Great Western Coffee Shop

Strongly rumoured.......

We'll see soon enough.

Well, the rumours (from very well placed people) were wrong.

What next......

Probably very close, Richard ... though with this being the peak of the holiday season, and with the Olympics coming up over the next couple of weeks, I expect that the DfT are stretched.   If this were a train alteration, we might see a delay explained by This is due to unusual passenger flow. - but this is more This is due to unusual civil servant flow.

Let's see what the next couple of days bring ...

We can, I'd surmise, expect the announcement very shortly.

DfT are busy juggling lots of balls at the moment. Greater Western, InterCity West Coast, InterCity East Coast, electrification, IEP, Thameslink, CrossRail, and so on.

All these positive noises for existing rail flows, with their promises of investment, make me think that Her Majesty's Government are laying the groundwork for pushing HS2 into the long grass.

It's interesting to note that noises from Govt. regarding HS2 have recently gone decidedly quiet. The cynic in me sees the Govt. saying, 'look what we're doing for the existing rail network'.

No mention whatsoever for HS2 in Network Rail's next Control Period......

Moderator note:

Further discussion in this thread focused on the Intercity Express Programme (IEP) rather than the Greater Western Franchise Invitation to Tender (ITT).

In the interests of clarity and continuity those posts have been split off and merged with existing topics on IEP:

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=10150.msg114937#msg114937

bignosemac

The press release is already on the DfT website

http://www.dft.gov.uk/news/press-releases/dft-press-20120727a

The detailed ITT should be online later today.

Let's hope it's not being released today because "It's a good day to bury bad news!"   ;)

Many thanks, Richard ... please do post a link to that ITT when it comes online ... you seem to be the one breaking the news!


Or - "we really must get this out before we get involved in watching the Olympics" ...

It's available now at http://www.dft.gov.uk/publications/great-western-franchise-2013/

Oh dear. No change for the minimum service requirement for Swindon-Westbury. Still 2 trains each direction per week day.

It seems there isn't a requirement to provide direct services to Great Malvern/Hereford and Paignton, only to provide a minimum number of connections through to these destinations each day.  This could l be met by running direct services but does not have to be.  Weston-super-Mare also only seems to have a requirement for direct services at weekends.

But see section 4.11.5.1 of the main ITT document.

Pad - Penzance - it seems the rumours last week were right, requirement is 6 trains per day plus sleeper

Ahh, that's a bit more positve. I'm still reading through the full ITT. Thanks for the heads up.

http://assets.dft.gov.uk/publications/rail-passenger-franchise-great-western/invitation-to-tender.pdf#page=114

Again, there is a priced option asking the bidders to quote for continuing with nine.

There's also another priced option for a half-hourly service between Plymouth and Penzance from December 17.  It appears that Cornish resignalling could be much, much nearer than most of us thought (helped along by Cornwall and EU investment).

Follow mac's link above to the priced options.

Quite a lot of very interesting "priced options" in the ITT, including:-

Half hourly Portishead line services (once built)
8 tpd to Okehampton
8 tpd to Tavistock (once built)
1 train every 2 hours Exeter to Honiton
hourly service Weymouth-Westbury
St Ives branch extends to Penzance hourly
1/2 hourly Exmouth service Sundays
Later services on Looe branch

It will be very interesting to see how many of these come to fruition. I suspect DfT is trying to get clarity on the likely costs of a lot of the potential enhancements that have been kicking around for some time, and so it's an easy thing to do as part of the ITT, as the bidders bear the cost and might be encouraged to keep costs down (whereas midway through a franchise there is no incentive to provide a competitive quote).  So I wouldn't necessarily expect the franchise winner announcement to include confirmation that these enhancements will go ahead, as they will still need funding from one source or other, but there will be a guaranteed and sensible cost once funding is found. 

