Great Western Coffee Shop

The new timetable mandated for the new franchise has been mentioned already, as have the new stretch trains. But really the new services are a distinct topic from the existing threads, so ...

Any paid-up Wokingham resident will tell you that the trains to London are slower than in the 1950s. And so they are - currently most are 1:08 (1:22 from Reading) during the day, but slower in the peak - in 1950 most were 1:02 (1:15 from Reading), again slower in the peak, but a few ran less than an hour! The new franchise calls for 1:13 up/1:12 down for the two fastest tph from Reading, which should be just under an hour from Wokingham, and as the Hounslow loop is to be covered by the Windsor trains we may well get that timing on all 4 tph.

How? Well, stations have been built since (Winnersh Triangle, Martins Heron) in the stopping part of the route, and they used to run non-stop inwards of Staines (so missing Feltham, Twickenham, Richmond, and Clapham Junction). So the trains probably can go a bit quicker, but I think the timings have not been  improved due to the difficulty of making piecemeal changes to something so complex, and also power supply issues.

I'm sure I read that the 4 tph off-peak service we used to have 25 years ago was only possible with 4-car trains, as there wasn't enough power available otherwise. Longer trains (not just 8 but 10 cars long), and using all their motor power, both also need more current supplied to the track. Hence we have new feed stations, half-way between the existing ones (which have been refitted) - e.g. the one at Emmbrook, between Wokingham and Winnersh.

So, will I be able to feel this extra acceleration? Certainly at the moment the trains don't seem to be trying at all hard. They are (or were last week) 450s, with a 100 mph top speed, while the returning 458s are now geared down to 75 mph - so they should accelerate better, though it may also increase their current draw. These new trains being ordered are going to be 100 mph ones - I'm not sure what to make of that, given that the highest line speed on the route is all of 70 mph.

Paul Clifton (BBC South Today) tweeted in the last hour:

The new South Western Railway plans to halve direct Weymouth-Waterloo services. Instead, new Weymouth-Portsmouth route.

That was a pretty clear option in the new franchise service specification, so it shouldn't actually come as a surprise.   

But I'm sure it will be treated that way, and not just by Mr Clifton...

I'm also fairly confident that the new Portsmouth - Weymouth service will not be the fastest way of getting between the two points.  Changing in and out of fast trains at Southampton will remain the way to do that journey.   The new service will apparently be a combination of the Portsmouth - Southampton all stations, the Southampton - Poole section of the existing Poole stopper, and the all stations part of today's slower Weymouth service.   

If they retain the 35 min wait at Brockenhurst while the down train gets overtaken, then it will be even worse for through journeys between major stations; just like the present Poole train is the wrong choice if going to Poole...

Paul

For me it makes sense, Weymouth doesn't need two trains an hour to London, the previous timetable worked perfectly well. One train an hour picking up all stations Weymouth-Poole (except Holton Heath) then fast Bournemouth-Waterloo stopping at principal stations only.

I think SWR may have produced and issued their first timetables in a bit of a hurry. Can anybody spot the [not so deliberate] mistake(s) in this issue?

(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4346/36153088813_b10fb6622f_o.jpg)

or view it here and click on the magnifying glass! (https://www.flickr.com/photos/pwakely/36153088813/in/dateposted-public/)

Date ???? - franchise started 20th August - rail timetables usually start on a Sunday, 29th was Tuesday last.

No - that's right. The SWT ones from May ran to 4th August, then there was the "all screwed up" timetable for the upgrade works, though I don't think SWT printed a full set of route timetables for that; there were some weekday-only ones, though only up to 24th.

Then the 29th was the start of the "normal" service following the bank holiday, and it was left to SWR to produce a new set despite the fact they ought to be the same as before the works started.

Is this like a picture quiz, where we can only give one answer for the first 24 hours?  If so, I'll go for Sailsbury, but have already spotted at least one more.

'Exter' is just the local phonetic spelling, I assume...

In a similar vein, though a more glaring example, I was looking at timetable 2 to see if I can see any changes from the under the ancien régime. While they have changed the typeface and colours, the actual timetables do seem to be the same, and match the title on the front page: "Reading and Ascot to London Waterloo".

Unfortunately on each page the table is headed "London Waterloo and Wimbledon to Kingston, Richmond, and the Shepperton branch". As you can see here (https://www.southwesternrailway.com/~/media/pdfs/timetables/ptt02-september-reading-and-ascot.pdf?la=en), it's the same on-line. Of course it's a little bit more than just a typo in some text to correct, but easier than in the graphics on the cover, and certainly not exactly a long job - once someone has noticed.

And 'Sailsbury'. One would assume the same timetable team that produced SWT timetables complied the SWR ones also so would appear strange that there are numerous typos this time around.

Apparently a few other front pages had major stations spelt right but in completely the wrong order.

Paul

There has been some comment in the latest issue of RAIL.  Apparently a new batch is being printed.

We do have new trains! A closer examination of the new leaflet 2 shows two of them (so yes, the new trains could be typos).

There used to be two trains in the morning on top of the 2 tph that run all day, arriving at Waterloo at 7:46 and 8:46. Now there's one timed at 8:16 too, reinforcing the third of the three peak trains, and giving 4 tph in that interval. There are also the two just-post-peak extra trains already in the "old" timetable, as well as the three trains of the Guildford via Ascot service.

In the evening, both of these services used to used the same slot in the clockface. After the 16:05 and 16:35 pre-peak to Reading, the 17:05 and 18:05 (just the two) went to Ascot/Guildford, while the 17:35, 18:35, and 19:35 went to Reading. Now the 17:35 becomes a Reading trains and a new 17:54 goes to Ascot/Guildford.

You can see that in the picture, along with a silly mistake with one of the GWR North Downs trains. Surely that proves it was never proof-read at all? They have tried to overcome the never-ending complaints about the text being too small, in several ways:

The tables are taller within the page, giving 10 instead of 12 lines per inch.
The columns are wider, but fewer, even with more trains, because they have used the old "and at the same minutes past the hour until" trick.
There is less space around the letters, which makes it look more cramped, though the legibility is still better due to the larger font.
And the typeface for the times is I think a little heavier, and also blockier than it was. The most noticeable change is the '1's which now have a base - the main effect of that is to fill the space, so the '1's no longer look like the skinny kid at the edge of the group photo.
But then there's the colours; the old red on a peach ground was hard to read in the light font, now it's a rather pale blue on a grey ground and that's worse.