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GWR Dec 19 timetable

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Flinn Reed

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Why? Are you suggesting cutting out station stops at Taunton and Totnes purely for vanity purposes?
No, to speed up services for passengers from more popular stations. There are already limited services that run non-stop Reading-Exeter or NewtonAbbot-Plymouth, the latter including some XC services too.
 

VT 390

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No, to speed up services for passengers from more popular stations. There are already limited services that run non-stop Reading-Exeter or NewtonAbbot-Plymouth, the latter including some XC services too.
What XC services run non stop from Newton Abbot to Plymouth?
 

JonathanH

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No, to speed up services for passengers from more popular stations. There are already limited services that run non-stop Reading-Exeter or NewtonAbbot-Plymouth, the latter including some XC services too.

Yes, and they are a right nuisance if you happen to want to go to Taunton or Totnes and find it is the hour when those stations don't have a standard hour stop.

Non stopping at either Taunton or Totnes does not make services faster over the course of the route because the paths are reasonably fixed at both ends of the route. It therefore becomes no more than vanity to operate services which don't call at these stations.
 

irish_rail

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Yes, and they are a right nuisance if you happen to want to go to Taunton or Totnes and find it is the hour when those stations don't have a standard hour stop.


Non stopping at either Taunton or Totnes does not make services faster over the course of the route because the paths are reasonably fixed at both ends of the route. It therefore becomes no more than vanity to operate services which don't call at these stations.
But why is it around 15 minutes quicker when taking the fast padd to Plymouth trains than the standard ones? Clockface timetables can be very effective however I'm not convinced they are quite so great on longer distance routes.
 

JN114

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As @HamworthyGoods so eloquently put it’s about balance, and tailoring innovation for the market.

The largely commuter-based Bristol, S Wales and Cotswolds routes Innovations have all been around reducing journey time to London and improving frequencies - because that is what those routes needed to be more competitive and is the best usage of the infrastructure upgrades that have foreshadowed this timetable change.

The West of England route in the other hand is and always will be a lot more tourist-based; however the innovation in the new timetable actually makes local commuting in Devon and Cornwall more attractive; with a doubling or even tripling of frequencies in places. That is where the change was needed. The largely leisure-based London to West Country market doesn’t give a hoot that they could shave 8 minutes off their overall journey if they missed out Taunton - if anything as a whole stopping at the major interchanges and feeder points is more desirable for improving connectivity and journey options.

Yes it’s entirely possible to make journey times a few minutes quicker to Plymouth, but it isn’t worth it; it isn’t what the customers are after.
 

irish_rail

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As @HamworthyGoods so eloquently put it’s about balance, and tailoring innovation for the market.

The largely commuter-based Bristol, S Wales and Cotswolds routes Innovations have all been around reducing journey time to London and improving frequencies - because that is what those routes needed to be more competitive and is the best usage of the infrastructure upgrades that have foreshadowed this timetable change.

The West of England route in the other hand is and always will be a lot more tourist-based; however the innovation in the new timetable actually makes local commuting in Devon and Cornwall more attractive; with a doubling or even tripling of frequencies in places. That is where the change was needed. The largely leisure-based London to West Country market doesn’t give a hoot that they could shave 8 minutes off their overall journey if they missed out Taunton - if anything as a whole stopping at the major interchanges and feeder points is more desirable for improving connectivity and journey options.

Yes it’s entirely possible to make journey times a few minutes quicker to Plymouth, but it isn’t worth it; it isn’t what the customers are after.
Well id say I'm better placed to say what plymouthians want than you with the greatest of respect.
The idea of a journey time of under 3 hours which would be perfectly doable would undoubtedly encourage more people to ditch the car or coach in favour of the train.
And the old chestnut about the west country trains being for tourists just isn't true, with a population of 2.5 million in the 3 far south west counties, there are more than enough locals wanting to travel to London throughout the year, not just families heading down here for a holiday in August. That is a similar population to that of greater Manchester (3 tph) and way more than the population of Merseyside. Yet these destinations get super fast, and in Manchester's case frequent trains.
The south west needs to stop being treated as some kind of second class cider drinking home for druids.
 

HamworthyGoods

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And the old chestnut about the west country trains being for tourists just isn't true, with a population of 2.5 million in the 3 far south west counties, there are more than enough locals wanting to travel to London throughout the year, ..... The south west needs to stop being treated as some kind of second class cider drinking home for druids.

