Most normal passengers will ask the guard when they think late-running might result in a missed connection. There would be no point in holding connections just on the off-chance that someone might want them, better to only hold the ones you know that there are passengers for.
Because there isn't enough capacity. Long signal sections between Chester and Shrewsbury for example.
I see it often on twitter (now X) when customers ask for trains to be held. They get told to ask the conductor or train manager. I can understand if its a different TOC but when it's 2 different TFW services there should be a bit more customer service and common sense used I think.
To be fair, you speak to the guard and they just say "no" to holding the connections at Cardiff. I would love to say I could not believe it when I got that answer the other week when RTT was showing my train arriving at the same minute as the Carmarthen (somewhere past that actually) was going to leave the adjoining platform. However, the guard just said no way because the delay would not be more than an hour (it was going to be almost an hour because the GWR comes 52 minutes after the TfW and the GWR is faster).
Is that true about long sections being a reason? Why was this not flagged before the service was advertised? When the work to shorten the signals was not booked in then presumably that could have led to TfW scrapping talk of a Liverpool Cardiff. This smacks of an excuse after the event, rather than the true reason.
I cant see them replacing Cardiff-Holyhead with Cardiff to Liverpool even though more through journeys would be made to Liverpool I think. TFW see the South to North Wales service as their flagship service along with Cardiff-Manchester.
Well TFW should have plenty of 197s when they are all in service. The Cambrian/Birmingham routes will all be covered with the remaining 2 cars to come into service. Plus when Maesteg/Ebbw Vale and Cheltenham moves to 231s there should be those allocated to do Pembroke Dock and Swanline.
Because running it costs money and uses up units, which are finite. Money which Transport for Wales as a government body doesn't have. Unlike the government in London, the Welsh Government has little option to raise new money through taxation or borrowing. It would be very popular, but even if every single train ran full it would still take money to subsidise it. They could find ways to reallocate the subsidy to this route but withdrawing services from less used routes in their entirety is politically toxic, so it'll simply have to wait.
Well, there's Income tax, business rates, land transaction tax, landfill tax and, indirectly, Council Tax.
Assuming you're referring to my points in that thread, I've clarified several times that I never said there was "no market" - just that it's an awful lot smaller than the market to & from Cardiff, and that providing extra services to cater for it provides less benefits than turning round the MKIVs at Cardiff. However I'm not going to carry on that tiresome argument here.
It really is a reason. There are no signals between Wrexham and Gobowen. There's enough headway there for a 30 minute service, but there's not a lot of give in it, especially when you factor in the single track section North of Wrexham. As to whether it was factored into the bid or not, nobody is in a position to comment publicly on that.
I would imagine there aren't likely to be any extra services along there if Liverpool doesn't happen.
197s were ordered with the service in mind. It's likely we'll see other services have increased capacity instead.
Quite possibly. Unfortunately however it would be politically unacceptable.
There is almost no revenue left on the table through any of those avenues, which is why I said very little. Ministers and Local Authority boards have already pushed them up near as far as they could practically go. Any extra money that became available through additional Westminster grant or revenues ahead of forecast would be very unlikely to be go to healthcare or elsewhere and not to transport.
At the end of the day the change is done now and with the benefit of the forthcoming evening through service to Swansea, it's a good enough service of through trains. It's not perfect, and some of the connections long term should be able to be improved, but obviously not for a while until the fleet situation is a little more stable and the speed changes are arranged.
Its irrelevant really, bid world is a different world. It may work in the bid but that doesn't mean it will work in reality.
I disagree, especially on Income Tax which the Scottish Government has increased. Plaid Cymru, who are in a 'cooperation agreement' with Welsh Labour, have often called for tax increases.
You're mixing up changing the rates taxes are set at and the revenues that can be raised from so doing. The latter is all that matters for present purposes. But a further discussion of where the Welsh Government could find extra funding with more devolved power is very far off topic for this thread.
For the record, and this will be all I say in the subject, 2p on Welsh Income Tax (cancelling out the 2p reduction in National Insurance for employees) would raise more than TfW's entire annual revenue and capital budget.
And the first bit of speed increases have already gone live. The Proposed timetable sees a more regular stopping pattern for the MKIV services (Crewe - Shrewsbury - Ludlow then all stops except Pontypool) for most services, which hopefully when combined with the other planned speed increases (Shrewsbury - Onibury) we'll be able to see better connections.
Very true. Whatever the plan was, this is the plan we now have to work with.
Probably because they know it's pointless to ask. I once got Avanti to agree to a five minute hold - that surprised even their own staff.
Have you seen how much many Welsh councils are already increasing it by?
Having two units taken out to cover the Bidstons doesn't help.
Something which could harm economic growth.
More than they need have if that extra £125m to make up for the railway's revenue shortfall had been given to them instead.
On the other hand, better transport, education and healthcare should lead to higher economic growth.
Welsh Gov TFW have said that the plans laid out in the franchise bid by private TFW, were far too ambitious and should have been done over a much longer period of time.
True, but in theory that should be only temporary. TfW haven't given up on the 230s yet. And one of those units is cancelled out already by the Crewe - Shrewsbury local staying as 153s instead of a 197.
It was only decided that Crewe would retain 153s very recently, before that the plan was to try and maintain at Landore so only Carmarthen and Shrewsbury needed competency. Now they need to be maintained at Crewe, those crew will need to retain competent.
Which is exactly what I predicted all along
Cardiff Airport's problems are not VoG related. I hadn't realized how poorly used it was but for reading an earlier comment and looking it up: Bristol gets 10M passengers a year - no rail connection. A 3x per hour 25 minute bus ride.
You've answered your own question there when you mention 3 x 25 min buses per hour to Bristol Airport, there is a very poor bus to CWL that takes nigh on 2 hours to get there. There is an element of build it and they'll come with transport, and an hourly train is not a viable option for most air passengers, imagine you'd just missed one, it's just not a frequent enough service at present to be an alternative to the car.
Which doesn't detract from the point being made, which was that Cardiff Airport is little-used anyway. No frequency enhancement is going to change that.
That's a strange view from a rail forum user. Having better transport links would make the airport more attractive to passengers and airlines, and it definitely needs every bit of help it can get.
Why not use the train - it takes 1h15 including the shuttle bus to airport front door, and is hourly.. , the bus is almost never going to be faster than waiting for the next train. A taxi for the 12 miles from central Cardiff also won't cost much more than public transport if travelling in a group of 3-4.
Plenty of other airport connections have this problem but seem to get a lot of traffic (eg. how many services an hour between Bimingham Airport and Banbury/Oxford/Reading.. - and I for one use it and there are plenty of others doing so!!)
If necessary it should be considered against all the other TFW priorities - maybe they could do some sort of "review of shape of future services" and publish it for consulation/feedback?
No. It's a good view. There's a fixed amount of money, unless you are bringing in new revenue - and without the extra money, you're taking it from another place.
