Great Western Coffee Shop

One for the enthusiasts and spotters last night. Well, those who were either up with the lark or who had a friend aboard. The latter for me. The pictures, taken at Plymouth this morning around 0530, come courtesy of bobm.

Last night, Friday 22nd June 2018, 1C99 2345 Paddington - Penzance, the down Night Riviera Sleeper service, was double headed from Reading.

The set started from Paddington with ten carriages (usually eight on a Friday), having an additional two newly refurbished ones locked out of use on the rear. These carriages were sandwiched between 57604 Pendennis Castle upfront, and 57605 Totnes Castle on the blocks. At Reading, 57605 ran round the consist to double head and lead the service onward to the west.

(http://i68.tinypic.com/28beixt.jpg)
(http://i67.tinypic.com/6o1lkj.jpg)

Perhaps one of those extra carriages could be detached at Plymouth in future (as used to be the case), allowing those on board to slumber till a decent hour rather than being slung out, bleary eyed at 0530 and making the sleeper more attractive and a more viable proposition for those travelling to the largest and most important city in the South West?

Taunton?

Taunton is a town, not a city, with a little over 20% of Plymouth's population, and not a shred of its strategic significance or importance. What's your point?

As a regular on this forum I'd expect you to fully understand the nature of the post!!!!!!!

......sorry.....must be the ciiiddeerrrrrr! 😂

One of the out of use coaches was the first of the refreshed buffet cars - 10217.  Not sure how long before it is put into service.  Staff will need a bit of training on it although I don't know how much the equipment differs from the existing ones.  "Front of house" the seating layout is being changed with a less formal set-up akin to that found on the Caledonian Sleeper.

Along with the investment in on board facilities work has also been continuing at Penzance and, seen below, Truro for dedicated sleeper lounges.

(http://www.mbob.co.uk/rforum/sleeptru.jpg)

perhaps the engine that moved to the front remembered that in a former life it was a Brush Type 4 that ran around its train at Reading to take the York to Bournemouth down to the south coast..... :)

That would indeed be a positive thing to do to help Plymouth, which, from a recent visit, looked like it could do with all the help it can get.

There was a reason it stopped though and that was because it wasn’t financially viable.  It was 2006 and the First Great Western franchise was being let and the DfT specified a large number of cutbacks across the network.  I seem to remember it was a case of either stopping the detachment of the carriage at Plymouth, or axe the sleeper entirely.  

According to a Wikipedia reference the average number alighting at Plymouth was just four people!  The additional operational cost simply cannot be justified unless demand has shot up by about ten times that amount since.

Things change. In 2006 Plymouth had a (relatively) thriving airport which provided growing options for early arrivals in the City, that closed several years ago and a forward thinking rail company would see an opportunity to step in and take its place, perhaps with the imaginative type of solution suggested, properly promoted and marketed, attracting Business travellers to arrive in Plymouth refreshed at a realistic time to do business.

I am sure your comment about Plymouth needing "all the help it could get" wasn't meant in the slightly sneering way it came across (as a Janner I am sensitive to this sort of thing!  :)), but this is the sort of initiative by which GWR could do its bit to help the City from which it draws much of its workforce and its income, as well as making the Sleeper a more practical option for its largest Westbound destination.

If there is a business case you would probably need to add at least an extra coach.  I don't know how many use the service to Plymouth at the moment.  I saw two get off the seated section on Saturday morning and none from the berths.  There are usually more on the up trips where the train calls just before midnight most nights. 

The existing berth capacity is sold out many nights and effectively having a whole coach for Plymouth passengers would reduce the chances for those travelling to or from Cornwall to get a berth still further.

As we discovered the other night adding an extra coach may then cause motive power issues adding still further to the costs.

No simple answers - has anyone tried to get an idea of what demand there would be for more sociable sleeper provision to Plymouth?

Perhaps the other option could be to retime it so that it gets into Plymouth a bit later at a more realistic time.

It's just not a serious proposition for Plymouth at the moment, perhaps it suits GWR to have it that way, I'd be really interested in how much business traffic as opposed to tourist traffic that the Westbound sleeper gets per se.

