More dangerous overcrowding to the Westcountry

[whole diary]

[TaplowGreen]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have apparently said that there is no appropriate 'spare' rolling stock with which to run additional services.
Personally - and I know this will annoy some forum contributors - I believe that some of the blame for these incidents lies with the passengers; significant numbers of passengers have a degree of choice over the service on which they travel and when they buy their tickets so booking in advance, and avoiding trains which no longer offer reservations, should always be considered. Anybody turning up on the day and boarding an already crowded service has, in my opinion, no grounds for complaint.

This should not though absolve GWR of their responsibility for carrying out appropriate boarding controls, platform space permitting, on obviously busy trains and also for using the ticketing system, particularly online, to specifically and clearly warn intending passengers that certain services are already full and should be avoided.

(Lights blue touchpaper...  )     

I think you will find in this case that the 0906 is the only direct service to Newquay, and there's only one earlier service (the 0706 which would involve changing, and is eye wateringly expensive), and taking the 5 hour + journey into account, it's the only really viable option.

Two hour gaps between services to Cornwall at the height of the holiday season seriously limit peoples options and really aren't good enough, they make serious overcrowding inevitable, especially when events are taking place for which GWR don't make any extra capacity available.

I guess a cynic might say that GWR really don't give a toss, as no matter how packed the services are, they still get the revenue, so why should they lay on an extra train in order that their customers can travel in something approaching civilised conditions?

.............and now I've lit the blue touchpaper!!! 

[IndustryInsider]

I'm not in an area of personal expertise, but I think the frequency of service on the Newquay line is dictated by the fact that only one train can realistically be on it at a time and with a journey time of over 50 minutes, that makes it one train every two hours at best.

Difficult to do much more with the timetable unless infrastructure improvements were to take place and/or a shuttle bus is provided from St. Austell for major events such as this?

[grahame]

I'm not in an area of personal expertise, but I think the frequency of service on the Newquay line is dictated by the fact that only one train can realistically be on it at a time and with a journey time of over 50 minutes, that makes it one train every two hours at best.

There is a passing loop at Goonbarrow Junction which is only open / staffed on summer saturdays; I on a Crosscountry train through there July '15 and as we came back we passed an HST^▸ (High Speed Train) - so it ain't short.   Sadly in times of numbers of services, the XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) sat at Newquay for about an hour, negating the loop!   I'm not sure how "balanced" the line is but I expect a service every 90 minutes would be possible, perhaps (on summer saturdays) alternate trains being long distance and local, as the local station people are very un-keen on loosing their service on a peak day as the line's given over to expresses.[/quote]

[SandTEngineer]

Goonbarrow Junction Signalbox is open the whole time the Newquay line is open (it doesn't have any switching out capability).  The service frequency is dictated by the return trip time from Goonbarrow Junction to Newquay which is about 50mins, so an hourly service is just possible.

[grahame]

Goonbarrow Junction Signalbox is open the whole time the Newquay line is open (it doesn't have any switching out capability).  The service frequency is dictated by the return trip time from Goonbarrow Junction to Newquay which is about 50mins, so an hourly service is just possible.

Ah - interesting and thanks for that.

But with the Cornwall main line being a bit irregular at present, an hourly service to Newquay would be hit an miss on terms of connections ( * ) , quite apart from throwing lots more capacity onto a line that's not usually oversubscribed at the moment?    I'm being very careful as I write this, as I'm fully aware that doubling the frequency from every 2 hours to every hour a certain line  would more than double the passenger numbers,  and I don't know the Newquay business case.

( * ) - noting that Liskeard to Looe is irregular to stop in dumping people in Liskeard just as the Plymouth pulls out, or getting back a couple of minutes after a service coming up from Penzance has called.

[TaplowGreen]

Just wondering.......with the Bank Holiday weekend almost upon us, are there any additional/relief services and/or more capacity being made available for customers between London and the Westcountry on Thursday evening/Friday?

(Asking more in hope than expectation!) 

[Rapidash]

Never mind the IC^▸ (Inter City) services, it's been mad on the Devon Metro, especially in the evenings out if Exeter. Easily the busiest I've seen it in the 4 years I've been commuting there. GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) doing their best with what they have, but it's not been pretty.

[Tim]

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) have apparently said that there is no appropriate 'spare' rolling stock with which to run additional services.

There ought to be some spare road coaches available in the school holidays.  Perhaps laying a few of those on and giving passengers a choice ("stay on the crowded train or transfer to the coach waiting in the station forecourt" is part of the answer?

[TonyK]

Personally - and I know this will annoy some forum contributors - I believe that some of the blame for these incidents lies with the passengers; significant numbers of passengers have a degree of choice over the service on which they travel and when they buy their tickets so booking in advance, and avoiding trains which no longer offer reservations, should always be considered. Anybody turning up on the day and boarding an already crowded service has, in my opinion, no grounds for complaint.