When I went to download the service requirements I got "file damage could not be repaired"

The most worrying part of this press release id the paragraph that starts:
I work in what may be termed the "public sector", and know that the entire energy of the successful bidder will be aimed at ticking the box here, rather than satisfying passengers. I admire Justine Greening's spirit, if not her politics, and the same is true of Theresa Villiers, but the way government works, it is unlikely that either of them will be around the transport arena when this all goes live.

I am pleased to see the option to reopen Portishead. I would love to know what "priced option" really means in terms of reality.

page 119 suggests that there could be an option for a new minimum of 9 pad- penz a day going forward. yet it also mentions being a waste of first class and buffet accomodation for the number of people making local journeys through cornwall. http://assets.dft.gov.uk/publications/rail-passenger-franchise-great-western/invitation-to-tender.pdf#page=119

apologies for the double post.

St Ives services extended to penzance, will this mean a reduction of frequency on the branch, or extra rolling stock?

extra rolling stock

Which should become available once the Thames Valley is wired and some class 165's get displaced down to Bristol. That could release a few class 150's hopefully

so one unit will spend half an hour every hour sat around at St Erth? The through to penzance is specified as only 1tph.

The priced options are for the extension of the 28 trains per day to Penzance on Mondays to Saturdays either Summer only or all year.  It doesn't say anything about only running half of these to Penzance.

It does state 1tph extended to penzance, There almost certainly isnt capacity between st erth and penzance to have 28 tpd plus mainline services

I've had a look through both the Invitation To Tender and the Train Service Reruirement documents and can't find anywhere saying only one train per hour in either and the main document refers to extending all 28 trains.  It also wouldn't be impossible to path the additional services (off peak there is only 1 tph from Penzance to Plymouth), running time St Erth to Penzance is only ten minutes.

I note that Bristol Temple Meads and Reading are to be managed by Network Rail from 2014. Hopefully this won't be like the slightly farcical 'management' of Birmingham New Street, where you have Network Rail doing despatch, Virgin selling tickets, London Midland manning the gateline and doing revenue protection and CrossCountry doing Customer Service.

OK, there are fewer TOCs involved at Bristol TM and Reading, but I wonder what the division of duties will be between lead TOC and NR?

In the summer this would mean an additional 4 vehicles would be required, which would seem very wasteful. What is driving this requirement? Is it a presumption/aspiration that the new St Erth Park and Ride will result in a significant increase in journeys to Penzance? 

A very good idea, so encourge local travel between St Ives and Penzance to reduce buses/traffic.

It will also allow St Erth stops to be axed from HSS without impacting on connections from the East! ;D

...and thereby extend journey times to St Ives from the east by getting on for half an hour.

Also that stations Salisbury-Southampton will hopefully be transferred to SWT before the start of the new franchise.

Not if the journey time has been reduced by half an hour to Penzance by the cutting of stops.

Besides, most St Ives passengers are be Lelant car users from my observations.

There's no national standard for division of responsibilities as far as I can tell.  If you were to use Waterloo as the comparison, I don't see NR staff involved much with the train service there at all.

It's probably more to do with who gets all the rent from the 'station shopping centre'.

Paul   

Same with Paddington where the ticket barriers, train dispatch, first class waiting room and ticket offices are run by FGW. Network Rail do have a few customer service staff plus the passenger assistance buggy, but that seems to be the limit of their operational involvement.


In truth, that probably seems fair considering the amount of investment going into Reading right now and Bristol TM over the next few years.

TLM

This caught my eye in the ITT...


So it seems that at least one bidder is considering these new routes, i.e. the reinduction of the Oxford to Stratford upon Avon scrapped in 2004 plus a (what I think would be) a through service between Westbury or maybe Bristol and the Hampshire & east Dorset coast. If this comes off, I think they would uncover an fairly sizeable market as travelling to the south west from Bournemouth is a bit at the moment. Interesting ideas...