There is a yawning (forgive me!) gap at the moment for public transport provision that facilitates business travellers arriving early in Plymouth for a days business from the South East since the closure of the airport - it's either an overnight stay or a very early drive, which leaves you knackered on arrival.

There's been discussion here previously of the viability of an early morning London - Plymouth service, perhaps leaving Paddington 0530-ish to get in before 0900 or ideally a little before - prime candidate for Pullman - but as I've said earlier, returning the sleeper to its previous format with a detachment at Plymouth, marketing it aggressively could be a winner.

I'm sure GWR could undertake some market research to assess likely demand with initial promotional fares etc wouldn't cost any more than the daft "Famous Five" campaign which has achieved little more than ridicule........who knows, Tudor Evans might even chip in a few £ now that he's back on his throne!

Not meant to sound sneering at all, just that I found it a slightly depressing place to visit and won't be rushing back.  Perhaps I missed some of the better areas as it was only a half day visit for a funeral. But the streets were filthy, and the shopping area I walked through was showing all the signs of somewhere being in trouble - vaping shops, charity shops and empty shops making up a worrying percentage of the outlets.  Then again, that's the case in so many town centres these days, and it's still much nicer than Gloucester.  ;)

Perhaps they could trial a portion detachment on the busy nights of the week to see how it goes down now the airport has shut?  To be honest though, and to borrow one of your phrases, it's a 'nice to have' and GWR need to sort out the almighty mess they are in regarding several core areas of the business before taking on any imaginative initiatives for the niche areas such as that.

Do we know how well the new improved service from London in the morning is settling in?  An 09:34 arrival is pretty good for business I'd have thought and is earlier than you can get from London to the larger city of Newcastle, though it would be even better if that could be tweaked forward to nearer a 09:00 arrival.

It may be because I am getting old, but if I needed to get a train at 05:30 to reach Plymouth by 9 I would still be knackered on arrival.  Catching the 06:40 from Swindon to be in Birmingham by 9:00 is bad enough!

If I needed to by in Plymouth by 9 I would go the night before!

If you're on the train, you can at least get some kip if required.....falling asleep whilst driving down the M4/M5/A38 is not, I am led to believe, particularly advisable.

Being able to get that kip on the sleeper, would, of course, be a better scenario.

Your second point serves to illustrate the problem perfectly.

II - explanation accepted & I don't disagree re: Plymouth city centre.....getting the Luftwaffe back to finish the job sometimes seems like a good idea. (Sometimes you can be forgiven for thinking they already have!)

Your "trial" suggestion sounds like a good one, and whilst I agree that GWRs service is currently in an almighty mess, this just involves tweaking an existing service rather than anything earth shattering but I get that nothing is ever straightforward on the railways. Good to see someone on the inside seeking the art of the possible & imaginative solutions however rather than the common "it'd never work/ooooooooooooos gunna pay for it?" position.

Point taken re: Newcastle but (a) you can fly there and (b) much of the business comes from further North as well as South.......

If there is a need for a pre 9am arrival in Plymouth with the present service provision, and you want a longer night's kip on the Sleeper, you can of course book through to Truro. Then head back up to Plymouth on a day train.

Not ideal, but the extra kip might be worth the additional cost if another ticket is needed. Those with return tickets to London wouldn't need another ticket. They'd just be breaking their return at Plymouth.

And the corollary - what days of the week would that demand exist and would Plymouth peak days be the same as Cornwall peak days?

If you were to split the train at Plymouth, you would need something to shunt the carriages and a servicing crew at (?) Laira, of to run the sleeper carriage split off on to Long Rock. It ain't simple

Noone is saying it's simple Graham as I acknowledged earlier, but it's been done before so it's far from unachievable.

You'll find the best organisations look for imaginative ways to improve, develop,  grow & better serve their customer base rather than just folding the arms, saying "too difficult" and accepting the status quo.

I get however that GWR's service is in such an appalling state at the moment that something as radical as innovation in the customers interest may have to take second place to operating something approaching the advertised timetable, particularly at weekends.

