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GWR direct service to Birmingham

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gazthomas

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This does make me think though, if an operator had flexibility to go where they liked what where would they go? I remember FGW had plans for a London service once upon a time and there are countless others.
 
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dk1

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Virgin Cross Country planned to shorten HSTs (ironic its now happening) & calling them Challengers. They planned regular Birmingham-Swindon-Paddington services but seem to recall it was all knocked on the head by the then Strategic Rail Authority.
 

nuneatonmark

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I can't blame people for not believing in Wikipedia but apparently, on good authority from an inside source in the Department for Transport, there ARE plans for a Paddington to Birmingham service in the next franchise. I can't name the person but I did hear this from their sister's son's nextdoor neighbour's cousin's parrot so it must be true.
 

PHILIPE

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Um. Wouldn't that be an excessively long way to get to Glasgow?

I think he was having a little dig at the many threads that have cropped up on the Forum from time to time all more or less titled "My idea for Cross Country......" which came up with suggestions with some calling at the most absurd stations, taking the most circuitous routes, take outrageous extended journey times and an insistence that Brighton should have it's XC service restored.
 
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Kite159

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I think he was having a little dig at the many threads that have cropped up on the Forum from time to time all more or less titled "My idea for Cross Country......" which came up with suggestions with some calling at the most absurd stations, taking the most circuitous routes, take outrageous extended journey times and an insistence that Brighton should have it's XC service restored.

Yep, covers a couple of the more common fantasy threads (hence the :lol: at the end, although I would have suggested "using loco hauled 442s" but that idea is deader than a dead thing.

As for Paddington - Birmingham, maybe it was an idea in the dark days of the 1980s when the Chiltern route was run down with Marylebone being suggested to close in exchange for a coach station, but these days with a roughly half hourly service from Marylebone to Moor Street/Snow Hill, a Paddington -> Reading - Oxford -> Birmingham service would seem to be complete and utter pointless.

Passengers for Reading/Oxford already have an half hourly XC service to New Street, Banbury/Leamington has roughly 4 trains an hour to Birmingham.

Even a LM stopping service would probably beat it to Birmingham!
 

Mag_seven

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As for Paddington - Birmingham, maybe it was an idea in the dark days of the 1980s when the Chiltern route was run down with Marylebone being suggested to close in exchange for a coach station, but these days with a roughly half hourly service from Marylebone to Moor Street/Snow Hill, a Paddington -> Reading - Oxford -> Birmingham service would seem to be complete and utter pointless.

Not sure about that but under Operation Princess the idea was for an HST every hour from Padd to Cheltenham via Stroud. One HST would be a GWR set terminating at Cheltenham (or Worcester) the other would be a "short" HST run by Virgin XC Padd to Brum. The short Virgin HST's were called "Challengers" (AFAICR) and did run for a time but not on that route.
 

Harbornite

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I'm surprised that this would crop up in a government document. Does Birmingham need 4 TOCs on three routes providing services to London (not including HS2).

See Page 31. http://assets.hs2.org.uk/sites/default/files/inserts/S&A 20_PFM assumptions report.pdf#page31

The rail networks within PFMv4.3 include a representation of a timetable and its
associated capacity. The ‘Do Minimum’ provides a reference against which the ‘Do
Something’ HS2 option is compared.
5.1.2 With a few exceptions, the ‘Do Minimum’ timetable assumptions are based on
committed schemes only. The ‘Do Minimum’ makes use of information provided by
the DfT for Network Rail services and Transport for London (TfL) for London
Underground Limited (LUL) services. The rail and LUL ‘Do Minimum’ networks are
assumed to be identical in the 2026 and 2036 (cap year models).
5.1.3 These assumptions are designed only for the purpose of providing an indicative
reference case for the appraisal of HS2. It should be noted that no decisions have
yet been taken about train service requirements – or which stock will operate
them – in any of the relevant franchises, and therefore these service patterns
should be considered to be indicative.
5.1.4 In the PLD model these assumptions relate to the average service pattern on
weekdays. Information used within the Regional Planet models relates to services
during the Morning Period. Within these assumptions, no work has been under...

The key points of the specification assumed for PFMv4.3 are:
 The introduction of an hourly service operating between Birmingham New
Street and London Paddington;


Always worth quoting sources, OP, so that people don't dismiss what you're saying, if it's correct.
 
