Class15
Established Member
Shame, but not entirely unexpected. They seem to have handled this perfectly reasonably though and I still hold out hope that something may come of this all in the future.
-
Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
New Go-op train service between Swindon, Taunton and Weston-super-Mare approved by ORR
- Thread starter realemil
- Start date
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
Bertie the bus
Established Member
- Joined
- 15 Aug 2014
- Messages
- 3,003
They did engage with this thread and as soon as people asked awkward questions they disengaged. No amount of social media presence would have resulted in this nonsense succeeding.
I think it was just one of the things they did wrong in the course of trying to promote an idea that probably wouldn't have worked anyway. I was just responding to the idea that social media is the type of thing you can just knock together in a few minutes.
Pete_uk
Established Member
Does one get ones money back?
Did you not read the update?
TT-ONR-NRN
Veteran Member
“Yes“ would have both answered the question and saved your fingers typing over quintuple what you needed to!
Yes.
YorkRailFan
Established Member
If a bus service were launched in place of this proposed service, that could be considered a "win" for the people that may have used this service. It would be a real metric for if a rail service would be justified and save money on all the level crossing upgrades, etc, and is easier to withdraw if not successful. Lower risk, potentially higher reward.
Academic in this case, but a train / tram gets far more people out of their cars than a bus does (and I don’t mean because of capacity).
TheLastMinute
Member
I'm not sure a bus service is needed to validate demand when there is already a usable, albeit sometimes sparse, rail service between all the stations along the proposed route.
Obviously the provision of a direct services between some stations, e.g. Chippenham and Burton, and the increase in services would mean the numbers would need to be adjusted upwards. However, I suspect that even if flows increased 100% across the whole route, it would be found that the doubling of a very small number remains a small number.
It also needs to pointing out that any farebox increases will still need to be split with GWR (and SWR) as their services will continue to run over the whole over route. Moreso for stations towards the ends of the route as these journeys will likely still go via Bristol, either because of existing direct services or changing is worth it because it'll be faster, more journey opportunities or the more attractive rolling stocking being used (IETs v 40 year old DMU).
As far as I'm aware, Go-op have never publicly answered this point about the commercial finance of the project.
Last edited:
Annetts key
Established Member
A bus service is not as comparable as you make out. At least, not for me.
A bus would have to use the existing road network and hence suffer from delays caused by the volume of other road traffic, the speed restrictions, and all the other problems caused by using a combination of rural roads and busy town centre roads. Even if the bus was not delayed, its likely the journey time would be considerably longer than the train for many journeys.
Also, a new bus service would be at least partly in competition with the existing bus operators in the area.
For me, a bus is not normally an option. If I am going to use the road network, I may as well drive my own car... How many others have the same opinion?
Some capital or initial investment is still needed as well as running costs. That is, you need to buy or lease suitable buses and employ and train drivers and arrange for the maintenance of the buses.
I'm not sure that what Go Op has proposed is the best way. The trouble is, the way the railways are currently set-up including the rules and legislation, its rather hard to grow the market for a currently rather poor service or to start a new service. When the railways were privatised, there was no expectation of new or expanded services. They had been in decline. Even after all the changes that have occurred since, this country still appears to have great difficulty with the idea that its good to get people to use public transport rather than use a car.
So I think its a great shame that ideas like this one from Go Op are very likely to fail.
YorkRailFan
Established Member
True, although the rail service would've been slotted between other services, a bus would have far greater scheduling flexibility.
Yes, I know what you mean, a bus isn't usually an incentive to get people out of their cars.
Agree, there's a lot on this forum very out of touch with the general view of british folk - e.g. most train users won't touch a bus. Rail travel is the opportunity to get a laptop out and work or catch up on sleep. Smooth ride, no distractions, space to roam, eat/drink if you wish. And for a lot of journeys about half the time of driving. Meanwhile a bus offers none of this - stopping and starting, going along twisty roads, distractions out all the windows, and a slow frustrating ride. If I've got to use the awful road network I'll do it in the comfort of my car listening to what I want out loud, temperature perfect etc.!
brad465
Established Member
Taunton-Westbury via Frome could do with more services, in particular Taunton-Frome as this almost always involves a long wait at Castle Cary. The extension towards Swindon would probably be too much, but if GWR acquired more stock and the rights to at least trial a local service here, we can find out what passenger potential there is. An added bonus would be a more reliable interchange at Castle Cary to head down the HoW line, potentially bolstering the patronage of this line too.
