Paddington to Bristol Parkway non stop

[penguin8967]

Having one or two extra stops on a service will hardly make a difference - IETs and electrification means trains can reach 125mph within minutes of leaving a station, making very little difference to the overall journey time.

For example, the 06:28 Swansea - Paddington runs nonstop from Swindon - time from Bristol Parkway to London is 1 hour and 12 minutes.
However, the service half an hour later stops at Swindon and Reading and takes 1 hour 15 mins from BPW.

3 minutes difference (could technically be 2 as the 06:28 has an extra minute in Swindon) is hardly a major increase in journey time, and it allows for both connections and a more frequent service for passengers of intermediate stops. The Bristol Parkway to London fasts generally don't make sense in my opinion.

 

[Horizon22]

Have you seriously never been on a train where reservations haven't been managed properly? You've never occupied a seat with no reservation notice, only for the reservation to appear a few stops along the route once the system is booted up properly?

Have you never found the only available seat to be an aisle seat, with the window seat regularly changing occupants? Have you never been on a crowded train with people shuffling past moving bags around at every station?

I do wonder how divorced some people are from many of the realities of train travel, yet still feel entitled to criticise others who have experienced more of the realities.

Right that's a separate matter though (although it's normally off entirely or on entirely in my experience). I've almost always found a window seat somewhere on a train (many full and standing trains are not at the extremes) And not sure what that has to do with the number of stops the train makes; unless you are saying that these issues wouldn't exist with all those pesky intermediate travellers, how dare they board a train!

 

[Bald Rick]

So why then, does somewhere like York deserve its non stop service? Is this because the demand for York actually is there? Your arguments often depend on population centres, but York is smaller than Cardiff, and a fair bit further from London.

Because it is the first significant traffic generator on the route between London, Newcastle and Edinburgh, the latter of which has significant air co petition. And there is capacity for other services on the same route to York to pick up the trade from the smaller traffic generators.

If Cardiff was en route to a significant traffic generator that brought in £100m plus of revenue, with the opportunity to double that by gaining market share, and a way could be found to serve the intermediate stations on the route adequately, then there might be case.

As is the absence of having to shuffle around frequently en route to your destination.

Why ?

You've never occupied a seat with no reservation notice, only for the reservation to appear a few stops along the route once the system is booted up properly?

No, never, in (roughly) weekly use of long distance services for 30 years.

Have you never found the only available seat to be an aisle seat, with the window seat regularly changing occupants?

No, never. But if I did, I would get that window seat at the first change.

Have you never been on a crowded train with people shuffling past moving bags around at every station?

on long distance services, very rarely.

 

[devon_belle]

Have there ever been regular passenger services which ran non-stop through Plymouth? Not to my knowledge. I cannot see any possible justification for missing such a large and important city.

Historically, yes. Some trains (especially on summer Saturdays) would have not called at a single station for a passenger stop between Cornwall and Paddington. Exeter was more frequently skipped than Plymouth I believe. Even though non-stop runs such as Paddington-Truro existed, the trains were timed relatively slowly (probably because expresses would be closely packed together and delays would knock-on).

These days, of course, the timetable is much more regular and seasonal holiday traffic is not accounted for with such provisions of extra trains (probably because such volumes no longer exist/prefer to lug it down the M5/A38).

I'd like to see more 'proper' express options from the west country to London, but having traveled recently on the fastest available Exeter-Taunton-Reading services I do not see the demand.

 

[mangyiscute]

As someone from reading, I think it's important to reinstate the importance of its stop as an interchange for all of these services - every time I take a train from Exeter, Bristol or Cardiff to reading, I am always shocked at the number of people who are alighting at Reading, and then you have plenty of people to fill their seats for the journey from there to London - I can't comment on the peak time journeys that skips reading as I very rarely travel at peak time and I will always take the one that stops at reading since that's where I need to go, but off peak I think skipping it would be a disaster on any services. Likewise, Didcot and Swindon do always seem pretty well used - I think that the demand for railways is quite elastic and when somewhere like Swindon gets 5 trains per hour to London, it does drive a rather large demand which could be easily lost.
As for south west services, I think that the issue with these are that they are 90% of the time about 2-5 mins late into reading, which isn't much but when it happens repeatedly it gets very frustrating. The 09:32 from reading (05:15 from Penzance) is the first off peak train, and I therefore have taken it a lot, at least 20 times recently. I have only seen it leave reading at 09:32 and not 09:35 or later once in all of that time. The priority should be to sort this issue out before anything else imo, I'm not sure what causes them to always be delayed but it's very annoying. I do agree tho some reading, Exeter and Plymouth services I think would be very beneficial - the services from Exeter tend to be the busiest when they arrive into reading compared to Bristol or South Wales ones.

