ATW May 11 changes

[TheWalrus]

Hey

Recently read on a post that atw are planning more calls south of shrewsbury on the holyhead runs. has anyone got any more info on this?
cheers
Ryan

 

[merlodlliw]

]

ATW have put out a letter to stakeholders, Gareth Marston may know about this.

see below. From SCRUA
According to the ATW letter the speeding up of services on the Marches line allows for these stops without extending journey duration. All will be revealed in the next SDN.

You have to consider which route carries most people - I suspect Manc - Cardiff rather than N Wales to Cardiff - there's a wonder.

When I see the letter I will put it up,my understanding is the extra two stops,will speed up the Manchester trains, at the cost of quicker North Wales services to Cardiff. It appears all stakeholders have had this letter & been consulted, stakeholders being County Councils including Greater Manchester in England & Welsh consortia who represent Wales County Councils.
The May 2011 timetable is out for tweaking now at all of the above.Planner will know all about this, if we offer him tea & biscuits he may tell us

M

 

[philjo]

Would this remove the Church Stretton/Craven Arms calls from the Manchester services & put them onto the Holyhead services?
The quickest/easiest journey to these stations from London at the moment is one change at Crewe as opposed to 2 changes via Birmingham.
Though it might improve the connections at Shrewsbury for the Aberystwyth & WSMR services to the intermediate Marches line stations.

 

[Gareth Marston]

Best to look for yourselves.

View attachment Table 131(SX) Draft 2.doc

 

[merlodlliw]

Best to look for yourselves.

View attachment 3742

Tea and biscuits to you Gareth any time you are up here.

 

[philjo]

Doesn't look particularly helpful for Church Stretton - reduction in services & some very long waits at Shrewsbury (up to an hour) for connections to/from Crewe. At the moment it is drect every hour.

One consideration - would it be feasible to extend the 2-hourly Crewe-Shrewsbury stopper further south (Presumably would have to run to terminate at Hereford or somewhere on HOW ). Obviously it would require an extra unit to run this but it would give a direct service at CTT and Craven Arms etc & maybe both the Manchester & the Holyhead trains can be quicker as well if the connections at Hereford & shrewsbury were reasonable.

the 13:20 Crewe arrives at Shrewsbury at 14:08.
the HOW service leaves Shrewsbury at 14:05.
Would it be feasible to combine these as a through service?

 

[Gareth Marston]

Doesn't look particularly helpful for Church Stretton - reduction in services & some very long waits at Shrewsbury (up to an hour) for connections to/from Crewe. At the moment it is drect every hour.

One consideration - would it be feasible to extend the 2-hourly Crewe-Shrewsbury stopper further south (Presumably would have to run to terminate at Hereford or somewhere on HOW ). Obviously it would require an extra unit to run this but it would give a direct service at CTT and Craven Arms etc & maybe both the Manchester & the Holyhead trains can be quicker as well if the connections at Hereford & shrewsbury were reasonable.

the 13:20 Crewe arrives at Shrewsbury at 14:08.
the HOW service leaves Shrewsbury at 14:05.
Would it be feasible to combine these as a through service?

In Steam days the route was broken down into local chunks doing all stations say Shrewsbury to Hereford and the North to West Expresses that only stopped at the major stations Crewe, Salop, Hereford, Pontypool Rd. The stations that survived are the ones that according to the Beeching report earnt more than £5K per annum in passenger revenue. The Crewe to Shrewsbury locals somehow survived recommendations for closure and the North to Wests were diverted via the Midlands and a Cardiff to Crewe service (stopping all stations south of Salop instigated) these were then extended to Liverpool and Manchester in the 80's. The pattern on the route is essentially that of a long distance service providing a local service as well as a through service, overlayed over a steam era relic between Salop and Crewe.

The best option for the Marches is for the southern section Abergavenny and below to become part of the Valleys network of Cardiff commuter services. There is a turnback at Abergavenny which has not been used for around 6 years. If there was a half hourly local service to there you could speed up Holyhead and Manchester trains by cutting out stops. Whitchurch and Nantwich have crept into the "city region" influence of Manchester and rightly deserve direct trains there.

