It's very different. Those routes weren't 140mph 50 years ago.
This is tangential, it's not rocket science to recognise that stopping trains won't be reaching 90mph in short distances. But Wolves to Telford is perfectly capable of accommodating 90mph running for the many trains that run non stop along here. And on the Wellington to Shrewsbury section, ALL trains including stoppers could benefit from 90mph running.
The stoppers rarely reach 90mph though. Whitchurch - Wrenbury, in that direction only.
Because it would cost a lot of money, and other than making you feel good about going faster than cars on the A5 it would achieve next to nothing.
Just because it's negative in your view doesn't stop it being true.
Your assertion that the stations along the two lines were "very similarly spaced", isn't accurate. There was nothing tangential about pointing that out, although to be fair I should have left it at that.
Indeed. Conspiracy theories never die. Sadly.
It wasn't 90mph 50 years ago either, the 1972 sectional appendix has it as 70mph Oxley to Shrewsbury.
No, it's reality. Arriving to Wolves, you need to fit in with Northbound departures too.
Indeed it has been said before. My only reason for raising it again is because both the rail press and the local press did. I see nothing has changed among the views on this forum though
WSMR weren't hounded out. They knew the issues and still thought they could make a success of it. Moderation of competition wasn't Virgins fault either. As I said above, the linespeed has been the same for 50 years.Indeed it has been said before. My only reason for raising it again is because both the rail press and the local press did. I see nothing has changed among the views on this forum though
However, it remains interesting that those on this forum are so unsympathetic about this route, which matches the long standing position of the rail authorities. From a non rail perspective, looking at the previous fares, the way the Wrexham and Shropshire service was hounded out of existence, the line speeds, the way the London service has been treated etc etc, it does appear very discriminatory. But perhaps those with rail backgrounds can't see both sides of the situation
They may have taken the service on in the knowledge that they would be prohibited from using the fast route to London. They may also have known that they would be disallowed from picking up passengers at the most lucrative stations along the route, despite running through them. This doesn't appear to be in the true spirit of competition, but they took it on anyway, and achieved the highest customer satisfaction rating of any TOC in the UK. This should have made Government sit up and take notice, as it was a superb advert for the stated Government objective to encourage people out of their cars. It should have led to a review in those competition rules which railway people cling to so dearly.
I travelled on it myself on a number of occasions, it had great customer service, but the actual passenger numbers weren't great particularly when compared to the other Virgin + Connections options. To say it was a superb advert is stretching it somewhat.
It wasn't Virgin who weren't satisfied it was the Government, the Government authorised the extra service to Wrexham and the Government insisted that Virgin object to WMSR requests to vary stopping patterns\routing. This all to protect the income to Government from the premiums they were receiving from Virgin.
It was the passenger satisfaction i was thinking of as a pro rail advert, the numbers never were likely to be that high with the constraints they had.
You may well be correct in what you say. But what an appalling situation where Government is more concerned about protecting a bit of income, than they are about the much bigger objective of actually attracting people on to public transport. It underlines just how hypocritical and clueless that ministers really are.
It isn't just the rail press, local rag and MPs these proposals are being put forward by Midlands Connect the Sub National Transport Body.
I don't think people are dismissive about the improvements or how worthy the line is - it's just that unless you're prepared to spend a lot more money than the figures being bandied about by Midlands Connect, it's really hard to see any noticeable improvements take place.
I'm not sure this framing whereby WSMR "took on" the service is accurate. To me it implies a DfT-specified franchise with certain service obligations. As I understood it, they were an Open Access Operator and therefore proposed services to the DfT themselves. Yes, the DfT (or should that be ORR, I'm not sure?) could reject proposals on the grounds of abstraction but it would still then be incumbent on WSMR to offer a refined proposal which was still acceptable to them. Or have I understood this wrong? Corrections welcome!
The fact that the route has an awkward flat access to the Wolverhampton-Stafford line isn't in dispute, however that's just bringing in an almost irrelevant factor as this has nothing to do with the linespeed towards Shrewsbury. The Shrewsbury to Crewe line has flat access at Crewe but that's NOT an argument to reduce train speeds on that route to 70mph. As I've indicated upthread, if the linespeed was 90mph and trains arrived at the junction from Shrewsbury a couple of minutes earlier, that's simply a pathing matter, and what route planner wouldn't welcome an extra couple of minutes to play with when pathing trains at a busy junction?