At the risk of sounding like a stuck record here, the 3 South West Counties (Somerset, Devon and Cornwall) see the following improvements in Dec 19:

- Taunton (Somerset County Town), given a regular hourly service to London filling current 90 minute gaps.

- Exeter, frequency increase to 3 trains every 2 hours, London ‘fast’ services now every hour no longer calling at B&H stations as currently happens with every other service.

- Torbay, 1/2 hourly local service introduced between Exeter and Paignton

- Plymouth and Cornwall, London services no longer call at the B&H stations inwards from Taunton providing an hourly useful fast service from Plymouth to the capital.

- Cornwall, hourly Looe service provided, 1/2 hourly service provided between Plymouth and Penzance.

How are all those improvements second class? I really can’t get my head round your claim!?

You talk about Plymouth, the current general pattern is a 2-hourly fast and a 2-hourly semi-fast overall providing an hourly service to Paddington. Whilst the very fastest services have got slowed down slightly that is nothing to the speed up of the 2-hourly semi-fast (the current Plymouth terminators). Plymouth now has a proper hourly fast service to London but as part of that balance a timetable always has to be. Taunton gets its current gaps in service filled, you’ve acknowledged Taunton is in the South West so surely that’s another overall improvement for the South West - the 3 biggest settlements Taunton, Exeter and Plymouth all have a regular express service linking them to London each hour.
 

JonathanH

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- Torbay, 1/2 hourly local service introduced between Exeter and Paignton

I'd imagine that this is the change which means that it really is better to have a near-clockface schedule for London to Plymouth trains and consistent stopping patterns rather than a number of different service patterns.
 

jimm

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As @HamworthyGoods so eloquently put it’s about balance, and tailoring innovation for the market.

The largely commuter-based Bristol, S Wales and Cotswolds routes Innovations have all been around reducing journey time to London and improving frequencies - because that is what those routes needed to be more competitive and is the best usage of the infrastructure upgrades that have foreshadowed this timetable change.

I'm struggling to see what innovations there are on the Cotswold Line - a baseline hourly service between Worcester and London with peak extras and doing away with the lottery of the various types of rolling stock provided is largely tidying up at the edges of what has been in place for some years now.

What is innovative about taking out fast service calls in the late afternoon and early evening at Reading (reducing frequency there, not improving it) and messing up the Oxford/Cotswold route's standard departure pattern times out of Paddington during that period of the day as well?

Rail services generally between London and Oxford are clearly competitive, otherwise how else do you explain the demise of the X90 coach service from January 4 next year? Its passenger numbers have dropped by 35% since 2015 - Oxford Parkway opened in 2016.
 

JN114

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The salient principle applies exactly the same to the North Cotswolds as it does to the West of England route.

GW bid for a timetable that had more Reading calls and consistent departure times; as you know. As you also know that timetable was rejected by NR - who again as you know have the final say on these matters. So GW had to decide whether what was offered back achieved the majority of its objectives or rewrite the entire thing from scratch and likely not realise any benefits in December at all.

Like the WoE route, that the innovations don’t benefit one niche group of customers that want x, that doesn’t stop it being innovations for the people that want a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h or j. There has to be compromises. Times are changing, that’s what happens when you rewrite a 40 year old base timetable from scratch.
 

Wilts Wanderer

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The salient principle applies exactly the same to the North Cotswolds as it does to the West of England route.

GW bid for a timetable that had more Reading calls and consistent departure times; as you know. As you also know that timetable was rejected by NR - who again as you know have the final say on these matters. So GW had to decide whether what was offered back achieved the majority of its objectives or rewrite the entire thing from scratch and likely not realise any benefits in December at all.

Like the WoE route, that the innovations don’t benefit one niche group of customers that want x, that doesn’t stop it being innovations for the people that want a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h or j. There has to be compromises. Times are changing, that’s what happens when you rewrite a 40 year old base timetable from scratch.

I'm not sure that's entirely true. NR did not reject the GWR timetable; in fact it was offered broadly as-bid at D-26 weeks. However there were specifics that were problematic such as the lack of freight paths between Didcot and Swindon. Solving this involved reflighting the intercity paths (Mon-Fri only) which ultimately cost those Reading stops in the down evening peak.
 

jimm

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The salient principle applies exactly the same to the North Cotswolds as it does to the West of England route.

GW bid for a timetable that had more Reading calls and consistent departure times; as you know. As you also know that timetable was rejected by NR - who again as you know have the final say on these matters. So GW had to decide whether what was offered back achieved the majority of its objectives or rewrite the entire thing from scratch and likely not realise any benefits in December at all.