Cost is a factor too, as much as I'm reluctant to say, "Ooo's gunna pay for it?" the Night Riviera is, I believe, already subsidised. That is one reason why it has survived.

If Plymouth business leaders and their Chamber of Commerce feel the city is losing out because of poor rail service provision then they can use their clout to lobby for changes to the Night Riviera.

Lobbying might be a good option, given Chris Grayling’s stated promises about the south west being his greatest rail priority (or whatever the words used were).  It would be easy for him to specify something like that for the next direct award as part of a wider ‘impressive’ long list of improvements that would be reasonably cheap and get him out of committing to any serious cash.

Hence my earlier mention of Tudor Evans  (Leader of Plymouth City Council but more given to vanity projects than anything practical)

Greater use of a more customer oriented service in tune with the needs of the area would, of course, increase revenue, offsetting costs........in the meantime however, people will either drive and/or take their business elsewhere. If you want investment, you need to make it as easy and attractive as possible to do Business.

If the railways don't see themselves playing a part in this or even see the need to try, then they, and their advocates, shouldn't complain when roads are built instead of rails.

Speaking as a Plymothian, Plymouth city centre has indeed seen better days. Ongoing defence cuts since the end of the cold war have impacted particularly badly on Plymouths once buoyant economy   https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/devonport-been-robbed-pay-portsmouth-1708202 with Devonport Dockyard now a mere shadow of its former self. The city has also lost many large manufacturing companies in last few decades but surprisingly still retains the largest manufacturing cluster in Southern England providing about 13k jobs. The city's University has to some extent helped to alleviate the economic void created in the city centre but the retail tsunami now sweeping the country is having a particularly devastating impact on Plymouth once the prime regional retail centre despite the economic boost provided by the nearby University of Plymouths 19k students. Bare in mind that at the time of the 1982 Falklands war Plymouth had four flights a day to London Heathrow! However the closure of the city's airport and the loss of air links to London City/Gatwick airports in 2011 has left a void which the railways west of Exeter simply cant fill (poor infrastructure hence poor rail journey times), while the much smaller Exeter, 45 road and 52 rail miles closer to everywhere of economic importance has been consistently fairing much better with its successful airport, fast rail and motorway links. For political reasons the government now seems far more concerned about Cornwall's economic needs than Plymouths https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/heathrows-third-runway-game-changer-1708636  and the city now finds itself essentially the forgotten transport "piggy in middle" in the Devon and Cornwall's transport strategy (if there is one). No amount of money spent on resilience at Cowley Bridge or Dawlish/Teignmouth or elsewhere is going to change that fundamental problem either. The sleeper solution is "old hat" now in the 21st century for a city that is just 225 rail miles from London, not in the Scottish highlands. Not surprisingly then the wider business worlds perception and attitude to Plymouth is that it is much further away from London than it actually is and lets be honest not even the new Hitachi class 802 bi-mode trains are going to change that perception are they!

Detaching vehicles isn't an easily achieved option these days, though.  You'd need to provide staff and a pilot loco for what would only be a few minutes of actual operational work.  And the detached vehicle or portion would need to be part of a rake of vehicles with a brakevan, unless the pilot loco was to remain attached.

We took things like this for granted when I worked for the railways - but the wherewithal to do it just isnt provided any longer.

Ah, but how about a bit of new thinking? Take a carriage, and a motor and a source of power (batteries preferred, but for a few metres it doesn't matter much). So it's a single car SU (sleeper (non-multiple) unit), able to guide itself to a rest with a bit of suitable software. Pending ERTMS, it can be given something local to its dropping points and based on GPS plus other systems.

What could go wrong?


PS: that reads as if it's about slip-coaches, but it applies to ones that just shunt themselves out of the way too.

When I was reading this thread last night, I looked for the picture of a 153 at Blaneau Festiniog in NightStar livery (it was on a fictitious liveries site as I recall).   As 153s become less required - lines getting 2 and 3 carriage trains across the UK - we have already heard of some innovative new uses for them.  Not only for Plymouth passengers, but onward passengers to Gunnislake, Looe and Newquay might have a sleeper carriage  :D :D