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Worcestershire Parkway station progress

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jimm

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I think once Cross-Country can be convinced that the Voyagers between Birmingham and the South West should stop there you will see a big jump in passenger numbers.

Do you use XC services between Birmingham and Bristol much? They have been overloaded for years now. That is not going to charge any time soon.

And doesn't take into account the fact that there is pent up demand for a fast InterCity service from Worcester to Birmingham, Cheltenham and Bristol.

I find it odd that there is an assumption of a preference for Intercity services to London, over the more local large employment centres in Birmingham etc.

Maybe if the Camp Hill lines re-open to link to Moor Street, GWR could then run an hourly IET service from Birmingham to Plymouth to rival Cross-Country's monopoly.

People in Worcester generally want to go to Birmingham - which is a already linked with Worcester by two routes with frequent trains and plans to further boost frequencies as well - or in the direction of Oxford and London.

A better service to and from the south would be useful but that would more usefully be done by improving the GWR service from Bristol and that company would not be allowed to run an 'intercity' service between Birmingham and Plymouth, even if did go into Worcester, as it would never in million years pass the 'not primarily abstractive' test.

Any extra capacity opened up at Moor Street by running passenger trains on the Camp Hill line and building curves at Bordesley will be needed for additional regional services in the Midlands.

Cross Country needed more stock 10 years ago. Unfortunately transport planning has become toxified by North vs South identity politics while rakes of mk3s are quietly despatched for scrap.

Shocking, 40-odd-year-old rolling stock gets sent for scrap...

Just seen the parking season ticket prices.

Monthly - £95.00
Quarterly - £280.00
Annual - £1000.00

Ouch!

Ouch what? Let's try parking at a couple of other West Midlands region Parkways, shall we?

Chiltern charges at Warwick Parkway are:

Day rate (weekday peak) £9
Day rate (off-peak and weekends) £6
Monthly £132.90
Annual £1,388.70

Avanti charges at Birmingham International are:
Daily Mon-Fri: £12.00
Saturday: £9.00
Sunday: £9.00
Monthly: £132.00
Three monthly: £374.00
Annual: £1200.00

Day rates at Worcestershire Parkway are £5 (£4.50 using a mobile and Apcoa Connect) before 10am on weekdays and £3 the rest of the day and all day at weekends.

I hope this is successful but there must be concern about abstraction from other nearby stations including Shrub Hill and Pershore as well as all the extra road traffic. Also, there's now no chance of Ashchurch getting its long sought-after Birmingham service.

Of course there will be abstraction from Shrub Hill in particular (which has been known all along) - because the new station will be a whole lot easier to reach by road from much of the city and surrounding area than Shrub Hill (or Foregate Street) and has 500 car park spaces, not 120. It is hoped some people will now just drive to this station, rather than all the way from Worcestershire to Birmingham International or Warwick Parkway to get a train to London.

What do you mean about Ashchurch? Several XC services call from Monday to Saturday and what would be far more useful there would be an increase in the GWR service between Gloucester, Cheltenham and Worcester to run hourly and provide a robust service between them and Ashchurch, to get some traffic off the M5.
 
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S-Bahn

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1. Do you use XC services between Birmingham and Bristol much? They have been overloaded for years now. That is not going to charge any time soon.

2. People in Worcester generally want to go to Birmingham - which is a already linked with Worcester by two routes with frequent trains and plans to further boost frequencies as well - or in the direction of Oxford and London.

3. A better service to and from the south would be useful but that would more usefully be done by improving the GWR service from Bristol and that company would not be allowed to run an 'intercity' service between Birmingham and Plymouth, even if did go into Worcester, as it would never in million years pass the 'not primarily abstractive' test.

4. Any extra capacity opened up at Moor Street by running passenger trains on the Camp Hill line and building curves at Bordesley will be needed for additional regional services in the Midlands.

5. Ouch what? Let's try parking at a couple of other West Midlands region Parkways, shall we?.

1. Yes I do and XC's current fleet is woefully inadequate. However, it is assumed that XC will end up with the Meridians as well as the Voyagers, so that might help reduce some of the overcrowding. And Worcester is a city big enough to warrant intercity services to Birmingham and Bristol via WOP - also see point 4.

2. Yes they do, but there is also demand for Cheltenham, Gloucester and Bristol that is not currently being provided for adequately.

