The decline of GWR...

[Wilts Wanderer]

2C20 14:41 Gloucester- Westbury formed of 3x 153 units went tilt at Keynsham.

Service went forward to Westbury about 97’ late.

Given there is bi-di signalling between Bristol and Bath, any idea why NR didn’t attempt to use it to keep traffic moving? Up Bristol-Padd services were being diverted via Bristol PW but it appears the Trowbridge line schoolchildren and commuters simply had to wait it out for nearly 2 hours.
(Fair play to GWR staff at Bath - free bottled water provided and a couple of taxis for Freshford and Avoncliff pax, plus ticket acceptance on the Bath-Bradford-Trowbridge buses. There was not a lot else they could do in the circumstances.)

 

[JN114]

Given there is bi-di signalling between Bristol and Bath, any idea why NR didn’t attempt to use it to keep traffic moving? Up Bristol-Padd services were being diverted via Bristol PW but it appears the Trowbridge line schoolchildren and commuters simply had to wait it out for nearly 2 hours.
(Fair play to GWR staff at Bath - free bottled water provided and a couple of taxis for Freshford and Avoncliff pax, plus ticket acceptance on the Bath-Bradford-Trowbridge buses. There was not a lot else they could do in the circumstances.)

The SIMBIDs between North Somerset and Bath Goods are currently signed out of use.

 

[jayah]

52 x 10 coach 80x
12 x 7 coach 80x

Vs the fleet that they are replacing

52 HST's
14 x 180's

Therefore on a basic level the 7 coach units would have to sub for the 180's.

Which could just about work if you didn't want to increase train services. The problem is that there's more services to Cornwall (1tph all day rather than most of the day), semi fast service on the B&H, the fast service through Bristol and so on.

Some of that could be covered by the quicker journey times, however you're still going to be some units short, which will mean needing more coaches which would equate to more lease costs.

When has GWR had 52 HST and 14x180? My understanding was the HSTs went up to 52 when the 180s went down to zero? The recent fleet before electrification was 52+5 with 180s working semi fast Oxfords, HSTs working from Didcot in the morning peak and a half hourly semi fast evening service 1633-1833 towards Westbury to avoid serving Newbury with 3 car Turbos.

If Oxford and Bedwyn were ever sorted out with 387s there will be a lot of headroom.

 

[jayah]

Stupid. The amount of times you wait for a platform in Gloucester anyway is awful, let alone just one platform. I get why as it crosses over just ever so slightly into platform 1. Don’t know if this is because of track layout but still rediculpus

The first problem at Gloucester is there needs to be a station on the main line avoiding all the reversing. This could have been done for a fraction what was spent elsewhere. The second is all the trains happen in the same 30mins of each hour and it sounds like the third is you could get a 260m train twice into Plat 1/2 but Network Rail won't allow one.

 

[JN114]

The first problem at Gloucester is there needs to be a station on the main line avoiding all the reversing. This could have been done for a fraction what was spent elsewhere. The second is all the trains happen in the same 30mins of each hour and it sounds like the third is you could get a 260m train twice into Plat 1/2 but Network Rail won't allow one.

Platforms 1/2 at Gloucester are divided by signals and a crossover. Id need to check the prints on the work computer but I’m fairly certain you won’t fit a 10 car between the signals in either platform - certainly not without serious sighting issues.

A 10 car arriving in 2 would also likely have to arrive (and thus depart) via Platform 1 so as not to run the risk of passenger door at the easternmost end being released while further from the platform than standard because the train is on the crossover. Using up 2 platforms. Or they could just all use 4...

 

[MAV39]

Taking all the travel modes into account, rail, car and bus, more people travel to Reading to work than travel from Reading. This has been the case for some years, for example the Council's Sites and Detailed Policies Document, one of the documents that make up Reading’s Local Development Framework states

(My bolding).
There is clearly some imbalance in flows, especially to and from Paddington, but taking all the flows into account (five rail routes meet at Reading, six if one considers the Oxford and Swindon flows separately) the number of inbound and outbound passengers in each of the morning and evening peak periods is roughly balanced.

Some 17 million people start and finish their journeys in Reading every year to which must be added the 4 million who change trains. This must be seen against the 3.5 million who use Didcot, the 6.5 million using Oxford and the 3.5 million using Swindon. The demands on the services are significantly different.

The counterpeak flows from Paddington to Reading are significant - one only has to stand on the platform in the morning watching the number of people disembarking from the fast Down trains to realise this - but the to-London flows in the morning (and the reverse in the evening) are, of course, larger. The oft repeated image in these Forums of the stereotype Reading commuter uniquely insisting on fast trains to London is untrue - any commuter from anywhere would like a fast train to London, it's just that there are a lot of them using Reading.

To serve all these disparate flows is difficult and the timetable is a compromise. The additional capacity offered by the IETs, the 387s and, closer in to London, Crossrail will be welcome, but it will be impossible to give everyone what they would like. But they might get what they are prepared to pay for...

