Great Western Coffee Shop

From the timetable change in May CrossCountry are to run a train a day from Bath Spa to Edinburgh via Bristol, though there is no return working.

Train departs Bath at 0609, arriving Temple Meads 0620 and departing 0627 and then calling at Parkway, Cheltenham, New Street, Tamworth, Burton, Derby, Chesterfield, Sheffield, Wakefield Westgate, Leeds, York, Darlington, Durham, Newcastle, Alnmouth, arriving Edinburgh Waverley at 1305.

This service replaces the current 0615 from Bristol, the later departure time presumable counteracted by the removal of the call at Gloucester.

Further digging has revealed an extra Gloucester to Stanstead Airport service, departing GCR at 0710 calling: Cheltenham, Ashchurch, Bromsgrove, University, New Street, Coleshill Parkway, Nuneaton, Leicester, Melton Mowbray, Oakham, Stamford, Peterborough, March, Ely, Cambridge, Audley End and Stanstead.

Can anyone remember the last time a direct service ran from the likes of Bath to Birmingham or Cheltenham to Cambridge etc?

Yes, in the early 90s IC used to run an early morning service (loco & coaches) from Reading to Manchester via Bath that also called at Oldfield Park and Keynsham!

Reading 6.05
Didcot 6.20
Swindon 6.44
Chippenham 6.59
Bath 7.13
Oldfield Park 7.15
Keynsham 7.22
Bristol arr 7.31 dep 7.57
Bristol Parkway 8.07
Cheltenham 8.40
Birmingham New Street arr 9.25 dep 9.35
Wolverhampton 9.51
Stafford 10.06
Stoke on Trent 10.25
Macclesfield 10.43
Stockport 10.58
Manchester Picc 11.03

At times of planned engineering work between Bristol and Taunton, a couple of diverted Sunday services have been timetabled to call at Bath Spa but it was a couple of years back when major engineering work took place over a couple of weeks that most XC services to/from the Southwest called at Bath making the Bath Spa departure board interesting reading showing destinations such as Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Leeds on weekdays.

My first thought on this news was - WHY ??

Is there suddenly a huge number of expatriate Scots wishing to return direct to their homeland from Bath ?
Or large numbers of BANES residents wishing to flee to the promised land?
Are XC hoping to corner a large percentage of the morning commuter traffic from Bath to Bristol ? - at 0609, I think not.
How will the rolling stock get to Bath ? Empty ? or are XC trying to get the highly lucrative Bristol to Bath commuter traffic at 0530 each morning ?

OR - is this just another way to enable a TOC to "tick a box" on page 435 of their franchise agreement ?

Weird !

Appears to be an ORCATS raid. Expect the sevice to cease when AXCs cap-and-collar kicks in, in November 2011

yes definately looks like an ORCATs raid. I wonder if XC are licensed to operate more regular services from Bath should they wish to like SWT?

Of course capacity between Bath and Bristol can be a problem most of the day.

Not much of an Orcats Raid though. Look at the number of seats per day they are providing and compare it with the seats FGW and SWT already provide? 

Could just be a cunning plan to get the XC unit out of the way - standing at Bristol between the existing ECS arrival and departure times might prevent something else that is happening in May?

Paul

Whilst XC have their many faults, I think it's a bit unfair to knock them for this. It's providing an earlier first journey opportunity from Bath to Bristol, and will also enable any passengers from the Bath area to have an earlier (and guaranteed) connection to the north.

A bit of fag-packet maths gives me a guesstimate of 25,000 seats between Bath and Bristol (one-way, weekdays) so one Class 220/221 Vomiter averaging 250 seats gives 1% of the seating capacity.

If ORCATS works on a straight percentage basis then 1% of the one-way revenue should give AXC a healthy profit from the inter-available ticket sales on operating just one train. Then add on the revenue from the Advance sales and it begins to make even more financial sense.

I'm certainly not knocking XC for providing this new service. Anyone who wants to run extra services from Bath is always welcome as far as I'm concerned.

Is it really an extra "service" ?

To me it seems just a way of playing the system to get some more money for not really doing very much to benefit the travelling public. As mac says it may make financial sense - but that is all.
I suppose, as all those MPs said: "it's within the rules" !

You could say that the FGW services from Worcester to Malvern and the occasional service to Brighton fall into the same category

Virgin to Wrexham?

Central Trains' old service to Preston?

I think this is common! But it is GOOD for passengers, every extra service counts, and if it provides a direct train - win!

Of course XC can then come off with a XC only fare from Bath to BTM, only one train a day, but FGW (and SWT) would really have to be on the Ball to catch Passengers who can & would by Accident (or design) travel with XC only ticket on a FGW (or SWT) train. XC get a much bigger slice on a XC only ticket (is it 91%)?

XC tickets seem to crop up in odd places, I brought a Ticket from my local station midday from Booking office (No XC trains for many hours) yet I didn't notice the small print till I'd left (XC only) this was a booking clerk error.

This is the same with a journey that my dad makes regularly - operated by either SWT or SN.  The SN Only ticket is cheaper.  Booking clerks always give the SN only ticket, unless you specifically ask for the more expensive one.

A lot of new post-privatisation services I suspect were run as an ORCATs said as much as a genuine service. Wales and West (before it split into the Wales and Wessex services) ran some peculiar services down the Marches Line via Shrewsbury and Hereford including Liverpool-Portsmouth and Manchester Pic - London Waterloo. I think at one point you had four different Manchester - London services - Euston (VT), St Pancras via the Hope Valley and Derby (MML), Paddington via Birmingham and Reading (XC) and the Waterloo service via Hereford, Bristol and Salisbury (WW). You've only got the one direct route now though.

I doubt many people will use this service for long-distance travel - XC run similar services from Bournemouth to Newcastle at 0600 and one from Gatwick which I think are at user unfriendly times for anyone who wants a direct service. But we'll see.

If you would like to "search" my previous posts - I already have !   ;D

It may have been an ORCATs raid but I for one found it very useful as did so many others that you were not always able to board at Bath.   It allowed the Marches route to compete with the via Birmingham route

The original intent of these services were to give a direct link to Eurostar - catering for the traffic from Wales and the North West to Brussels and Paris; the services survive in much modified form as SWT's Bristol to Waterloo service; once they were transfetted to the South West franchise they had stops added at places like Salisbury, which had previously been passed through nonstop as the Ludlow to Salisbury flow was minimal  ;)

Yes and the 0531 Pad to Swansea only started running to repalce the early morning train from Waterloo.