My suggestion for additional calls at Basingstoke

[Kite159]

Moderator note: Split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/may-2021-timetable-change.213723/

I see that most XC trains stop at Winchester again. However, for those that don't, it's a 40 minute wait at Basingstoke in the down direction for a connection to Winchester. Enjoy!

How hard would it be to insert a Basingstoke call on the XX:35 service towards Southampton, both for Basingstoke passengers from London (& Woking) and for anybody from Basingstoke wanting to travel towards Winchester.

(Also to provide a connection to the Salisbury stopper when it starts at Basingstoke, as currently the connection is the XX:20 Exeter train meaning Andover/Salisbury are effectively Hourly)

Spread the passenger loadings

 

[Dibbo4025]

How hard would it be to insert a Basingstoke call on the XX:35 service towards Southampton, both for Basingstoke passengers from London (& Woking) and for anybody from Basingstoke wanting to travel towards Winchester.

Spread the passenger loadings

Not very easy at all, it's only got 1' of allowances to Basingstoke. All dwells at BSK need to be 1h plus more time for slowing and accelerating again and you're know leaving BSK 22 vice 18. Now the freight conflicts with the 24 up stopper from platform 1 and you can't hold it longer than that as a terminating WoE service needs platform 2 at 29 and plat 1 is reoccupied with the down stopper at 28, and various trains through 3,4 and departing 5 prevent the use of paths through 3 and 4 too

 

[abn444]

I see the bulk of the XX:50 Waterloo - Salisbury services are cut back to starting from Basingstoke again. Which is great other than the connection at Basingstoke being the XX:20 Waterloo - Exeter services. So anybody wanting Overton/Whitchurch will have a 30 minute fester at Basingstoke.

Great for winning back passengers

At least the other way it's only a 6 minute wait for the train from Weymouth

How hard would it be to insert a Basingstoke call on the XX:35 service towards Southampton, both for Basingstoke passengers from London (& Woking) and for anybody from Basingstoke wanting to travel towards Winchester.

Spread the passenger loadings

Admittedly this is starting to get into speculative territory but is there a reason why they don't put on something more similar to the pre December '07 timetable and swap around the Poole semi fast and the Weymouth (and swap the Branksome and Parkstone stops if that makes sense) and have:

Weymouth - Woking, Winchester, Southampton Airport, Southampton central, Brockenhurst, Bournemouth, Poole and stations to Weymouth

Poole semi-fast - Clapham Junction, Basingstoke, Winchester, Southampton Airport, Southampton central, Brockenhurst, New Milton, Christchurch, Pokesdown, Bournemouth, Branksome, Parkstone and Poole

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Admittedly this is starting to get into speculative territory but is there a reason why they don't put on something more similar to the pre December '07 timetable and swap around the Poole semi fast and the Weymouth (and swap the Branksome and Parkstone stops if that makes sense) and have:

Weymouth - Woking, Winchester, Southampton Airport, Southampton central, Brockenhurst, Bournemouth, Poole and stations to Weymouth

Poole semi-fast - Clapham Junction, Basingstoke, Winchester, Southampton Airport, Southampton central, Brockenhurst, New Milton, Christchurch, Pokesdown, Bournemouth, Branksome, Parkstone and Poole

Because this is a temporary timetable based around the existing paths I would imagine.

 

[21C101]

It is fascinating how the towns on the SWML have grown so much that most services have multiple stops with pretty well all trains now semi fasts.

I remember the days of non stop Waterloo to Southampton every hour and then onto Weymouth calling at Brockenhurst only before Bournemouth.

Then came Southampton Parkway. Now Winchester, Basingstoke and Woking have joined the party. It is a similar story with Portsmouth where nothing faster than "semi fast" runs.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

It is fascinating how the towns on the SWML have grown so much that most services have multiple stops with pretty well all trains now semi fasts.

I remember the days of non stop Waterloo to Southampton every hour and then onto Weymouth calling at Brockenhurst only before Bournemouth.

Then came Southampton Parkway. Now Winchester, Basingstoke and Woking have joined the party. It is a similar story with Portsmouth where nothing faster than "semi fast" runs.

Indeed and there’s often been calls from some people for the Bournemouth fast services to be sped up and SWR Consulted on making the Weymouth trains once again fast to Winchester in December 2018 - it wasn’t very popular regarding the loss of connectivity so was quietly dropped.

