Quite! Filton would have been two birds with one stone: still a only/best option for Devon and Cornwall, but with added rail connectivity and reduced distance and a huge jump in connectivity to Swindon, Cheltenham, Gloucester, South Wales.
You think it's a good view and you're entitled to that, I absolutely don't. Bristol has very frequent dedicated coaches from south Wales as well as good and frequent buses from Temple Meads and the city centre. Cardiff doesn't have the same connectivity even with Cardiff and the surrounds.Why not use the train - it takes 1h15 including the shuttle bus to airport front door, and is hourly.. , the bus is almost never going to be faster than waiting for the next train. A taxi for the 12 miles from central Cardiff also won't cost much more than public transport if travelling in a group of 3-4.
So, nope, public transport is not the cause of Cardiff's woes. It has a large population nearby, all west Wales, Swansea and the Port Talbot/Neath/Bridgend/Newport etc catchment. Bristol is nabbing this with a weaker catchment area.
Plenty of other airport connections have this problem but seem to get a lot of traffic (eg. how many services an hour between Bimingham Airport and Banbury/Oxford/Reading.. - and I for one use it and there are plenty of others doing so!!)
If necessary it should be considered against all the other TFW priorities - maybe they could do some sort of "review of shape of future services" and publish it for consulation/feedback?
No. It's a good view. There's a fixed amount of money, unless you are bringing in new revenue - and without the extra money, you're taking it from another place.
Was also going to add that you can get a direct service to Birmingham Newstreet that takes 2 hours (I know it’s with *THAT* overcrowded operator) and then can catch one of the 8 trains per hour between Newstreet and International, a journey of just 9 minutes. So even if you need to wait 10 minutes for a train, you can be there in less than 2 and a half hours.
Those who really want to have "Wales" in their trip could jump on a 153 and change at Wilmslow
I think it's good enough - actually better - than the airport earns for the flight volume, but it's the local population of Rhoose and surrounds that actually use it. It's a busy enough station with 150,000 entries/exits - 500 a day, for 18 trains each way a day, is not bad. 20% were season tickets - so either airport staff or locals heading to Cardiff, rather than airline passengers. Similar numbers of passengers as Bargoed (2x hr), Pencoed (1x / hour), or Knottingley (2x/hour). It might justify on its own merits, not on airport merits.
Going back further, Cardiff Bus used to used to run a half hourly fast service to the airport. It was seriously cut back when the trains started running to Rhoose.
VOG line killed the X91.
You make that last bit sound so simple… but the current 230s they have don’t work, there aren’t any 230s available and can more be made with Vivarail bust (?), and TfW really don’t need any more microfleets. And yes, it would be a separate microfleet, because Canton would need its own pair of them, they couldn’t be pooled with the Borderlands ones.
Whilst that is a problem all by itself, The biggest issue, is that TFW absolutely can not, under any circumstance, increase their operating costs. This means any additional rolling stock is pretty much entirely out of the question.
