Just seen your post, but I think your proposal is very good. Hopefully something similar will materialise in the future as part of improvements in South-bound services towards Bristol.
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Worcestershire Parkway station progress
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Just seen your post, but I think your proposal is very good. Hopefully something similar will materialise in the future as part of improvements in South-bound services towards Bristol.
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Esker-pades
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If you look at RealTimeTrains, some services have Worcestershire Parkway in the timetable, but not publically advertised. It currently appears that only the Cardiff to Birmingham/Nottingham services will stop, as well as the morning Bristol to Stansted service.
Which does beg the question if the station isn't going to be served by the 4 x Bristol - New Street XC voyagers and HST's per hour what is the point of this station?
(i.e. 3 x fast to New Street, 2 x Fast to Bristol and 1 to Cardiff per hour - instead it's one fast to NS and Cardiff)
I think they had a lot of tarmac going spare and decided that if they were going to build a car park anyway it would be nice to have a station by it
Class 170101
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At least its hourly in both directions. At the moment the proposed weekday service until December has two hour gaps in one direction.
Presumably someone calculated that the patronage lost by slowing the service down and the extra cost of fuel from making the stop, was greater than any extra revenue from new passengers using the station.
If they did, they missed out the externalities of road pollution on the M5 as the alternate to rail transport!
Presumably on that score the long distance passengers who would be driving even further down the M5 to avoid stopping at every rural backwater outweighed the pollution from Birmingham commuters
Indeed, for myself (and I presume lots of other people hailing from North of Birmingham who would change at New Street) train travel to Bristol etc. can't compete with driving on travel time outside the peaks as it is. More stops would only make the train less competitive. In addition, extra passengers during the peaks would make it less attractive due to the increased levels of overcrowding, which are already pretty bad.
I take it you have never tried to park a car at a station in Worcester then. Foregate Street - zero car park spaces; Shrub Hill all of 121 spaces in a city of 100,000 people.
And plenty of people want to travel in the direction of Oxford and London, or are perfectly happy to board a train to Birmingham that starts in central Worcester, so they get a seat, or comes off the Hereford line, where WMR promise lots more seats soon.
No one did any calculations. XC's point blank refusal to stop the Birmingham-Bristol services was clearly down to the simple lack of anywhere to accommodate more passengers on Voyagers in the first place.
The Cardiff services are little better at the busiest times of the day either, but given all the public money sunk into this project, I presume they got leaned on by the DfT to make sure there was some sort of north-south service.
Anything better will have to wait until someone decides to sort XC at long last - by providing higher-capacity trains and taking a look at service frequencies all across the network, not just the Birmingham-South West/South Wales axis.
pdeaves
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I get the impression that TOCs don't really want the station but have to make some sort of positive gesture.
edwin_m
Veteran Member
Was it one of hte conditions of one of the XC franchise extensions?
GWR, which will be managing the station, is perfectly happy to have it - 500 parking spaces and a lot easier to get to than Shrub Hill or Foregate Street from plenty of places, given the limitations of the road network in Worcester.
So long as the new timetable is delivered reliably, they should get back many of the people who in recent years have been driving all the way from the Worcester area to Warwick Parkway to catch a train to London.
The fastest peak journey times to and from Paddington will be around 1hr 50 minutes, so I would expect a big marketing push in Worcestershire based around those sorts of journey times.
Another factor behind XC not calling is the performance impact - there will no doubt be fixed paths into New Street around the cross-city service and complexities around Gloucester/Cheltenham so losing a few minutes slowing down and stopping could have significant knock-on effects, which will in themselves would have financial/revenue impacts in addition to the impacts of additional passengers and the extra journey time of the new stop on existing 'thorough' passengers.
Campaigners in the Tewkesbury area have been wanting a decent service from Ashchurch to Birmingham for years. This used to be provided by the old Wales & West franchise and after that by Central Trains (the latter via Worcester). XC is providing little more than a peak-hour service on its Cardiff - Nottingham route. If these all stop at Worcestershire Parkway (WP) then there's even less chance of Ashchurch getting a better service. What is needed is a Bristol TM - Birmingham International semi-fast service, calling at Gloucester, Cheltenham, Ashchurch, WP and Bromsgrove, but there's no spare stock for such a service and no paths over much of the route, especially in the Birmingham area.
TheBigD
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Just out of curiosity, is there any chance of extra paths being found should rolling stock become available for an extra Birmingham - Bristol semi fast service? Something like extending the current Nottingham - Birmingham service through to Bristol calling at Worcestershire Parkway, Ashchurch, Cheltenham, Bristol Parkway, thus providing the much wanted Worcestershire Parkway to Bristol service and an Ashchurch to Birmingham service? More curious than a serious suggestion.
That seems to be part of the 'Midland Engine' (or is it connect?) aspirations.
