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9886
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Journey by Journey / London to the Cotswolds / Re: HST stabling at Worcester
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on: June 30, 2008, 23:33:54
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The rumour mill is working overtime - I overheard a conversation today between two FGW▸ staff saying about a FGW drivers depot being established at Worcester within the next year or two. According to them it will have an establishment of around 30 drivers and will take over (either partially or completely) the current depot work at Gloucester. Apparently it has already been discussed by the unions. Well, time will tell...
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9888
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Journey by Journey / London to the Cotswolds / Re: HST stabling at Worcester
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on: June 29, 2008, 17:07:02
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First I've heard of these rumours, and I keep my ear to the ground! As for the hiring in of another companies drivers I find this hard to believe. Currently First hire in Arriva Trains Wales drvers/guards to work Cardiff-Portsmouth services and I think some train crew from a Company on the Southern (not sure which). But this will be changing as they are taking it all back in house. Also with their recruitment program of drivers and guards ongoing and then the giving away of work to another depot yet alone another company doesn't seem like good buisness sense to me!
Well, you heard it from me first then. Mind you of course, at least 75% of rumours within the industry turn out to be complete bobbins! I think it is Redhill based drivers you speak of. And, yes, that may be changing, but local decisions are dictated by local circumstances. It MIGHT make more business sense to hire, say three Worcester based London Midland drivers a day from a passed out link of sixteen, than operate your own very small depot at that location (you'd want about eight to cover three daily diagrams with allowances for days off/sickness etc.) It might not. I'm not saying it will (that was not part of the rumour), but as it has been done before at this very location until fairly recently it would certainly not be unfeasable.
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9889
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Journey by Journey / London to the Cotswolds / Re: Herefords today...
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on: June 29, 2008, 16:52:12
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That 1625 ex Worcester will be roughly 1740 ex Oxford. I wonder if FGW▸ will have the sense to tag on another 3 car unit at Oxford, as it will otherwise be an almighty crush from Oxford to Paddington with just 3-cars.
Of course they won't - that would be far too sensible. There's probably three or four surplus turbos kicking around at Oxford all day, but I saw at least three of the up Paddington's off the Cotswold Line arrive today and two of them were chock-full, the third had people standing. This always happens on a Sunday at it's not helped by the fact that the trains also stop at Didcot Parkway. Indeed, a couple of months ago the local press got involved when a 2-car was used a a substitute on one of the Hereford-Paddingtons in the afternoon. About 30 people had to be turned away at Oxford and nobody at all could board at Didcot. The appalling fact is that there IS plenty of spare Turbo capacity on a Sunday. Even when the trains are formed by HST▸ 's they are full as Oxford only has an hourly fast service on a Sunday, which almost always originates from Hereford/Malvern/Worcester.
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9890
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Journey by Journey / London to the Cotswolds / Re: HST stabling at Worcester
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on: June 28, 2008, 20:21:13
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Given the distances involved and the times of these taxi trips, never mind the rocketing cost of fuel, taxi-ing drivers to and from Hereford (for the Malvern train) and Worcester (for the morning halts train and home after the 21.48 from London gets to WOS» ) must cost a small fortune every week, even if it's on a long-term contract. I thought they were supposed to be running a railway here, not enriching the competition.
At the moment the driver (Oxford based) who works the 21:48 Paddington-Worcester from Oxford stays overnight and returns working the 'halts' train the next morning, so taxis to/from Oxford are usually not required except on Saturday night and Sunday morning. However, with about 4 hours at Worcester doing nothing, the drivers time could hardly be considered productive! There used to be a daily taxi in the early morning from Oxford to Worcester and late evening from Worcester to Oxford up until the first up and down Malvern train changed to a HST▸ last December. I believe up until then the annual taxi contract was worth about ^40k for this contract alone (including the weekend ones). I wonder what the annual taxi bill for FGW▸ is? After all, they have to fork out on plenty of them to get stranded punters home too! Mind you, compared with the Freight companies (whose drivers seen to spend half their shift getting taxied somewhere), It's probably quite small! There have been rumours of a dedicated driver depot at Worcester for FGW rescently. There's no reason why this couldn't happen, and also there's no reason why drivers from London Midland based there couldn't be 'hired' to drive FGW trains - that is what happened until around the turn of this decade.
