Far south west - Train Performance

[whole diary]

[broadgage]

I think that the frequency of a journey being no less than the time taken for the journey, is a reasonable start provided of course that a bit of common sense is applied regarding very short and very long journeys.

I see no need for a train every 8 minutes for a journey that takes 8 minutes, and I also think that Penzance needs a more frequent service than once every 5 or 6 hours. But for many journeys it would be a reasonable starting point.

Of course many busy services need more frequent trains for reasons of capacity. Paddington to Reading needs more than a train every 20 minutes, simply to shift the numbers.

A more complex way of putting this might be

"The interval between trains should be no longer than the time taken on the train, subject to two exceptions.
Firstly the interval between trains should not, in most cases, exceed 2 hours even when journey time does exceed 2 hours.
Secondly, no service need run more often than 4 times an hour unless a more frequent service is required to avoid overcrowding."

[grahame]

A couple of clarifications.

Firstly, I wasn't intending to suggest that I or other members stop bringing systemic and unusual incidents up, which is basically what we do.  But I was commenting that there's an awful low more noise about than there used to be - a feature of our information age - so passengers who would be blissfully unaware of problems in the region but not on their line will be much more alerted these days and could be put off rail and / or worried needlessly when 9 out of 10 journeys they take will be fine.  Balance thing.

In terms of the service frequency, broad brush you folks have read me right.   But whilst a train from PNZ taking 5 hours to PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains) may for that flow loose little traffic even if it only runs 4 times a day, it would loose so much intermediate traffic such as PNZ to PLY^» (Plymouth - next trains), PLY to EXD^» (Exeter St Davids - next trains), TAU^» (Taunton - next trains) to WSB^» (Westbury - next trains), PEW to PAD, etc ... so my suggestion of flow modelling is about journeys between two places and does not easily map onto a train calling at many.

Looking back, perhaps there's tacit acknowledgement of an algorithm along these lines for the past 50 years - an occasional crack express service and lots of trains calling at a bevy of intermediate stations.  The coming of the motor car to everyone in the 1950s and 1960s was the death knell of many of the local services, a prior to that the algorithm really didn't apply because people had no choice.  So either services blossomed - look at how Pewsey or Warminster, Highbridge or Crediton have grown ... or they withered and got closed - Camelford or Portishead, Radstock or Langport, Corsham or Ashburton.