Envoy
Established Member
- Joined
- 29 Aug 2014
- Messages
- 2,473
If Caerphilly-Queen St falls within the 20 minutes threshold, the normal UK standard for a reasonable amount of time to be standing, then a strategy of moving to more ‘commuter’ stock with proportionally more standing space makes some sense.
Peak trains on the Valleys are clearly busy, but how many passengers are actually standing for more than 20 minutes? I don’t recall Valleys trains appearing regularly in the lists of ‘Britain’s most crowded trains’ - if anything would have thought that TfW trains into Manchester and Birmingham are more over crowded for longer in the peaks than Valleys ones. But going off topic...
I think that most people are expecting that when the new trains arrive that capacity will allow everybody to commute without standing. If the plan is to only have enough capacity for the present flows and to assume that people will be standing, then I can hardly see this attracting extra commuters who at present use their cars. What is needed is the capacity to shift the present flows - without standing plus allow for more passengers that can be attracted off the roads. To do this, they surely need to be SEATED?
It looks like many of the Transport for Wales services are rammed at commuting times. Some people cannot even board trains as they are so full. The Welsh Government dragged their feet in not deciding soon enough who was going to run the trains & hence, get the orders in for new stock. They knew damn well what the situation was when Arriva were running things. Clearly, if the 769’s come into service and then 2 or 3 years later, the Stadler Flirts arrive with less capacity, it will be a PR disaster and the people will want the 769’s back - despite them being old.
This press article recently appeared on Media Wales concerning the overcrowding. Note the comments section that follows!
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/gallery/images-packed-carriages-fed-up-17250812
The last thing people want after a tiring day at work is a long, hot, cramped journey home on a packed commuter train.
Sadly, this appears to be an all too frequent reality for the thousands of people across Wales who rely on train services provided by Transport for Wales (TfW), the franchise that took over from the now-defunct Arriva Trains Wales in October, 2018.