..which brings me to the fares paid. The suggestion was made that Reading travellers do not contribute their fair share. A poster on another Forum recently posted an analysis of the pence per mile costs for a small subset of GWR trips to and from Paddington based on the cost of annual tickets and assuming one return journey is made on each and every day of the year. Your supposition is incorrect, the results are:

• Slough 19.7
• Maidenhead 17.6
• Reading 19.9
• Goring 13.7
• Didcot 13.2
• Swindon 15.6
• Appleford 12.7
• Oxford 11.1

An annual season ticket from Newbury to London costs £4,844, one from Bedwyn £5096 but one from Reading costs £5,300. At these prices the 'Reading Commuter'™ should get what he or she has paid for.

Thank you Coppercapped for your post, I wish more posts were as factual and as clear as yours are.

I wasn't aware Reading was a net importer of labour, this will complicate my proposal for those who commute from Paddington in peak hours.

My cost reference was against absolute revenue, not unit price. Hence, one would need to multiply the pence per mile cost against the number of miles travelled. Also remember the cost of the train is a sunk cost as it has already departed from whenever before it reaches Reading. Thus the Reading commuter is contributing a maximum of less than £7.16. (Less than as I assume some of the 19.9 p goes towards TfL zone charge.)

Its not an easy issue to solve, it won't be done very quickly either, but one thing I have noticed is how 'suburban commuter' stock has taken over journeys to London from 'InterCity' stock for more and more towns over the years.

 

[jayah]

I did not say IETs and 387s alone would 'fix' Reading - if you had bothered to read my earlier posts, you would see plain as day that I argued that some passengers may opt to use Crossrail services instead - in just the same way that some passengers from Reading use SWR to Waterloo now. But you refuse to accept that anyone may even contemplate changing their travel habits, never mind actually do so.

The only way to 'fix' Reading to your satisfaction would be IETs shuttling up and down between the two points, without pesky passengers from anywhere else, locally or further afield, getting in the way

And even though you are obsessed with Reading, if passengers in other places in the Thames Valley opt to switch to Crossrail, then that can also free capacity on other services for the oh-so-important Reading commuters. I repeat, for the umpteenth time now, it is not all about Reading peak passengers - never was, never will be.

Again, do some research - the only trains that will not be stopping at the centre of the universe are perhaps the odd peak Didcot starter that then calls at Twyford and Maidenhead to shift the crowds there and the two off-peak IET services to and from Bristol, operated by five-car sets, plus the third peak service per hour to/from Bristol and South Wales. Though no doubt some Reading commuters will still get on board the latter anyway and then throw a strop on Twitter because they ended up at Chippenham or Bristol Parkway with an excess fare to pay.



Yet again, do some basic research - like look at a current timetable or two.

Your hypothesis falls at the first hurdle.

The Cotswold Line service is effectively two trains per hour in the direction of the main peak flows morning and evening - and has been for years - plus there is the odd Oxford-only peak run, so the 'Oxford' sets - actually Oxford and all sorts of other places, thanks to diagrams that are a bit more involved than just shuttling up and down all day - will still be required.

Nor is the West of England service one train per hour in the peaks - it is half-hourly from Paddington between 16.03 and 19.03 to Exeter or beyond.

Never mind that extra IETs were acquired in order to have enough in the fleet to cover the Oxford services. And with part of the 387 fleet now going to Heathrow Express, there probably wouldn't be enough to take over Oxford fasts even when wires do get there.

And then we get to the real giveaway, talk of 'dead wood', etc.

For all the pretend interest in life beyond Reading/Didcot we can see plain as day that all you care about is the peak service between Reading and Paddington. Far from there being a boost in off-peak capacity thanks to your 1x10 jumbo trains, there would be, er, no capacity whatever in lots of places.

Everything else and the people everywhere else who use GWR's services are clearly neither here nor there as far as you are concerned.

Your concern for the Government's money is very touching, but as Clarence Yard pointed out, it was the DfT that wanted improved service frequencies for the 'dead wood' zone.



This is not what is being replaced.

When FGW last had all 14 180s on its books in 2008, it did not have 52 HSTs in the fleet. More HSTs were acquired in 2007-8 to replace some of them. The IETs are also replacing a number of Turbo diagrams on Oxford/Cotswold Line and Bedwyn services.

North of Oxford has one extra London train in the evening peak above the hourly pattern and given it was formed by a Turbo detaching at Oxford it is highly questionable how much this frequency is required for capacity. London to Oxford is an ideal service for 387s (12 cars in the peak) and there is a big question about the role of the 387s on stopping trains after Crossrail saturates the slow lines and there are 319/Flex to make up some of the Heathrow Express shortfall.

On Newbury you have 5 semi fast HSTs in 2.5hr of the evening. Most of these are Newbury commuters trains, they shouldn't be IETs at all and they only go so far beyond because there is nowhere else for them to go.

You like to associate Reading with my cutting of dead wood. The railway at a national level is terrible at pruning anything. Paignton has gone to 2tph stopping service and still practically empty HSTs ply the line every day of the year. The same is true of Hereford, you wouldn't see East Coast or West Coast running a HST with less than 50 people for an hour each way in the depths of the off peak when there is a perfectly good service provided by London Midland.

