Envoy
Established Member
- Joined
- 29 Aug 2014
- Messages
- 2,473
Sorry but it must have been a diversion - BR had rerouted the South Wales CrossCountry InterCity services away from the Lydney and Chepstow route to run via Bristol Parkway long before Virgin came on the scene, with the Regional Railways Birmingham-Cardiff service, worked by Class 158s, taking over, with that service, of course, initially passing to Central/Wales & Borders post-privatisation.
The BR InterCity network, as of 1993
http://www.projectmapping.co.uk/Reviews/Resources/InterCity mag 93 2.jpg
And this is the Virgin XC Operation Princess network map, from late 2002, clearly showing all its South Wales services going via Bristol http://www.projectmapping.co.uk/Reviews/Resources/Virgin lit 122002.jpg
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jimm - you are wrong - I sat on a Virgin Voyager both ways on the Lydney route & they were not diversions. What happened was that with Central and Wales & Borders running services between B'Ham & Cardiff, they were skimming off passengers from the Virgins as they were often timed to be just ahead of the Voyagers. So, we had 2 coach 158's or even 150's fully loaded whilst Voyagers were just behind with plenty of spare seats - all because the public were too stupid to wait for the better train. The Voyagers would also be held up at times by the stoppers. I remember waiting outside Gloucester in a Virgin Voyager because a stopper was just ahead. We were not able to overtake the stopper until Newport. Throw in the overcrowding on the core network and the Voyagers on the south Wales run were withdrawn - including those that went via Bristol. (If they went into Temple Meads, they simply were not worth bothering with due to adding so much time v the direct Lydney route). Hence, south Wales is now a 'backwater' served by 2 or 3 coachTurbostars on the route to the Midlands with nothing going long distance to the north-east..
The situation now is all very different from that promised by Operation Princess. It just goes to show how the planners can get it completely wrong.
If you improve the trains, the timings and the number of places that are linked by through trains whilst keeping the fares reasonable, you see a dramatic increase in rail travel. In was a big mistake not to order longer/more trains for the Cross Country fleet - even though I don't like the Voyagers. Read report below:>
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/cmwelaf/205/2051403.htm
Reference to Virgin trains on the Chepstow route is made here:> http://onehouse.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=238&t=20338&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&view=print
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