 

[Greenback]

You are right Gareth. What we have now is largely a result of the historical legacy of trying to run a long distance service for local traffic as well, and trying to be all things to all people.

The long distance flows of Cardiff/Manchester and Cardiff/North Wales are primarily of interest to the major centres only. No disrespect to places like Church Stretton, but the majority of passengers there are more interested in getting to and from Shrewsbury than anywhere else. Similarly, there are relatively few passengers from Cwmbran making anything but local journeys to Cardiff and Newport.

 

[merlodlliw]

On the proposed May timetables from Gareth.

1W94 ex CDF 1821 is interesting on the down line. Could this be a new Wag ghost?, but no sign of the SAS town as a stop.

Also no sign of this train on the Up.

M

 

[anthony263]

In Steam days the route was broken down into local chunks doing all stations say Shrewsbury to Hereford and the North to West Expresses that only stopped at the major stations Crewe, Salop, Hereford, Pontypool Rd. The stations that survived are the ones that according to the Beeching report earnt more than £5K per annum in passenger revenue. The Crewe to Shrewsbury locals somehow survived recommendations for closure and the North to Wests were diverted via the Midlands and a Cardiff to Crewe service (stopping all stations south of Salop instigated) these were then extended to Liverpool and Manchester in the 80's. The pattern on the route is essentially that of a long distance service providing a local service as well as a through service, overlayed over a steam era relic between Salop and Crewe.

The best option for the Marches is for the southern section Abergavenny and below to become part of the Valleys network of Cardiff commuter services. There is a turnback at Abergavenny which has not been used for around 6 years. If there was a half hourly local service to there you could speed up Holyhead and Manchester trains by cutting out stops. Whitchurch and Nantwich have crept into the "city region" influence of Manchester and rightly deserve direct trains there.

It would be nice for arriva to extend the current Swansea - Llandeilo - Llandrindod - Shrewsbury service through to Crewe as well as increasing the frequency of the heart of wales service to every 2 hours. This should lead to an increase in passenger numbers on the heart of wales especially between Llandrindod & Shrewsbury & Llandeilo - Swansea.

Any more changes being brought in by arriva for the may 2011 timetable? I did hear that FGW were changing the times on the London - Swansea services, so that they would leave cardiff central earlier meaning that the Milford Haven train woudnt follow about 12-15 minutes behind the FGW service.

 

[merlodlliw]

I am afraid the HOWL wont see any improvement for a while,no funding for extra services and not enough people to kick up a fuss.



BTW does the FGW HST still call at Abergaveny to pick up on its way to Hereford & London on the dawn service

 

[anthony263]

I think FGW withdrew the abergavenny stop back in dec 2009

 

[TheWalrus]

I think FGW withdrew the abergavenny stop back in dec 2009

Na it was Dec 08!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I did hear that FGW were changing the times on the London - Swansea services, so that they would leave cardiff central earlier meaning that the Milford Haven train woudnt follow about 12-15 minutes behind the FGW service.

I knew nothing of this! Any more info to hand?

 

[Flamingo]

Any more changes being brought in by arriva for the may 2011 timetable? I did hear that FGW were changing the times on the London - Swansea services, so that they would leave cardiff central earlier meaning that the Milford Haven train woudnt follow about 12-15 minutes behind the FGW service.

News to me, not even in rumour form. Given the chaos it would cause to existing staffing diagrams, not to mention the flow of trains into and out of Pad, I seriously doubt it. Trains within Wales are ATW's business, if they chose to run a commuter train for Cardiff within a few minutes of the intercity (which has an entirely different remit) it's up to them

 

[TheWalrus]

News to me, not even in rumour form. Given the chaos it would cause to existing diagrams, not to mention the flow of trains into and out of Pad, I seriously doubt it.

Well they could be swapping the XX15 and XX45 so the 15 goes to Swansea and 45 terminates at Cardiff?