 

[Horizon22]

As for south west services, I think that the issue with these are that they are 90% of the time about 2-5 mins late into reading, which isn't much but when it happens repeatedly it gets very frustrating. The 09:32 from reading (05:15 from Penzance) is the first off peak train, and I therefore have taken it a lot, at least 20 times recently. I have only seen it leave reading at 09:32 and not 09:35 or later once in all of that time. The priority should be to sort this issue out before anything else imo, I'm not sure what causes them to always be delayed but it's very annoying. I do agree tho some reading, Exeter and Plymouth services I think would be very beneficial - the services from Exeter tend to be the busiest when they arrive into reading compared to Bristol or South Wales ones.

Take your pick - the long route with potential for knock-on delays from a wider area, common infrastructure issues around the Westbury area, or mixed traffic (freight, expresses, regional, stoppers) on a large section of the Berks & Hants line between Westbury and Reading.

 

[Shrop]

No, never, in (roughly) weekly use of long distance services for 30 years.

No, never. But if I did, I would get that window seat at the first change.

on long distance services, very rarely.

Your answers suggest that you've had many, very fortunate rail travel experiences. I could respond with examples about my own rather different experiences, but I get the feeling that I'm saying things people in the rail hierarchy simply don't want to hear.

Let me say that I spend a lot of time telling friends and colleagues that rail travel is actually a lot better than many members of the public give it credit for, but I am dismayed when people who are influential in rail circles, have missed out so much on realities.

I'd be happy to continue this privately, I fear that my comments on this public forum are considered too provocative, even if I could give many examples of experiences that many people on here seem to have missed out on!

 

[irish_rail]

what evidence is there for that? Do you not think GWR (and predecessors) might have people who specifically look at their markets and where opportunities are?

My "evidence" is as a resident of Plymouth and talking to none railway people. The same thing crops up everytime the train is mentioned

"Oh we were going to take the train to London until we realised it costs £x and so ended up driving. "

The demand is there, the finances to support that demand less so. Plymouth is a pretty poor place, as is much of Cornwall.

For the price people pay, the journey is relatively slow, the seats are uncomfortable, the catering provision is woeful and the list goes on. Not to mention the spectre of short formed 5 car trains turning up. I recently drove a 5 vice 9 car train and it was amazing how upset several people where that their reservations where now invalid. None of this is going to help grow the market which is a shame.

 

[Horizon22]

My "evidence" is as a resident of Plymouth and talking to none railway people. The same thing crops up everytime the train is mentioned

"Oh we were going to take the train to London until we realised it costs £x and so ended up driving. "

The demand is there, the finances to support that demand less so. Plymouth is a pretty poor place, as is much of Cornwall.

For the price people pay, the journey is relatively slow, the seats are uncomfortable, the catering provision is woeful and the list goes on. Not to mention the spectre of short formed 5 car trains turning up. I recently drove a 5 vice 9 car train and it was amazing how upset several people where that their reservations where now invalid. None of this is going to help grow the market which is a shame.

So cost is the issue then, not the length of the journey and the stops the train does or doesn't make.

 

[Bald Rick]

Oh I have plenty of bad experiences, with poor regulation being the most prevalent, lack of information a close second (somewhat eased these days), and the most frustrating being staff (of all grades) who just don’t seem to care about their passengers experience.

But I haven’t had the experiences you describe. Not in 30 years of frequent long distance travel, nor the 7 years in my career where I commuted long distance, daily, on three different routes (two on different intercity lines to London, one cross country), nor (back on topic) in a few journeys I made to the West Country earlier this year.

I don’t doubt they do happen, and perhaps I’m lucky, although I suspect that what you describe is fairly rare and that, actually, most people don’t seem to mind when it does.

 

[mangyiscute]

I think the issue is that while there are plenty of people turned away by the cost, the trains still seem to be very full from the south west, so there is no reason for GWR to try and offer a better service on board because they still fill the seats

 

[Shrop]

So cost is the issue then, not the length of the journey and the stops the train does or doesn't make.

