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Police eject Passengers off train in Plymouth

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GodAtum

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A photo from Twitter. i could not stand for a few hours!

CeZUeCkWIAAqWQq.jpg:large
 

Busaholic

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358 miles in 340 mins by car, in the grockle season? Hmm.

M5 Avonmouth turn-off to Penzance I've done so many times, and 3 hours is the optimum time i.e. no significant delays or roadworks. Been a long time since I did Preston to Pz by car, so wouldn't like to estimate from Manchester. The A30 in Cornwall is so much better now than 15 years ago, although there is a section over Bodmin Moor that is being dualled.
 

455driver

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M5 Avonmouth turn-off to Penzance I've done so many times, and 3 hours is the optimum time i.e. no significant delays or roadworks. Been a long time since I did Preston to Pz by car, so wouldn't like to estimate from Manchester. The A30 in Cornwall is so much better now than 15 years ago, although there is a section over Bodmin Moor that is being dualled.

Try that on the Friday before Easter, you know the day we are all talking about!
I went into 'sunny' Cornwall (it was peeing it down) and the traffic was stationary every time the dual carriageway went to single, total time from Plymouth (joining A38) to Newquay 2 hours 7 minutes, AA reckons 1 hour 2 minutes and it was good run after leaving the A30, the only time we stopped after that was at a few roundabouts on the A392 for traffic, never stopped for more than 30 seconds on that section.

Compare a train journey and a road journey on the same day, just for fairness!
 
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Llanigraham

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At the present time there are lots of delays on the single carriageway sections of the A30 after Bodmin, due to the dualling works.
 

HSTEd

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Perhaps we could simply have fixed ten car AT300 formations running on these services once they arrive.

But we all know we will get single 5-car trains that are always crush loaded and we will be thankful for it, with one or two diagrams doubled up as a PR exercise.
 

jimm

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Perhaps we could simply have fixed ten car AT300 formations running on these services once they arrive.

But we all know we will get single 5-car trains that are always crush loaded and we will be thankful for it, with one or two diagrams doubled up as a PR exercise.

No, we don't know that at all, as we haven't seen the diagramming plans for the operation of the AT300 fleet. Nor the 800/801s elsewhere on the GWR network.

Not that that has stopped you making the same claim in both cases without a shred of evidence. Just because it is your opinion does not make it a fact.

Nor do the events of one day, with an unusual combination of factors - early Easter, resulting in a late start to school holidays, one day of fine weather in South West v forecast of wet and windy weather for the next three days and a patchy current timetable that we all know is going to be improved - mean that we should be running trains with 700 seats into Cornwall every couple of hours year-round on top of an improved local service.
 

Groningen

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From the Cornishman:
Police order passengers off overcrowded Easter holiday train to Cornwall

People heading to Cornwall for an Easter weekend break were packed into a train so crowded the British Transport Police (BTP) had to intervene. Travellers heading to the South West say they were forced to stand for more than five hours in "overcrowded" train carriages. Railway passengers shared pictures on social media to vent their frustration as they crammed into carriages on long journeys down to Cornwall – with some having to stand, sit on luggage in corridors, or even lie on the floor in the aisles. One dismayed passenger described the scene as "chaos" and complained on social media to Great Western Railway (GWR) – also claiming that up to 90 passengers had to be escorted off the train at Plymouth station.

Passengers on the "particularly busy" 10am train from Paddington to Penzance on Good Friday were asked by Great Western Railway (GWR) staff to disembark at Plymouth for "comfort and safety" reasons. Two services that had terminated at the station ahead of the train from Paddington resulted in too many people waiting on the platform to board the later service, the train company said. The BTP then assisted GWR staff in asking customers to disembark the train for a slightly later replacement.

A GWR spokesman said: "This train was particularly busy on Friday, so to improve comfort and safety we asked some customers to use a slightly later train which had been put on to cope with additional passengers. "Good Friday is one of the busiest days for train travel across the country, and we advise customers to take advantage of our free seat reservation service wherever possible." Pictures shared on Twitter showed passengers lying on the floor in the aisle of the carriage during the crammed journey towards Cornwall. Eve Conway tweeted several images of the "chaotic scene" writing: "Passenger laying on floor by my seat on massively overcrowded @GWRUK train to Cornwall - chaos and safety hazard".

