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5524
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Journey by Journey / London to the West / Re: Earlier Plymouth Arrival From London Consultation
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on: March 14, 2014, 11:45:22
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I've just seen this on Railnews which has some interesting snippets:-
snip...
Further ahead, FGW▸ will consult on a proposal to reroute the current 07.06 Paddington to Paignton service to Cornwall, which would provide earlier arrivals of around 40 minutes at Totnes, Plymouth and stations to Penzance.
To balance this change, the 07.30 service from Paddington to Penzance would run to Paignton via Bristol instead, providing better connections with South Wales. The company said there would be a journey time improvement to Exeter St David's, Torquay and Paignton of 19 minutes.
I assume this may mean negotiating changes to the franchise service level agreement. In the London to Bristol & Weston-super-Mare section is this 3.13 Penzance
(a) On Mondays to Fridays and Saturdays, one service from London Paddington, arriving in Penzance before 1330, shall call.
(b) On Mondays to Fridays and Saturdays, two services (one on Saturday) to London Paddington shall call, one of which shall depart Penzance after 1715.
(c) On Sundays, one service from London Paddington arriving in Penzance before 1415 shall call. Bristol currently has a very early service which meets that criteria in paragraph a, however Swindon, Chippenham and Bath Spa will not unless there are some suitable connections at Exeter St David's or Newton Abbot from the 07:30 which currently (Dawlish sea-wall permitting) arrives in Penzance at 13:17. So you would need some pretty tight connections to maintain a pre-13:30 arrival and tight connections are not always robust ones... |
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5525
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Journey by Journey / London to the West / Re: Earlier Plymouth Arrival From London Consultation
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on: March 14, 2014, 10:11:52
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Nice vintage picture to illustrate the story. I wonder what the Torbay Rail Users Group will have to say after losing their train which was launched in 2010. Report from the time from This is Cornwall. Primary school pupils helped launch a new train service linking South Devon with London yesterday.
Torbay Mayor Nick Bye joined the Class Four children from All Saints School, Babbacombe, to see the new service off from Paignton station.
The train is the new 7.06am service from Paddington introduced in this winter's First Great Western timetable.
This train gets into Paignton 40 minutes earlier than the existing service. That train forms the new 11.06am direct return to Paddington which it is hoped will boost business and tourism to the area.
The children were there because they won a competition to come up with a name for the new train, the Devon Express.
Mayor Bye and local councillors worked with members of the Torbay Rail Users Group and First Great Western to secure the service.
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5528
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All across the Great Western territory / Fare's Fair / Re: Tribulations for newcomers - and oldcomers too
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on: March 13, 2014, 23:29:01
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This evening, I tried to book a sleeper ticket from Melksham to Glasgow on Sunday night, and back next Wednesday. Trains identified as 17:31 Melksham / change Swindon to London, and 21:45 thence to Glasgow. Could you not aim for the 20:38 from Melksham to Westbury, change onto the 21:05 to Paddington. Arrive at 22:38 and depart on the lowland sleeper from Euston at 23:50 and into Glasgow Central at 07:18? Having said that, while I can get that on the FGW▸ website, it still won't offer me any fares - although it will for the return journey on Wednesday. However to get it I have to do it "backwards" and ask to arrive before 08:00 on the Monday, rather than depart after 19:00 on the Sunday.... |
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5533
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Sideshoots - associated subjects / The Lighter Side / Re: Where were bobm and bignose today?
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on: March 13, 2014, 01:26:44
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Mind you it is hard to know what's running at the moment and whether you need a bus.
Bignosemac asked platform staff at Bristol Temple Meads which way the 09:45 Cross Country Service was going to Exeter, as it has been diverting via Westbury because of the closure at Bridgwater. He was told, despite the line having re-opened, the train would still go via Bath and Westbury.
As we stood at the far west end of platform eight we became less convinced that was going to be the case. So my travelling companion took the obvious step of asking the driver who was waiting to take over the train and lo and behold it was running via the direct route and arrived in Exeter 20 minutes early, allowing us to make a brief trip down the Exmouth branch.
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