailway.com/plan-my-journey/timetables

Apologies, my bad. I’ve been mixing timetables up - it’s December that this is planned to happen.

 

[800001]

Most of the time at least 3 HST’s are parked up for days or even weeks on end doing nothing. Then when they are pressed into long distance service, they become unreliable after days or weeks of idling. No point in having HST stock if you don’t use it? Yes we all know they cost more to run, but on Summer Saturdays these services are very popular. As before, get 4 out of 5 of them on the rails for a Summer Saturday to provide extra Holiday Trains to/from Devon and Cornwall. For me, there is no real need for 75% of XC services to go further north than York. Perhaps retain a few early morning and mid afternoon services to/from Edinburgh? LNER/Trans-Pennine provide a very good service for the remainder of the ECML going north. This would free up more Voyagers to provide some additional Manchester-South West and even a few York-Southampton/Bournemouth services, to avoid those extra changes for people who would like to go direct from Yorkshire to the South Coast or Manchester/Stoke/Wolverhampton to the South West. Unfortunately as we can all see, this XC timetable is not about making things better for passengers, if anything its forcing more and more onto alternative transport which is very sad. I intend to e-mail XC direct to enquire more regarding this “anti-passenger” dubious timetable.

Go and watch those Scottish Cross country’s when they head to/from Scotland at York. They are often very well loaded, terminating at York transfers those customers to already very well loaded LNER services.
Also York is a very congested station, where do you suggest the Crosscountry terminate? Since northern introduced the additional Harrogate that takes out a through platform for 25 minutes of each hour.

 

[Watershed]

Most of the time at least 3 HST’s are parked up for days or even weeks on end doing nothing. Then when they are pressed into long distance service, they become unreliable after days or weeks of idling. No point in having HST stock if you don’t use it? Yes we all know they cost more to run, but on Summer Saturdays these services are very popular. As before, get 4 out of 5 of them on the rails for a Summer Saturday to provide extra Holiday Trains to/from Devon and Cornwall. For me, there is no real need for 75% of XC services to go further north than York. Perhaps retain a few early morning and mid afternoon services to/from Edinburgh? LNER/Trans-Pennine provide a very good service for the remainder of the ECML going north. This would free up more Voyagers to provide some additional Manchester-South West and even a few York-Southampton/Bournemouth services, to avoid those extra changes for people who would like to go direct from Yorkshire to the South Coast or Manchester/Stoke/Wolverhampton to the South West. Unfortunately as we can all see, this XC timetable is not about making things better for passengers, if anything its forcing more and more onto alternative transport which is very sad. I intend to e-mail XC direct to enquire more regarding this “anti-passenger” dubious timetable.

Unfortunately it's down to the lack of a Rest Day Working agreement. You can ask XC as much as you want, but if you get a truthful answer from them, that's what it'll be. Without RDW they cannot reliably crew the HSTs. And in turn, there is very little likelihood of RDW being reinstated until the unrest currently brewing across the industry has been 'resolved'.

Go and watch those Scottish Cross country’s when they head to/from Scotland at York. They are often very well loaded, terminating at York transfers those customers to already very well loaded LNER services.

I wonder how well loaded they would be if they did terminate at York. How many people are actually travelling from beyond Leeds/Doncaster and wouldn't travel by train if the XC service were terminated at York?

Also York is a very congested station, where do you suggest the Crosscountry terminate? Since northern introduced the additional Harrogate that takes out a through platform for 25 minutes of each hour.

York isn't flush with platforms but there would still be enough capacity. Platform 6 is mostly just used by the LNER "stopper". So XC could terminate there every other hour for example. Similarly, most of the through platforms are long enough that the Northern Harrogate service could platform share with the XC service (even if it's exceptionally a 10 car Voyager). This certainly isn't a blocker.

 

[387star]

What’s happened to XC’s Summer Saturday HST services? Leeds-Paignton, Paignton-Glasgow; York-Penzance, Penzance-Leeds; Glasgow-Paignton, Paignton-Leeds; Glasgow-Penzance, even Manchester-Newquay voyagers? Does no one go on holiday anymore to Devon & Cornwall from the midlands and the north? We always use the 1V44 and 1E67 on a summer Saturday to get to/from Dawlish to/from Bristol and those trains are always busy. With this awful timetable, that now means an extra change at Exeter both ways to get to Dawlish, so unfortunately this year I will be inclined to drive instead as its cheaper and now quicker. Its as if people are being deliberately “put off” travelling to/from great holiday destinations in Devon & Cornwall, with practically no XC summer Saturday services to/from the Midlands and the North? Im surprised councils & businesses in Dawlish, Teignmouth, Torquay, Paignton and resorts in Cornwall have not kicked up a fuss as this summer timetable will no doubt cost these resorts valuable pounds of lost revenue as many people will be put off with the increased prices and the added inconvenience of multiple changes to get to these places.

This is appalling Shapps should be held to account!!
Also am I correct the county town of Wiltshire Trowbridge has NO direct London services ? Surely GWR could provide one ?

Are the specials to Swanage history?

Leisure travel is key !!

Also it irks me 158s are on the Weymouths with tatty turbos on the Portsmouths

 

[dk1]

This is appalling Shapps should be held to account!!
Also am I correct the county town of Wiltshire Trowbridge has NO direct London services ? Surely GWR could provide one ?

Are the specials to Swanage history?

Leisure travel is key !!

Also it irks me 158s are on the Weymouths with tatty turbos on the Portsmouths

Trowbridge only ever had them because SWT (later SWR) offered the irregular service to Waterloo. There is no chance of GWR offering anything to Paddington.

 

[387star]

Trowbridge only ever had them because SWT (later SWR) offered the irregular service to Waterloo. There is no chance of GWR offering anything to Paddington.