The service was branded "shambolic" by former BBC World Service director Nigel Chapman, who tweeted "Overcrowded and no management by stroppy staff. Dangerous and unsafe." The two-carriage stopping service was followed by a high-speed train with eight carriages to take remaining passengers onward, GWR said. Anyone delayed on Friday could be eligible for a refund and should contact GWR on 0345 7000 125, it added. Eve Conway vented her frustration on Twitter – asking for a refund after claiming that she had paid for a reserved seat but found someone lying on the floor of the aisle next to her in the packed train carriage. However, the rail firm responded by saying it did not offer refunds because services were 'crowded'.
 

Phil.

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At the present time there are lots of delays on the single carriageway sections of the A30 after Bodmin, due to the dualling works.

And when it's finished it'll be even faster to drive down. Meanwhile GWR are - as has been mentioned on this thread - most likely going to run shorter trains between Plymouth and Penzance.
 

miami

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And when it's finished it'll be even faster to drive down. Meanwhile GWR are - as has been mentioned on this thread - most likely going to run shorter trains between Plymouth and Penzance.

And a 1 hour delay simply drops Exeter to Penzance to about 2h40, same as the train.
 

Groningen

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This was 1 comment:
Train operator Arrival Cross Country say it would cost too much money to take the 'Voyagers' out of service for rectification work. So why not when the current Cross Country franchise expires transfer the entire Penzance/Plymouth/Bristol/Birmingham XC rail route as soon as its practical to the GWR franchise and replace the current Voyagers' fleet at least temporarily using the spare GWR HSTs released by the introduction of new AT300 Bi-mode trains in 2018 while precurring a new batch of AT300s for the route to Birmingham. Most people would be glad to see the back of those noisy and cramped Voyager trains anyway.

What is wrong with the Voyager (train)?
 

jimm

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And when it's finished it'll be even faster to drive down. Meanwhile GWR are - as has been mentioned on this thread - most likely going to run shorter trains between Plymouth and Penzance.

Will it be faster to drive? There is an awful lot of evidence to demonstrate that all road improvements do is encourage more people to drive, in the belief that it will be faster, resulting in more traffic filling up the new road space and journeys that aren't any faster.

While the improvements to the A30 are a great benefit outside the times of the year holidaymakers are travelling - and even with rather less dual carriageway driving between Exeter and Cornwall has beaten rail hands down in the winter for a long time - as has been mentioned on this thread when there are lots of visitors about then the roads get just as crowded as the trains, with consequent effects on driving times.

Some of the trains, some of the time, will be shorter, but it is clearly not going to be a blanket policy, especially not at busy times of the year, as has also been mentioned on this thread. And a lot of the current HST services through Cornwall are rather empty, rather a lot of the year, rather like the A30...
 

MarlowDonkey

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The two-carriage stopping service was followed by a high-speed train with eight carriages to take remaining passengers onward, GWR said.

It does seem to be a somewhat muddled story. The pictures showing people lying down in the gangway are clearly an HST and first class at that. Why would Police evict passengers who had travelled down from London? I could believe that the HST was too crowded at Plymouth to enable passengers for Cornwall to get on. If FGW ran a relief, was this a spare HST or one of the local fleet of 150s or 144s?

It wasn't any better on the Bank Holiday Monday coming back. I was on the 13:59 from Exeter which appeared to leave potential passengers on the platform at Castle Cary as there just wasn't space to let them on.
 

jimm

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That stopping service had (only) 2 carriages! Ha, ha, ha!

Never mind that of course that bit of the story makes no sense whatever, as the stopping train follows the HST from Plymouth. And the BBC story referred to back in post 4 on the first page of this thread says the following was what happened:

GWR said a further six carriages were added to a two carriage train that departed about one hour later and took passengers into Cornwall.

Suggesting that GWR used an HST instead of the two-car dmu on the stopping service.
 

miami

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Will it be faster to drive? There is an awful lot of evidence to demonstrate that all road improvements do is encourage more people to drive, in the belief that it will be faster, resulting in more traffic filling up the new road space and journeys that aren't any faster.

Even if they aren't faster, there's more capacity, and more people, and more economic activity, so that's all good.

The inlaws used to live near Penzance, so between us we have a lot of experience on the A30 and A38 routes. I can think of once when it took longer than 3 hours from Hayle roundabout to the M5 (aside from journeys involving stops at Traego Mill), and that was when the snow caused traffic to stop on dartmoor for 6 hours. Trains weren't running at this particular time anyway so it was still faster than the train.

While the improvements to the A30 are a great benefit outside the times of the year holidaymakers are travelling - and even with rather less dual carriageway driving between Exeter and Cornwall has beaten rail hands down in the winter for a long time - as has been mentioned on this thread when there are lots of visitors about then the roads get just as crowded as the trains, with consequent effects on driving times.

