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More Bedwyn trains should go further West, and Hungerford should have a better service to the West. Anyone got any thoughts?

Just extend the NSE service to Westbury. Not enough demand for longer distance.

And slowing down more InterCity trains is not good.

Quite simply no. Trains to the West are slow enough as it! Besides many of them do not have enough seats for increased growth.

You mean like the equivalent of running a NXEC service limited stop London to Berwick then all stations to Edinburgh (similar to London to Plymouth limited then all stations to Penzance, or London to Weston...)

Or Virgin West Coast running London to Birmingham then all stations to Wolverhampton.

Not knowing much about Hungerford, I thought I'd check the population, which stands at 5,559. (http://www.hungerford.uk.net/councilmainpages/council_statistics.php). Far too small to warrant regular HSTs, and an extension of Bedwyn shuttles to Westbury as everyone else has said is more sensible.

Perhaps when this crossrail lark actually comes in, it will free up more turbos to provide more suitable services for these stops.

Don't be silly. Running a West Country express:

London, Reading, Taunton, Exeter, Newton, Totnes, Plymouth and stations to Penzance is nothing like "London to Birmingham, them all stations to Wolverhampton!!!"

Call at Pewsey, Westbury, Castle Cary and Tiverton on Plymouth services.

Call at Dawlish and Teignmouth on Torbay services.

etc.

But not dissimilar to London - Weston, as your previous post stated?

Personally I'd stop everything at Parkway, apart from the od few expresses that are fast to Exeter, Parkway stations are very popular and Tiverton is very busy for the population is represents. Having just opened a new car park to strip it of most of its direct services to London would be criminal!!

That is an extension of a NSE service, not an HST.

So is nothing like it.

When was London - Bristol NSE?

Unless he means via Sailsbury? Perhaps SWT have plans to go on to Weston that no one else knows about.

Weston Super Mare and intermediate stations have nothing to do with NSE. Temple Meads came under the Intercity sector, the stops to Weston were Regional Railways.

NSE land ended at Didcot Parkway (which incidentally came under Intercity anyway).

This is what I meant, not stopping IC trains there, but extending the Bedwyn services.

Never! I don't know how you interpreted my comment to mean that!

I understood what you meant the ex NSE Turbo Services starting / terminating from Westbury rather than Bedwyn.

If you throw into the mix that there is a small squadon of empty trains from Reading to Bedwyn at stupid o'clock every morning to start the Turbo service the idea of having them run as passenger trains from Westbury crewed by Westbury depot makes a lot of sense.

And before anyone says Westbury don't know the road / traction that is small beer in the scheme of things. Reading has a terrible staff retention problem, so training for the status quo also costs a fortune

You'd need to recruit some new blokes (and women!) first though!

Personally, I think the Westbury - London shuttles would have to be 180.

Shame that we don't have any 180's from December.

You never know, I assume HST2 will mean that the Vomiters will be available soon ...... :P

Right - looking at the Bedwyn diagrams, the only candidate currently that could be extended by any degree is 11.18 Padd to Bedwyn, but only as far as Pewsey and then reverse at Woodborough. This forms the 13.12 off Bedwyn...

I'd bet that it is easier to attract and keep staff in rural Wiltshire than in Reading where they train staff up and then they leave for more money down the road at SWT.

I think you are wrong there; you will just need another train.

Obviously any extension would need more rolling stock (hopefully electric).

And you're going to magic that out of where?

In which case the increased leasing costs (assuming any could be found) would kill the idea stone dead.

The way to increase services at minimum cost is to integrate additional services within the existing structure.

Better use of crew resources and elimination of ECS workings could mean additional services are possible with little investment.

I have already mentioned using Westbury Crews to work the first trains of the day as passenger trains from Westbury to London as opposed to ECS trains from Reading to Bedwyn. That gives you additional services for free.

An examination of the unit diagrams would show some units not used outside peak periods. These could be used to extend Bedwyn services to Westbury off peak.
 
There are always thing that can be done. At the moment the separate nature of West and LTV within FGW would be an obstacle but, what was the point of the merger if not to exploit the opportunity to get a quart from a pint pot?

I think we are seeing some elements of gains from the merger - with long distance trains filling in where appropriate (and some would argue to excess!) at Keynsham, Bedwyn and Ivybridge.  But, yes, I'm sure more could be done.

I'm minded as I read this thread to recall that the original new FGW franchise had the Bedwyn service extended to Westbury throughout the day, but with a halved frequency of calls at some of the Berks and Hants stations.  This was quickly punched out of the plans by a campaign that threatened judicial review and all sorts of things.  Some very effective people use Bedwyn as their railhead!

I know about that but what stops were these?

Kintbury and Bedwyn - Michael Ancram (MP who's constituency includes Bedwyn station, and two others in Wilsthire) and the Newbury MP who covers Kintbury worked on this one together, and got the new timetable changed back to an hourly Bedwyn terminator rather than a service going further, but with only alternate trains stopping at the two stations.

Having travelled last night on the 18:06 Paddington to Frome as far as Westbury, which calls as follows:

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/towardlondon.jpg)

I was left with the impression (on a totally unreprsentative sample of one journey!) that it is rather important to have a good service at Bedwyn - a lot of people got off the train there and vey few indeed stayed on.  Mind you, the 18:36 from Paddington is 20 minutes quicker to Pewsey and Westbury, but does not call at Frome.

A few 180s.

You mean those ones which will be on the East Coast only from December? Didn't know you could clone units, please let me know how. I'm very interested and I think most railway professionals would be too!

MML and Hull trains cloned some. ;)

And LM/Chiltern/LO are at the mo! ;D

Now I have lost you. Completely.

Each unit is built slightly differently anyway - 442s were all the same but the wiring was unique to the unit - same as 444s, 450s, 377s, etc.

I think what Btline means is that Hull and MML used what were essentially Voyagers reconfigured and Chiltern uses 168s which are 170s designed to work with 16X units. LO are also goingto use an existing design modified for East and North london lines.

So a cloned 180 would be an Adelante with some of its deficiencies ironed out.

It is the wrong use of the word clone. I suppose it should be "mutation" (but for the better).

Off-peak, few passengers use Bedwyn and it is not unusual to be the only passenger. It really is a nonsense terminating a train in what is a very small village and on an hourly basis too. The only reason the trains go there is to serve Hungerford (which has no turnback facilities) and to provide a railhead for Marlborough. In the off-peak it's invariably quicker though to travel from Marlborough to London via Pewsey (albeit at a higher fare). I think that demand justifies an hourly service only at Hungerford and that Bedwyn and Kintbury really only need a 2-hourly service off-peak.   

I can think of a certain MP who might have something to say about that....

But does he ever use the train from Bedwyn? It's the old story of those who shout loudest getting what they want. The reality is that somewhere the size of Bedwyn does not warrant an hourly service and when the route was resignalled in teh late 70s the turnback siding should have been provided at Hungerford and Bedwyn served more or less peak only as it was in the past