But you can get an extra couple of minutes for a lot less money by leaving Shrewsbury a bit earlier. The point of increasing linespeeds would be to lower journey times. If the overall journey time is still achievable with 70mph, why pay to upgrade the track other than for prestige?
How would departing Shrewsbury a bit earlier effect timings of the incoming Aberystwyth and Holyhead services?
That is the whole point reducing journey times and increasing frequencies. The £15m is a first stage in a longer term plan.
While I appreciate that there are a finite number of paths on the Stour Valley, matching up a train stopping on the Stour Valley with one calling all stations to Wellington would create a significant barrier to faster services between Birmingham and Shrewsbury unless there was an overtaking move at Wolverhampton. Is there much call for a cross Wolverhampton stopper of this kind from passengers?
The population of North Wales is far greater than 100,000.
Yes, I suppose you could call it "simply a pathing matter" - I'm glad that after so many attempts you're starting to understand the issue here. It's a gross oversimplification but at least we're going in the right direction.
Because as you say it's a single track line. The speeds are pretty irrelevant, the big issue is that the timetable is fixed around the limited passing places available. If you want a Birmingham - Aberystwyth service to leave Shrewsbury a few minutes earlier, using the time it's saved by running at 90 rather than 70 from Wolverhampton, it's either going to have to wait at Sutton Bridge Junction those few minutes waiting for the service coming the other way or you're going to end up with a spectacular and expensive bang in the Shrewsbury suburbs.
11 minutes saving?
Post HS2, if you want London from Shrewsbury, even further afield, you get a train to Crewe and catch a HS2 service.Yes its only 30 mins to Crewe. It could be a good destination for the extra hourly Aberystwyth. Or at least increasing the frequency of the stopper to reduce stops on the 'fast' Marches services11 minutes saving?
But if the line speed was increased even a 196 could surely beat 33 mins to Wellington they'll accelerate faster then a 170. However the full increased tph is reliant on electrification.
Previous work done on it shows negligible saving to Wellington on a stopper. Its all on the other side. A 196 might get you a minute, 90 seconds at a real push. Electrification and 90mph still isnt going to do it in my opinion.
I reiterate that the only reason I've raised this issue is because it's being promoted by others.
It could be a good idea running some of the Aberystwyth trains to Crewe. It wouldn't need any reversing at Shrewsbury, whereas the Birmingham trains do have to reverse, and it would relieve congestion on the Birmingham route. It would provide a quicker route to London although connections at Crewe are purely by chance, but it wouldn't help Telford. It would also have the advantage that trains could terminate in the bay platforms at Crewe, which is a whole lot easier than the operational nightmare of having to cross right over to the Manchester line, which all trains from Shrewsbury - other than the two hourly all stations stoppers - do at present. Could be worth development.
Funnily enough I can actually recall reading that article. I found it to come across as some bitter nonsense not really befitting what was usually a decent magazine that I bought every month, but each to their own.
By all means look at it from a different point of view - it is of course your right and often it can make for an interesting debate. But it won't change the basic facts that it's extremely difficult to speed up journeys on the Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury line without also impacting on the lines that feed it - and that without speeding up journeys any line speed improvements are pointless.
So if doing the proposed work, i.e. electrification and line speed increases doesn't allow you to change the services on the route why are Midland Connect coming up with a BCR of 3.6 and submitting a SOBC to DfT for the initial £15m tranche?
It appears to be their figures are based on it only costing £140 million to get £500 million of benefits. I can't speak for the latter as I don't know how to quantify time savings to passengers and benefits to the environment - but electrifying the line, and getting speeds up to a sustained 90mph (which is apparently enough to knock 11 minutes off the journey time) for £140 million seems very optimistic.
Wellington is a very busy station - not quite as busy as Telford but it seems hard to justify skipping. I have often wondered about the through lines though - at the moment the speeds are 15mph on the up and 25mph on the down, but the real killer is the approach control signalling that these speeds require. I reckon you might gain a whole minute if they were dropped - but if it was that simple it begs the question as to why it hasn't been done.