Great Western Coffee Shop

Hi

I'm new here, if this is the wrong place to put the topic please feel free to move it.  ;)

Back in 2012 the DFT published plans for the Greater Western franchise to run a service from Paddington to Birmingham New Street. However, I don't see why Chiltern Mainlines MK3 sets could be replaced with GWR IET's going to Paddington instead of Marylebone, Chiltern could either then use the mainline sets on other services, allowing the 168s to free up 165, which could then go to GWR to replace 150s.   

Just a little idea of time, it probably won't work and someone will be able to tell me why.

If I read it correctly, you're suggesting using IET's to enable a cascade to release some Class 150s. That seems a very expensive way to release some rolling stock, and I think with changes planned (although not yet announced), there will be enough capacity.

Also, there's no fast route into Paddington from the Chiltern route anymore - it was closed recently to enable HST construction, and the remaining route via Ealing would be somewhat slower.  And Paddington is pretty full already.

I'm not really sure what passengers would gain from such a move. It seems to be solving a problem that doesn't exist.

Hi .. post headed "via Oxford" - so you're looking at Paddington - Reading - Oxford - Banbury - Leamington Spa - and then either via Solihull or Coventy into Birmingham?   Looks to me like it's duplicating the Reading to Birmingham section of Cross Country that's running twice an hour at normal times; that does get very busy, but best bet for extra capacity would be longer Cross Country services rather than more trains, I suspect.

Until March, I would have suggested there were no IETs available to run the extra service if you extended an Oxford service to Birmingham. However, I find myself really wondering if we're going to see a modified timetable.   It's hard to judge this - on one hand, with many people working from home, meeting online rather in London, and an economy not so bouyant, I wonder if or even when the superfasts will return, but on the other hand with social distancing there will, perhaps, be a need for more carriages to run the capacity that's still needed.

Personal choice (not that it's up to me in the slightest) would be to extend a Paddington to Bedwyn train to Exeter every couple of hours, giving  an hourly semi fast over the Berks and Hants.

To answer all of your questions.
Firstly, Nope, the idea being to give passengers more choice with Chiltern Mainline services replaced by a GWR service, the Mk3 stock could either be retired or used to free up 165s.

Second, as Grahame has said it wouldn't be via the NNML the proposals are taken from the DFT back in 2012 when they planned to use IETs on a Paddington - Reading - Oxford - Banbury - Birmingham New Street service, although I think a service to Moor Street or Snow Hill would be better.

I think the original post may have been referring to a suggestion of running Paddington-Swindon-Cheltenham*-Birmingham with HSTs. If it’s the one I’m thinking of, it didn’t get beyond the drawing board.

*Skipping Gloucester on at least some of them, I think.

That was one of the proposed services for the Virgin Cross Country services in Operation Princess.  They even took over the Swindon Cheltenham services for a short time IIRC before the idea was scrapped.

This proposal would remove a very good revenue earner from Chiltern Trains, the Marylebone - Birmingham business is one they work hard at to achieve and at one stage Virgin Westcoast were trying very hard to undercut.

The MLN1 (ELR for  Paddington to North Road Junction) particularly the Padd RDG section is at capacity or close to it under the current signalling system

As written, you’re actually disagreeing with your own suggestion...   ???

Paul

So how does replacing one service, already successful and (as far as I can tell) popular with passengers, with a different service going a different route increase choice?  Chiltern has invested a huge amount of money to improve the infrastructure between Marylebone and Banbury, including doubling many miles of it, and also in refurbishing the Mk 3s to a high quality. And you're suggesting abolishing the service, simply to give them "a choice"?

Thanks for your reply.  Not sure it's really called for though.

Proposal
a plan or suggestion, especially a formal or written one, put forward for consideration by others.

Many thanks for your references back to what I think was a potential service a decade ago from Paddington to Birmingham via Swindon and Cheltenham Spa.  There would have been some sense in such a service, taking London to Gloucester / Cheltenham traffic and Swindon to the Midlands and North traffic, overlapped on the same train along the southern cotswold line with (in those days) a long single track section, and with loadings of the London to Cheltenham trains being less west of Swindon than east thereof.  Also providing a decent service from Swindon, which has characteristics of a midlands or northern city, to the Midlands and the North which is a pretty messy journey by train at present.   

Through traffic, Paddington to Birmingham via Stroud?  Zilch!  But then other services that are strung together across major intermediate points also have few end to end passengers but do very well.  In our neck of the woods. Brighton to Great Malvern, or even Cardiff to Portsmouth Harbour, or the occasional Weston-super-mare to Weymouth train.


Indeed - a word you introduced and used to describe my comments (though I had not used the word myself) in the fifth message in this thread.  You've put forward a question or suggestion of a London - Reading - Banbury - Birmingham service for consideration, and I'm afraid in the modern era it's met with some serious practical concerns in that consideration.   Good - all part of the looking for good ideas in a sea of ones that don't stack up for one reason or another; some can stack up well with tuning helped along by other views, others are probaby best put aside as learning experiences, with the lessons learnt making following suggestions more likely to be winners.

P.S.  There have been through services from Paddington to Manchester and even Glasgow (I think) in the past - I am suffieiciently old to have travelled on them too. I recall an 06:00 off Paddington and a late evening arrival back there; the service was really a feeder for the first service of the day Poole - Southampton - Reading - Oxford - Birmingham - beyond which grew into Cross Country, with the train being operated from / serviced at Old Oak.  Not hugely crowded off Paddington, and indeed for a period it didn't even bother - started at Ealing Broadway!

And that was my considered reply back to you. Along with your reply to paul7755. You seem to take great offence from my reply, so there is not much point making a suggestion if you're not willing to listen to opposing views really?

Neither have you answered the main criticism from both of us, which is that far from increasing choice, you're just replacing one service with another.

Resurrecting this one as I've only just spotted it - in a Network Rail presentation I've seen, it is suggested that this is a *Chiltern* service from Oxford - Birmingham (presumably Moor Street/Snow Hill, *not* GWR. Presumably to relieve XC on that part of their route, now it's down to hourly.

But since Covid struck, I suspect this would be an extra cost that the Treasury won't want to see, and has probably been chopped/dropped.

A service I used many times, 0635 from Reading, off peak savers valid until the mid-90's! Plenty of room and into New Street reliably in time for connections North (was it through to Picadilly?) and no risk of missing a connection from Euston or Kings Cross, because of LUL. I also went to Glasgow that way, arrived on time with the Buffet needing to be taken out of service because of mess made by drunken passengers. The (truncated) XC voyagers are not as comfortable as Mark 2's, proper railway carriages, but they are a lot quicker.

OTC