An MP wants your views: How would you rate your experience of using Great Western Railway?

[HowardGWR]

Anecdotally I think the level of intercity travel on these services is grossly overstated.

That's my point, anecdotal evidence is not good enough. Thus your concluding paragraph saying the route needs only commuter stock may be erroneous. In any case, I argued for a two tier service, thus not essentially disagreeing with your point about a local commuter service. I am afraid you and I could not further this discussion usefully, unless we had the figures. Don't forget that my intercity traffic includes the likes of journeys from Bristol to Bath, Trowbridge to Westbury. It doesn't include any from Avoncliff Halt, Dilton Marsh and the like.
A two tier service, is what I propose, just as is provided on many other routes.

 

[JN114]

A two tier service, is what I propose, just as is provided on many other routes.

A two-tier service on other routes is usually a consequence of local traffic mixing with longer distance traffic - Milton Keynes to Euston or Reading to Paddington. This already exists along the entire Cardiff - Portsmouth route; with the direct trains being the nominal upper tier, and those services paralleled by Cardiff - Bristol, Bristol - Westbury, Salisbury - Southampton and Southampton - Portsmouth stopping services. Those flows largely match observation on where seat reservations are. A cursory check in genius mobile just now reveals that while there are certainly some long-distance reservations/counted places on currently running 1Fxx services; again the vast majority are within those shorter service groups.

I’m content to agree to disagree on this one, as I profess to only being able to see part of the story with reservation details - that won’t account for walk - up leisure travellers who may skew the balance back towards intercity - and that the info isn’t publicly available so I can only give my word as to the veracity of my observations.

In my book the Turbos “solve” the issue on the Portsmouth route. They could probably do with a tart up inside to a configuration akin to the 387s - commuter but 2+2 with a sprinkling of tables in the longer term - but the route is too busy for wingback armchairs and 4 luggage vans.

EDIT pressed submit too soon