CrossCountry franchise draft timetable consultation

[whole diary]

[vacman]

Presumably vacman hasn't travelled by train in Cornwall much.
1. Saltash is a town with population over 15,000 (one of the largest towns in the County) and a rail catchment population of well over 50,000.
2. Smaller stops in Cornwall form a vital link for their communities - even Menheniot which is a mile from its village and gets about 3 trains a day in each direction is vital for both commuters and schoolchildren.
3. As everywhere an irregular service and lack of support form a viscous circle - the only way to break it is to provide services and publicise them - the passengers gradually start to come as they learn that the service is frequent, reliable, and cheap. Saltash is proving this works over the last year - passenger numbers well up.
4. The reason trains in Cornwall are relatively slow is to do with track and topography, not stops.

If you buy in to the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) vision of a railway reduced to an inter-city mainline only service then you need to provide alternative transport options for users of local services on main lines.

The best use of the Cornish mainline would be to terminate all trains in both directions at Plymouth and so you could run a half-hourly clock face shuttle up and down the Cornish spine, linking properly with the branches, and not have our service continually crippled by constraints at Reading or Birmingham or service delays and problems elsewhere on the network.

Give Cornwall back its own railway - we could introduce passport and customs checks at the interchange at Plymouth as well 

RogerCO

For your information I WORK trains in Cornwall, including the ones that stop at Menheniot, St Germans and Saltash, I've never seen more than 3 people get on at Menheniot on the 0604 PNZ-NTA^» (Newton Abbott - next trains) which is the commuter train for Plymouth, I've seen 1 person in 12 months get on the 0643 PNZ-PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains) service at Menheniot, I've never seen more than a handfull get on at St Germans and Saltash, Saltash may have a catchment area of 50,000 but only 0.2% of that 50,000 use the station every day! Obviously YOU don't travel by train much in Cornwall if you think noone travels from Cornwall to London and believe that people would be happy to change trains at Plymouth!

[richard bickford]

Vacman

You are right, not many people ever get on at Menheniot, more at St Germans, a more again at Saltash.

For a long time Saltash in particular has been overlooked with only a local Wessex service, we then got FGW^▸ (First Great Western) with a very limited timetable and the region wide problems that brought, in addition we had a few HST^▸ (High Speed Train) stopping issues, which I think FGW management brought on themselves by not consulting with people like you. We got a few back in May, but we are still at a lower service level than pre Dec 2006.

It is going to take some time to publicise the service, and for people to regain confidence, especially for Saltash as we were hit so hard and had these extra problems.

I have no doubt that numbers will grow quite quickly over the next few years, and that FGW at least will see the benefit. Last summer when we had good connections, you may remember much larger numbers using Saltash. I have carried out a couple of passenger surveys, and at times have counted 30+ boarding Westbound services.

I am not sure I agree with Rogers idea, I think through trains to the rest of the country are a good thing, which is why we want them, not just for short trips into Plymouth!

I hope that Cross Country will consider a few stops, this will help to better link Cornwall, and clearly give Saltash a few more services. Obviously if people do not use them then they may get cut again, but the potential is definitely there.

Every stop will inevitably have an impact on the timetable, but a stop where the line speed is high costs much more than a stop where the line speed is just 15mph, and certainly for some services Network Rail only add 1 Minute for a Saltash stop.

With a bit of luck they should be starting work on the former station building in the next month or so, and that will help a lot in terms of perception of an open railway station. I will keep you all posted.

Give us a chance, and give us a bit of support. Please.

[vacman]

I do agree the Saltash isn't as much of an issue as the rest due to the low line speed, I was a bit wound up when I posted the last one!

[Lee]

One of the interesting things about Roger's idea is that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) are contractually committed to developing and promoting an interurban network for Cornwall to be known as "Network Kernow" , which could end up being very similiar (link below.)
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=235.msg557#msg557

The link also notes that Saltash is set for a housing boom.