I think you, and others know, that the issues are many, with the number of stops being one of them. You're deliberately focusing on just one side of a multi faceted argument.

 

[Bald Rick]

Oh we were going to take the train to London until we realised it costs £x and so ended up driving.

that’s cost, not journey time. And probably a perception of cost - it is fairly easy to get a Plymouth - London return for less than £100, or less than £70 with a railcard. That’s very competitive with driving for a 460 mile round trip (before parking / congestion charges etc are taken into account).

 

[Shrop]

Oh I have plenty of bad experiences, with poor regulation being the most prevalent, lack of information a close second (somewhat eased these days), and the most frustrating being staff (of all grades) who just don’t seem to care about their passengers experience.

But I haven’t had the experiences you describe. Not in 30 years of frequent long distance travel, nor the 7 years in my career where I commuted long distance, daily, on three different routes (two on different intercity lines to London, one cross country), not (back on topic) in a few journeys I made to the West Country earlier this year.

I don’t doubt they do happen, and perhaps I’m lucky, although I suspect that what you describe is fairly rare and that, actually, most people don’t seem to mind when it does.

Maybe I was just unlucky having several trips with XC, boarding at Southampton (heading to Birmingham), occupying a seat until Reading where the train became crowded, and only then did the reservations flicker into action. Which then led to myself and others being turfed out of our seats by those with reservations, by which time all of the unreserved seats had become occupied by others. Believe me this happened a good few times.

 

[The Planner]

I think you, and others know, that the issues are many, with the number of stops being one of them. You're deliberately focusing on just one side of a multi faceted argument.

What should the criteria be for the amount of stops a train has?

 

[Bald Rick]

For Cornwall, by far the best way of speeding up journeys whilst protecting revenue would be to cut out most calls in Cornwall. Just serve the stations with more than half a million passengers a year (Truro, Penzance) and you can chop 20-30 minutes out of the trip. I’d be willing to bet that more passengers for London and Reading use these two stations than all the other stations in Cornwall combined. The majority of Cornwall to London area passengers get significant benefit, and the big traffic generators at Plymouth, Exeter, Taunton etc keep their service.

or is that not how this is supposed to work?

 

[irish_rail]

So cost is the issue then, not the length of the journey and the stops the train does or doesn't make.

Cost is one issue. People may be more prepared to part with their hard earned money if the train service was better / quicker.

For Cornwall, by far the best way of speeding up journeys whilst protecting revenue would be to cut out most calls in Cornwall. Just serve the stations with more than half a million passengers a year (Truro, Penzance) and you can chop 20-30 minutes out of the trip. I’d be willing to bet that more passengers for London and Reading use these two stations than all the other stations in Cornwall combined. The majority of Cornwall to London area passengers get significant benefit, and the big traffic generators at Plymouth, Exeter, Taunton etc keep their service.

or is that not how this is supposed to work?

I agree that the Londons stop too much in Cornwall, however I think you'll find that Liskeard, Bodmin, And St Erth (for St ives) probably all warrant London services.
St Austell, Par, Redruth, Camborne are all busy but mainly with inner Cornish travel or to Plymouth and so could perhaps lose some London trains. The less said about London trains stopping at the likes of St Germans and Hayle the better!

For Cornwall, by far the best way of speeding up journeys whilst protecting revenue would be to cut out most calls in Cornwall. Just serve the stations with more than half a million passengers a year (Truro, Penzance) and you can chop 20-30 minutes out of the trip. I’d be willing to bet that more passengers for London and Reading use these two stations than all the other stations in Cornwall combined. The majority of Cornwall to London area passengers get significant benefit, and the big traffic generators at Plymouth, Exeter, Taunton etc keep their service.

or is that not how this is supposed to work?

I agree that the Londons stop too much in Cornwall, however I think you'll find that Liskeard, Bodmin, And St Erth (for St ives) probably all warrant London services.
St Austell, Par, Redruth, Camborne are all busy but mainly with inner Cornish travel or to Plymouth and so could perhaps lose some London trains. The less said about London trains stopping at the likes of St Germans and Hayle the better!

Having one or two extra stops on a service will hardly make a difference - IETs and electrification means trains can reach 125mph within minutes of leaving a station, making very little difference to the overall journey .

