London Midland to Run Birmingham Moor Street - Gloucester?

[The Planner]

Old plans and all changed since then. Only piece of new track is at Park Lane Jn, chords stay single. The Tamworth platforms at New St were only obvious as they are extensions of the Herefords. 2019 is way out too, it is all finished in April 2012.

 

[Junius]

There is a desperate need to improve the Ashchurch to Birmingham service, from the current 5 days per day two of which are late evening. Extended journey times via Worcester may not tempt new commuters. The line to New Street takes 35 minutes, compared to approximately 60 by car on normal roads. Split tickets via Bromsgrove make the journey financially attractive. Given Ashchurch's proximity to the M5, the free car parking and catchment area, there is enormous potential here for commuters to Cheltenham, Gloucester, Worcester and Bristol as well as Birmingham.

The current 2 hourly service from FGW is unsatisfactory. FGW appear to recognise this but don't have the stock or money to make improvements at the present time. As an example there are no stopping southbound trains between 07:03 and 09:24. Virtually every day passengers arrive around 08:00and leave disapointed.

More information, including figures from passenger counts at
http://ashchurchandtewkesburyrail.webs.com/

 

[MCR247]

Why would you just turn up and arrive at a random time and expect for a train to come?

 

[OxtedL]

Works for me!

In all seriousness, a less-than-hourly service is becoming increasingly rare, and is now very rare on lines on which more than a handful of passengers might actually want to travel, so many less travelled/clued-up people might take the risk, although maybe that wasn't what was meant here...?

[Please don't just rattle off a list of badly served lines now...]

 

[MCR247]

Works for me!

In all seriousness, a less-than-hourly service is becoming increasingly rare, and is now very rare on lines on which more than a handful of passengers might actually want to travel, so many less travelled/clued-up people might take the risk, although maybe that wasn't what was meant here...?

[Please don't just rattle off a list of badly served lines now...]

Thats what I was thinking & I would expect that every now and again but daily would different people turn up at 8am?

8am suggests commuting time, and would you just turn up at a station hoping there was a train to take you to work?

(Although that is based on the assumption they are commuters and that they even exist...)

 

[Batman]

Old plans and all changed since then. Only piece of new track is at Park Lane Jn, chords stay single. The Tamworth platforms at New St were only obvious as they are extensions of the Herefords. 2019 is way out too, it is all finished in April 2012.

2019 was the target date set for introducing the new cross city service. Thats auming that the bay platform and cross over at Tamworth will have been compleated by then and rolling stock will have bceome available. The work at Water Orton will have been compleated long before then.
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Thats what I was thinking & I would expect that every now and again but daily would different people turn up at 8am?

8am suggests commuting time, and would you just turn up at a station hoping there was a train to take you to work?

(Although that is based on the assumption they are commuters and that they even exist...)

I did that once years ago when my Bloxwich North to New Street morning communter train didn't turn up and national rail enquiries (who I phoned on my mobile, this was before information screens were introduced on the Chase Line) said there were major signaling problems at Walsall, and it would be a few hours before trains were running again. I was a bit suprised when a coal train passed through the station heading towards Rugeley, but I decided to get in my car and drvie to Blake Street. I had a basic knowledge of the area and I knew there was a frequent service from there to New Street so I didn't have to worry about train times. I wouldn't do that at station with a low service frequency or in an area which I didn't know.

Going back to Ashchurch. Is there sufficient demand for the hourly Nottingham to Cardiff service to stop here? And if it did, would that create over-crowding problems on peak time trains? And would it even be possible. I understnad the reason that has always been given for that service not stopping at Bromsgrove is the short turn around time at Cardiff. But that service now stops at University, so how difficalt would it be to add one or two more stops?

 

[The Planner]

2019 was the target date set for introducing the new cross city service. Thats auming that the bay platform and cross over at Tamworth will have been compleated by then and rolling stock will have bceome available. The work at Water Orton will have been compleated long before then.

It isn't going to happen....

 

[MCR247]

Going back to Ashchurch. Is there sufficient demand for the hourly Nottingham to Cardiff service to stop here? And if it did, would that create over-crowding problems on peak time trains? And would it even be possible. I understnad the reason that has always been given for that service not stopping at Bromsgrove is the short turn around time at Cardiff. But that service now stops at University, so how difficalt would it be to add one or two more stops?

No, it takes the **** getting there as it is!

It would also loose its path

 

[Class172]

The case for stopping at ashchurch is probably less than that of Worcester even though Ashchurch is on the XC line. Tewkesbury isn't a particularly big place (I'm guessing it has a population of 18,000) and Cheltenham is only a few miles away - everything's there