TFW 2024 Timetable consultation.

[Lurcheroo]

Cant see a thread for it but here's TFW's timetable consultation.

TfW Future Timetable Review​

As announced last year, we’ve spent time reviewing our longer-term rail timetable commitments to ensure they best meet the demands of customers and are fit for the needs of passengers. We’re pleased to now be able to share this work with you, our key stakeholders and customers.

Please note, this information is relating to the Wales and Borders services, and not the South Wales Metro / Core Valleys Lines (CVL) which includes Treherbert, Aberdare, Merthyr, Rhymney, Coryton, City, Bay and Penarth. More information about the June 2024 timetables for these lines will be issued shortly.

Our future planning is based on a number of evidence-based factors including demand and growth trends, as well as social and economic factors. Our long-term strategy was developed by giving careful consideration to all of these.

In the wake of the Covid 19 pandemic, the way people use public transport for work, education and leisure has changed significantly. We’ve changed too, becoming a public railway in the truest sense of the word. Nearly every service we run requires some form of public subsidy at a time where budgets are increasingly stretched. Every penny we make above and beyond our operating costs, goes back into reducing the subsidy we receive. As a responsible operator it is imperative that we balance the needs for a regular, robust and reliable service within our budgets and against our targets to deliver more sustainable transport.

We have developed our future timetable to better align with the new travel habits and requirements of customers, whilst becoming a truly multimodal operator. That means we’re looking at demand and the opportunities for growth across bus and rail together. On the railway, some routes will see little change, others will see slightly different calling patterns better targeted to current needs, but in other areas we have had to make some tough decisions in order to ensure we provide capacity where most needed, grow revenue and ultimately reduce public subsidy. Regular stakeholder feedback on our timetables has fed into this, alongside passenger counts and close consideration of alternative travel options.

The review outcomes will see TfW;

• Running 87 more services on mainline routes than when TfW took over in 2018 and more carriages added to some of our busiest services; to help meet growing demand
• Removing a small number of services that have very low passenger demand currently
• Deferring some of our earlier-made commitments for more services on certain routes.

As part of this review process differing levels of subsidy saving options were considered and it was agreed to proceed with a modest set of changes to the Wales and Borders rail timetables, which we outline in more detail below.

The new timetable includes:

• Additional calls to/from Milford Haven and Haverfordwest giving the towns 13 services per day in each direction
• Hourly service between Aberystwyth and Shrewsbury to run from May to September from May 2026
• Additional peak time services on the Vale of Glamorgan line by 2026, but the increase to 2tph throughout the day deferred
• Cardiff <> Cheltenham services are going to be enhanced by June 2024 to hourly services throughout the day time.
• Extra services between Swansea and Tenby between May and September from 2025, subject to agreement with Network Rail
• Liverpool to Chester service extended to Llandudno from 2026, subject to agreement with Network Rail and work completed to level crossings
• Heart of Wales services planned to cross at Llandrindod Wells to give much better customer experience in event of disruption (services currently cross at Llanwrtyd Wells).

Some of the more difficult decisions we’ve taken include:

• Reducing Heart of Wales Line services from five through services to four per day from December 2024 and removal of the two late evening services to Llandovery and Llandrindod. Bus options are currently being explored.
• Removal of four services between Machynlleth and Pwllheli (two in each direction). Two further services will be retimed and will run between March and December.
• Amending four journeys to end at Carmarthen (instead of Cardiff Central as of today), though these will connect into GWR services Carmarthen <> London Paddington. (Connection times can be found in our timetables).
• To defer the introduction of some additional evening services between Cardiff and Cheltenham Spa.
• To defer a previous commitment to increase trains between Cardiff Central and Bridgend, via the Vale of Glamorgan line, to two trains per hour. However, we will introduce an additional peak service in each direction.

• To defer a previous commitment to introduce a new Cardiff Central <> Shrewsbury <> Liverpool Lime Street service, owing to the levels of Network Rail infrastructure enhancement required.
• To defer a previous commitment of increasing our services between Cardiff and Swansea to one train per hour at off peak times. However, this service remains hourly during the peak.

We intend to deliver these timetables over the next few years, however, it is still vitally important that we take your feedback on board. Whilst we’re unable to make fundamental changes to the approach we’ve outlined, some timing and service adjustments could still be made. We’re particularly interested to hear if there are things you think we could do differently to help people in your areas make better connections either onto other trains or onto local or national bus routes.