 

[Flamingo]

Well they could be swapping the XX15 and XX45 so the 15 goes to Swansea and 45 terminates at Cardiff?

I refer the honourable member to my previous answer. It would mean re-writing the entire crew diagrams for the company, not impossible but very unlikely, given the hassle it would create with the unions. If that was the plan, rumour of it would have reached the shop-floor of a serious reshuffle of diagrams in May - the union reps would need to be working on them already.

 

[anthony263]

i did read it somewhere willl have to look if i can find the link.

Strange about the 06:00 Carmarthen - Manchester service which has been re-timed to leave Swansea at 07:04 and no longer has a stop at Pyle.

Any idea what is happening with regards to the 07:10 Swansea - Cardiff swanline service as both this and the 06:45 service from Swansea are very well used especially by commuters to Cardiff boarding the train at Pyle

 

[merlodlliw]

Na it was Dec 08!

Thanks Walrus & Tony, I presume the FGW still goes via Abergaveny for an Hereford dawn start,if this is so where is its stables overnight.


M

 

[anthony263]

A empty stock hst always passes through Bridgend at 03:45 and normally goes via the vale of glamorgan route to Cardiff. Not sure if this then goes to Hereford or does the 1st Cheltenham/Gloucester - London service

 

[TheWalrus]

Thanks Walrus & Tony, I presume the FGW still goes via Abergaveny for an Hereford dawn start,if this is so where is its stables overnight.

I believe so, and it will come from SPM. Not certain but I think so! Waste of fuel eh?

 

[Flamingo]

A empty stock hst always passes through Bridgend at 03:45 and normally goes via the vale of glamorgan route to Cardiff. Not sure if this then goes to Hereford or does the 1st Cheltenham/Gloucester - London service

2nd Cheltenham

 

[tbtc]

Waste of fuel eh?

Route learning/ staff training etc?

 

[Flamingo]

The other option is stable the train there overnight and taxi the crew to and from every day. Probably cost more.

 

[TheWalrus]

The other option is stable the train there overnight and taxi the crew to and from every day. Probably cost more.

True! Unless we had some Hereford crew be quite useful I think. Are there Worcester based crew for FGW?

 

[merlodlliw]

According to a colleague, the FGW HST stopped at Abergaveny on its was to Hereford then London to test the traffic, although knowing the area, the traffic would be sparse, stop was due to requests,probably political local M.P?

So is the HST stabled at Hereford over night,or sent somewhere for servicing? although security of the stock comes to mind.Does ATWs Hereford station have all night staff?

later, NR says no staff after 2200, so I presume the FGW dont stable there.

 

[Philip]

The 21:06 Cardiff to Milford Haven will no longer run from May going off that timetable, currently the last through train of the day from Manchester.

 

[anthony263]

I hope arriva are going to put extra services to stop at Pyle because i know that it is well used by passengers

 

[mr williams]

If this goes ahead the 17.50 from Cardiff will no longer stop at Pontypool, so commuters finishing work at half-past five will have to wait for 2 hours for their train home.

Yeah, like hell they will. Make the service as unhelpful and unfriendly as possible and then use that as justification for further cuts when passenger numbers go through the floor.

 

[merlodlliw]

If this goes ahead the 17.50 from Cardiff will no longer stop at Pontypool, so commuters finishing work at half-past five will have to wait for 2 hours for their train home.

Yeah, like hell they will. Make the service as unhelpful and unfriendly as possible and then use that as justification for further cuts when passenger numbers go through the floor.

The timetables for May 2011 are out for consultation with all stakeholders,so the local consortia representing County Councils in Sth Wales will know all about this and should complain, mind you these stakeholders(consortia) are made up of County Cllrs,who are just advisory, In North Wales we only have one Cllr who works and understands the railways out of the 6 CCs, the others just bluff through believing all the ATW suits tell them, this so called speeding up from May is for whose benefit,Cardiff/Holyhead/Crewe or Manchester, and forget the real passenger in between these towns. My opinion

 

[anthony263]

Anyone know where i can view the timeatbles for the Swansea - Cardiff Central local services for may 2011?