Great Western Coffee Shop

Sad news….coinciding with GWR Castle withdrawals, I’m hearing (currently on twitter today, but I’m sure it’ll hit the main media soon) that XC are withdrawing their 5 HSTs in October. No additional stock, so the voyager fleet, already under strain from the May tietable change when Reading - Newcastle services return, will have to carry the passenger burden.

I suspect this’ll mean standing room only on Fridays, most Saturdays during football season at least, plus Sundays.

The DfT are askig for cuts too many it would seem

Wonder if they will get some of the Avanti class 220 or even 221 when they are replaced with class 800

Sad news but not unexpected. I must see if I can travel on one at some point before they are withdrawn in October.

Most likely not, a XC spokesperson states that as fewer people are traveling, there needs to be fewer trains. 
As will become even more common, the railway are sweating the assets.

GWR carried a lot of commuters,and I don't think it will will ever return to those levels we use to see Monday to Friday.

Leisure travel will and maybe already has increased to pre-covid levels as travellers who travel saturday and sundays only travel once or twice a year.

Compare that with the cross country routes,these are leisure travellers,and I can see these numbers increasing to higher levels as we dig our way out of covid.

So I can't see the logic that cross country numbers have fallen.

Also, Crosscountry went into the pandemic massively constrained, and long term, on both capacity and price of travel, with services hampered as their service patterns and fare structures are more attractive for local travellers rather than long distance.

Mark

That is because travellers have repeatedly requested additional stops for their services, including on this forum, rather than allowing to be a long-distance service provider (a la LNER, for example)

I presume this is driven at least in part by the need to reduce cost base post pandemic and in the absence of the Unions agreeing to any changes or other methods of reducing cost.

 

Their budget as set by the DfT was given to them last year & has not been adjusted for inflation, so they are already 10% down owing to that. They have a 3 year budget, and there's no indication currently that any year will be adjusted either.

So where will HSTs be running after October, if anywhere?

Scotland?

Yeah, plenty in Scotland still.  The end of regular 125mph running in passenger service though.

Thanks. I thought the Scottish ones had also been withdrawn (due to rust?) but obviously not.

During the pandemic, XC removed the majority of calls at Winchester and Brockenhurst, as well as reducing services to 2 hourly.  I believe the idea was to make XC travel more of a planned activity, with short distance flows such as Bournemouth to Brockenhurst being forced onto the local operator, SWR. Which makes a certain amount of sense, as during the peaks they (SWR) would normally be running up to 10 or 12 car EMUs on the same route. 

I don’t think XC should be considered as part of the turn up and go offering for 15 minute journeys.  But clearly that’s what many people want it to be.

Paul

There are areas where there isn't much option - eg Banbury - Oxford. There are just 8 local services a *day* run by GWR, while XC was offering 2 an hour, every hour pre-pandemic. So which do you suspect commuters & others use? Yep.

BUT there are many more areas where you are correct - and should have their stop removed. XC was always designed as a long-distance service provider, but the DfT/ORR should be insisting on the relevant operator in their area provide ALL the local service options.

Far too late now, as the current service can't live within the realms of sensible costs, never mind increasing them.

Yes, I think Oxford to Banbury is an excellent example of the issue they’re up against.  Banbury is in an odd position where it’s effectively a junction with Chiltern, but should it also have a regular local stopping service in all three directions? Of course there’s no intermediate station to the north, if there were the west midlands local operator might have extended south of Leamington as well…