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9892
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All across the Great Western territory / Across the West / Re: Network Rail to consider Major New Rail Lines
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on: June 26, 2008, 22:06:32
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The study will approach the issue from both directions. And if you actually look at what the genius of IK Brunel bequeathed us - a route that could be turned into a 125mph railway with precious little alteration in the 1970s - would fettling it up for 140mph (225kmh) be that much more difficult. Perhaps doing this, plus quadruple-tracking from Didcot to Swindon or on to Bristol Parkway, would be more cost-effective than taking a TGV▸ -type line alongside the M4 over the Downs to Swindon?
I tend to agree, Will. I just can't see us ever having a purpose-built high speed line heading out west from London. I can see scope for a London to the Midlands, Manchester/Liverpool and maybe on to Glasgow/Edinburgh, but heading westwards the population centres it could serve are just not big enough in my opinion. Yes, you have big centres in Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter and Plymouth, but the topography of the land is not great (especially if anyone was thinking of extending it to Penzance), and suitable land would be at a premium. There is scope for increasing the linespeed of the current track. It gets a bit twisty between Twyford and Goring, but otherwise it really is just the signalling that would stop higher speeds being possible in theory at least as far as Chippenham. Perhaps a 'double-green' LED aspect could be provided to give the appropriate braking distances where 4-aspect signalling is already in place?
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9894
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Journey by Journey / London to the Cotswolds / Re: 2021 PAD to WOS/Malvern (cant remember where it stops) .... a question
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on: June 26, 2008, 13:23:18
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This Train is always a booked HST▸ , its worked by a bristol guard and driver, and worcester buffet staff, the buffet get off at worcester, guard and driver work passenger to malvern, then empties to hereford, where it stables overnight, train crew taxied back to bristol.
Next Morning
Driver Taxied from Bristol to Hereford, starts train up, takes empty stock to malvern, where guard and buffet staff get on, they are taxied to gmv, from worcester.
Not that it matters a great deal, but I think the Guard gets taxied from Worcester to Hereford as he/she has to help with the train preperation (brake test, etc.)
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9897
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Journey by Journey / London to Kennet Valley / Re: An example of what could be done with a little imagination...
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on: June 24, 2008, 13:13:48
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Looks like your UP 180s are going to be get in the way of up HSTs▸
Could you be a little more specific? As with any major timetable alterations, there would need to be minor adjustments here and there to other services, but the vast majority of UP fast HST's along the Berks&Hants are due into Reading at xx:49 and would preceed the xx:38 stopping train from Newbury (which would be in the bay) passing at about xx+34, and don't conflict with the 180's at xx:25 from Wesbury at all as they pass there at about xx:03? Also, generally, HST's leave Reading for Paddington (non-stop) at xx:32 and xx:44 and my Reading-Maidenhead-Paddington trains leave Reading nicely in between at xx:37, so, again there's no conflict there - they would follow the xx:42 HeathrowExpress from T5 after Airport Junction.
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9899
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Journey by Journey / London to Kennet Valley / An example of what could be done with a little imagination...
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on: June 24, 2008, 11:52:07
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I originally posted this on the 'SaveTheTrain' forum, but also thought viewers of this forum might be interested: It struck me that there are two areas of the current timetable which could do with improving upon.
1) Westbury (an increasingly busy junction station and terminus of any enhanced TransWilts service that may come to pass) and Pewsey have a very irregular pattern of trains to London. 2) Maidenhead is a very busy station (ranked 74th busiest in the UK▸ ) - which has a branch connection to Bourne End and Marlow. and although it has 4 trains an hour off-peak to London they are all painfully slow - taking nearly 40 minutes for the 23 mile journey.
I've spent a bit of spare time looking at these problems and tackled them both with a proposed timetable that replaces the current hourly off-peak Turbo service from Paddington-Bedwyn, with an Adelante operated service between Paddington and Westbury (and occasionally Frome) which also stops at Maidenhead.
I'm not expecting it to ever come to anything as FGW▸ are off-loading all their Adelantes by the end of the year, but I though I'd share it with forum readers to show the huge benefits over the current service to these destinations. It is a full weekday timetable which includes pathing around other services (virtually nothing would have to change) and also indicative diagramming of Turbo and Adelante units to show what resources would be required.
The link to download it is: http://www.savefile.com/projects/808644282
My apologies for any pop-ups, but that is a necessary evil when using free file hosters!
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