It is also important to reflect that when we began serving the people of Wales and the Borders in 2018, we ran 441 mainline (excluding CVL) services per day. Our future timetable under the new plans will see 528 services a day in the Summer and 512 in the Winter. Those journeys are increasingly being made on newer, longer, more reliable trains which will give customers confidence to travel on the Wales and Borders rail network.

Thank you for your patience as we carefully worked thought this timetable review process. We now encourage you to fill in the feedback form found on this page.

Link:

TfW Future Timetable Review

As announced last year, we’ve spent time reviewing our longer-term rail timetable commitments to ensure they best meet the demands of customers and are fit for the needs of passengers. We’re pleased to now be able to share this work with you, our key stakeholders and

haveyoursay.tfw.wales

 

[Tom125]

Disappointing for those in rural Wales. Loss of Cardiff to Liverpool direct is shame- TfW would have been better cancelling Cardiff to Holyhead and replacing it with Cardiff to Liverpool. I bet there is far more demand Cardiff to Liverpool than there is Cardiff to the north Wales coast.

 

[Llandudno]

Liverpool to Llandudno pushed back from 2023 (?) until 2026 subject to level crossing issues near the caravan parks - in other words scrapped leaving the costly Halton Curve as an almost hourly shuttle between Liverpool and Chester with random connections along the coast.

 

[Lurcheroo]

Disappointing for those in rural Wales. Loss of Cardiff to Liverpool direct is shame- TfW would have been better cancelling Cardiff to Holyhead and replacing it with Cardiff to Liverpool. I bet there is far more demand Cardiff to Liverpool than there is Cardiff to the north Wales coast.

Very disappointing! It’s a shame the liverpool couldn’t even go as far as Shrewsbury.

Liverpool to Llandudno pushed back from 2023 (?) until 2026 subject to level crossing issues near the caravan parks - in other words scrapped leaving the costly Halton Curve as an almost hourly shuttle between Liverpool and Chester with random connections along the coast.

Tough one, not a lot TFW can do if NR say they can’t run.

 

[Krokodil]

Tough one, not a lot TFW can do if NR say they can’t run.

It would be something if the paths and connections were any better. It would also be something if the service could at least run as far as Rhyl.

 

[allaction]

Talk of additional services to and from Swansea and Tenby during summer 2025 interests me, but only merit a line in the report.

 

[L401CJF]

The deferral of Liverpool to North/South Wales isn't exactly the end of the world nor is it a surprise. Realistically on the Chester to Shrewsbury section you need additional signalling blocks between Wrexham and Gobowen.

Connections generally arnt too bad to/from the Coast with the service from Liverpool arriving into Chester at XX30 (ish) and the Llandudno service departing at XX50 (ish). Coming the other way you've got the service from Holyhead to Cardiff/Birmingham arriving from XX15-XX35 ish depending on the hour, so generally 20mins or so wait in each direction as the Liverpool departs at XX40 (43 usually i think).

Heading towards Shrewsbury however is rubbish as you've generally not long missed one and have nearly an hour (sometimes more) to wait.

I wouldn't say the Liverpool shuttles are a waste of money, they are pretty well used with plenty of passengers originating from North Wales/Shrewsbury lines heading to Liverpool and South Parkway. Get a fair few using it to get to Liverpool Airport too. Plus you can often fill all the seats at Frodsham with people heading to Liverpool, it does have a purpose even if it is just a shuttle and not running to its full potential. Hopefully the long term plans don't get binned.

EDIT - Interestingly, they've not planned to axe the 2 trains per hour on the Wrexham-Bidston line which I was half expecting they would!

 

[Doctor Fegg]

EDIT - Interestingly, they've not planned to axe the 2 trains per hour on the Wrexham-Bidston line which I was half expecting they would!

The PDF says "There is no change proposed to today's 45-minute timetable. Introducing two trains per hour is deferred."

 

[jamess]

some additional stops at Nantwich and Whitchurch on the Cardiff to Manchesters

 

[L401CJF]

The PDF says "There is no change proposed to today's 45-minute timetable. Introducing two trains per hour is deferred."

Ah I only read the quoted text, I'll look at the PDF in detail later! Cheers

 

[anthony263]

Swanline services extended to Pembroke Dock. Hourly evening service from Cardiff but very poor 2 Hourly daytime service. People been asking years for a Hourly service yet again tfw a big disappointment.heart of wales line cut to 4 trains per day again

Large gaps between trains Cardiff to Swansea.

Fishguard looses quite a few through trains beyond carmarthen.

Evening services Cardiff to Cheltenham not good either

 

[IslandLine101]

Basically a detailed document saying that they are cutting everything down, and having to fiddle the figures to compare them to the 2018 baseline to actually get some positive headlines to talk about! Not great at all.