 

[cle]

It is fascinating how the towns on the SWML have grown so much that most services have multiple stops with pretty well all trains now semi fasts.

I remember the days of non stop Waterloo to Southampton every hour and then onto Weymouth calling at Brockenhurst only before Bournemouth.

Then came Southampton Parkway. Now Winchester, Basingstoke and Woking have joined the party. It is a similar story with Portsmouth where nothing faster than "semi fast" runs.

Yep, I remember a lot of services first stop Soton Airport Parkway (some after Clapham). But yes, so many important interchanges and large towns en route.

The trundles west of Bournemouth I'm sure could be better. Another hourly path would be useful, but where from. Could maybe an hourly Reading-Weymouth service be inserted, if nothing else can fit out of London?

 

[pompeyfan]

Aren’t the Sunday services still in the timetable for Poole, Bournemouth, Southampton and Waterloo along with Portsmouth Harbour, Fratton, Havant, Guildford, Waterloo?

 

[Snow1964]

It is fascinating how the towns on the SWML have grown so much that most services have multiple stops with pretty well all trains now semi fasts.

I remember the days of non stop Waterloo to Southampton every hour and then onto Weymouth calling at Brockenhurst only before Bournemouth.

Then came Southampton Parkway. Now Winchester, Basingstoke and Woking have joined the party. It is a similar story with Portsmouth where nothing faster than "semi fast" runs.

I remember when Bournemouth was the second stop on the fasts. Brockenhurst was only served by semi-fasts and stoppers in early 1980s (and the InterCity cross country trains didn’t call there either, although first northbound one, and last southbound one called at New Milton instead).

But on the other hand, journeys are now lot slower. I kept my 1979 timetable (the one after speed limit was raised at New Malden and Lymington junction), but I can’t remember if Northam Junction was still a 15mph crawl then. It is embarrassing how much slower some trains now are. You can’t do Waterloo- Bournemouth in 93 minutes anymore (and remember that was when line Speed was 90mph max)

Raising the speed limit to 100mph has resulted in slower journeys as extra stops have been added.

 

[21C101]

I remember when Bournemouth was the second stop on the fasts. Brockenhurst was only served by semi-fasts and stoppers in early 1980s (and the InterCity cross country trains didn’t call there either, although first northbound one, and last southbound one called at New Milton instead).

But on the other hand, journeys are slower. I kept my 1979 timetable (the one after speed limit was raised at New Malden and Lymington junction) and it is embarrassing how much slower some trains now are. You can’t do Waterloo- Bournemouth in 95 minutes anymore

There is a similar pattern on shorter distance routes too. For example there are no longer any offpeak fast Amersham or Cheshams on the Met line because of the increased passenger demand at stations like Pinner and Northwood.

On the Bournemouth/Weymouth line there is no attempt to provide intercity standard services now. In return the service frequency is much increased.

For Dorchester and Weymouth the answer is more double track between Wilton and Dinton plus a south Curve at Yeovil Junction allowing a class 222 or similar to call at Clapham , Salisbury and Yeovil Junction then divide and send a portion to Dorchester West and Weymouth which would give a journey time of 1h40 to Yeovil, 2h to Dorchester and 2h 15 to Weymouth.

This is a proposal being locally championed.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

For Dorchester and Weymouth the answer is more double track between Wilton and Dinton plus a south Curve at Yeovil Junction allowing a class 222 or similar to call at Clapham , Salisbury and Yeovil Junction then divide and send a portion to Dorchester West and Weymouth which would give a journey time of 1h40 to Yeovil, 2h to Dorchester and 2h 15 to Weymouth.

This is a proposal being locally championed.

Do you actually mean a service that only calls at Clapham, Salisbury, and Yeovil Junction (I'm struggling to imagine there'd be any paths for that either at the London end or on the single-track sections west of Salisbury), or do you you mean having an existing Waterloo-Salisbury service split some carriages off at Yeovil Junction?

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Do you actually mean a service that only calls at Clapham, Salisbury, and Yeovil Junction (I'm struggling to imagine there'd be any paths for that either at the London end or on the single-track sections west of Salisbury), or do you you mean having an existing Waterloo-Salisbury service split some carriages off at Yeovil Junction?

You’d surely need some extra infrastructure between Yeovil and Dorchester too unless you want to decimate the local service and flows to Bath/Bristol which are quite big on this route.

