Great Western Coffee Shop

From the BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-59281221)



And they are withdrawing those next month.

Oh - wait - wrong Bradford.   But a striking similarity.

The article goes on to say how important good rail links are.  That's the same too.

Petition to rename the 05:35 departure the 'Bradford Executive', yes?

Ah - along the same lines that the Flying Scotsman [train] is now the silly O'clock from Edinburgh and there is no return working?

I have only, ever, started two petitions.  Both have helped raise the profile of cases with MPs and politicians to the extent that questions have been raised in parliament once an unanticipated (by "Whitehall") concern has come to light.

I'm not planning to start another one any time soon - there's a huge risk in doing so that the petitioner proves that they've not really got much support.   The only topic that meets my very narrow criteria at present is ... already running, and I would encourage anyone who not yet done so to take a look and sign at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/598397

If a petition reaches an average of 15 signatures across UK constituencies (10,000 in total), it gets a written response.   If it gets an average of 154 (100,000 in total), it is "considered" for a debate in Parliament.   Mine has 1,482 in the Chippenham Constituency and 1,351 in South West Wilts, , 428 in Bath and 316 in North East Somerset.

It has been notice by our MPs - with just 54.3% of votes cast for her in 2019, Michelle Donelan needs to work hard and indeed has been doing so. Providing a win on this one would do her, and Andrew Murrison (safer at 60.2%), the world of good.

A week is a long time in politics, and we still have three  ;D

(Petition suggestion was a joke. The suggestion that that becomes the coffee shop's nickname for that train is sincere though.)

Full disclosure. I stood on Bridge Street bridge, Bradford, on the day that the second rail fare rise of the year was announced, bringing that year's fare rises to... was it 94%? To my right, the underwhelming new Bradford Interchange station. To my left, the surviving few sections of Bradford Exchange Station's roof above the former concourse, the paired fan lights that closed the train shed end in plain view from onlookers on the bridge, but not for a good reason. A chapter in the strange life and times of the city's railways had closed.

I took it as such - however, I should have added a smiley face or summat. It was a wonderful hook onto which to hang serious comment.

A nickname for the service is an excellent idea - probably for the service rather than individual trains - as the start of a marketing strategy.  As I recall ;D it was my shorthand that first used the name "TransWilts" for Swindon to Salisbury services ... but nothing has stuck that shorthand chord yet on these.  I refer to them sometimes as "The Waterloos" but whilst that's understood in West Wiltshire and WECA, it feels almost designed to be a headscratcher in Mandrin (Horseferry Road dialect) which is the big place across the way they catch their half-hourly train home to Chessington, Haslemere or Virginia Water.

Not keen on "Bradford Executive" - ties it to one place (or two!), and "executive" points to the crumbled business traveller market.   Noting the "Great West Way" marketing campaign of Visit Wiltshire, these trains could be the "Great Way West" - but that strikes me better as a limited marketing name to attract the tourism market.


I recall, very vaguely, passing through the old Exchange station it must have been around 50 years ago, towards the end.   But not familiar with the why's and wherefores of the history.  Struck me as unfortunate that the line didn't go through connecting to Forster Square, who's survival was, I think, in question at one point?

I too remember the old Exchange station, and I remember seeing a Deltic at the head of a London-bound train.

Bradford (Yorkshire) has long bemoaned the lack of a through station.  An underlying cause is geography: the line from the hills to the south comes in at a much higher level than the line from valley in the north, and consequently the two stations - Exchange and Forster Square - are at different levels.  Another factor is that the lines and stations were built by competing companies.

Can't recall when it was - early on a winter evening, Forster Square had just been electrified and the new service to London introduced, but the station approach not remodelled, so passengers basically made their way through various ruins of the old station to the new platforms.

Heading for the train myself, and on the pavement outside, I met a couple who had been walking round for some time looking for the station, were now standing at its entrance, with a lot of dereliction to hand, and despite being in front of it, in the gloom still didn't recognise the station for what it was.

Together, we set out for the platforms, and the next couple of minutes were like some kind of Urbex excursion before lights appeared and the sight of OHLE, nine or so well-lit carriages, looking like something that had been dropped in from another world. As, in a way, they had.