3. GWR's current Worcester southbound services to Bristol are low frequency stopping services. I'm suggesting GWR could run an alternate Intercity service between Birmingham and the SW which could stop at some additional stations that are currently not served by XC Voyagers - such as WOP, Bromsgrove and Ashchurch etc - also see point 4.

4. True, but the plans submitted to the Department for Transport included:

two new platforms (5 and 6)
two extra trains per hour to Leicester and Derby
two extra commuter services per hour from Kings Norton via the Camp Hill Line
one extra train per hour to Nottingham
one extra train per hour to Hereford via Worcester
one extra train per hour to Cardiff Central
one extra train per hour to Bristol Temple Meads

5. Parking charges at a railway station, particularly one where you are trying to encourage people to park (in order to reduce traffic on the M5) are a sneaky tax (like hospital parking charges).
 

geoffk

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Of course there will be abstraction from Shrub Hill in particular (which has been known all along) - because the new station will be a whole lot easier to reach by road from much of the city and surrounding area than Shrub Hill (or Foregate Street) and has 500 car park spaces, not 120. It is hoped some people will now just drive to this station, rather than all the way from Worcestershire to Birmingham International or Warwick Parkway to get a train to London.

What do you mean about Ashchurch? Several XC services call from Monday to Saturday and what would be far more useful there would be an increase in the GWR service between Gloucester, Cheltenham and Worcester to run hourly and provide a robust service between them and Ashchurch, to get some traffic off the M5.
Agreed if road trips to Bham International or Warwick Parkway can be reduced. Ashchurch used to have a good service to Birmingham from Central Trains and Wales & West before them. XC have shown they are not interested. Now there are just nine trains per weekday in total. Nothing to Birmingham between 0803 and 1303, and then 1903. First train from Bham, apart from one very early, is at 1630! Just about OK for commuting but nothing else.

As I've suggested before, what's needed is a Bristol - Bham International semi-fast service, calling at Gloucester, Cheltenham, Ashchurch, WOP and Bromsgrove, but there's no spare stock for such a service and almost certainly no paths into and through New Street.
 

S-Bahn

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As I've suggested before, what's needed is a Bristol - Bham International semi-fast service, calling at Gloucester, Cheltenham, Ashchurch, WOP and Bromsgrove, but there's no spare stock for such a service and almost certainly no paths into and through New Street.

I agree, although a Moor Street-SW service might be more viable (if the Camp Hill project goes ahead).

Assuming HS2 also get's built, that would also increase demand for SW bound services as people could change from the HS2 terminus to Moor Street.
 

jimm

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1. Yes I do and XC's current fleet is woefully inadequate. However, it is assumed that XC will end up with the Meridians as well as the Voyagers, so that might help reduce some of the overcrowding. And Worcester is a city big enough to warrant intercity services to Birmingham and Bristol via WOP - also see point 4.

If so, then you would know full well that unless and until XC has more rolling stock, then extra stops anywhere are out of the question - and the Nottingham-Cardiffs are no better placed, with lots of two-car 170s in use and overcrowding a longstanding feature much of the week.

Nor does XC want to stop the Bristol route trains at the Parkway as they would just fill up with people commuting to and from Birmingham - and more than enough commuters already flood their trains at Wolverhampton, Coventry and Leamington, so they don't want to add more somewhere else.

You can assume what you like - there is nothing decided and when someone does got round to sorting out what to do about XC's rolling stock, the limitations of the 22x family when it comes to passenger-carrying capacity and the costs of running them, such as their thirst for diesel, may well count against them if new trains can still be had at competitive prices.

On what basis does Worcester warrant intercity services to Birmingham? Most people on that flow are simply making a local journey, so why on earth should an intercity train be provided?

2. Yes they do, but there is also demand for Cheltenham, Gloucester and Bristol that is not currently being provided for adequately.

3. GWR's current Worcester southbound services to Bristol are low frequency stopping services. I'm suggesting GWR could run an alternate Intercity service between Birmingham and the SW which could stop at some additional stations that are currently not served by XC Voyagers - such as WOP, Bromsgrove and Ashchurch etc - also see point 4.

The DfT has a franchised long-distance operator for Plymouth to Birmingham - it's called CrossCountry, so the DfT is not going to get another franchised operator to run a service there and if First Group applied to run an open access service, they would be turned down without a second glance, as the only places there is traffic to pay for it are the places that XC already stops at.