 

[21C101]

Do you actually mean a service that only calls at Clapham, Salisbury, and Yeovil Junction (I'm struggling to imagine there'd be any paths for that either at the London end or on the single-track sections west of Salisbury), or do you you mean having an existing Waterloo-Salisbury service split some carriages off at Yeovil Junction?

Indeed. It won't be happening before a Flyover appears at Woking though as it would need a third hourly path to Waterloo.

You’d surely need some extra infrastructure between Yeovil and Dorchester too unless you want to decimate the local service and flows to Bath/Bristol which are quite big on this route.

I'm not sure it will, although a dynamic loop at Maiden Newton would help.

The new timetable has an ECS departing Weymouth at 21:08, 5O82.

It takes 8 minutes from passing Dorchester West to reaching the loop stop at Maiden Newton.

It then takes 15 minutes to run to a further loop stop at Yeovil Pen Mill.

This is all at existing line speeds and the distance toYeovil Junction via a direct curve would be two miles shorter.

So, you have less than 15 minutes transit time from both Yeovil Jct to Maiden Newton and Maiden Newton to Dorchester West.

That would accomodate an hourly fast service and two to three hourly stopping service without too much difficulty. In practice though if a Waterloo-Clapham-Andover-Salisbury-Yeovil Junction-Dorchester West-Weymouth service ran, I suspect many trains would probably call at Maiden Newton as well.

The "Chiltern" stype proposals have been discussed here before and would also result in a Waterloo to Exeter Central journey time of about 2h 30minutes, Waterloo to Barnstaple in 3h 30 and Waterloo Okehampton in just over 3h.

"plans" for faster trains from Weymouth to London Waterloo

Just seen this on the Dorset Echo website, http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/14145416.Train_journey_times_to_London_could_be_slashed_if_new_multi_million_pound_project_gets_green_light/ TRAIN journey times between Weymouth and London could be slashed by almost an hour if a multi-million pound...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[HamworthyGoods]

I suspect many trains would probably call at Maiden Newton as well.

Maiden Newton is a mandatory stop for all traffic for token exchange. 3 minutes in one direction and 2 minutes in the other (I can’t remember which way round is which).

 

[DynamicSpirit]

It is fascinating how the towns on the SWML have grown so much that most services have multiple stops with pretty well all trains now semi fasts.

I remember the days of non stop Waterloo to Southampton every hour and then onto Weymouth calling at Brockenhurst only before Bournemouth.

Then came Southampton Parkway. Now Winchester, Basingstoke and Woking have joined the party. It is a similar story with Portsmouth where nothing faster than "semi fast" runs.

It does feel that the timetable has become a complete mess on that route. Back in the 1980s there was a regular service pattern with a clear and obvious divide between fast and slow trains. - which, as you say meant lots of places got faster trains. Now it seems more like, lots more trains each hour but almost every train has its own unique stopping pattern - with loads of skip-stopping which means you often still end up with relatively few trains between any given pair of stations. And nothing runs fast enough to give genuinely good journey times from places like Southampton and Bournemouth. I guess that's done at least in part out of necessity? Slight guesswork here, but does the skip-stopping mean you have fewer timetabling issues with needing trains to overtake each other on a largely 2-track railway West of Basingstoke? In my limited experience, at least off peak, trains tend to be fairly lightly loaded west of Basingstoke, so I almost wonder if people along the line would be better served by slightly reducing the off-peak frequency - if it meant you could go back to having regular slow trains that stop everywhere, regular fast trains that stop only at the key interchanges all the way to Bournemouth (the same key interchanges for every train), and at least one hourly London-Weymouth train that maybe does something like London-Woking-Basingstoke-Southampton-Bournemouth. (I suspect non-stop London-Southampton is no longer realistic).

(On a related note, never understood why practically everything stops at Brockenhurst? It doesn't seem like a particularly important destination)

 

[21C101]

Maiden Newton is a mandatory stop for all traffic for token exchange. 3 minutes in one direction and 2 minutes in the other (I can’t remember which way round is which).

I would expect tokens to be eliminated when recontrol of Pen Mill Box to Basingstoke Roc takes place in favour of axle counter track circuit block.

I gather that track circuit block is already in place from Maiden Newton to Dorchester.

