Train GraphicClick on the map to explore geographics
 
I need help
FAQ
Emergency
About .
Travel & transport from BBC stories as at 13:55 29 Mar 2024
- Delays at Dover as millions begin Easter getaway
- Attempted murder charge after man stabbed on train
- KFC Nigeria sorry after disabled diner refused service
Read about the forum [here].
Register [here] - it's free.
What do I gain from registering? [here]
 02/06/24 - Summer Timetable starts
17/08/24 - Bus to Imber
27/09/25 - 200 years of passenger trains

On this day
29th Mar (1913)
Foundation of National Union or Railwaymen (*)

Train RunningCancelled
12:30 London Paddington to Weston-Super-Mare
13:15 Swindon to Westbury
13:15 London Paddington to Cardiff Central
13:48 Bedwyn to Newbury
14:12 Newbury to Bedwyn
14:19 Westbury to Swindon
14:57 Bedwyn to Newbury
15:14 Swindon to Westbury
15:22 Newbury to Bedwyn
15:28 Weston-Super-Mare to London Paddington
15:50 Bedwyn to Newbury
15:54 Cardiff Central to London Paddington
16:15 Newbury to Bedwyn
16:23 Westbury to Swindon
16:55 Bedwyn to Newbury
17:36 Swindon to Westbury
18:37 Westbury to Swindon
20:13 Swindon to Westbury
21:16 Westbury to Swindon
22:30 Swindon to Westbury
Short Run
10:55 Paignton to London Paddington
12:35 London Paddington to Exeter St Davids
13:10 Gloucester to Weymouth
13:42 Exeter St Davids to London Paddington
13:46 Bristol Temple Meads to Warminster
13:55 Paignton to London Paddington
14:36 London Paddington to Paignton
15:42 Exeter St Davids to London Paddington
16:35 London Paddington to Plymouth
16:50 Plymouth to London Paddington
17:03 London Paddington to Penzance
17:36 London Paddington to Plymouth
18:03 London Paddington to Penzance
18:36 London Paddington to Plymouth
19:04 Paignton to London Paddington
20:03 London Paddington to Plymouth
21:04 London Paddington to Plymouth
Delayed
09:10 Penzance to London Paddington
10:04 London Paddington to Penzance
10:20 Penzance to London Paddington
11:03 London Paddington to Plymouth
12:03 London Paddington to Penzance
12:15 Penzance to London Paddington
13:03 London Paddington to Plymouth
13:15 Plymouth to London Paddington
13:50 London Paddington to Great Malvern
14:03 London Paddington to Penzance
14:15 Penzance to London Paddington
15:03 London Paddington to Penzance
15:15 Plymouth to London Paddington
16:03 London Paddington to Penzance
16:15 Penzance to London Paddington
etc
PollsOpen and recent polls
Closed 2024-03-25 Easter Escape - to where?
Abbreviation pageAcronymns and abbreviations
Stn ComparatorStation Comparator
Rail newsNews Now - live rail news feed
Site Style 1 2 3 4
Next departures • Bristol Temple MeadsBath SpaChippenhamSwindonDidcot ParkwayReadingLondon PaddingtonMelksham
Exeter St DavidsTauntonWestburyTrowbridgeBristol ParkwayCardiff CentralOxfordCheltenham SpaBirmingham New Street
March 29, 2024, 14:07:20 *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Forgotten your username or password? - get a reminder
Most recently liked subjects
[153] 2024 - Service update and amendment log, Swindon <-> Westbury...
[97] Infrastructure problems in Thames Valley causing disruption el...
[53] Travel for free on the m2 metrobus - Bristol - 4,5,6 April 202...
[41] would you like your own LIVE train station departure board?
[38] West Wiltshire Bus Changes April 2024
[37] Reversing Beeching - bring heritage and freight lines into the...
 
News: A forum for passengers ... with input from rail professionals welcomed too
 
   Home   Help Search Calendar Login Register  
Pages: [1] 2
  Print  
Author Topic: 1983 Serpell report - where rail could have gone  (Read 13013 times)
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 40692



View Profile WWW Email
« on: December 27, 2016, 16:10:47 »

Looking back at Beeching and Serpell (1983) reports earlier today for research for the Irish proposal / consultation, I looked at the various options and where me might have gone post 1983.