Worcester to Cheltenham and Gloucester are local journeys, not intercity, and it's perfectly easy to make a same-platform change at Cheltenham if you want to go to Bristol or Plymouth. A change which would be a whole lot easier if the GWR trains ran at least hourly on a service that goes right into the heart of Worcester (and Gloucester, unlike many of XC's Bristol route trains).

The GWR rolling stock now in use can run at 90mph and there is a whole one station between Worcester and Cheltenham and all of two between Gloucester and Bristol Parkway.

4. True, but the plans submitted to the Department for Transport included:

two new platforms (5 and 6)
two extra trains per hour to Leicester and Derby
two extra commuter services per hour from Kings Norton via the Camp Hill Line
one extra train per hour to Nottingham
one extra train per hour to Hereford via Worcester
one extra train per hour to Cardiff Central
one extra train per hour to Bristol Temple Meads

IE regional services - unless you are going to claim that a 170 doing Cardiff-Nottingham or Bristol-Nottingham is intercity. And that pattern would give Worcester a second hourly fast service via Bromsgrove, which should be plenty of extra capacity for Worcester-Birmingham travel needs.

5. Parking charges at a railway station, particularly one where you are trying to encourage people to park (in order to reduce traffic on the M5) are a sneaky tax (like hospital parking charges).

In the case of Worcestershire Parkway (and Bromsgrove), the parking charges are paying back the loans taken out to build the stations in the first place. If you have a better way to pay back £14 million borrowed for Parkway, plus whatever the Bromsgrove loan was, do let Worcestershire County Council know.
 
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Meerkat

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5. Parking charges at a railway station, particularly one where you are trying to encourage people to park (in order to reduce traffic on the M5) are a sneaky tax (like hospital parking charges).

No they aren’t, they are a fair user pays way of funding the parking facilities, whilst also discouraging car use.
Why should those arriving by bus pay for the bus and parking spaces they don’t use?
 

Brush 4

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Yes but when the car park is paid for, we just know the charges won't finish. Has that happened anywhere? The early Parkways like Bristol were free from the start, but charges came in later. Bus passengers pay for lots of things they don't use, everyone does, that's general tax/council tax for you.
 

R G NOW.

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This station will be useful if the GWR services from Bristol are late, then people at Cheltenham or Gloucester can change there for Worcester city or Great Malvern.
 

R G NOW.

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Yes but when the car park is paid for, we just know the charges won't finish. Has that happened anywhere? The early Parkways like Bristol were free from the start, but charges came in later. Bus passengers pay for lots of things they don't use, everyone does, that's general tax/council tax for you.
It has happened on the two Severn bridges though, now they're paid for, or so I think. But not station carparks as ongoing maintenance costs, example the cost of the lighting.
 

ABB125

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It has happened on the two Severn bridges though, now they're paid for, or so I think. But not station carparks as ongoing maintenance costs, example the cost of the lighting.
However maintenance also applies to the bridges, and I imagine bridge maintenance costs are greater than car park maintenance costs.
 

jimm

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This station will be useful if the GWR services from Bristol are late, then people at Cheltenham or Gloucester can change there for Worcester city or Great Malvern.

Not particularly, as there is a long wait at Parkway for a train to/from the city centre if trying to go that way. Even a quite heavily delayed northbound GWR service would probably still get into Shrub Hill or Foregate Street first.

The connections between XC and GWR are much slicker for passengers travelling between Cardiff, Gloucester and Cheltenham and the the stations east of Parkway along the Cotswold Line.
 

S-Bahn

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1. Nor does XC want to stop the Bristol route trains at the Parkway as they would just fill up with people commuting to and from Birmingham - and more than enough commuters already flood their trains at Wolverhampton, Coventry and Leamington, so they don't want to add more somewhere else.

2. On what basis does Worcester warrant intercity services to Birmingham? Most people on that flow are simply making a local journey, so why on earth should an intercity train be provided?

3. IE regional services - unless you are going to claim that a 170 doing Cardiff-Nottingham or Bristol-Nottingham is intercity. And that pattern would give Worcester a second hourly fast service via Bromsgrove, which should be plenty of extra capacity for Worcester-Birmingham travel needs.

4. In the case of Worcestershire Parkway (and Bromsgrove), the parking charges are paying back the loans taken out to build the stations in the first place. If you have a better way to pay back £14 million borrowed for Parkway, plus whatever the Bromsgrove loan was, do let Worcestershire County Council know.