Some of the trains, some of the time, will be shorter, but it is clearly not going to be a blanket policy, especially not at busy times of the year, as has also been mentioned on this thread. And a lot of the current HST services through Cornwall are rather empty, rather a lot of the year, rather like the A30...

But we all know that Easter is a very busy time down to Cornwall. I've been on trains from London that were standing room only well past Exeter, and that's just London/Reading originating traffic - without a 5 or 10 car voyager spilling onto the train at Plymouth. I've also had to get the overnight coach in past years as I was unable to get on the train in London. So why was this train being terminated at Plymouth, rather than extending to at least Par? I'm sure XC used to run more trains to Penzance in the past.
 

PHILIPE

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But we all know that Easter is a very busy time down to Cornwall. I've been on trains from London that were standing room only well past Exeter, and that's just London/Reading originating traffic - without a 5 or 10 car voyager spilling onto the train at Plymouth. I've also had to get the overnight coach in past years as I was unable to get on the train in London. So why was this train being terminated at Plymouth, rather than extending to at least Par? I'm sure XC used to run more trains to Penzance in the past.[/QUOTE]

What would work it's return from Plymouth north ?
 
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jimm

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Even if they aren't faster, there's more capacity, and more people, and more economic activity, so that's all good.

You forgot more pollution, which isn't...

But we all know that Easter is a very busy time down to Cornwall. I've been on trains from London that were standing room only well past Exeter, and that's just London/Reading originating traffic - without a 5 or 10 car voyager spilling onto the train at Plymouth. I've also had to get the overnight coach in past years as I was unable to get on the train in London. So why was this train being terminated at Plymouth, rather than extending to at least Par? I'm sure XC used to run more trains to Penzance in the past.

Yes we do. So does GWR, which put on extra West Country HST services on Thursday, Friday and Monday. But there are limits to how much they can do, given Easter is also a busy time on all its other long-distance routes - which is a rather different matter from a summer Saturday, when extra HSTs for the West Country are easier to come by as demand is lighter elsewhere. And this Easter was particularly busy because so many schools did not break up until the Wednesday or Thursday, adding to the pressure.

XC does what suits XC and given how hard its already inadequate train fleet is worked day in, day out, where is it going to find stock to cover extensions into Cornwall? Same factors apply as GWR faced last weekend - people are travelling all over the place at Easter, so it's different from summer Saturdays when they can target the HSTs at Devon and Cornwall and double up Voyager services to/from the West Country, as demand is lighter elsewhere.
 

HSTEd

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No, we don't know that at all, as we haven't seen the diagramming plans for the operation of the AT300 fleet. Nor the 800/801s elsewhere on the GWR network.

Not that that has stopped you making the same claim in both cases without a shred of evidence. Just because it is your opinion does not make it a fact.

I do have one 'shred' of evidence. There is absolutely no reason to order 5-car trains at all unless that will be the dominant form of operation.
Just as the originally intended dominant form of operation for the Voyagers was a single 4 or 5 car formation, before Operation Princess collapsed.
Nor do the events of one day, with an unusual combination of factors - early Easter, resulting in a late start to school holidays, one day of fine weather in South West v forecast of wet and windy weather for the next three days and a patchy current timetable that we all know is going to be improved - mean that we should be running trains with 700 seats into Cornwall every couple of hours year-round on top of an improved local service.

Considering that trains are often quite heavily loaded in the summer at eight Mark 3s, I am not sure that 5-cars of IEP (even with their greater capacity per vehicle) is going to be able to handle the standard loading. Especially considering the cab end losses. And ironically thanks to this "flexibility" they will be left with only one option to improve capacity, send down a nine car-equivalent double formation.
Depending on the exact figures simply having a mix of 6/7 and 10 car full length formations might be able give them better overall loadings without going to crush loadings that seriously worsen the passenger experience.
 
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jimm

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I do have one 'shred' of evidence. There is absolutely no reason to order 5-car trains at all unless that will be the dominant form of operation.
Just as the originally intended dominant form of operation for the Voyagers was a single 4 or 5 car formation, before Operation Princess collapsed.

No, it's not evidence. It's just your opinion - again. And again I will repeat that for great swathes of the day in Cornwall and the Cotswolds, at all times of the year, there is no need whatever to provide trains offering more than 600 seats (never mind the 700 there would be in a 10-car, fixed-formation IEP-type train). Something for which there is plenty of evidence.