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shaun

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Coincidentally, I've only just found out about this document, in which the proposal is made for a Kidderminster to Paddington service (among other things). This would be the closest that GWR gets to Birmingham, IF it were to go ahead.

www.worcestershire.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/8264/worcestershire_rail_investment_strategy.pdf

Interesting, so basically the Worcester terminators would just continue to Kidderminster. Pretty sure BR used to run that exact service up until around 1993? Would be nice to see a 80x at Kidderminster though, even if it does take the long way round to London.
 

Harbornite

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Interesting, so basically the Worcester terminators would just continue to Kidderminster. Pretty sure BR used to run that exact service up until around 1993? Would be nice to see a 80x at Kidderminster though, even if it does take the long way round to London.

Yeah there was a service from Stourbridge to Paddington, which the Stourbridge line user group have mentioned on their website. Personally, I'd like to see a New Street/Kidderminster/Stourbridge to Paddington service for the same reason as you.
 

jimm

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Coincidentally, I've only just found out about this document, in which the proposal is made for a Kidderminster to Paddington service (among other things). This would be the closest that GWR gets to Birmingham, IF it were to go ahead.

www.worcestershire.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/8264/worcestershire_rail_investment_strategy.pdf

I wouldn't get to excited about that document - it is a very odd piece of work, obsessed about links between Worcestershire and almost anywhere else they can think of in the UK - even if XC only want to stop the Birmingham-Cardiffs at the council's shiny new mega car park on the edge of Worcester....

It says almost nothing about ways to increase the use of rail for commuting into Worcester or other journeys within the county and is also obsessed with getting
two trains an hour each way between London and Worcester - even if the current roughly hourly off-peak service would not be viable without all the money taken in fares at the eastern end of the line between Moreton-in-Marsh and Oxford - and Worcestershire wants the extra train each hour to run limited-stop, including omitting 2 of the 3 stations in Worcestershire that are on the Cotswold line...

Any extension of GWR services to Kidderminster would be entirely reliant on this 2tph all day service being delivered and that is never going to happen until the Cotswold Line is redoubled throughout - and I don't see any signs of people rushing to pay for that.

Nor do I see quite who they think would use GWR trains at Kidderminster when Chiltern are already planning to add more Kidderminster-London services from December.

Interesting, so basically the Worcester terminators would just continue to Kidderminster. Pretty sure BR used to run that exact service up until around 1993? Would be nice to see a 80x at Kidderminster though, even if it does take the long way round to London.

Yeah there was a service from Stourbridge to Paddington, which the Stourbridge line user group have mentioned on their website. Personally, I'd like to see a New Street/Kidderminster/Stourbridge to Paddington service for the same reason as you.

Portion working between Paddington and Kidderminster (trains divided at Shrub Hill) ended a very long time before 1993.

What happened in 1993, for a brief period after the Class 166s entered service, was that a set that I think worked up from London to Birmingham Snow Hill early in the morning then returned off-peak running from Snow Hill to Stourbridge, Kidderminster and Worcester before taking the Cotswold Line back to London. There was also a balancing working in the other direction from Paddington to Snow Hill.

I can't remember the exact times these services ran at, but did use them one time for novelty value on a day out in London when living not far from Stourbridge. They were very quiet north of Worcester in both directions on my journey and it looks like that was the case generally, as BR soon stopped running them. Probably only lasted for 12 months at the most.
 
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JonathanH

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I think that the use of Turbos into Birmingham from Worcester was all about a capacity swap between a Sprinter on the Oxfordshire Halts train and a higher capacity Turbo into Birmingham and didn't survive privatisation.

From the October 1993 to May 1994 timetable:

In the morning, a turbo worked

0606 Worcester Shrub Hill to Hereford 0653
0709 Hereford to Birmingham New Street 0840 (via Bromsgrove)
0900 Birmingham New Street to London Paddington 1215 (via Kidderminster)

In the afternoon, a turbo worked

1248 London Paddington to Birmingham New Street 1545 (via Kidderminster)
1710 Birmingham New Street to Hereford 1840 (via Bromsgrove)
1905 Hereford to London Paddington 2238

In exchange, a Regional Railways unit operated, in the morning

0700 Worcester Foregate Street to Oxford 0818
0916 Oxford to Worcester Foregate Street 1033

and, in the afternoon

1554 Great Malvern to Oxford 1725
1740 Oxford to Moreton-in Marsh 1819
1855 Moreton-in-Marsh to Great Malvern 1949

For the Summer 1994 timetable, something slightly different, the morning working was basically unchanged. The afternoon working did

1248 London Paddington to Great Malvern 1522
1605 Great Malvern to Birmingham New Street 1704 (via Camp Hill)
1710 Birmingham New Street to Hereford 1837 (via University)
1920 Hereford to London Paddington 2239
 

The Ham

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I could see that a semi fast service from Paddington to Birmingham could attract enough passengers to make it worth doing, but only because it wouldn't be trying to capture any London to Birmingham flows.

