Great Western Coffee Shop

The 06:37 from Paddington - usually the "under 3 hour" train to Plymouth - is only running to Exeter St Davids.  It left Paddington 30 minutes late this morning, and yet was only 23 minutes late into Exeter, 2 of the 7 minutes gained being on a shorter-than-scheduled stop at Reading.  Interesting to see what can be done ...

No pesky passengers?

That may have saved those 2 Reading minutes ... but just how much difference does the passenger load make on a train's performance?

I would say not much based on the following figures:

A 5 car class 800 weighs 243 tonnes, according to Wikipedia.
It has 326 seats, if each passenger weighs 75kg then that is 24 tonnes.
So a full train of passengers would add 10% to the total weight.

I would suggest that a 10% increase in weight wouldn't decrease the performance by much, also need to consider that as it nears Plymouth the weight of the fuel wll drop. How much fuel does a 5-car class 800 use between London and Plymouth?

You notice hardly any difference in performance whether there’s five or five hundred people on board.

Hopefully after coronavirus we might see the reinstatement of non stop express' from Exeter. Maybe even one from Plymouth for a change.

Rail transport will be provided to meet the travel requirements in the medium and long term, and I would suspect that mass travel requirements will not be for long distance journeys at specific times of day where a few minutes of saving will be of critical essence.

A PAD-PLY nonestop service provides for one journey. A PAD-RDG-TAU-TVP-EXD-NTA-PLY service provides for 21 journeys, many of them quite short but quite high volume, and with 21 so many more journey opportunities it makes economic sense to run it hourly rather than trying to find a couple of times a day when it will generate enough traffic.

A PAD-PLY nonestop service over a pair of lines that is also carrying a "Devon Metro" service, regional trains, and services heading for the Midlands and North which will be making intermediate stops, with conflicting movements across junctions at / near Newton Abbott, Cowley Bridge, Southcote and perhaps Norton Fitzwarren will eat up paths and add to a proponsity for delays in service group to impact on another which has been shoe-horned in.

A PAD-PLY nonestop service would do no good for the economic wellbeing of Reading, Taunton, Exeter or Torbay in its race for Plymouth.

As a political statement, there is a shakey case for a daily service from each end arriving at - say - 09:15 and leaving back at 17:15, with a 165 minute run time. But that suggests that the business meeting will be back in quantity when so many people have come to realise that criss-crossing the country for such events may not be the best use of their time.Better (IMHO) to run an hourly service with destination arrivals from 08:15 and return hourly services through to 20:15. Run time 25 minutes longer, but over the years trim that back to 15 minutes longer as Network Rail extends electrification through as per their core route proposals.

I would far rather catch a regular train taking 15 minutes over the three hours running as and when I have finished business than to hang around from a 3 p.m. finish to a quarter past five train that takes 15 minutes under the 3 hours when it eventually leaves.

Looking towards the shifts that we are already seeing and suspect will remain to a greater or lesser degree, what should we see?  An hourly PAD-PLY express service with the five intermediate stops above. An hourly PAD-PGN regional service PAD-RDG-NBY and nearly all stations, overtaken by the express at EXD.  No need to separate out the Bedwyn service any longer - London passengers from far Somerset and beyond won't be frustrated by the extra regional calls because they'll be on the express, and the days of the train manager walking along the train to slam doors at Hungerford and Kintbury followed by a s-l-o-w takeoff are gone. 

From a business user viewpoint, the express will/would be very much a "travelling office" as we have very much moved over recent years - not wasted time for the passenger, but a chance to work, eat, sleep, relax - better do those things in transit rather that do them in extra time before or after the journey.

For really long - all day - journeys, there might be sense / a market for occasional trains; that's once you move along from the sort of journeys where a day can be shared with other work and a day which is wholly taken by travel.  Hence my other threads looking at South West to Scotland.

......makes the case beautifully for the reopening of Plymouth Airport - fingers crossed, but not holding breath!

There is a business case for providing a headline service of under 3 hours to Plymouth. A lot of work has gone on over any years by the business community and local government in Plymouth and in Cornwall who are acutely aware that the perception of Plymouth and Cornwall being too far away is a significant factor in attracting ( or not) business investment. A fast service of less than 3 hours is therefore important for attracting new business to Plymouth and Cornwall.

There is demand for it. Reading has trains to London every 5 minutes so won't affect them. Taunton Has a train every 30 mins. Tiverton, Exeter, Newton Abbot and Totnes already have one train an hour.  I'm sure GWR could find a way for a non stop 5 car service from Paddington to Plymouth.