And naturally no one in the rail industry has learned anything from Operation Red Herring - oh I meant Princess...

Considering that trains are often quite heavily loaded in the summer at eight Mark 3s, I am not sure that 5-cars of IEP (even with their greater capacity per vehicle) is going to be able to handle the standard loading.

And in the summer, GWR operates more HSTs to Cornwall and strengthens other services with dmus loaned from Bristol, precisely because there is more demand. Or do you have yet more of your 'evidence' that this kind of thing will all come to an end after 2018, when, just fancy, they are going to improve the timetable all year round anyway?

Depending on the exact figures simply having a mix of 6/7 and 10 car full length formations might be able give them better overall loadings without going to crush loadings that seriously worsen the passenger experience.

So in a matter of hours we have moved from

Perhaps we could simply have fixed ten car AT300 formations running on these services once they arrive.

to

having a mix of 6/7 and 10 car full length formations might be able give them better overall loadings

You now seem to be edging dangerously close to admitting that perhaps the people at GWR who drew up the proposed order with a mix of long and short trains, allowing flexibility in formations, do actually know what they are doing...
 
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Bletchleyite

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You now seem to be edging dangerously close to admitting that perhaps the people at GWR who drew up the proposed order with a mix of long and short trains, allowing flexibility in formations, do actually know what they are doing...

It is worth noting that VTWC make very good use of their 5-car Voyagers; you don't often see one on its own, and when you do it is usually sufficient capacity. OTOH, there are a lot of fresh-air-shifting 11-car Pendolinos out there.
 

miami

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It is worth noting that VTWC make very good use of their 5-car Voyagers; you don't often see one on its own, and when you do it is usually sufficient capacity. OTOH, there are a lot of fresh-air-shifting 11-car Pendolinos out there.

indeed, my "peak time" Euston to Manchester train yesterday at 18.40 had about 20 people in 3 standard class carriages. The 19.00 is usually rammed.

If they were all double-voyagers they could instead run the 18.40 (and likely 18.20) as a 5 car train, and the 1900 as a 20 car train (or as a 1900 10 car and 1901 ten car)

(Or they could introduce a shoulder peak)
 
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Will it be faster to drive? There is an awful lot of evidence to demonstrate that all road improvements do is encourage more people to drive, in the belief that it will be faster, resulting in more traffic filling up the new road space and journeys that aren't any faster.

While the improvements to the A30 are a great benefit outside the times of the year holidaymakers are travelling - and even with rather less dual carriageway driving between Exeter and Cornwall has beaten rail hands down in the winter for a long time - as has been mentioned on this thread when there are lots of visitors about then the roads get just as crowded as the trains, with consequent effects on driving times.

Some of the trains, some of the time, will be shorter, but it is clearly not going to be a blanket policy, especially not at busy times of the year, as has also been mentioned on this thread. And a lot of the current HST services through Cornwall are rather empty, rather a lot of the year, rather like the A30...

I would like to see 8-11 coach trains to replace the HST's
Have decent catering on the train for all classes.
Passengers can then save over an hour in the day, by having their T, P, and food on the move!
How easy would it be to convert 2 x 5 coach trains into an 8 coach train & a 2 coach train for example?
The A30 is far better for North Mid and West Cornwall. For London the A303 is far easier, although slower, but shorter drive, than the M5.
 

Mark62

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The majority of TOCS actually don't care how their passengers travel or how many they cram into their trains. Profit has to come before people. Their priority is to shareholders not not to the people who pay their dividends
How many of you people actually travel by train on a regular basis? I guarantee that five coach trains to Bristol and the West Country will run at peak times out of Paddington. I have said before when the HST and Mark four stock goes the UK will have probably the worst long distance trains in the world. By worst, I mean uncomfortable. Sadly I have seen the most appalling conditions that passengers have to travel in on the silly XC voyagers. I have been on four coach trains that travelled between Plymouth and Glasgow.
Yes some trains are lightly loaded but it's impossible to roster stock to cover this. There is a thing called cross subsidy. So whilst some are relatively empty most aren't even fit for sardines to travel.
There isn't an easy solution any more since privatisation and the demolishing of spare stock. But this was done to save money. Sorry this was done to increase profit. Thanks to privatisation we will never see extra stock on weekends. We won't see holiday maker trains anymore because this approach requires stock, maintenance etc etc. And that reduces profit.
I use the term privatisation loosely as our rail network isn't privatised it's still owned by the state and still financed by the state. Our services are franchised but still the property of the people. The problem is the shift of emphasis from people to profit. And until that is addressed we will continue to have passengers travelling on the worst trains in the world.
 