For instance have it call at Slough, (Maidenhead?) Reading, Didcot, Oxford, Banbury and then a few more stations depending on the route into Birmingham and it could work.

It would be quicker from Slough than changing trains at Reading. It would allow people to travel from the West and change at Didcot, potentially makong it faster. It would provide more capacity between Oxford and Banbury.

If it replaces an existing semi fast Oxford terminator than it wouldn't need an extra path out of London and wouldn't require a lot more rolling stock.

As such I can see that there could be a reasonable case to provide such a service, but only if it isn't trying to compete for London Birmingham passengers.

It would be like a lot of XC services, fairly busy but vitally no one uses it for end to end travel.
 

jimm

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I could see that a semi fast service from Paddington to Birmingham could attract enough passengers to make it worth doing, but only because it wouldn't be trying to capture any London to Birmingham flows.

For instance have it call at Slough, (Maidenhead?) Reading, Didcot, Oxford, Banbury and then a few more stations depending on the route into Birmingham and it could work.

It would be quicker from Slough than changing trains at Reading. It would allow people to travel from the West and change at Didcot, potentially makong it faster. It would provide more capacity between Oxford and Banbury.

If it replaces an existing semi fast Oxford terminator than it wouldn't need an extra path out of London and wouldn't require a lot more rolling stock.

As such I can see that there could be a reasonable case to provide such a service, but only if it isn't trying to compete for London Birmingham passengers.

It would be like a lot of XC services, fairly busy but vitally no one uses it for end to end travel.

Or you could just increase capacity where it is actually needed - between Birmingham and Reading - by putting longer trains on XC services between Birmingham, Reading and the South Coast and make every other one call at Didcot on its way between Oxford and Reading.

The pathetic carrying capacity of its existing trains would appear to be the only reason XC has not already asked for permission to make some experimental calls at Didcot to test potential demand there.

It is a very different place from the town Virgin pulled services from in 2002, with the population up from 23,000 in 2001 to 31,000+ now and set reach 60,000 by 2031 as a result of the Garden Town development - making it bigger than Banbury.
 

swt_passenger

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I'm surprised that this would crop up in a government document. Does Birmingham need 4 TOCs on three routes providing services to London (not including HS2).

Always worth quoting sources, OP, so that people don't dismiss what you're saying, if it's correct.

Quite an interesting find, (to my surprise) but I still wouldn't use it to justify the original statement that strongly implies the present GWR (whose short direct award ends comparatively soon) are actually planning such a service...
 

nw1

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Or you could just increase capacity where it is actually needed - between Birmingham and Reading - by putting longer trains on XC services between Birmingham, Reading and the South Coast and make every other one call at Didcot on its way between Oxford and Reading.

The pathetic carrying capacity of its existing trains would appear to be the only reason XC has not already asked for permission to make some experimental calls at Didcot to test potential demand there.

It is a very different place from the town Virgin pulled services from in 2002, with the population up from 23,000 in 2001 to 31,000+ now and set reach 60,000 by 2031 as a result of the Garden Town development - making it bigger than Banbury.

If XC and GWR were the same company then I guess you could theoretically have a Paddington to Newcastle (if the times in the hour worked to give two evenly-spaced Paddington-Oxford and Reading-Birmingham trains), resulting from a combination of the Paddington-Oxford and Reading-Newcastle services, which would also free up a path between Reading and Oxford - but obviously in the current setup this isn't going to happen. Agree that double Voyagers or HSTs on all Reading-Birmingham services (except some of the Reading terminators during the middle of the day Mon-Fri, which IMX are often lightly loaded and hence services to aim for if you can travel then) would be the biggest thing that would help this route.

That Turbo/Sprinter swap discussion was interesting - shows how much more flexibility there was when everything was owned by one organisation! Never knew Turbos did a Malvern to Birmingham local service, though I do remember some Midlands DMUs occasionally finding their way down to Reading in the 1980s on Birmingham-Reading fasts which plugged the gap in hours when there was no XC.
 
