Yet Off Peak services are still provided. Shrewsbury didn't get any, even before the cuts.
If passenger numbers are poor on the peak Hereford services, I'm not surprised, the Anytime fares aren't quite as extortionate as the Shrewsbury ones but they're not far below £300 return.
If a government actually wanted to provide decent public transport then the fares on both lines would be reduced to sensible levels and a proper service provided. Shrewsbury has the problem that a London service duplicates the TfW class 1 services whereas if it were run as a combination of the two (so Aberystwyth to London) the Shrewsbury to London passengers would be piggybacking on the combined strength of the Shrewsbury-Birmingham passengers and the Birmingham-London passengers. A joined up and properly-funded railway would be able to make it work technically but unfortunately the siloed nature of our privatised system makes it "too difficult".
Yes, off-peak services are still provided - and Shrewsbury had them back in the 1980s - in part because of the reason I noted about keeping the post-2019 timetable's hourly service between Paddington and Worcester balanced. If the couple of trains that go to Hereford off-peak did not do that, then the point would arrive in the course of the day when there were more IETs in Worcestershire than hourly paths back to London. What do you do then - have two trains chase each other to Oxford and London and pray that trains the other way on the single-line bits of the Cotswold Line are all bang on time?
Just because you can hook up separate services does not necessarily make it a good, or cost-effective, idea - whether it is being done by a public or privately-owned operator. I remain sceptical about the wisdom of hooking up Falmouth-Truro and Par-Newquay, with all that single line and a few loops, but that's another story.
I used to catch the 1980s Cambrian Coast Express portion to travel between Welshpool and London on occasion and the fact was that it emptied out and refilled at Shrewsbury and then again in Birmingham and vice versa. It may have been convenient for those of us making the full trip to stay in the same seat but it took three locos each way and some shunting at Shrewbury, so probably didn't ever come close to washing its face financially.
An 807 may theoretically simplify operation these days (thought would one fit on Cambrian infrastructure?), but still won't alter the underlying traffic patterns - or the post-pandemic fall-off in peak-time commuter and business travel, whatever level fares are set at. Not everyone is travelling up and down to London all the time. You might get a decent number of Shrewsbury/Telford to London passengers on a couple of direct trains on a Saturday, but probably not off-peak midweek in the winter.
Re fares - the Hereford-London anytime return (via Evesham restricted) on the direct 05.23 departure (or leaving a bit later on WMR and changing at Worcester) is £119.40. The £281 fare I presume you are looking at is any permitted route, ie allowing travel with a change at Newport.