 

[Jez]

Swanline remaining 2 hourly is very disappointing when it was promised (or at the very least strongly hinted) that we would get an hourly service from last December. Obviously it was then said it would be delayed until this December but it looks like it will remain as 2 hourly.

Not that bothered about a direct Cardiff to Liverpool but they need decent connections at both Chester and Crewe to Liverpool.

A big step backwards for the HOWL but from what ive heard the new timetable suits everyone even less than the previous timetable so perhaps its for the best. The once ive used the HOWL recently a single 153 was more than enough and that was during Winter when the free bus pass was in use.

Also when a Swanline runs the GWR, TFW fast train and the TFW Swanline all seem to run very close together - literally 3 trains going to the same place within about 10 minutes. Then nothing (aside from the Maesteg which is only useful for Bridgend passengers) for about 50 minutes.

One good point is the 1730 Manchester to Cardiff will be extended to either Carmarthen or Milford which will be very welcome indeed for those of us living this side of Cardiff travelling from Manchester/Shrewsbury etc. To be honest I never understood why that one was curtailed at Cardiff, I think it was something to do with sets being in the right place for the next morning. But with almost everything being a 197 it shouldnt be an issue sending it to Carmarthen.

 

[Caaardiff]

Removal of four services between Machynlleth and Pwllheli (two in each direction).
Two further services will be retimed and will run between March and December

This is ambiguous.
So 2 of the current 8 services will be cut, so a 25% decrease.
But what does the second line mean?
I'm reading that as "Two of the remaining 6 services will be retimed, but won't run Jan-Feb". So effectively in January and February there will only be 4 return services?
Given the recognition that the Cambrian Coast line gets, probably internationally, as one of the most scenic Railways, TFW are doing their best to destroy any chance of extra tourist traffic.

One good point is the 1730 Manchester to Cardiff will be extended to either Carmarthen or Milford which will be very welcome indeed for those of us living this side of Cardiff travelling from Manchester/Shrewsbury etc. To be honest I never understood why that one was curtailed at Cardiff, I think it was something to do with sets being in the right place for the next morning. But with almost everything being a 197 it shouldnt be an issue sending it to Carmarthen.

That particular train has always formed the last Cardiff - Chester, which is probably some kind of maintenance plan for the 175 to get back to Chester.

 

[Lurcheroo]

This is ambiguous.
So 2 of the current 8 services will be cut, so a 25% decrease.
But what does the second line mean?
I'm reading that as "Two of the remaining 6 services will be retimed, but won't run Jan-Feb". So effectively in January and February there will only be 4 return services?
Given the recognition that the Cambrian Coast line gets, probably internationally, as one of the most scenic Railways, TFW are doing their best to destroy any chance of extra tourist traffic.

If you read the document there’s no ambiguity.
So the 05:07 to Barmouth and it’s return at 06:45 are gone all together.

The 8:52 to Pwllheli and it’s return will go between December and March.

The last from pwllheli at 20:26 will be retimed to about 7:30 and will not run at all December to March.
The last to Pwllheli at 21:47 will be retimed (earlier but can’t remember exact time) and will not run December - March.

As for the tourism, that’s very summer based and they have stated they will run a 2nd 4car service each day in the summer time.

 

[vicbury]

Posting again here as the duplicate thread was locked:

Overall it looks like a marginal improvement for my service from Lydney (Cardiff - Cheltenham) but disappointing to see the evening improvements scrapped.

What has driven these cutbacks? A rise in costs or a cut in funding? It goes against Welsh Government's big targets to get people out of cars.

 

[Lurcheroo]

Posting again here as the duplicate thread was locked:

Overall it looks like a marginal improvement for my service from Lydney (Cardiff - Cheltenham) but disappointing to see the evening improvements scrapped.

What has driven these cutbacks? A rise in costs or a cut in funding? It goes against Welsh Government's big targets to get people out of cars.

It’s ultimately that they’ve been told they won’t get the £150 million pound hand out they had this year and need to make up for it themselves for next year.

There was an ideas scheme put up at work and they wanted idea to either get more people on the railway to generate more revenue (without it costing more to run so such as more services were a no go) or ways to be more ‘efficient’, effectively cut operational spending.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

All rather underwhelming and anti-climatic on the big promises delivered previously.

 

[vicbury]

It’s ultimately that they’ve been told they won’t get the £150 million pound hand out they had this year and need to make up for it themselves for next year.

There was an ideas scheme put up at work and they wanted idea to either get more people on the railway to generate more revenue (without it costing more to run so such as more services were a no go) or ways to be more ‘efficient’, effectively cut operational spending.