TLM

Perhaps Chiltern want to hand over their route to Stratford to free up capacity? They are already running down the service to Kings Sutton, angering commuters and sparking fears the station may be axed:

http://www.banburyguardian.co.uk/news/local/fighting-to-keep-trains-running-1-4099661

Was Stratford slower via Oxford? (I assume so)

FGW definitely wants to run from Oxford to Stratford. It contributed last year a significant cash sum to the appeal to pay for a study into othe possible reopening of the Honeybourne/Stratford link, I believe it was ^10,000. A senior member of FGW has said that Oxford and Stratford has similar tourist traffic.

It was certainly slower than the Evergreen Stage 2 proposed timetable which had a Chiltern service every 2 hours taking 1h50 to 1h55m.  Not much difference between the current timings (around 2h 10m on average) and the FGW service though.


A very senior member of FGW staff told me that they were certainly interested in Stratford again, but I got the impression that it would be a service to complement the Chiltern offering rather than replace it.  That may all change of course, but I'd have thought that there was a market for one or two prime timed HSTs to run for tourists during the summer from Paddington with probable calls at Slough, Reading, Oxford, Warwick and Stratford - though I'm not sure the same winter market exists, and I'm really unsure as to whether the Honeybourne link is worth the substantial investment that will be needed to overcome problems south of the station.

Having both operators is a bad idea as it doesn't really add to the frequency. People will turn up t Pad or Mar and it's still a 2 hourly service.

It's why having extra trains from Shenfield to Liverpool Street high level on Crossrail is barmy. In the evening, where do commuters go? The Crossrail platforms for 12tph or the high level platforms for 6tph? ::)

Changing the subject has any one worked the TV stopping service pattern? ~I could find no reference to Taplow and I'm too thick to make any sense of the Service Requirement tables.


I would suggest commuters within walking distant or arrive by bus will go to the high level  I asumme that at least some of the High Level trains will be Southend, Clacton etc. semis.

Moorgate people will enter the West end of the Crossrail station it's that long!

Circle/Met people will probably go to the highlevel but Central line passengers will either stay underground or go through to Stratford or have got on Crossrail already furhther West.

Also don't forget we will have an even more bizairre situatation at Padd. With 24tph Eastbound in the peaks and only 10 tph coming out onto the GWML Westbound. Plus an unknown number of High Level semis from stations East of Reading.

Crossrail is a disaster West of Padd especiialy if they waste money building the turnback sidings at Maidenhead and have electrified Marlow and Henley. Hence my post on the Battle of Taplow2018.

but the ITT also mentions half hourly services between Pz and plymouth, this plus half hourly st ives services would mean a train every 15 mins, dont think signalling will allow this without major upgrades

The signalling itself may cope with running a train every 15 minutes from Penzance to St Erth but the single line east of Penzance doesn't help if there are delays and another issue would be the fact that down trains from the branch would have to use the up main platform although this is not within the clearing point so it would be possible to accept a train from Penzance even if a train from the branch is occupying the up platform.  Regardless of this though, the invitation to tender clearly says that the St Ives services will only be extended through to Penzance if the half hourly Plymouth service does not go ahead.  It's either option 6B or 7A, not both.

None of them will be Semi fast. There will be 6tph from Liverpool Street HL to Shenfield calling at all stations.

I still think it defeats the object TBH. You should be able to turn up at the station either on the platform or on a concourse near the platform.

You're right about Paddington. Going to Slough or Maidenhead? Do you head upstairs on downstairs? Completely defeats the high frequencies.

A mess.

The way some of the ITT is written, with grammatical mistakes and no obvious signs of proof-reading, makes me suspect that substantial redrafting work was being done right to the last minute. Look at pages 117 - 8 for instance:

Agreed: the more I read the ITT, and the associated briefings and documents, the more it becomes rather painfully clear that they were all 'rushed out' at the last minute.

For example, see the Stakeholder Briefing (http://assets.dft.gov.uk/publications/rail-passenger-franchise-great-western/f-stakeholder-briefing.pdf) document:





Pure gibberish!  ::) :D ;D

Being fair, though, they've only had a few years' notice.

Just spotted this old post of mine. Who'd be a prophet, eh?

