craigybagel
Established Member
- Joined
- 25 Oct 2012
- Messages
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I've spent a bit of time working on this today, and I came up with a way that using 4 sets you could get the business hour trains at both ends covered, and allow for rotation with sets stabling in Crewe and Cardiff, but it does involve some very long layovers in Swansea.With current stopping patterns, the journey time from Manchester to Swansea (or vice versa) is between 4 hrs 10 mins to 4 hrs 30 mins approximately. Extension to Carmarthen adds about 50 minutes (each way).
With a sensible turnround time at each end, it is unlikely that any set starting from Swansea will be able to make 2 round trips per day to Manchester, except perhaps the very first departure in the morning.
Extending through to Carmarthen during the day will essentially cost one extra diagram for a 2-hourly interval service, or 2 extra diagrams for an hourly frequency. Extensions to / from Carmarthen first thing in the morning / last thing at night should be possible. It is difficult to draw up any sensible version of the current timetable involving terminating at Swansea as the layover times there would be nearly an hour.
There might be some merit in an hourly Swansea - Manchester limited stop service, with a 2-hourly Carmarthen - Crewe sweeper, picking up the intermediate stops omitted by the expresses.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see what TfW decide to do. I'm pleased the Mk 4s are going to get some further use.
If I post however it I risk incurring the wrath of the mods for speculating. But I'm struggling to see many other ways of covering the most important services in both directions both morning and evening without bumping into these problems.
Very few. In any case TfW have made it very clear though that these sets won't be going to Carmarthen, and logistically this already complex situation gets even worse if they do, except perhaps in the middle of the day.How many passengers actually are there from (say) West of Swansea to north of Newport? I'd have thought that Swansea-Manchester overlapping with Milford Haven/Pembroke Dock-Cardiff would still serve the majority of flows directly (and add an extra train per hour between Swansea and Cardiff).