Thanks - service reliability can't have helped with revenue over the last twelve months - the service through Lydney has been extremely stressful and frustrating to use. Hopefully as reliability improves, so will revenue.

 

[Jez]

That particular train has always formed the last Cardiff - Chester, which is probably some kind of maintenance plan for the 175 to get back to Chester.

I see. Back in the day the last Cardiff-Chester used to be part of the West Wales-Manchester diagrams and ran from Carmarthen-Chester instead of Manchester to get the unit back to Chester depot. I am talking about several years ago now however, in recent years the 7pm service from Carmarthen to Cardiff has been formed of various Sprinters used to move stock back to Cardiff.

Its a shame the new timetable loses both afternoon Swanline-Chester services, these appear to start in Cardiff with Swanline being part of a new Pembroke Dock-Cardiff pattern.

A couple of other things ive picked up from a closer look at the timetable - we lose both the 0853 and 1058 from Carmarthen to Cardiff. The information says they amending four journeys to end at Carmarthen. I can only find those 2 that have been cut so i assume by 4 journeys they mean the return from Cardiff as well. Currently only one of these start at Fishguard and the other from Carmarthen so they are effectively prioritising extra Fishguard services over Carmarthen to Swansea and especially Swansea to Cardiff which is very busy. Sometimes there will be a gap of 55 minutes in the up direction from Swansea to Cardiff - e.g at Neath we have a Swanline at 11.40 then a gap of 55 minutes until the GWR the most its been in some years.

The Heart of Wales services planned to cross at Llandrindod to give better customer experience when there is disruption. Is this supposed to make up for effectively cutting the timetable by 20% !

Swanline stopping at Pencoed etc is also going to make journeys longer as well. I think a lot of this timetable change is worse then what we currently have if im being honest.

 

[anthony263]

Yet we got anhourly evening Swanline service including a 2330 Swansea to

Swanline remaining 2 hourly is very disappointing when it was promised (or at the very least strongly hinted) that we would get an hourly service from last December. Obviously it was then said it would be delayed until this December but it looks like it will remain as 2 hourly.

Not that bothered about a direct Cardiff to Liverpool but they need decent connections at both Chester and Crewe to Liverpool.

A big step backwards for the HOWL but from what ive heard the new timetable suits everyone even less than the previous timetable so perhaps its for the best. The once ive used the HOWL recently a single 153 was more than enough and that was during Winter when the free bus pass was in use.

Also when a Swanline runs the GWR, TFW fast train and the TFW Swanline all seem to run very close together - literally 3 trains going to the same place within about 10 minutes. Then nothing (aside from the Maesteg which is only useful for Bridgend passengers) for about 50 minutes.

One good point is the 1730 Manchester to Cardiff will be extended to either Carmarthen or Milford which will be very welcome indeed for those of us living this side of Cardiff travelling from Manchester/Shrewsbury etc. To be honest I never understood why that one was curtailed at Cardiff, I think it was something to do with sets being in the right place for the next morning. But with almost everything being a 197 it shouldnt be an issue sending it to Carmarthen.

Maesteg actually gets a later service. Swanline is hourly in theevenings plus have you noticed the late evening service from Swansea to Cardiff at 2330.

I'd say you could and should run Swanline hourly the timetable Bridgend to Swansea is a joke!.

I live in Pyle So I'll probably be driving to Tondu to catch the train

 

[Jez]

Swanline has improved in the morning going towards Cardiff and returning to Swansea in the evening. Going to Swansea in the morning and back in the evening is already fairly good. So I suppose thats not so bad. It is still disappointing to have an infrequent off peak service however. The likes of Pencoed and Pontyclun getting extra stops too will make the journey time to Cardiff longer for Swanline passengers.

I cant believe there is a gap of 58 minutes from Swansea-Cardiff on 2 occasions in the morning thanks to the cancellation of those 2 Carmarthen-Cardiff's, surely this wont go ahead. I know its only mid to late morning and not all day but still.... At least we wont have to worry about lost connections onto the Manchester trains as there wont be a train to connect it LOL

One thing I am pleased about is more services for Haverfordwest and Milford, these deserve a far better service then they have got currently, especially Haverfordwest.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Overall it looks like a marginal improvement for my service from Lydney (Cardiff - Cheltenham) but disappointing to see the evening improvements scrapped.
What has driven these cutbacks? A rise in costs or a cut in funding? It goes against Welsh Government's big targets to get people out of cars.