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The Ham

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Or you could just increase capacity where it is actually needed - between Birmingham and Reading - by putting longer trains on XC services between Birmingham, Reading and the South Coast and make every other one call at Didcot on its way between Oxford and Reading.

The pathetic carrying capacity of its existing trains would appear to be the only reason XC has not already asked for permission to make some experimental calls at Didcot to test potential demand there.

It is a very different place from the town Virgin pulled services from in 2002, with the population up from 23,000 in 2001 to 31,000+ now and set reach 60,000 by 2031 as a result of the Garden Town development - making it bigger than Banbury.

With the growth in rail passengers since privatisation even with a increase in capacity in the XC trains there could still be a good case for a third train an hour as that would further attract people.

However, it is likely that GWR would be able to provide their service faster than XC could introduce longer trains.
 

HarleyDavidson

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Yes Wikipedia, accurate to the last

Screen-shot-2014-04-01-at-5.07.15-PM.jpg

That's a loony eclipse no a lunar one. They tend to occur during Labour party leadership elections.
 

jimm

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With the growth in rail passengers since privatisation even with a increase in capacity in the XC trains there could still be a good case for a third train an hour as that would further attract people.

However, it is likely that GWR would be able to provide their service faster than XC could introduce longer trains.

But before adding any more XC services (or anyone else's) - on a route where there is already a lot of pressure on available paths all the way between Birmingham and Reading, and Network Rail expecting yet more container trains to go that way - the first thing that should be done is to make the best possible sure of the existing express passenger paths. Running four-car Voyagers in them is pretty much as far as you can get from efficient use of them.

What do you mean by 'their service'? There is no plan for a GWR service to Birmingham.

Any marginal time that could perhaps be squeezed out of IETs operating on the Oxford/Cotswold route is far more likely to be used to add extra services at the eastern end of the Cotswold Line, or on a revival of a Paddington-Oxford-Stratford-upon-Avon service targeted squarely at tourist traffic, which GWR managing director Mark Hopwood has spoken about previously - a service the DfT was prepared to listen to proposals for in the aborted GW franchise bidding round in 2012.

And if anyone should know about a likely market for such a service to Stratford, it's Mr Hopwood, since helping to set up the former NSE service was, I believe, one of his first jobs when he joined BR.

But such a service would be limited (a handful of trains each way each day) and timed to meet tourist needs, with any benefit to other passengers between Oxford, Banbury and Leamington being incidental - despite which XC would no doubt kick up a fuss about revenue extraction, even if it was offering some form of capacity relief to its own inadequate trains.
 

The Planner

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Which way are GWR expecting to go with this mythical service? They aren't going via Coventry for a start and you are going to have big problems getting much more in north of Dorridge without a nice trundle behind something else.
 

Taunton

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The REAL GWR, of course (and its WR successors), ran extensively between Paddington and Birmingham, not only via the direct High Wycombe line but also always via Reading as well. It was common for Oxford expresses to divide there, half to Worcester and half on to Birmingham.

Saying a service that way wouldn't pick up Birmingham traffic not only ignores traffic from the likes of Slough and the Thames Valley (it is notably difficult to get from Heathrow airport by train to Birmingham), but also in the new railway world of selling Advances (which operators seem to want ALL passengers to move to), setting fares cheaper than Virgin (and way cheaper than HS2) would pick up a fair traffic. Already the Euston-Birmingham-Glasgow services, which initially looked like an operating convenience, are being filled up with through London-Scotland advances priced cheaper than the direct and much faster services.
 

JonathanH

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Which way are GWR expecting to go with this mythical service? They aren't going via Coventry for a start and you are going to have big problems getting much more in north of Dorridge without a nice trundle behind something else.

Does a path through Dorridge become free if CrossCountry manage to meet their aspiration to get all their services routed via Coventry? (Not that it is obvious how CrossCountry do that as Arriva Trains Wales have their service to Birmingham International on the opposite side of the hour.)

Best answer for GWR to get to Birmingham is to get the line through Stratford-upon-Avon reopened but clearly there is absolutely no chance of that.
 

Class 170101

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Does a path through Dorridge become free if CrossCountry manage to meet their aspiration to get all their services routed via Coventry? (Not that it is obvious how CrossCountry do that as Arriva Trains Wales have their service to Birmingham International on the opposite side of the hour.)

Best answer for GWR to get to Birmingham is to get the line through Stratford-upon-Avon reopened but clearly there is absolutely no chance of that.

I think XC can find a path via Coventry on weekends when the route via Solihull is blocked, even with ATW running between International and New Street.
 
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