Going back to an earlier post, FGW did run a Paddington to Stratford HST some years ago. Given that it's one of the biggest tourist destinations in the country I'm surprised they abandoned the service.

And the idea about re-opening Stratford to Honeybourne is "intriguing" as the trackbed down to Long Marston is now a cycle way and somebody has built some industrial units across the old trackbed at Long Marston. Not that these problems are insuperable but it would cost a bit. Also potential conflict with the GWR steam service as and when they get north of Broadway (unless GWR want to reinstate the old east curve linking to the main line east of Honeybourne) - and don't laugh as the GWR have just completed a ^1 million plus fundraising to carry out repairs and invest for the future.

Not to mention two great big roundabouts and half a kilometre of the Stratford Bypass!  It falls squarely into the 'Can't ever see it happening' bracket to me.

II & FTN should read the following from the Oxford Mail and also the Stratford D.C. report from the link at the end of the article:
Study establishes a good case for reinstating Stratford to Oxford link

2:00pm Wednesday 3rd October 2012 in News Photograph of the Author By Jamie Brooks, Contact me on 01865 425422

A STUDY of proposals to reinstate a Rail link between Oxford and Stratford-upon-Avon has found there is a good case for the idea.

Consultants Arup carried out a ^70,000 four-month study into the prospects for the reopening of a rail connection from the Cotswold Line, which connects Oxford and Worcester, to the Warwickshire tourist hotspot.

Their report says that reinstatement of the railway from Stratford to nearby Long Marston is feasible, along with improvements to the existing freight-only branch line from Long Marston to Honeybourne, on the Cotswold Line.

And the report adds that forecasts of potential passenger numbers on trains between Stratford and Oxford and Stratford and Worcester could see services turning an operating profit soon after the line is restored.

Trains could also be extended beyond Oxford to London, or from Stratford to Leamington Spa.

The consultants recommend hourly trains on each route, which, combined with an hourly service on the Cotswold Line, would mean trains at least half-hourly throughout the day at West Oxfordshire stations including Hanborough, Charlbury and Kingham.

A report to the cabinet of Stratford-on-Avon District Council, which co-ordinated the study, says that it is now up to the rail industry, local enterprise partnerships and the Department for Transport to take the scheme forward.
Related links

Councillors are being asked at a meeting on Monday to consider the study^s findings when drawing up a core planning strategy and to safeguard the former rail route from development that could hamper its reopening.

The study said the cost of work to reinstate the missing section of the line, improve the Long Marston branch line and rebuild a triangular junction at Honeybourne to allow trains to run direct to and from Oxford, would be ^76m, although an allowance for extra costs, based on advice from Network Rail, could push this figure up to ^96.9m.

John Ellis, chairman of the Cotswold Line Promotion Group, which represents passengers, was a member of the steering group set up by the council to oversee the study.

He said: ^I think we have got a very good base from the study, which I am pleased with. We will continue to keep going, referencing the study and looking for further support for the implementation of the scheme.^

The connection at Honeybourne allowing direct running between Oxford and Stratford was closed in 1965, while the Long Marston-Stratford section was shut in 1976.

    The study report is online at http://democracy.stratford.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=18911
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Terminal Junkie should remember actuality. The Cotswold Line redoubling project was rejected by NR as being totally uneconomic investment but just a few years later was approved and is now in use. The Stratford/Honeybourne link looks a very forlorn case to me from the report as it seems to rely on the minimum investment with the maximum forecast use to get to a BCR that could be considered for investment. However do not discount what enough political lobbying can sometimes do.

It's very interesting, and as it says in the report, done to equivalent GRIP3 standard. Might happen, might not, time will tell.

No doubt would be a very useful connection but a lot of money would be needed - I would never say it can't be done. Also, I think the Cotswold redoubling was easier to achieve.

Having read the study (thanks for providing the link), I can certainly vouch that they have done a thorough job, though a few things worry me about the report.  And for those reasons I haven't changed my mind!