It doesn't annoy me - I almost always book in advance. Apart from the issue of a seat, if everybody did the same, GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) would know there was a problem (or opportunity) in the offing, and might just be able to do something about it. As has been said earlier in this thread, special arrangements are made for Cheltenham Gold Cup, Glastonbury etc. I expect a lot of tickets are sold well in advance for services to both events because of the preponderance of wealthy middle-class travellers (yes, I know one of them is supposed to be a rock festival). You can't plan a railway for a last-minute surge. Mind you, FGW^▸ (First Great Western) will always be happier with a train rammed with people who have just bought their tickets at full price at the counter than with a train running empty, but for Jeremy Corbyn sat by the khazi.

(Lights blue touchpaper...  )     

I have recently retired...

[grahame]

There ought to be some spare road coaches available in the school holidays.  Perhaps laying a few of those on and giving passengers a choice ("stay on the crowded train or transfer to the coach waiting in the station forecourt" is part of the answer?

Makes sense. I understand that's routine practise on a Friday afternoon at Exeter St David's for Barnstaple.

Just this morning I came to realise just how under-utilised road / school buses are during the summer.  Reports or vandalism / damage to buses at Faresaver's Thingley outpost say that damage happened "between 12th and 19th August" which would suggest that all buses based there weren't required for the whole week.

[TonyK]

Just this morning I came to realise just how under-utilised road / school buses are during the summer.  Reports or vandalism / damage to buses at Faresaver's Thingley outpost say that damage happened "between 12th and 19th August" which would suggest that all buses based there weren't required for the whole week.

Probably this is also when the staff have their holidays, so they may not have been available in great numbers.

[grahame]

Just this morning I came to realise just how under-utilised road / school buses are during the summer.  Reports or vandalism / damage to buses at Faresaver's Thingley outpost say that damage happened "between 12th and 19th August" which would suggest that all buses based there weren't required for the whole week.

Probably this is also when the staff have their holidays, so they may not have been available in great numbers.

Maybe ... yet  "We park about 16 vehicles here during the summer holidays" says Daniel Pickford, general manager of Faresaver buses "and almost all of them were damaged"  https://www.facebook.com/groups/option247/permalink/320798901604016/ ... and that's an awful lot of people all on holiday at the same time.  Of course, if the bus driver's partners are largely teachers, or the drivers are bringing up children as single parents, or from families where the other partner works then it does make sense that there are hardly any drivers available.   Your point is a good one!

[IndustryInsider]

Just wondering.......with the Bank Holiday weekend almost upon us, are there any additional/relief services and/or more capacity being made available for customers between London and the Westcountry on Thursday evening/Friday?

(Asking more in hope than expectation!) 

I doubt it.  As we know, there's precious little spare stock available on a weekday evening.  You could replace a HST^▸ (High Speed Train) on the Cotswold line with a Turbo and run a relief HST down to the west country, but that would probably cause more problems than it solves this weekend with passengers travelling to Feastival at Kingham adding to the usually busy Bank Holiday Cotswold Line loadings.  Also people arriving the other way for Reading festival, and there's no rest bite over the weekend itself with Notting Hill Carnival adding to the mix.

Next year might be different as some IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.)'s should be in passenger service so there might be a surplus of stock available, as I doubt any of the HST's would have been retired that quickly.

There ought to be some spare road coaches available in the school holidays.  Perhaps laying a few of those on and giving passengers a choice ("stay on the crowded train or transfer to the coach waiting in the station forecourt" is part of the answer?

I think I know what the answer of 99% of the passengers would be to that suggestion.   

[TonyK]

Just wondering.......with the Bank Holiday weekend almost upon us, are there any additional/relief services and/or more capacity being made available for customers between London and the Westcountry on Thursday evening/Friday?

(Asking more in hope than expectation!) 

Not that I am aware of. RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) shows a lot of VAR, but they seem to be minor changes to timings AFAICS^▸ (As Far As I Can See).

[grahame]

There ought to be some spare road coaches available in the school holidays.  Perhaps laying a few of those on and giving passengers a choice ("stay on the crowded train or transfer to the coach waiting in the station forecourt" is part of the answer?

I think I know what the answer of 99% of the passengers would be to that suggestion.   

Interesting to see that several dozen people left the 15:27 Exeter St David's to Barnstaple (or walked away from the doors as they attempted to board) on 29th July upon the offer of a "nonstop coach express to Barnstaple ONLY ... anyone for intermediate stations should stay on the train".   Whether they transferred through a resigned pragmatism, through believing that a nonstop coach would get them there earlier, or because they liked the idea of a coach .. I know not.   But it does work in that case, and on a weekly basis I understand.