Like the WoE route, that the innovations don’t benefit one niche group of customers that want x, that doesn’t stop it being innovations for the people that want a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h or j. There has to be compromises. Times are changing, that’s what happens when you rewrite a 40 year old base timetable from scratch.

Yes thanks, I know the process.

And from what I know, it appears that no one within GWR paused much for thought about the impact at Reading in the late afternoon and early evening, both in terms of capacity from there to Oxford and on people travelling beyond Oxford to the Cotswolds and Worcestershire, before accepting Network Rail's late-in-the-process proposal - which must have come about a year into the to-ing and fro-ing - and which was then sprung on user groups as a fait accompli.

Which bears no comparison whatever with the changes on West of England route, where the planned changes to the calling patterns were stated plain as day by GWR back in 2015, even if some people seem to have missed them.

To describe the provision of adequate fast services between places the size and importance of Reading and Oxford as some kind of niche interest is laughable and insulting to the large number of people making that journey every day, who know full well how utterly inadequate XC's trains are as an alternative to GWR's trains.

There is a also a substantial flow between the stations on the Cotswold Line and Reading, encouraged by the 'everything stops at Reading' approach that has prevailed for the past 13 years, never mind Reading's importance as a connectional hub.

Even before that, the NSE/Thames Trains pattern provided a baseline hourly service most of the day between Cotswold stations and Reading - with the GW HSTs from and to Hereford that skipped Reading calls running in their own random slots, not as part of the core pattern.

Now we are getting yawning gaps in the GWR service in one of the busiest parts of the day - which, I repeat, is not innovation. Unless taking a backward step is innovative...

Or are you seriously trying to claim that shaving a few minutes off a few weekday runs between Paddington and Oxford is some kind of earth-shattering change that will transform the lives of the people travelling at that time of the day?

It's a rather different kettle of fish from the service frequency improvements on the Bristol and South Wales routes, where the full future Bristol service, in particular, once it is all running, is indeed an innovation.
 

Mag_seven

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Sorry if its been mentioned upthread, but I've just noticed that most of the off-peak fast Padd-Bristol services have been cancelled off in Real Time Trains from the start of the new TT until Friday 10th Jan - is there a reason for this?
 

43074

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Sorry if its been mentioned upthread, but I've just noticed that most of the off-peak fast Padd-Bristol services have been cancelled off in Real Time Trains from the start of the new TT until Friday 10th Jan - is there a reason for this?

The fast Bristol services are being introduced at a later date to reduce the risk of the timetable change on day 1.
 

JonathanH

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Sorry if its been mentioned upthread, but I've just noticed that most of the off-peak fast Padd-Bristol services have been cancelled off in Real Time Trains from the start of the new TT until Friday 10th Jan - is there a reason for this?

Presumably to allow the rest of the timetable to settle in. This is the easiest service to cancel as it is additional to the current service.
 

Mag_seven

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The fast Bristol services are being introduced at a later date to reduce the risk of the timetable change on day 1.
Presumably to allow the rest of the timetable to settle in. This is the easiest service to cancel as it is additional to the current service.

Sounds reasonable given the debacle surrounding some recent TT changes elsewhere!
 

47421

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Yes thanks, I know the process.

Or are you seriously trying to claim that shaving a few minutes off a few weekday runs between Paddington and Oxford is some kind of earth-shattering change that will transform the lives of the people travelling at that time of the day?

Of course not. That is an absurd mischaracterisation typical of your strident style. But journey times are important. One of the reasons often given for the difficulty in justifying opening new stations is that DfT (or Network rail or whoever it is) when calculating the cost-benefit of a new station proposal includes as a cost a material reduction in fare income from other stations on the line to reflect passengers discouraged from travelling because their journey is slowed by an extra stop.

The loss of journey opportunities Reading to Oxford clearly is an adverse change, but there are benefits for others from dropping some Reading stops. Whether the detriment outweighs the benefit is debatable. Lets see what happens when the timetable settles down in the new year. If there is a noticeable increase pressure on the XC service then this may need to be looked at again.
 

Ianno87

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Yes thanks, I know the process.

And from what I know, it appears that no one within GWR paused much for thought about the impact at Reading in the late afternoon and early evening, both in terms of capacity from there to Oxford and on people travelling beyond Oxford to the Cotswolds and Worcestershire, before accepting Network Rail's late-in-the-process proposal - which must have come about a year into the to-ing and fro-ing - and which was then sprung on user groups as a fait accompli.

TOC commercial teams are typically *incredibly* hot on the revenue and cost impacts of stopping pattern changes like this.

