Recent content by craigybagel

Thank you. I am indeed coming into this conversation from years of working services in and out of Cardiff Central from both ends of the train. I do suspect we're getting off topic so I'll just say this - TfW has always been a TOC of compromises. The network is too vast, varied, and until...

Surprised to see this - I thought there was always a long list of drivers waiting to transfer to Wolves from other depots.

I never said there was no market for it - just that there isn't a terribly large one. And that market is still getting served with a 2 hourly direct service if they can't cope with the same platform change at Cardiff. Given the benefits the MKIVs bring to Manchester services, that again seems...

Fair point. The train was fine, the crew who work the service south from there were delayed on their previous working. As I've pointed out to you before, the market for through travel across Cardiff is really not that big. The MKIVs make much more sense on Manchester services than Holyhead...

A large part of the demand on the route, to Nantwich especially, is from Manchester and not just Crewe - and unfortunately, due to the legacy of the appalling resignalling of the line, you can't give very quick connections between a local and a fast service to get around it that way. To be fair...

Nantwich & Whitchurch get a more consistent service though the day in the proposed timetable, with the 2 hourly Manchester 197 operated services calling, plus some rush hour calls on the MKIVs. That serves about 90% of the people who would benefit from an hourly local service - the current 2...

If the politicians are involved, you would expect the old 3 daily Holyhead service to come back. And to be fair operationally it would be the simplest option.

At the moment the unit for the first Shrewsbury - Aberystwyth actually stables in Crewe overnight. It forms the 0519 Crewe - Shrewsbury local before going down the Cambrian, so some degree of shuffling would be required there. Using a Mach based set running ECS to Welshpool would save on the...

It's been a long time since I've seen so many 150s out on the Marches.....

Given they have a traincrew depot at Bournemouth, and no drivers based between there and Birmingham (only TMs at Reading) I very much doubt it.

Probably not. More likely they'll wait till the big timetable change in December. Plus there isn't that much space to tighten the times - the existing times are very tight and a struggle to meet with the current limits No news or signs of work, but that isn't too concerning. It was the same...

Conformed in next week's WONs, the linespeed changes Crewe - Shrewsbury go live from Sunday April 7th.

There is still connectivity across Cardiff. Yes it's only 2 hourly now instead of hourly, but given the vast majority of passengers on both sides leave the train at Cardiff that seems a reasonable compromise to me. In the past ATW/TFW struggled with capacity in the peaks into Manchester because...

In theory there's no need to lock a set out as ASDO will only open all 9 cars at the stations that can platform 9. In practice this is moot as 9 car operation isn't permitted yet. And as I pointed out above, it was only a 5 car set.

115 by itself from Holyhead to Chester, with 044 added on there. According to internal systems anyway.