Firstly, unless I've missed it, there is no reference whatsoever to the redoubling of the Wolvercote to Charlbury and Evesham to Norton Junction sections.  These would both be needed in order to provide the train paths they want for their hourly service from Stratford to Worcester and Oxford.  Neither currently feature in CP5, which at the end of in 2019 this scheme is hoped to be in operation according to the report.

Secondly, their BCR figure comes in at only 0.8:1 - if they massage the figures to include 6% year-on-year growth, an additional 10% in the first year, and the scheme costs less than they estimate they can just about get that to a figure of 2:1.  Now, I know that Benefit Cost Ratio's are highly subjective, and schemes shouldn't solely be judged on their BCR figures, but those figures seem extremely low.  Compare that with the East-West Rail's BCS of 6.3:1, a figure which doesn't take into account the 'sparks effect' of electrification or any 3rd party contributions and think how long it's taken that to get onto the 'going to be done' list.

Third, there is undoubtedly demand for a service from Oxford to Stratford and from Worcester to Stratford, but is there enough of a demand?  Journey time wise Oxford to Stratford via Leamington would take around 1h 20m and I can only see that being reduced by about 20 minutes at the most via this new route.  Journey times to/from London would barely improve on Chiltern's current operation, and involve a change at Oxford based on their financial modelling (though mention of a through service is made).  There is also no mention made of the possible reinstatement of the London/Oxford/Stratford service as specified in the Greater Western Franchise ITT - that would surely impact negatively on already poor BCR figures.

Finally, the biggest hurdle of all is that they recognise that both bats and newts are known to be in the area, so that means the scheme has no chance!  ;)

Talking of which, any word on the Evergreen 3 inquiry report ...?

I agree with II's comments on the Honeybourne/Stratford study. It does rely on a lot of optimistic factors all coming together to get to a BCR to justify the investment. However with regard to II's comment on redoubling the rest of the CL, in ther Wesstern Region region RUS there was a statement to the effect that NR was looking for an eventual redoubling of the Charlbury/Wolvercot section. I believe that this was not considered for CP 5 because the extensive resignalling works in the Oxford area would need to be completed before any track redoubling work could be undertaken. The Evesham/Norton redoubling was not mentioned in the RUS because it is off the Western Region territory.

It wasn't abandoned as such, the SRA as it was then decided to transfer London to Stratford services from FGW to Chiltern

Was the FGW service an HST?  When I caught it the train was always a Turbo.  Left Reading around 09:50 as I remember.

I have often speculated whether Chiltern are making the most of the tourist opportunity with Stratford. In particular whether their silver trains would enable a high quality service that could run two trips a day, offering an early morning departure from London for day trippers, and mid morning return (for those checking out from Stratford), and a mid afternoon departure (for the theatre) and early evening return (for day trippers).

When Wrexham and Shropshire were operating it struck me that one of their sets could have done a return trip during the day and offered a premium service including food.

However, I do wonder whether well heeled foreign tourists are on tickets that mean Chiltern would get very little of the revenue, so that they would end up providing a service with very little reward.

There was a daily HST service way back before privatisation, but whilst Thames Trains operated the route it was always Turbo operated, and FGW Link then operated the service for a very short time (still with Turbos) before it went over to Chiltern at the end of 2004.

Great Western Trains used to run one HST return from Padddington to Stratford for a while - the "Shakespeare Express" as I recall. I remember catching it from Oxford to Reading back in the very late 1980s. Trouble is you need one early(ish) service and one late(ish) return for tourists. One idea would be a service (Adelante might fit the bill if it works OK and has decent catering) from Oxford to Stratford a couple of times a day between Oxford and Stratford, with a good connection to London.
As I understand it, outside of London, Oxford, Stratford and Bath top the tourist destinations so the demand should be there - and relieve the roads of the tourist coaches.

As stated in my previous post, that service stopped in the BR days before privatisation when 'Great Western Trains' was born.