 

[Snow1964]

(On a related note, never understood why practically everything stops at Brockenhurst? It doesn't seem like a particularly important destination)

Brockenhurst isn't important (and it is more a large village than a town, I think population is only about 3500)
It used to be the Lymington trains connected with the semi-fasts
Fast trains didn't used to stop (and line speed was increased about 1980 from 60mph to 80-90mph to help the fasts), I forget when it was changed, but I think it was end of 1980s or early 1990s

It all came about when it was decided to loop the stopping trains at Brockenhurst, previously they would leave Bournemouth soon after a faster train, thus keeping clear until Millbrook-Southampton (which is 4 track), allowing a change to next fast at Southampton. The change seems to have come about to allow other trains to stand in one of the centre island through platforms at Southampton for large part of an hour (although as all 4 platforms are reversibly signalled not sure why they cant pass on another platform).

Presumably the idea is that passengers changing fast-slow trains at Brockenhurst is better than doing it at Southampton. Ideally Totton station should have been resited other side of level crossing, and given a third platform (there is a loop here anyway associated with Fawley branch). It is much closer to where the link road towards the huge population area of Hythe (Southampton western waterside) has been built over last 30 years. The level crossing at other end of this loop was replaced by a new link road (A326) and this road links to the motorway thus making it easier to drive to Southampton Parkway. A resited Totton (at Rushington) would have made a good parkway station. The current Totton is very close to Redbridge station, and no longer anywhere near centre of town which grew westwards.

The whole fast, semi-fast, slow mess seems to have come about by retaining every little station where it was historically sited, rather than trying to make any parkway stations west of Southampton airport. Brockenhurst is a poor choice as many of the surrounding towns can only reach there along unlit (and often icy in winter) forest roads.

 

[JonathanH]

It should be obvious that it isn't possible to run a genuine fast and a semi-fast on a route of 142 miles and not have the fast overtake the semi-fast somewhere on the route. Far better to spread the stops between the different services (which is why Pokesdown, Branksome and Hamworthy are stops in the 'fast').

It can be noted that the attempt to run a Weymouth to Portsmouth slow was an attempt to have a faster Waterloo service but people wanted to retain 2tph at broadly even spacing to Waterloo.

The overall timetable includes most of the station pairs with alternate services calling Clapham Junction - Basingstoke and Woking - Winchester. Really quite clever. Woking to Basingstoke is half hourly on the Salisbury line services (which removal has led to the enquiry about stopping the Woking - Winchester service at Basingstoke).

 

[SteelWeelApeal]

It does feel that the timetable has become a complete mess on that route. Back in the 1980s there was a regular service pattern with a clear and obvious divide between fast and slow trains. - which, as you say meant lots of places got faster trains. Now it seems more like, lots more trains each hour but almost every train has its own unique stopping pattern - with loads of skip-stopping which means you often still end up with relatively few trains between any given pair of stations. And nothing runs fast enough to give genuinely good journey times from places like Southampton and Bournemouth. I guess that's done at least in part out of necessity? Slight guesswork here, but does the skip-stopping mean you have fewer timetabling issues with needing trains to overtake each other on a largely 2-track railway West of Basingstoke? In my limited experience, at least off peak, trains tend to be fairly lightly loaded west of Basingstoke, so I almost wonder if people along the line would be better served by slightly reducing the off-peak frequency - if it meant you could go back to having regular slow trains that stop everywhere, regular fast trains that stop only at the key interchanges all the way to Bournemouth (the same key interchanges for every train), and at least one hourly London-Weymouth train that maybe does something like London-Woking-Basingstoke-Southampton-Bournemouth. (I suspect non-stop London-Southampton is no longer realistic).

(On a related note, never understood why practically everything stops at Brockenhurst? It doesn't seem like a particularly important destination)

I don't think it's quite as random as you seem to believe. Pre-covid, every hour (as far as I can remember) there was:

• A Weymouth fast
• A Weymouth semi-fast (fast service to around Poole, then stopper)
• A Poole semi-fast (stopper west of Southampton)
• A Portsmouth semi-fast (stopper south of Eastleigh)

Then on top of this there was a Crosscountry fast to Bournemouth every hour, and to Southampton every other hour.
I think this works quite well in that almost every station has a service to London that isn't a stopper all the way.

(The term "fast" is used comparatively. It obviously isn't quite the same as London to York kind of fast, although the frequency of stops does compare to Warrington to Lancaster, or Rugby to Wolverhampton, or Newport to Swansea).