Whilst this may be true of the south Wales trains, the diesel stuff to the south west is slowed down more by a stop. Take Tiverton on the up for example. 2 minutes to decelerate. 2 minutes to stop at station, and then due to the gradient up Whitehall, won't be back up to linespeed until near Wellington (costing id guess a further 3 minutes). So perhaps 7 minutes could be chopped from the schedule by omitting Tiverton??? I may be beingslightly optimistic there with my calculations (maths isn't a strong point) but I'd be shocked if the saving was less than 5 minutes on a London bound train.

 

[paul1609]

Its no wonder investment is so lacking in this part of the world with that attitude. No real journey improvement since the 1980s, hardly a ringing endorsement.

Under 3 hours Plymouth to London should be achieved on several trains a day in my view, if only to attempt to sell the city and wider south west to the world a little better as more than just somewhere people come on holiday.

I dont personally think under 3 hours to Plymouth would make any difference. Whilst 1 hr 59 vice 2 hours makes a difference, once you get beyond the 2 hour threshold the economic benefit is miniscule. Plymouth is just too far geographically from the Southeast to be a major force especially with the poor road connections a303/38. Exetet will be the major regional centre.

 

[brad465]

There are also ideas at play that the 10.04 Paddington to Penzance will be a 3 hour journey time to Plymouth from next summer.

Do you know what they're planning to do to this service to make it 3 hours? Currently that means finding 8 minutes.

Its not the point. The population of Cornwall plus west Devon and Plymouth is large enough to warrant faster services to London. There just isn't the political will sadly, and as a result the area will always be left behind and its no surprise outward investment isn't forthcoming. Sadly Plymouth City Council for example is very backward looking and has never cared too much about improvement , and I guess this is part of the problem..

I'm also interested in the current statistics on passenger usage at Tiverton and Taunton.
Anecdotally speaking, since covid both stations seem to me to both be very poorly used , especially Taunton. Whereas in comparison Plymouth and Exeter seemed to have bounced back stronger than pre covid.
If it continues like this, I'd argue that some trains missing out Taunton and Tiverton should be justified.

Tiverton is actually skipped fairly regularly, but more often on the Paddington-Exeter (with Paignton/Plymouth occasional extensions) services, presumably because they need to get some distance from the express that's almost caught up by Taunton. A few expresses do skip Tiverton as well, and even at least one Penzance -Cardiff train (16:50 does at least). Taunton used to be skipped on the 10:06 and 12:06 departures to Penzance, and at least once in the other direction, but this changed with the IET timetable. This does mean the 100mph through speed seems to be hardly used.

One of the advantages of skipping Reading if time savings are to be made is it now has a 95mph through speed (ignoring delays) if going towards Swindon, with enough platforms to enable overtaking. I imagine it wasn't worth skipping there so much before the major remodelling, when it was just 50mph and very congested anyway.

 

[Dren Ahmeti]

Now(well for the past 2 and a half years really!) that these express services have been axed and highly unlikely to ever return, it means me hunting around again the future timetables for when there are rare diverted services running "fast" along the original Great Western Mainline to/from/via Bristol Temple Meads due to engineering work on the Berks & Hants. These services are very very rare. I remember there being such services on a weekend or two back in 2011, and then the next ones were not until 2018! There were some back in 2019 if I recall, though these were on weekdays only and I wasn't able to travel on those due to working.

Those expresses nearly always caught up with the preceeding South Wales service at Reading, if not by Swindon approaching Rushey Platt.
I remember booking myself (pre-Covid) onto one of the 1Hxx services from Bristol Parkway to connect to a Eurostar, and we crawled through Reading P10, as TVSC refused to hold the late preceding train looped in P11 for us to fly through…
Unlike 1E01 (the 05:40 off Edinburgh, calling only at Newcastle) that has half the ECML looped for it, generally no service holds that status on the GWML, sadly.

Ironically, this has been re-emulated on the 387 diagrams from BPW having horrendous amounts of stop-starts, as the faster acceleration acts against the lower line-speed available to them in places, especially approaching Swindon - where being 3-5 minutes early approaching Wootton Bassett Junction is not uncommon.

These days, of course, the timetable is much more regular and seasonal holiday traffic is not accounted for with such provisions of extra trains (probably because such volumes no longer exist/prefer to lug it down the M5/A38).