Several years later, staying in Bradford for a conference in Leeds, I was able to enjoy a couple of trips at commuter time from Forster Square to Leeds, particularly memorable for the way the train passed several stupendous clusters of stationary vehicles stuck in congestion fed in from the A650 and the newly opened Bingley bypass and now stuck solid on the roads of... anywhere east of Shipley.

Bradford planners themselves seem to have overseen a *lot* of road building - while avoiding the opportunity for even passive provision to enable, in due course, the two stations to be joined - around 2011 with land between the two largely cleared for redevelopment, that would have been a good time for a link, but it's certainly the road *not* taken and almost actively avoided.

The latest (very recently deceased) proposal has the local authority positing the site that previously hosted the approaches to what was an early terminus for Bradford, Adolphus Street Station, for the through station on the Manchester Leeds line - desperately remote from the city centre. But to bring the line beneath the city centre is hardly realistic either, or not without some very deep-level tunnelling to bring the lines through.

I think the gradient of the line from the south is the biggest problem. The vertical offset actually helps - you could drop down a little at Forster Square and then start tunnelling, and once under the Midland Hotel, set off upwards. If the southern line was moderately  level, you could pop up and intercept it with 1-2 km of tunnel length, which might be affordable. But the steep gradient means you wouldn't emerge until several miles further south. So the only practical link tunnel is one just below the surface, which would have to be part of a comprehensive redevelopment (pick your own tense).

If you want to see through your own eyes what has been described in the previous posts, then the following video is an excellent way of doing so:



I can't do you a Deltic at the head of a London-bound train out of Bradford Exchange, but I can do you a Class 47 hauling a Class 91 set out of the old Bradford Forster Square platforms:

Most of an HST but missing a power car and with a Class 91 in its place for good measure?

Good example of stock compatibility. Couplings, brakes, ETS, control all working together (was the power car just providing ETS or was it providing traction as well?)

OTC

Well, you can see that the class 43 hauled the train in, but also that is had buffers - so it was one of those stand-in DVTs. Obviously they had controls for the class 91, and did they also provide hotel power to the Mk 3s? You would hardly expect controls to be fitted in the class 91 for the class 43, hence the need to drag it out again.

But was that routine, for the five years or so before electrification into Forster Square? Or was this a one-off, or cover for some other line closure?

I think that RSSB SD001 refers.

All three power units were TDM/RCH fitted although the 125 originally had a 36 way jumper. The ETS had to come from the 125 as it was 415/3/50, not 1000V/600A.

The Southern was the master of this sort of thing, with weird consists all plugged together with 27 way jumpers, all motored!

Apologies for abbreviations.

OTC

Thanks for that I was lucky enough to arrive at the old Bradford Exchange steam hauled in the 1960s but did not go to Foster square until after the first electric services where introduced using ex LT&S class 308 units.

And to start with there wasn't any way to apply traction power in a trailing pseudo-DVT. But later (than exactly when, I don't know) this was made possible, and for a somewhat bizarre reason. This is from http://www.traintesting.com/ic225_2.htm:

Whether that made it practical to operate a train with no motive power but a trailing class 43 DVT is another question.

I'm sure there must be a possible portmanteau à la Bakerloo. Avonloo? (Or should it be Cubaloo these days?)

The "Bradford-on-Avon Executive" is suspended from Monday due to a shortage of staff ... having lost the Waterloo services last month, the solitary Paddington service (1K71, a five car IET) ran this morning for the last time for a while - I really hope not a long while.

With changing journey metrics, perhaps it would be worth asking for the train to run at 09:35 rather than 05:35 when it returns, and for one of the return journeys to Frome in the late afternoon to be redirected to Bristol and stay in passenger service north of Westbury?

Perhaps, although as there’s only one of those (also removed from the timetable from next Monday), in so doing you deprive Frome of it’s one direct train a day from London Paddington (Frome does of course still have two direct trains from London Waterloo, so maybe the Paddington train is unnecessary duplication…?)!

I was ... somewhat ... out of date in my thoughts, remembering back to when there were two evening trains from Paddington to the Westbury area ... the second one used to run directly from Pewsey to Trowbridge but then when the avoiding curve was closed to scheduled trains, it got redirected to terminate at Westbury as I recall, and then (?) extended to Frome.