Weymouth Line Questions

[Meerkat]

No idea but I am not going to get into a discussion where there is an underlying premise that "the North" should be grateful they have anything.

then don’t be bitter about the things the South has!

 

[yorksrob]

In spite of being towards the edge of NSE, Bournemouth - Weymouth possibly has some characteristics of the regional railway. I therefore rejoice that at least one such route actually has adequate service provision.

Of course, if the link to Swanage takes off, some of the spare capacity may be well used !

 

[dorsetdesiro]

As a sort of regular on the Bournemouth-Weymouth section I use to commute to work, I feel fortunate to have it well served by 5 car 444s (previously by 442s) where elsewhere in the country have 2 or 3 cars. Though the service has gone slightly downhill under SWR with trains being more late than with SWT though it is more to do with NR infrastructure troubles.

Despite this, I'm generally satisfied as the trains themselves are excellent with adequate bicycle space (no reservation required) with plenty of seating available as it only fills up more from Bournemouth & Southampton. Down here we could have had worse like Pacers or 150s, this may be the South but AFAIK, Exeter still has them and it isn't a Northern city!

I do sympathise with whoever has to deal with much worse service however I have a new job up North starting next month, being from the South I admit it may be a "culture shock" but on the plus side there will be six operators - Northern, TPE, HT, LNER, XC and GC instead of just one as down here. If SWR is screwed then I will have fewer options also I'll have to go to Bournemouth to catch Crosscountry which isn't too bad.

 

[3141]

Back in the late 80's, when electric stuff actually managed to reach Weymouth, I timed assorted instances of double CIGs and CIG/VEP combinations - a max draw of around 1500kw - a double 444/450 would, notionally, pull around 2400kw. The latter a no-no.

in 2005 I was on a Southern Electric Group special which visited many parts of the former Southern Region including Weymouth, and it consisted of a 4 CEP, a 4 VEP and a 4 CIG. I believe that special arrangements were made for it to run.

 

[dorsetdesiro]

When I travelled to the North recently, I was a bit struck when I saw a Pacer heading for Sheffield from Leeds and I sat in a full capacity TPE 185 where some people had to stand when there were no seats available. I realised the 185s were 3 car and was surprised that a busy network had this where my quieter line with 5 car 444s rarely getting full, until Southampton, which I felt a bit bad about it!

Hopefully things will improve for TPE and Northern users with the new Nova & CAF trains and older cascaded stock like 158s and 170s.

I appreciate there can be some anomalies like 3 car 170s on Crosscountry, old uncomfortable 150s going from Cardiff to Portsmouth/Brighton, Pacers serving Leeds & Sheffield, two of the UK's largest cities and of course 5 car 444s on a quiet single track through rural Dorset.

 

[dorsetdesiro]

Class 444s may look out of place west of Poole where 2 or 3 car 158s may suffice. This is for convenience as 10 car 444s from Waterloo split in half at Bournemouth then the remaining 5 car travels onwards to Weymouth also passengers would not need to get off and change to another train if they sit in the front 5 cars.

If the Weymouth line didn't get electrified in the 1980s, then I suppose we would be using 159s (more 158s and 159s would get ordered both for the West of England and BMH-WEY lines) between Bournemouth & Weymouth as a hourly shuttle service (this is done with the 444s whenever there's strike action or engineering works) you would catch a 159 to Bournemouth then change to a 442/444 onwards to Waterloo.

 

[The Ham]

Class 444s may look out of place west of Poole where 2 or 3 car 158s may suffice. This is for convenience as 10 car 444s from Waterloo split in half at Bournemouth then the remaining 5 car travels onwards to Weymouth also passengers would not need to get off and change to another train if they sit in the front 5 cars.

If the Weymouth line didn't get electrified in the 1980s, then I suppose we would be using 159s (more 158s and 159s would get ordered both for the West of England and BMH-WEY lines) between Bournemouth & Weymouth as a hourly shuttle service (this is done with the 444s whenever there's strike action or engineering works) you would catch a 159 to Bournemouth then change to a 442/444 onwards to Waterloo.

If suggest that the number of diesel trains probably wouldn't be that different it would just be that there would be complaints about why wasn't Weymouth electrified when those 3 coach DMU's weren't available to be used in the North.

Even if there were extra diesel trains they would probably be more costly to run as short units than it is to run the current setup.

Having said that, what I would say is that there's a significant amount of extra funding for rail projects with a significant need for the North to benefit.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Pretty certain that any reasonable profit and loss costing of the Bournemouth to Weymouth line in isolation would show that taxpayers are coughing up significant sums for its generous provision.

How and why? The TOC pays for the access rights to use the line; they pay one way or the other for the rolling stock and they pay the staff. They usually pay a large premium to DfT. Where do taxpayers come in?

 

[The Ham]

How and why? The TOC pays for the access rights to use the line; they pay one way or the other for the rolling stock and they pay the staff. They usually pay a large premium to DfT. Where do taxpayers come in?

Indeed, and even if there was a micro fleet with a change of trains to a DMU West of Poole then chances are it would actually cost the TOC (and therefore the Tax Payer) more. Not least because it would probably result in fewer passengers.

 

[Grecian 1998]

There are multiple lines all over the country where one place will enjoy a far superior service to others purely because they happen to be on the London route which has excess capacity at the 'country' end. Commuting to Manchester from Crewe or Macclesfield is easier than from many other places in Cheshire or from Sheffield. Commuting to Leeds from Doncaster is easier than from Sheffield (albeit it looks to be slightly more expensive if you want to use ECML services). Commuting to Bristol or Bath from Chippenham is easier than from Trowbridge. At least Weymouth services are only 5 car west of Bournemouth.

AIUI SWR didn't plan to cut back to 1tph, but did plan to divert one of the two hourly services to Portsmouth Harbour as a stopping service which would have taken far long than changing trains. The justification was that connectivity at stations such as Upwey, Moreton and Holton Heath was far more important to Poole and Bournemouth than beyond. However the plan was scrapped due to opposition. As I've never seen many people using any of the above stations, and their passenger numbers are all well below 100K pa I'm not sure why. The only other station not currently served by the fast service west of Poole is Wool. Its user numbers are a bit larger, particularly as it's close to Lulworth Cove,but IIRC the provisional-but-now-scrapped timetable did show the remaining fast service would stop at Wool anyway.

The second train in 2007 was put in as an improvement before the 2012 Olympics. It might be overkill but it would seem SWR / the DfT presumably consider the bad publicity of cutting back the service would outweigh any savings to be made.