Here's the base network:



options considered in the report:

Option A: a commercial railway. 16% of route miles remain


Option B: resource cost minimisation network. 22% of route miles remain


Options C: Deleting worst performing services from the base network
C1 ((on coaches) National route restriction) - first stage of deletions. 99% of route miles remain


C2 - further deletions. 83% of route miles remain


C3 - further deletions. 61% of route miles remain


Option d: C2, adding back (11) connections to communities of over 25,000 population. 84% of route miles remain.


Serpell came after years of passenger number decline, and did nor foresee the growth ahead; closure of anything significant these days would rightfully cause uproar.    Heres an annual passenger journey graph:

Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Acting Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, Option 24/7 Melksham Rep
IndustryInsider
Data Manager
Hero Member
******
Posts: 10096


View Profile
« Reply #1 on: December 27, 2016, 17:31:22 »

Love that last graph!
Logged

To view my GWML (Great Western Main Line) Electrification cab video 'before and after' video comparison, as well as other videos of the new layout at Reading and 'before and after' comparisons of the Cotswold Line Redoubling scheme, see: http://www.dailymotion.com/user/IndustryInsider/
John R
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 4416


View Profile
« Reply #2 on: December 27, 2016, 18:18:21 »

Serpell would have made Beeching pale into insignificance.  No ECML (East Coast Main Line) north of Newcastle, no trains to Bath, Oxford, Cambridge, Derby, Devon and Cornwall amongst others. 

He was Mrs Thatcher's favourite, and I suspect if she had had free rein, quite a lot of it would have been implemented.  Remember this was the time when the rail unions were making themselves very unpopular, by refusing to drive the brand new DOO (Driver-Only Operation (that is, trains which operate without carrying a guard)) 317's on the BedPan line for 12 months, resulting in them lying idle in sidings and with clapped out diesels running under the shiny new and unused electrification.  And we know from the miners strike what her strategy in response to such unrest was. Thankfully we don't have such nonsense anymore...
Logged
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 40692



View Profile WWW Email
« Reply #3 on: December 27, 2016, 19:18:19 »

Love that last graph!

Serpell would have made Beeching pale into insignificance. 

[snip]

 Thankfully we don't have such nonsense anymore...

Yet we still need just a degree of caution.   I've trawled around and found losses since the time of Serpell ... Aldwych tube, Allerton, Altofts, Ampress Works Halt, Ardrossan Winton Pier, Attercliffe Road and Brightside, Balloch Pier, Bedford St Johns, Boothferry Park Halt, Broad Street, Bury, Claydon West Branch, Corby, Coulsdon North, Croxley Branch, Elmers End to Sanderstead, Elsham, Epping (exclusive) to Ongar, Folkestone Harbour, Godley East, Gogarth and Abertafol, Holborn Viaduct, Kilmacolm branch, Llangelynin, Miles Platting, Navigation Road, Newhaven Marine, North Woolwich, Oldham Mumps and Shaw & Compton, Pendleton, Radipole, Rowntree Halt, Shorditch Tube, Sinfin branch, Tilbury Riverside, Tunbridge Wells West via Groombridge, Waddon Marsh and Beddington Lane, Wadsley Bridge, Weymouth Quay and Workington North.  Not so many of these in recent years and many special cases, but a few sadly lamented and not replaced by anything better. 
Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Acting Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, Option 24/7 Melksham Rep
John R
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 4416


View Profile
« Reply #4 on: December 27, 2016, 19:55:10 »

I think that's a rather misleading list, as very many of those are indeed special cases where the previous BR (British Rail(ways)) station was replaced by something better (in many cases a metro style service).  And others are also special for some other reason, e.g. Shoreditch tube station, where (in contrast) a little used tube station was replaced by a National Rail station which now has around 10 x as much footfall.

