6560
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All across the Great Western territory / The Wider Picture - related rail and other transport issues / Re: 2012's most overcrowded trains
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on: July 25, 2013, 13:07:03
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I think it does show that the TOCS have worked at sorting the Spring 2012 services out. In the Henley case moving pax around their services it seems. But the Oxford services don't feature now.
I think Henley can only be sorted by providing an extra service. More suitable stock is the only way to sort, so probably remaining a problem until Crossrail / electrification starts.
Yes, an extra service at the intermediate stops on the mainline rather than an extra service from Henley itself. Those two Henley trains remain principal commuter services from Twyford and Maidenhead too and that's where the problem lies. Though if you stop another long distance HST▸ at either then that causes its own problems!
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6561
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All across the Great Western territory / Across the West / Re: Turbo refresh started.
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on: July 25, 2013, 11:51:48
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Interestingly last night I was on a service with all the windows bolted shut. By the time we got to Twyford I thought I was going to faint it was so bloody bad, so I dragged myself to the middle carriage, where low and behold it was a lovely temperature. Something is seriously wrong with these units!
I travelled on a unit that was the same yesterday. Could have been the same unit I suppose, but the middle carriage seems to be your best bet for some reason!
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6562
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Sideshoots - associated subjects / Campaigns for new and improved services / Re: Carmarthen and Aberystwyth
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on: July 24, 2013, 11:55:04
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The borders route will go to Edinburgh which is a massive centre of employment and should enable commuting to work within an hour for all the stations on the route. Are Aberystwyth or Carmarthen a similar draw for the commuting population? No. And Swansea/Cardiff would be too far away to commute to. So, if you don't have a large commuter base you're relying on tourists and day trippers to make up the numbers. I don't see enough principal settlements or places of interest on the route to provide either in the numbers that would be required. Are there really enough people out there that would use such a link to justify finding half-a-billion pounds (using Red Squirrel's estimate) to build it and then find more money to subsidise operating it?
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6564
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All across the Great Western territory / Across the West / Re: Turbo refresh started.
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on: July 24, 2013, 09:15:22
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Well that surprises me..Seeing the amount of people per train in peak and the cost of tickets...
That's the reality and the rather perverse way the railway is financed. Thames Trains and its heavily commuter based operation was just about breaking even when it was absorbed by First Group, but a package of improvements (including bringing the 180s onto the route) meant a subsidy was required for the LTV▸ routes - I think it was around ^100m over two years? I'm not sure how much of a profit the LTV routes currently make, if any, but it's counterbalanced with the loss making routes at the western end of the franchise. As for the air-con, as I said before, let's give it another year - we're not yet out of one of the most prolonged heatwaves of recent years. The contractors who installed the original system will have no shortage of faults to fix, but it remains the case that a few carriages in the fleet are still cooling very nicely - for some reason it seems to often be the middle carriage, so (unlike the first system which never really worked) at least there's a fighting chance that by next summer faults will have been resolved.
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6566
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All across the Great Western territory / Across the West / Re: Reading Station improvements
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on: July 22, 2013, 10:40:41
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Bit off topic now (mods to move to the Crossrail thread?), but I think that a sensible seating layout for the Crossrail design would be 2+2 metro style seating (as on the LM▸ /LO Class 172s) for part of the train which works out at about 60 seats per carriage and longitudinal seating for the other part at around 32 seats per carriage.
If you had the middle four carriages as longitudinal and the three carriages at either end as 2+2 metro then that would give you around 490 seats which is similar to the spec - slight reductions for disabled spaces, bike spaces and toilets might be needed to take that back down to somewhere near the specified 450 seats.
That would mean those who are travelling longer distances from places like Taplow and Burnham could get relatively comfy seating at either end of the train, with those travelling shorter distances in the core section able to pack into the middle carriages with their ample standing room. Just an idea...
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