You try to speak for me, saying that I want IETs to run up and down to Reading despite having said I don't want them for Newbury and Oxford. I can speak for myself thank you.

Twelve car 387s would be perfect but there aren't any paths for more trains. You have been told this already. Reading punters must use 345s but judging by the tiny numbers using Staines trains today and the better connections at Paddington means both these theories are fantasy.

I think spending all this money on route modernisation, electrification and new trains and not improving the Reading situation is a failure. You dont seem much concerned by such an outcome, as long as there are alternatives and those commuters are choosing not to trade down. We will have to agree to disagree on that.

 

[The Ham]

When has GWR had 52 HST and 14x180? My understanding was the HSTs went up to 52 when the 180s went down to zero? The recent fleet before electrification was 52+5 with 180s working semi fast Oxfords, HSTs working from Didcot in the morning peak and a half hourly semi fast evening service 1633-1833 towards Westbury to avoid serving Newbury with 3 car Turbos.

If Oxford and Bedwyn were ever sorted out with 387s there will be a lot of headroom.

Already pointed out above that I'd got the numbers wrong, however the point still stands that with the current extent of the wires (even with the previously planned extent, i.e. to Oxford but not Bedwyn) there wouldn't be enough units to cover all the new services. Many of which are increasing capacity for Reading.

 

[jayah]

Already pointed out above that I'd got the numbers wrong, however the point still stands that with the current extent of the wires (even with the previously planned extent, i.e. to Oxford but not Bedwyn) there wouldn't be enough units to cover all the new services. Many of which are increasing capacity for Reading.

There is a danger of mixing fact and fiction because my idea is dependent on not running IETs down the Newbury line at a frequency of 4tph in the peaks. Not happening in real life.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

The SIMBIDs between North Somerset and Bath Goods are currently signed out of use.

Thanks for this - is it due to the BASRE commissioning?

 

[The Ham]

There is a danger of mixing fact and fiction because my idea is dependent on not running IETs down the Newbury line at a frequency of 4tph in the peaks. Not happening in real life.

Currently, as a example there's 4tph towards Reading in the hour between 7 and 8 there's the following services from/to:
- Frome/Paddington
- Bedwyn/Paddington
- Plymouth/Paddington
- Newbury/Reading

As I understand it the first three (as a minimum) would be run by 80x's, so not a massive increase. However I would trust Clarence Yard and his colleagues in their views on what can fit in the network than your view.

 

[JN114]

Thanks for this - is it due to the BASRE commissioning?

I’m not 100% sure.... It was certainly the case in the interim period between the Swindon and Stoke Gifford workstations being commissioned that the reversible signalling between Hullavington and Chipping Sodbury was similarly booked off. But I don’t know that’s the case here - just that it’s not currently in use.

 

[Charlie M.]

Not going to go into detail about Gloucester but yes a new station needs to be built before people get even more fed up of the 12 minute add to their journey.

 

[FGW_DID]

SIMBID, is he in the same pirate gang as Sinbad ?

 

[Clarence Yard]

Platforms 1/2 at Gloucester are divided by signals and a crossover. Id need to check the prints on the work computer but I’m fairly certain you won’t fit a 10 car between the signals in either platform - certainly not without serious sighting issues.

A 10 car arriving in 2 would also likely have to arrive (and thus depart) via Platform 1 so as not to run the risk of passenger door at the easternmost end being released while further from the platform than standard because the train is on the crossover. Using up 2 platforms. Or they could just all use 4...

10 cars are too long for Gloucester 1 and 2 individually. The problem with trying to use both is that the other one is often occupied. 4 is inconvenient and in some hours is also occupied by something else.

Hence the reason why the introduction plan for the IET units up to the Dec 2018 timetable does not include any 10 car working on the South Cots. There are issues with the North Cots which makes 10 car operation difficult there too. So for both Cots lines it is load 9 for HST replacement in the current cascade plan.

 

[JN114]

SIMBID, is he in the same pirate gang as Sinbad ?

Sorry - SIMBIDS - SIMplified BIDirectional Signalling.

Bidirectional signalling, but AWS is not suppressed for wrong-direction moves; so the driver has to cancel the AWS at the magnets for signals facing the other (right) direction of travel.

Unlike true BiDi signalling it’s ONLY allowed to be used in situations when the correct line is blocked by possession or mishap (ie a failed train) - not for regulation or any other performance benefit.

 

[bb21]

I went back around 150 posts and I have already lost the will to live. Some mind-moggling repetitions intertwined with some very informative snippets and thoughtful reasoning.

This thread is closed with immediate effect as it probably isn't worth the time to untangle it.

There is a new continuation thread here, but please keep it on topic as it will be closely monitored. Any discussion about the 80x or 387 fleets please use the correct relevant thread. Entertaining as they may be, they are best kept in their own places respectively.

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/gwrs-recent-declining-performance.165718/