1. The point of a public transport system is to efficiently move people and that includes tax paying commuters and the unemployed, students, etc.

2. There is pent up demand for fast connections between Worcester & Birmingham and WOP is the obvious way of resolving that. By your logic, Intercity express services should skip places like Bedford and Guildford as they can be served by local stoppers to London. "Intercity" doesn't just mean uber-long journeys from Bristol to Newcastle or express trains out of London.

3. The XC 170's from Cardiff to Nottingham meet the criteria for "Intercity", despite also (like the Voyagers) suffering from a lack of capacity to meet demand. I hope in the longer term the XC franchise upgrade to an 80x model IET that has a diesel performance better than the Voyagers/Meridians.

4. There are lots of ways to fund things. Railway infrastructure such as a station is an ultra-long term investment and the capital costs can be recovered without "punitively taxing" the users via parking charges.
Taxing someone to park at a parkway station is counter-intuitive. It either causes them not to use the station (so rail revenue is not maximised), or they take the hit and they have £1000 less disposable income to spend in the local economy on goods and services.
 
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S-Bahn

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No they aren’t, they are a fair user pays way of funding the parking facilities, whilst also discouraging car use.
Why should those arriving by bus pay for the bus and parking spaces they don’t use?

The point of a parkway station is to encourage people to drive the relatively short distance to the station and get on the train, as opposed to contributing to congestion on motorways.

Charging for the parking is a tax pure and simple.

If WOP is served by an amazing bus/tram network then your point might have validity and in that event people would leave the car at home anyway as the parking tax is there as a deterrent, not a significant source of revenue.

But WOP isn't served by frequent busses so driving and parking up is the travellers preference (for now).
 
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bluenoxid

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Driving and parking has negative impacts on the environment and society, which are reasonable to charge for. The charges are advertised so are not sneaky.
 

S-Bahn

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Driving and parking has negative impacts on the environment and society, which are reasonable to charge for. The charges are advertised so are not sneaky.

And motorists being discouraged from a P&R with a £1000 annual tax will result in more cars undertaking more miles on overcrowded roads instead.

Besides with the rise of more efficient engines, discontinuance of diesel engines and the eventual shift to electric vehicles road pollution will be mitigated - particularly if being used to get to the train station and the train doing the majority of the overall journey.
 

bluenoxid

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Chokes on tyre particulates, the inefficiencies created by congestion and accommodating car storage.

It costs money to drive the vehicle and park it in the cities served by the train services through this station.

Looking at the nearby competition, it’s reasonably priced.
 

Llanigraham

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And motorists being discouraged from a P&R with a £1000 annual tax will result in more cars undertaking more miles on overcrowded roads instead.

But as has been pointed out the charge here is actually cheaper than other station car parks in the same region, and a lot cheaper than the NCP in Worcester city centre.

Besides with the rise of more efficient engines, discontinuance of diesel engines and the eventual shift to electric vehicles road pollution will be mitigated - particularly if being used to get to the train station and the train doing the majority of the overall journey.

Are diesel engines really going to being discontinued? Although there may be a proposal nothing is certain about that, especially in relation to large delivery vehicles.
So if we all have electric vehicles to get to the station, isn't that exactly what a Parkway station is doing?

And the one thing this Parkway is doing is getting the air pollution OUT of Worcester city centre!
 
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edwin_m

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The presence of free parking might encourage people to drive there when the could have walked, cycled or taken the bus or a taxi either to the Parkway itself or to one of the other Worcester stations. So as far as I'm concerned a modest charge is entirely reasonable.
 

Mintona

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I know it’s only the first weekday but has anybody on here used the station today (as opposed to just going down to look around for the novelty) or able to comment on how busy it has been?
 

S-Bahn

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The presence of free parking might encourage people to drive there when the could have walked, cycled or taken the bus or a taxi either to the Parkway itself or to one of the other Worcester stations. So as far as I'm concerned a modest charge is entirely reasonable.

The new station is a considerable distance from the suburbs of Worcester. Using a google search for a random suburban street in East Worcester to the station is a journey of around 5 miles, with a walk time of 1.5 hours, 25 min cycle or 5-10 mins by car.

A Google street-view of the roads from Worcester to POW also show they are unsuitable for commuters walking/cyclists (no street lighting, lack of pavements). We're taking country B roads here.

Also given the nature of the UK's climate, walking or cycling anything more that than a few mins in the cold and wet (and dark) is a non-starter.