TfW have signalled for months that they had to limit future plans because of cost pressures, despite the WG giving it extra this year.
It's the same pressures that DfT operators have faced. TfW is no different, although they can make their own choices on service cuts.
I wouldn't be surprised if the higher cost and delays to the new train programme (and Mk4s) have led to further budget problems.

 

[Caaardiff]

TfW have signalled for months that they had to limit future plans because of cost pressures, despite the WG giving it extra this year.
It's the same pressures that DfT operators have faced. TfW is no different, although they can make their own choices on service cuts.
I wouldn't be surprised if the higher cost and delays to the new train programme (and Mk4s) have led to further budget problems.

They are different. The past 5 years have seen a worsening service despite all the grand promises. Covid aside, the amount of lost revenue from people that have decided to find other ways to get to where they need to because of overcrowding and an unreliable service, coupled with delay compensation and all the money thrown at various transformation projects is probably why that £100m+ was required.

 

[Lurcheroo]

Thanks - service reliability can't have helped with revenue over the last twelve months - the service through Lydney has been extremely stressful and frustrating to use. Hopefully as reliability improves, so will revenue.

Yes the whole TFW network has certainly felt those frustrations and will definitely have hurt revenue.

TFW have previously that the projects and timescales promised in the original franchise contract were far too much too quickly.
I appreciate why TFW have to make these announcements (that they absolutely Do not want to have to make) but It would be nice if TFW would look to re-commit to the improvements once their financial position improves.

 

[Anonymous10]

Talk of additional services to and from Swansea and Tenby during summer 2025 interests me, but only merit a line in the report.

I'm expecting it to mean Swansea-tenby with a pembroke dock-tenby shuttle.

 

[Caaardiff]

Yes the whole TFW network has certainly felt those frustrations and will definitely have hurt revenue.

TFW have previously that the projects and timescales promised in the original franchise contract were far too much too quickly.
I appreciate why TFW have to make these announcements (that they absolutely Do not want to have to make) but It would be nice if TFW would look to re-commit to the improvements once their financial position improves.

It seems like the promises given to win the Franchise weren't actually needed, or completely viable. TFW have become obsessed with running more frequent trains, where on many parts of the network they don't need to run more trains, just make the current ones longer, and now they are starting to realise that. They'll save a huge amount of cost from extra train crew by just bolstering current services. Then if demand does allow in the futre look to add extra services then.

 

[Cambrian359]

I think the public could accept this on the basis the freed up stock is used to reinforce other mainline services as opposed to being done to make up for poor reliability across other fleets, or even used on valley lines.
The Cambrian line however I can see fierce responses from various bodies/groups & councillors up and down the line.
It really is a shame as TFW orignal plans were really promising and game changing.

 

[Lurcheroo]

It seems like the promises given to win the Franchise weren't actually needed, or completely viable. TFW have become obsessed with running more frequent trains, where on many parts of the network they don't need to run more trains, just make the current ones longer, and now they are starting to realise that. They'll save a huge amount of cost from extra train crew by just bolstering current services. Then if demand does allow in the futre look to add extra services then.

Yeah I think that a lot, the Cambrian is a good example. The through services to and from Birmingham are always the busiest. The current few inbetween services are pretty quiet excluding the one that brings all the college students to Shrewsbury and on Saturdays the one that connects to with the first off peak into Birmingham.
A 16:30 from Shrewsbury to Aber would likely also be well used as the 15:30 and 17:30 are very very busy trains.
During summer the 9:30 from Shrewsbury could do with being 6 coaches to Mach and then 4 up to Pwllheli. But it runs as 4 from Shrewsbury and nobody uses the 10:30 an hour later as it doesn’t connect with a service to Pwllheli or come direct from Birmingham.

I think the public could accept this on the basis the freed up stock is used to reinforce other mainline services as opposed to being done to make up for poor reliability across other fleets, or even used on valley lines.
The Cambrian line however I can see fierce responses from various bodies/groups & councillors up and down the line.
It really is a shame as TFW orignal plans were really promising and game changing.

I think you could be right there, and frankly, with the plan to only cut services part of the year, I don’t see why they will be saving.
Despite what I say above, I do think an hourly service should be implemented fully. 2 hours between trains is a long wait.
It would be good if the trains that terminate at Shrewsbury could have a better destination Chester, Liverpool, Manchester or Cardiff all would make great choices.

 

[Topological]

This is all unsurprising

To be fair, the fact that the Marches has been so bad for so long means there probably is less demand for another service. Better TfW wait until they can run the advertised trains before trying to add more.

Swanline, and cutting the connections from Manchester trains just goes even further to proving where TfW focus lies. At least the 30 year old ECML rejects are still there.