I'd like to see more 'proper' express options from the west country to London, but having traveled recently on the fastest available Exeter-Taunton-Reading services I do not see the demand.

I did a (scheduled) Reading-Exeter non-stop back in HST days - it felt like an absolute age, as long non-stops up the B&H with not many discerning features really does seem longer than say York-London etc.

One of the advantages of skipping Reading if time savings are to be made is it now has a 95mph through speed (ignoring delays) if going towards Swindon, with enough platforms to enable overtaking. I imagine it wasn't worth skipping there so much before the major remodelling, when it was just 50mph and very congested anyway.

Out of the 7-8 times I’ve skipped my home station Reading, maybe 2 or 3 of those runs were clear through?

1U28 19:12 PAD-BRI (in years gone by, first stop SWI) was one that did usually get a clear run, and it absolutely hooned it through the platform at 95!
1G23/25/27/29 (PAD-CNM during the evening peak) are first stop Didcot from Paddington, as well as the new fast Oxfords - “flyers” - which are 1W33/34, 1M92 and 1W04.

In the morning peak, 1A09 06:55 TAU-PAD runs non-stop from Chippenham-London, which I’ve also taken from Bristol a few times.
1A06 06:20 WSM-PAD and 1L08 06:28 SWA-PAD are also fast from SWI.

There also used to be a morning service from DID, that was all-stops (or maybe semi-fast?) to Paddington, but passed Reading via P15 at around 7am, if my memory serves me correctly!

 

[Bald Rick]

So perhaps 7 minutes could be chopped from the schedule by omitting Tiverton??? I may be beingslightly optimistic there with my calculations (maths isn't a strong point) but I'd be shocked if the saving was less than 5 minutes on a London bound train.

I’m afraid I must shock you.

For an 80x, the base time for Exeter SD to Taunton non stop is 22 minutes.

Realtime Trains | 1A81 1055 Paignton to London Paddington | 13/09/2022

Real-time train running information for 1A81 1055 departure from Paignton to London Paddington on 13/09/2022. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

the base time for Exeter SD to Taunton with a stop at Tiverton Parkway is 26 minutes.

Realtime Trains | 1A76 0605 Penzance to London Paddington | 13/09/2022

Real-time train running information for 1A76 0605 departure from Penzance to London Paddington on 13/09/2022. From Realtime Trains, an independent source of train running info for Great Britain.

www.realtimetrains.co.uk

 

[Shrop]

What should the criteria be for the amount of stops a train has?

Why would you ask such an open question when you know that there is no all-embracing answer? Perhaps you could provide the criteria? Or maybe not, because you're fully aware that as soon as criteria are provided, exceptions can be found.

 

[The Planner]

Why would you ask such an open question when you know that there is no all-embracing answer? Perhaps you could provide the criteria? Or maybe not, because you're fully aware that as soon as criteria are provided, exceptions can be found.

Exactly, hence every suggestion/proposal should be scrutinised and "prestige" wouldn't be anywhere near the scoring criteria.

 

[Shrop]

Exactly, hence every suggestion/proposal should be scrutinised and "prestige" wouldn't be anywhere near the scoring criteria.

Let's just say that there's quite a bit of room for improvement.

 

[MontyP]

Let's just say that there's quite a bit of room for improvement.

I can't see any circumstances in which trains to Plymouth are going to regularly skip Reading, Taunton or Exeter. With just these three stops, the fastest service at the moment (06:37 from Paddington) does the journey in 2:59. Average journey time for the regular hourly "fasts" (xx04 from Paddington from 0804 to 1904) is around 3:10.

So if all these services were speeded up to 2:59, how many extra passengers would this generate? And how many would be lost from the skipped stops at Tiverton, Newton Abbot and Totnes? On a journey of that length, I don't think 10 mins would make any significant difference to anyone's decision as to whether to make the journey by train or not.

 

[Shrop]

I can't see any circumstances in which trains to Plymouth are going to regularly skip Reading, Taunton or Exeter. With just these three stops, the fastest service at the moment (06:37 from Paddington) does the journey in 2:59. Average journey time for the regular hourly "fasts" (xx04 from Paddington from 0804 to 1904) is around 3:10.