Class15
Established Member
I must say that I am quite surprised that people on this thread asked awkward questions. Surely rail enthusiasts would have supported this project?
TT-ONR-NRN
Veteran Member
There is a merit is in making sure a proposal is more than just "all fur coat and no knickers" before it is allowed to get people's hopes up (and subsequently dashes them)
theblackwatch
Established Member
- Joined
- 15 Feb 2006
- Messages
- 10,782
That's a phrase I haven't heard for many years!
To be honest, I've always thought of Go-op as being in a fantasy world, ever since 15 years or so ago when they were approaching owners of various preserved diesels, wanting to use them on their planned Yeovil to Oxford service.
Killingworth
Established Member
Isn't that part of the problem for rail? Enthusiasm often rooted in nostalgia from a long gone age with inadequate examination of the practical financial constraints on running services today.
We understand that many, probably almost all, services require substantial subsidies. Striking a balance is hard.
Nobody suggests every ticket sold should be priced at the full cost of its provision. That would mean some short journeys could cost thousands of pounds!
Human nature means some wouldn't use a train (or bus) if they were paid to. Maybe at £25 or more a trip some of those empty trains coud be filled - with professional scroungers, not needy travellers!
But this proposition looked amateur and idealistic on all fronts. The need to resolve level crossings before even looking at the practicalities of procuring, crewing and operating aged rolling stock was a warning sign from the start. Those with serious railway knowledge saw many flaws and reacted accordingly.
brad465
Established Member
This forum isn't just full of enthusiasts. There are plenty of members who work in the industry in positions giving them relevant expertise (there are a few members I'd consider "rail omniscient") that can a) provide useful insight, and b) know when something hasn't been thought through, as they can cross-reference it with their line of work and thought through case studies they've dealt with.
Perhaps also highlights the decline of journalism into the gutter, that an online forum can scrutinise stuff better than actual media outlets.
Annetts key
Established Member
If your company pays for your ticket and pays you during the hours that you travel on a train, why wouldn't you use a train? In connection with my work I travelled by train with my employer paying many times.
In respect of the level crossing improvement works, that surprised me. And I have been to many, many level crossings as part of my job. So it may well have been a surprise to them that existing level crossings on existing lines that are open to train traffic would require so much work.
Me thinks the goalposts have been moved and the opportunity has been taken to try to get someone else (an open access operator) to pay for work that may be required anyway.
Last edited:
PG
Established Member
I tend towards agreeing that the goalposts have been moved somewhat. That said, they would still be well short of the mark with finances to do all the other things required to get off the ground, so the level crossing problems shouldn't divert attention away from that.
Being generally in support of something and asking awkward questions are not mutually exclusive.
Ashley Hill
Established Member
And Hewish and to a lesser extent Meads.
Bertie the bus
Established Member
- Joined
- 15 Aug 2014
- Messages
- 3,003
There is a document out there, either on Go-op's or the ORR's websites, which details it all. It has been a while since I read it but it is essentially vegetation control,, sighting and fencing improvements or diverting various foot crossings.
You should always question everything, especially if people are asking for money.
And an alternative term for “awkward question” is “the question you hoped no one would ask” - which in itself begs the question “why?”
Annetts key
Established Member
They are all occupation/accommodation crossings, either for access to private land or foot crossings. No public road crossings as far as I can tell. Of the documents I have looked at, it's not completely clear which crossings they mean, as I could not match all of the listed names to the crossings listed in the sectional appendix. So either different names are being used or not all of these are listed in the sectional appendix.
Probably about as many as those who think that a service like this one has any hope of attracting other than very small numbers out of their cars. How many people wishing to work on a train are likely to travel from Castle Cary to any of these stations and have business in the immediate vicinity of their alighting station?
Generally people will go by train either because (a) they have to because of no or no convenient access to a car or (b) going by car over their complete journey is more difficult (a subjective term depending on the individual), substantively more expensive or substantively longer than going by train. Yes there are exceptions, but not in sufficient numbers to make a train service linking relatively small places together worthwhile.
People in category (a) will likely use a bus if convenient (or not travel at all), and those in (b) are unlikely to be attracted to this train service in anything apart from trickle numbers.