Gareth Marston
Established Member
I am surprised the turn around is that low. Extending to Wrexham may only add 14 minutes if properly timed (the daily service waits for ages in Chester). If timings and mixing of stock for London-Scotland service were altered, perhaps it could be done with existing stock?
I think it would require the station improvements for Bidston to Wrexham to enable running 158s and not running a clock face timetable. This could enable extending the long distance service to Birkenhead North (2 mins), to double the connections with Merseyrail services. Running Wrexham London via Shrewsbury is too slow as Wrexham and Shropshires failed Open access service showed.
The shuttle is mainly one DMU going back and forth for most of the day so Holyhead-Crewe wouldnt work.
With the introduction of hourly services between Holyhead and Cardiff, there would be plenty of through services between north wales and stations between Chester and Shrewsbury. I dont think the number of people doing Noth Wales to Birmingham direct is actually that high. There is a huge number of people getting on and off at Chester and Shrewsbury. Under my suggestion they could use a Holyhead-Cardiff/Chester service and change at Shotton or Shrewsbury to get to Birmingham or simply go via Crewe.
We must remember that the North Wales to South Wales market is less than 3% of the total North Wales market it is only around 150,000 journeys per annum in total. As with any defined region outside of the South East the predominate flows are within region (other N Wales UA's) , to the adjacent region (NW England) and then to London & SE. They account for near on 85% of usage other markets are fairly small, having a train every hour to Cardiff will not make any significant difference.