So if all these services were speeded up to 2:59, how many extra passengers would this generate? And how many would be lost from the skipped stops at Tiverton, Newton Abbot and Totnes? On a journey of that length, I don't think 10 mins would make any significant difference to anyone's decision as to whether to make the journey by train or not.

The Cornish route isn't so bad, and all of your comments are understandable, although I do think that just a couple of trains a day stopping only once or twice between London and Plymouth would be useful. It's South Wales that deserves better, I'd like to see a couple of services each day that are first stop Newport, or at least Bristol Parkway, and I'm not convinced that Reading and Swindon would need to suffer unduly for this to happen.

 

[Techniquest]

For Cornwall, by far the best way of speeding up journeys whilst protecting revenue would be to cut out most calls in Cornwall. Just serve the stations with more than half a million passengers a year (Truro, Penzance) and you can chop 20-30 minutes out of the trip. I’d be willing to bet that more passengers for London and Reading use these two stations than all the other stations in Cornwall combined. The majority of Cornwall to London area passengers get significant benefit, and the big traffic generators at Plymouth, Exeter, Taunton etc keep their service.

or is that not how this is supposed to work?

I'd actually support such a proposal. There's nothing quite so frustrating as doing London to Penzance and getting to Plymouth relatively quickly, then realising just how long the journey onwards takes. A service with only a very limited amount of stops in Cornwall would certainly make things much more tolerable. Before the extra stopping trains arrived in Cornwall, then it wouldn't have been an option but I think it would have a fair bit of appeal if the journey time could be knocked down hugely.

Certainly it would potentially have more appeal than cutting out Exeter, Tiverton and Taunton!

 

[Falcon1200]

Historically, yes. Some trains (especially on summer Saturdays) would have not called at a single station for a passenger stop between Cornwall and Paddington. Exeter was more frequently skipped than Plymouth I believe. Even though non-stop runs such as Paddington-Truro existed, the trains were timed relatively slowly (probably because expresses would be closely packed together and delays would knock-on).

Interesting, although of course such trains did not run for the benefit of Cornwall and Devon folk going up to London, but to get the grockles home after their holidays!

 

[mangyiscute]

I think the issue is that while we are talking about skipping stops in Cornwall, others want to speed up the journey from Plymouth to London which obviously wouldn't be helped by less Cornish stops. For example, skipping Hayle will only help Penzance and St Erth passengers, which doesn't make up much of the passengers who will take the train.
I think the issue with Reading skips at the moment is like some people said earlier, it is all done on the Cheltenham and Oxford/Worcester services, so it cuts of the direct services to these destinations for a few hours. Ideally, each destination (Bristol, South Wales, Exeter, Cheltenham and Oxford) should have a couple of super fast services, but obviously this would be a lot harder to path. Any off peak skips i dont think would be worth it - for example if the Swansea services skipped Reading and only the Cardiff one called, I would expect the Cardiff train to be a lot busier as I don't think too many passengers would be fussed about the journey to London taking a couple more minutes. When the Bristol services alternated between stopping at and skipping Didcot, I would expect that the number of passengers not using Didcot was still almost the exact same on each train

 

[Horizon22]

I think you, and others know, that the issues are many, with the number of stops being one of them. You're deliberately focusing on just one side of a multi faceted argument.

I'm really not. Cornwall is geographically a fair distance from London with tricky terrain and rail geography. You've decided to focus on one very specific issues of stops, which I am attempting to refute. I don't disagree there are other issues as well.

Yes similar distances to the North of England from London have better journey times and fewer stops if you select the right ones, but they are also ontowards other large destinations like Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

One issue is that the service is doubling up as inter-city and partly regional. Of course a Cornish stopper Penzance - Plymouth (and onwards) service does run, but the times are not even and at peak seasons people are heading to a range of Cornish destinations, not just St Ives (St Erth), Truro (Falmouth & S. Cornwall) and Penzance. The timetable isn't necessarily regular and that's part of the issue, but it can't be the easiest to time & plan.

Back to the original point of S. Wales, it's all about the differential of journey times increased versus the incovenience caused to others. Probably about 10 minutes all in all, and is that really worth it? It is curious this comes up so often regarding the GWML, but not other locations. Is it really so egregious compared to other parts of the network? It does seem like an open-access operator is best suited to tap that specific demand, a few times a day a la Grand Central or Hull Trains and let GWR concentrate on the core S. Wales service.