Hadders

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The majority of TOCS actually don't care how their passengers travel or how many they cram into their trains. Profit has to come before people. Their priority is to shareholders not not to the people who pay their dividends
How many of you people actually travel by train on a regular basis? I guarantee that five coach trains to Bristol and the West Country will run at peak times out of Paddington. I have said before when the HST and Mark four stock goes the UK will have probably the worst long distance trains in the world. By worst, I mean uncomfortable. Sadly I have seen the most appalling conditions that passengers have to travel in on the silly XC voyagers. I have been on four coach trains that travelled between Plymouth and Glasgow.
Yes some trains are lightly loaded but it's impossible to roster stock to cover this. There is a thing called cross subsidy. So whilst some are relatively empty most aren't even fit for sardines to travel.
There isn't an easy solution any more since privatisation and the demolishing of spare stock. But this was done to save money. Sorry this was done to increase profit. Thanks to privatisation we will never see extra stock on weekends. We won't see holiday maker trains anymore because this approach requires stock, maintenance etc etc. And that reduces profit.
I use the term privatisation loosely as our rail network isn't privatised it's still owned by the state and still financed by the state. Our services are franchised but still the property of the people. The problem is the shift of emphasis from people to profit. And until that is addressed we will continue to have passengers travelling on the worst trains in the world.

But all this would have happened under British Rail too. Please don't think the Government of the day would have allowed BR to keep stock sitting in sidings 'just in case'.
 

jimm

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The majority of TOCS actually don't care how their passengers travel or how many they cram into their trains. Profit has to come before people. Their priority is to shareholders not not to the people who pay their dividends
How many of you people actually travel by train on a regular basis? I guarantee that five coach trains to Bristol and the West Country will run at peak times out of Paddington. I have said before when the HST and Mark four stock goes the UK will have probably the worst long distance trains in the world. By worst, I mean uncomfortable. Sadly I have seen the most appalling conditions that passengers have to travel in on the silly XC voyagers. I have been on four coach trains that travelled between Plymouth and Glasgow.
Yes some trains are lightly loaded but it's impossible to roster stock to cover this. There is a thing called cross subsidy. So whilst some are relatively empty most aren't even fit for sardines to travel.
There isn't an easy solution any more since privatisation and the demolishing of spare stock. But this was done to save money. Sorry this was done to increase profit. Thanks to privatisation we will never see extra stock on weekends. We won't see holiday maker trains anymore because this approach requires stock, maintenance etc etc. And that reduces profit.
I use the term privatisation loosely as our rail network isn't privatised it's still owned by the state and still financed by the state. Our services are franchised but still the property of the people. The problem is the shift of emphasis from people to profit. And until that is addressed we will continue to have passengers travelling on the worst trains in the world.

You guarantee it, do you? How? Are you that elusive being, the one who has actually seen the GWR train diagramming plan for December 2018? Thought not...

And if there are lots of extra services between Bristol and Paddington all day - which I can actually guarantee there will be, given that it is a matter of public record - why should some of them not be a 300+ seat, limited-stop train, worked by a five-car unit, with nine or 10-car formations seating more than 600 people running 15 or 20 minutes before or after these services?

Yes some trains are lightly loaded but it's impossible to roster stock to cover this.

It's impossible, is it? Why do you think GWR will get a mix of new five-car and nine-car trains then - in both the DfT/Agility order and the AT300 order it is acquiring itself via a traditional leasing deal.

I would refer you to the GWR timetables East 3 and East 5, showing how it is possible to diagram five-car Class 180 trains in peak periods by using them on services running against the main peak flows, such as the 05.45, 06.52 and 07.21 departures to Oxford from Paddington in the morning.

Thanks to privatisation we will never see extra stock on weekends. We won't see holiday maker trains anymore because this approach requires stock, maintenance etc etc.

Really? How about you compare the current GWR and XC timetables with those that will start next month, with a special focus on the Saturday services in July and August, and tell us that we will never see extra stock at weekends.

Go and count how many coaches there are on the St Ives branch train on a wet Tuesday in January and then go back and count how many coaches there are every day in July and August. Go to Newquay in the summer and see the daily GWR HST from London or the XC services to and from the North on the Saturdays. Etc....

And until that is addressed we will continue to have passengers travelling on the worst trains in the world

You question whether some of us travel by train on a regular basis and then have the nerve to come out with a silly statement like that.
 
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