For example, a few minutes' saving on a Paddington-Oxford run may mean a hefty ORCATS swing back from Chiltern....
 

ATW158Xpress

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Sorry if its been mentioned upthread, but I've just noticed that most of the off-peak fast Padd-Bristol services have been cancelled off in Real Time Trains from the start of the new TT until Friday 10th Jan - is there a reason for this?
There are a limited number of “superfast” services using the 1Hxx code between Bristol and London via Parkway with most of them been the Weston-super-Mare extensions from day 1.

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...19-12-16/0200-0159?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...19-12-16/0200-0159?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt
 

jimm

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Of course not. That is an absurd mischaracterisation typical of your strident style. But journey times are important. One of the reasons often given for the difficulty in justifying opening new stations is that DfT (or Network rail or whoever it is) when calculating the cost-benefit of a new station proposal includes as a cost a material reduction in fare income from other stations on the line to reflect passengers discouraged from travelling because their journey is slowed by an extra stop.

The loss of journey opportunities Reading to Oxford clearly is an adverse change, but there are benefits for others from dropping some Reading stops. Whether the detriment outweighs the benefit is debatable. Lets see what happens when the timetable settles down in the new year. If there is a noticeable increase pressure on the XC service then this may need to be looked at again.

No wonder I'm strident when people bandy about words like 'innovation' in an apparent attempt to justify a long-standing aspect of a timetable being butchered, or make statements suggesting that travelling between Reading and Oxford or the Cotswold Line is some kind of niche interest, or throw in red herrings about passengers between Didcot and Worcester.

What on earth do new stations have to do with the fast service in the afternoon and early evening between Reading and Oxford/beyond?That's right, nothing at all. Irrelevant nonsense.

As I have noted above, it is clearly all driven by what is operationally convenient for Network Rail at that time of the day in the Thames Valley, with passengers not given a second thought.

And too right it's an adverse change. Nothing of the sort is being imposed anywhere else on GWR next month, so far as I can see, never mind between two major settlements just 27 miles apart by rail and stations further out that are well within commuting range of Reading.

If there is a noticeable increase in pressure on the XC service?

Are you seriously suggesting that is not going to be the case, in the absence of any other options?

Just in case you hadn't noticed, the number of direct trains between Reading and Oxford, whether fast or slow, has already been cut back in recent years, due to the lack of overhead wires past Didcot.

And the journey times are going to be speeded up across the board between London, Oxford and the Cotswold Line as a result of the timings being for IETs, not HSTs, 180s or Turbos - whether or not a train stops at Reading.

TOC commercial teams are typically *incredibly* hot on the revenue and cost impacts of stopping pattern changes like this.

For example, a few minutes' saving on a Paddington-Oxford run may mean a hefty ORCATS swing back from Chiltern....

How many more times do we have to go over the point about the shuffling of paths from Paddington out to Didcot in the afternoon peak that has resulted in this change?

There was already going to be an across-the-board cut in journey times between Paddington and Oxford and beyond, before there was any sign of the alterations at Reading.

I doubt Chiltern are that bothered either way, since the bulk of their revenue from the Oxford area is generated at Oxford Parkway, through sales of tickets only valid on their route.

I probably wouldn't have been that bothered if it was just one train skipping Reading to hurtle straight from London to Oxford five minutes faster, but that is not what is going to happen.

In the other direction, every single fast train from Oxford to London in the morning peak will continue to call at Reading - because the operational issue later in the day in the other direction that has driven all this does not arise, apparently. If it was a great money-spinning wheeze to take out Reading calls, why isn't there a series of non-stops to Paddington at that time of the day?

I doubt GWR's commercial team had much input at all into the decision-making process over the removal of Reading calls, otherwise they might have done some sums about how much more Reading-Oxford peak period revenue will be going into XC's coffers via Orcats.
 
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Ianno87

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No wonder I'm strident when people bandy about words like 'innovation' in an apparent attempt to justify a long-standing aspect of a timetable being butchered

If 'long standing' were an important feature in a timetable, we'd still be running Sans Pareil at 25mph between Manchester Liverpool Road and Liverpool Crown Street. Demand and timetables need to move an and be refreshed and updated for the greater good.

And too right it's an adverse change. Nothing of the sort is being imposed anywhere else on GWR next month, so far as I can see, never mind between two major settlements just 27 miles apart by rail and stations further out that are well within commuting range of Reading.
...that are benefit from another TOC's fast service between them to cover the flow, unlike pretty much every other pair of GWR long distance network stations.
 

jimm

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If 'long standing' were an important feature in a timetable, we'd still be running Sans Pareil at 25mph between Manchester Liverpool Road and Liverpool Crown Street. Demand and timetables need to move an and be refreshed and updated for the greater good.