I know there are a lot of people who cycle to places like Bristol Temple Meads, but that's quite different.
 
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squizzler

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The new station is a considerable distance from the suburbs of Worcester. Using a google search for a street in East Worcester to the station is a journey of around 5 miles, with a walk time of 1.5 hours, 25 min cycle or 5-10 mins by car.

A Google street-view of the roads from Worcester to POW also show they are unsuitable for walkers and cyclists (no street lighting, lack of pavements).

Also given the nature of the UK's climate, walking or cycling anything more that than a few mins in the cold and wet (and dark) is a non-starter.

I know there are a lot of people who cycle to places like Bristol Temple Meads, but that's quite different.
25 minutes is perhaps getting close to the limit for consideration for a daily bike trip by most non enthusiasts, but eminently doable (and done by Londoners all the time). You suggest in an earlier post that motorists will supersede petrol with electric motors, but for bike riders electric assist bikes are already a mainstream reality, and are a game changer for commuters. You can pick one up from local firm gTech cheap as chips.

I foresee the station becoming a key multimodal transport hub in due course, just like Bristol Parkway has become.
 

HowardGWR

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The new station is a considerable distance from the suburbs of Worcester. Using a google search for a random suburban street in East Worcester to the station is a journey of around 5 miles, with a walk time of 1.5 hours, 25 min cycle or 5-10 mins by car.

A Google street-view of the roads from Worcester to POW also show they are unsuitable for commuters walking/cyclists (no street lighting, lack of pavements). We're taking country B roads here.

Also given the nature of the UK's climate, walking or cycling anything more that than a few mins in the cold and wet (and dark) is a non-starter.

I know there are a lot of people who cycle to places like Bristol Temple Meads, but that's quite different.
I appreciate your point, especially the lack of cycle paths. but 'a few minutes' max? Tell 15 million Dutch people that! Before you say it's flat, it's also open to westerly gales and rains most of the winter, just as here. I know: - I've done it!
 

S-Bahn

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I foresee the station becoming a key multimodal transport hub in due course, just like Bristol Parkway has become.

I concur.

Also XC Class 170 does Cheltenham - WOP in 16 mins,
which is quicker than an equivalent journey by road (29 mins)
and GWR from Shrub Hill to Cheltenham - 25 mins.

Also WOP - New Street - 31 mins
Shrub Hill to New Street 44 mins+

Bring on the Voyagers!
 

S-Bahn

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I appreciate your point, especially the lack of cycle paths. but 'a few minutes' max? Tell 15 million Dutch people that! Before you say it's flat, it's also open to westerly gales and rains most of the winter, just as here. I know: - I've done it!

If they had built a dedicated illuminated cycle path from the outskirts of town to the station, then maybe!

They should offer free parking and charging for electric vehicles. Imagine 20 years from now all the cars parked up and being charged by renewable energy whilst the Worcester residents are travelling and working in their offices in Birmingham etc. Fancy that.
 
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SoccerHQ

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Happy with the pricing. 9 quid return from Sutton/New street to Parkway and then another 8 quid to Cheltenham so all in all 10 quid saving with splitting rather than the ridiculous 27 quid for 40 minute journey that was the only real alternative before (don't have time to go via Worcester and even that is 20 quid).

As regard demands I don't travel regularly in the morning but actually at rush hour in the evenings coming back from Bristol once a month (I know someone at Uni down there) it's the bristol-Cheltenham bit that has 4/5 cars rammed from Temple Meads to Parkway but half of the train then clears out at Cheltenham and there's no problem at all in then getting a seat up to Brum.

Of course the issue is those two don't stop at Parkway and the 2/3 Nottingham one does but even that in the evenings/Saturdays is pretty quiet.
 

S-Bahn

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Philosophically, why should electricity be provided free if petrol isn't? Even if provided from a 'free' source (e.g. solar) someone has to pay for the infrastructure.

It's another incentive to switch and the locally sourced electricity from solar panels or wind turbines at the site could be charging the vehicles whilst the owner are in work and instead of the owners having to cover the cost of the electricity when the car is on the drive, garage or when on the street and charging is impracticable.

(off topic)The same could be done at out of town office developments/industrial sites that people commute to (off topic).

If it puts more money in the owners pocket, then they have more money to spend into their local economy, so the investment ends up paying for itself in the bigger picture.
 
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