Why not?

 

[jfollows]

Trowbridge only ever had them because SWT (later SWR) offered the irregular service to Waterloo. There is no chance of GWR offering anything to Paddington.

Except they did: (May 2019 timetable)

and in December 2019 became IET:

 

[dk1]

Except they did:
View attachment 113716

What was that? Can’t see very much. Was it a short term thing?

 

[jfollows]

What was that? Can’t see very much.

May 2019 timetable 1K71 HST 05:15 Bristol-Paddington called Trowbridge 05:46. Retimed to 05:10 IET from Bristol, 05:41 from Trowbridge December 2019. Immediately pre-Covid. Still in December 2020 timetable also.

 

[dk1]

May 2019 timetable 1K71 HST 05:15 Bristol-Paddington called Trowbridge 05:46. Retimed to 05:10 IET from Bristol, 05:41 from Trowbridge December 2019. Immediately pre-Covid.

Well I never. Was it due to engineering works related to electrification or had it been running long term?

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Also it irks me 158s are on the Weymouths with tatty turbos on the Portsmouths

It has been done to death on here why 158s are only on some of the Portsmouths, there aren’t enough to go round for starters. Especially as one set has now been withdrawn from traffic. Looking at May 3/8 of the Portsmouth circuits are booked 158s which is just over a third of them.

Well I never. Was it due to engineering works related to electrification or had it been running long term?

No, and it still runs if you look in the May 22 timetable

 

[dk1]

Wikipedia states an evening service via Newbury from Paddington ran until 2016. I can’t see any services returning anytime soon.

 

[jfollows]

Well I never. Was it due to engineering works related to electrification or had it been running long term?

It was a new(ish) service which was introduced, err, I'm not sure, probably 2019 but may have been earlier. It's in the December 2018 timetable. It's in the May 2018 timetable. It's in the December 2017 timetable .... I can see it in every timetable going back to December 2014.

 

[swt_passenger]

Are the specials to Swanage history?

I think so. The summer extras from Salisbury to Weymouth were declared hopelessly uneconomic and never to return by SWR in their Dec 2022 consultation. I expect any SWR service to Swanage, which would have been an extension of the Weymouth, is equally unlikely to ever run again.

 

[jfollows]

Here it is in the May 2022 timetable: P To London Paddington via Newbury, see table 122

 

[dk1]

Why not?

It’s not on the mainline & can’t imagine it being a money spinner. DfT don’t seem up for much outside the box these days either.

 

[jfollows]

Wikipedia states an evening service via Newbury from Paddington ran until 2016. I can’t see any services returning anytime soon.

Yes, there was 1C90 17:06 Paddington to Bristol, arriving Trowbridge 19:01, this one went round the curve and didn't stop at Westbury whereas the morning service did. 1C90 last appeared in the December 2015 timetable, it's not in the May 2016 timetable.

I lived in Bath 1994-1995 and I think I visited the council in Trowbridge because it was an IBM customer, but I'd have driven there .... however during my brief period of living in Bath the Waterloo service was introduced, which I think ran non-stop Trowbridge-Basingstoke, and which I used a couple of times because IBM used to have significant office space in Basingstoke and colleagues whom I wanted to see.
So I was interested to spot the HST/IET services to Paddington also.
Basingstoke was a bit of a pain to get to by road, especially given that the Newbury bypass hadn't been built by then. Cross country and A303 was tolerable once I worked out a few short cuts. But the train was nicer especially given that it didn't call anywhere, not Westbury nor Salisbury at the time!

 

[James H]

I got the impression that the extra West of England services (and the Corfe Castle service) owed a lot to the personal efforts of Chris Loder, who was then a senior SWT / SWR manager but is now the Tory MP for West Dorset. I think when he left the company these services lost their internal champion.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

I got the impression that the extra West of England services (and the Corfe Castle service) owed a lot to the personal efforts of Chris Loder, who was then a senior SWT / SWR manager but is now the Tory MP for West Dorset. I think when he left the company these services lost their internal champion.

They also got nowhere near covering their costs so easy pickings by the DfT to save money.

 

[adrock1976]

They also got nowhere near covering their costs so easy pickings by the DfT to save money.

Were the Corfe Castle summer services heavily promoted at the time?

 

[dk1]

I suppose the services via Trowbridge suit GWR simply for crew route refresher runs rather than for passengers.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Were the Corfe Castle summer services heavily promoted at the time?

Yes but at heavily discounted fare which might have got bums on seats but didn’t cover their costs.

 

[cactustwirly]

Yes but at heavily discounted fare which might have got bums on seats but didn’t cover their costs.

Plus it was such a long and roundabout route that it wasn't very attractive

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Plus it was such a long and roundabout route that it wasn't very attractive

And the service required such bespoke route knowledge it was so unreliable to deliver the train was often cancelled which is always an issue when relying on such limited knowledge.

 

[James H]

The strikes on SWR also messed things up considerably for the Corfe Castle service - did nothing to build confidence the service would run on any particular weekend.

 

[Starmill]

The strikes on SWR also messed things up considerably for the Corfe Castle service - did nothing to build confidence the service would run on any particular weekend.

Was it not also disrupted for a period by industrial action?

 

[jfollows]

Although I'm also guilty of irrelevant reminiscence, can I perhaps suggest we're getting well off topic now?

 

[thenorthern]

Looking at the EMR timetables it seems that other than some early morning and late evening services all Crewe-Newark Castle services will be withdrawn and replaced by the hourly West Midlands Rail services from Birmingham to Crewe via Stoke-on-Trent.

There also doesn't yet seem to be a return yet to the hourly services between Newark Castle and Crewe.