Would also need to call at Gloucester and Bromsgrove.
I think you missed out Gloucester... something XC has been trying to do on the Brum-Bristol route for years. If only those interfering busy bodies knocking up the franchises would stop making them call at least once in each direction daily
Seriously though if this ever got off the ground, Gloucester is worthy of a stop, as is Bromsgrove now you can easily interchange there with the southern end of the cross Brum line.
edwin_m
Veteran Member
There's a good case for going via Worcester Shrub Hill, as that doesn't have a great service southwards either and taking the loop would allow a faster service to overtake. But then you'd miss Worcestershire Parkway...
TheBigD
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I think you missed out Gloucester... something XC has been trying to do on the Brum-Bristol route for years. If only those interfering busy bodies knocking up the franchises would stop making them call at least once in each direction daily
Seriously though if this ever got off the ground, Gloucester is worthy of a stop, as is Bromsgrove now you can easily interchange there with the southern end of the cross Brum line.
Missing out Gloucester wasn't intentional on my part, no great conspiracy I'm afraid! I only raised Ashchurch and Worcestershire Parkway as stops as they were the stations mentioned in the previous couple of posts to mine. As it happens I suspect a fast Gloucester to Bristol service taking about 40-45 minutes would also be welcome.
jhy44
Member
I'd be unsure if there'd be any point of extending the train all the way down to Bristol, connections can be made at Cheltenham for that.
I've always thought it would make more sense to introduce an hourly Birmingham - Bromsgrove - Droitwich - Shrub Hill train (providing Droitwich and Worcester with a much needed 2tph to New Street), and then having it run on to call at Parkway, Ashchurch, Cheltenham and Gloucester (as a convenient place to terminate), then curtain the irregular FGW Bristol - Worcester at Cheltenham too.
Towns either side of Gloucester then get a decent local semi-fast to their respective nearest large city and can change in Cheltenham for a fast train to the further-away large city.
Also then keeps the services within their respective political/geographical regions a bit more, which will only become more and more important as the march of railway devolution continues (albeit slowly). The councils-element of WMR are not going to want to be running services too far beyond the Worcestershire border if possible; they're not accountable to those residents.
Class 170101
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I think it was said this wasn't possible but I would hand over the Cardiff to Cheltenham section of the ATW service to Cross-Country and extend to New Street linking with the Leicester or Nottingham to Birmingham services (or maybe just run it to New Street and leave with TfW).
Sprinter107
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Good idea to run a semi fast train Birmingham to Bristol via Worcester Shrub Hill. I think it would do very well. But it would be unable to call at both Shrub Hill and Worcestershire Parkway without a bit of shunting at Abbotswood Junction.
There would be no interchange need for it to call at Parkway as the same connections could be made at Shrub Hill, I think. I suppose someone who had left his car at Parkway could just change at Shrub Hill.
I agree with others, I think there is a need for a Gloucester - Birmingham semi-fast service. Obviously paths between Bromsgrove and Birmingham are at an absolute premium. I wonder if reconfiguring the Stansted/Nottingham trains at New Street and possibly extending the Stansted/Leicester services towards Cardiff or Bristol could be a viable option. Then making either the ex-Nottingham or the ex-Stansted trains all station stops from Bromsgrove to Gloucester. Especially as Worcestershire P'way, Ashchurch and Gloucester could do with more Birmingham services, and GWR isn't the TOC to fix that.
That said, perhaps TfW would be interested in extending their Cheltenham service. It would be ideal work for the 170s they have arriving soon which won't need any additional clearance, and it would be a good spin for KeolisAmey and the Welsh Goverment send out a "We are providing you with more direct trains with X more seats between Cardiff and Birmingham per day" type messages to customers.
That said, perhaps TfW would be interested in extending their Cheltenham service. It would be ideal work for the 170s they have arriving soon which won't need any additional clearance, and it would be a good spin for KeolisAmey and the Welsh Goverment send out a "We are providing you with more direct trains with X more seats between Cardiff and Birmingham per day" type messages to customers.
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Sprinter107
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It physically couldnt call at both Shrub Hill and Parkway if it was heading South West. Parkway is the wrong side of Abbotswood Junction.
edwin_m
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If it wasn't for the need to call at Parkway, a Birmingham-Gloucester/Bristol semi-fast could be either an extension of Worcester paths via Kidderminster or a split/joing of Herefore via Bromsgrove trains at Shrub Hill. This wouldn't use any extra paths out of Birmingham but would mean a slower journey to Hereford or the new train being slower into Birmingham than other services.
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I wonder if it would be possible to extend a Shrub Hill to Moor Street train to Worcestershire Parkway High Level instead. It might not do for the South West but it maybe able to provide more services into Birmingham (Snow Hill Lines). Change at Shrub Hill for the South West.
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