...that are benefit from another TOC's fast service between them to cover the flow, unlike pretty much every other pair of GWR long distance network stations.

Very funny - and I do mean both aspects.

How on earth can anyone in all seriousness describe the availability of an alternative service largely operated by four-car Voyagers as a 'benefit'.

Have you missed the threads that appear on this forum demanding that GWR should operate a Paddington-Birmingham service, in order to bail out overcrowded XC trains on the Reading-Oxford-Banbury-Birmingham axis?

In an entertaining twist, one of the four London-Oxford trains that will skip Reading is the new 18.28 Paddington to Banbury, so no help at all from that one.

However, the new morning GWR fast service doing the run to London from Banbury will, I am sure, be extremely popular with anyone wanting to commute from Banbury to Reading, as they will have the pick of the seats on an empty nine-car IET, unlike on XC trains arriving from the north already full to the doors.
 

47421

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Teeny bit triggered eh? Really, a shame that someone with such an expert knowledge of the situation has to spend their days putting people right on an internet forum rather than chairing the meetings at NR to iron everything out.

We arent bandying, butchering or talking irrelevant nonsense, we are discussing a new train timetable, the benefits or otherwise of which reasonable people can disagree about. In my view your emotive tone detracts from the useful substance of your contribution.
 

cactustwirly

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Teeny bit triggered eh? Really, a shame that someone with such an expert knowledge of the situation has to spend their days putting people right on an internet forum rather than chairing the meetings at NR to iron everything out.

We arent bandying, butchering or talking irrelevant nonsense, we are discussing a new train timetable, the benefits or otherwise of which reasonable people can disagree about. In my view your emotive tone detracts from the useful substance of your contribution.

I completely agree with what @jimm has wrote.
This timetable has so much potential, such as the standard pattern on WofE services, but the peak service is a downgrade from the current timetable.
especially for commuters into and out of Reading.
I can see that there will be big problems across the Thames valley come December.
Especially when commuters from Oxford into Reading basically see the capacity halved in the evening peak, which is frankly unacceptable.
GWR should get rid of the fast services that are causing this, they are purely ideological and will serve no real benefit.
 

Kite159

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Just in case you hadn't noticed, the number of direct trains between Reading and Oxford, whether fast or slow, has already been cut back in recent years, due to the lack of overhead wires past Didcot.

And the number of Oxford passengers who used those stoppers would have been minimal due to most were looped at Didcot so it's a bit of a mute point.
 

HowardGWR

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It would be interesting to know what the size of the flow is, that we are discussing here. Scores? Hundreds? Thousands? How many from Reading to Oxford and how many beyond?
 

nw1

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I'm not sure that's entirely true. NR did not reject the GWR timetable; in fact it was offered broadly as-bid at D-26 weeks. However there were specifics that were problematic such as the lack of freight paths between Didcot and Swindon. Solving this involved reflighting the intercity paths (Mon-Fri only) which ultimately cost those Reading stops in the down evening peak.

The question then arises, should the requirements of freight trains cause the removal of a popular Reading stop in the peak, albeit indirectly?
Surely the freights should fit round the passenger trains (as passengers are much more time sensitive than freight), not vice-versa? For starters, presumably they should try and time freight trains to avoid peak periods on busy lines line this as much as possible, i.e. avoid using the GW main line on the Didcot-Swindon section for a couple of hours, say 1730-1930.
 

HamworthyGoods

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That's what happened in the joined up railway.

The question then arises, should the requirements of freight trains cause the removal of a popular Reading stop in the peak, albeit indirectly?
Surely the freights should fit round the passenger trains (as passengers are much more time sensitive than freight), not vice-versa? For starters, presumably they should try and time freight trains to avoid peak periods on busy lines line this as much as possible, i.e. avoid using the GW main line on the Didcot-Swindon section for a couple of hours, say 1730-1930.

Freight trains often run across the country so would always hit a peak somewhere (a bit like XC).

You don’t see lorries not using motorways in rush hours, they keep on running to make best use of their assets, these are what the commercial railfreight companies are competing with and would take a dim view over their expensive assets being sat around for 2-3 hours in the afternoon.

The railways prime purpose is to move passenger and goods, in this case there is a desire to run extra passenger trains and why should that effect existing freight flows.
 
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