If you weigh up the "genuine" losses, and the relatively low passenger traffic that they attracted, and compare it with the positive increments to the National Rail network and regional metro systems, and the traffic that they now generate, there would be no comparison. 
Logged
ellendune
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 4452


View Profile
« Reply #5 on: December 27, 2016, 20:20:55 »

Yet we still need just a degree of caution.   I've trawled around and found losses since the time of Serpell ... Aldwych tube, Allerton, Altofts, Ampress Works Halt, Ardrossan Winton Pier, Attercliffe Road and Brightside, Balloch Pier, Bedford St Johns, Boothferry Park Halt, Broad Street, Bury, Claydon West Branch, Corby, Coulsdon North, Croxley Branch, Elmers End to Sanderstead, Elsham, Epping (exclusive) to Ongar, Folkestone Harbour, Godley East, Gogarth and Abertafol, Holborn Viaduct, Kilmacolm branch, Llangelynin, Miles Platting, Navigation Road, Newhaven Marine, North Woolwich, Oldham Mumps and Shaw & Compton , Pendleton, Radipole, Rowntree Halt, Shorditch Tube, Sinfin branch, Tilbury Riverside, Tunbridge Wells West via Groombridge, Waddon Marsh and Beddington Lane, Wadsley Bridge, Weymouth Quay and Workington North.  Not so many of these in recent years and many special cases, but a few sadly lamented and not replaced by anything better. 

Yes but this list is not useful since so many were replaced.

Bury (Bolton Street) was replaced by Bury Interchange

The Oldham loop stations were replaced by tram stops

I am sure there were others that I don't know. 
Logged
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 40692



View Profile WWW Email
« Reply #6 on: December 27, 2016, 20:42:46 »

[snip] Not so many of these in recent years and many special cases, but a few sadly lamented and not replaced by anything better. 

Yes but this list is not useful since so many were replaced.

I am sure there were others that I don't know. 
[/quote]

Duly noted in my original post.   And I have left out intermediate stations to Claydon West, Sinfin, Ongar, Sanderstead,  Kilmacolm ...

Not for me tonight, but we could come up with three lists - "lost", "replaced by" and "hard to know which way to call it!"
Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Acting Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, Option 24/7 Melksham Rep
froome
Transport Scholar
Hero Member
******
Posts: 901


View Profile Email
« Reply #7 on: December 27, 2016, 20:47:14 »

I think that's a rather misleading list, as very many of those are indeed special cases where the previous BR (British Rail(ways)) station was replaced by something better (in many cases a metro style service).  And others are also special for some other reason, e.g. Shoreditch tube station, where (in contrast) a little used tube station was replaced by a National Rail station which now has around 10 x as much footfall.


And that list would include others like Filton, replaced by Filton Abbey Wood, whose footfall I would guess is many more than 10x the previous station's (though personally I do regret the loss of the old Filton station, which was more convenient for Filton college and the major industries that were around Filton airfield, not to mention the current postal sorting office).
Logged
bobm
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 9810



View Profile
« Reply #8 on: December 27, 2016, 20:55:59 »

I vividly remember attending a briefing at Western Tower opposite Reading Station when the Serpell report was published.

Two British Rail PR (Public Relations) men were struggling to put on a brave face.  Looking back on it I suspect one of them - a career railwayman - had been in the industry when the Beeching report was released and was no doubt worried for the industry's future.

Had Sir David Serpell's most severe proposals gone ahead, my current day job would have been very difficult.

However in the following months after publication, I did have some sympathy for the report's author.  He did the job he was asked and became something of a scapegoat.

Interestingly earlier in his career he was asked to look at the map making agency Ordnance Survey and although his report was not acted on, many of his suggestions have come to pass in more recent times.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/2512056/Sir-David-Serpell.html

Quote
Sir David Serpell, who has died aged 96, was a formidable Whitehall mandarin who in retirement produced for Margaret Thatcher's government the much-reviled Serpell Report, which postulated reducing the rail network to a skeletal 1,630 miles.
 
Serpell retired in August 1972, but he had a heavy workload ahead of him.

David Howell, the transport secretary, commissioned the report in May 1982 as he struggled to contain a British Rail deficit heading toward £240 million a year. He set Serpell's panel the remit of investigating BR (British Rail(ways))'s finances, with the inference that a strategy had to be found to keep costs down.
 
The Daily Telegraph observed: "Whether Sir David Serpell ever becomes a household name in the manner of that great railway cost-cutter Dr Beeching will depend greatly on whether the Government favours the more drastic options suggested by his committee." In the event, ministers retreated, but Serpell was still left with the opprobrium.

Howell's stratagem backfired spectacularly, for there was no way of eliminating BR's losses short of massive cuts and fare increases. When he received the report, he sat on it for a month, while a series of leaks – which Whitehall blamed on BR – caused alarm among commuters and the rail unions. The Labour Party rushed in to capitalise, and with a general election imminent there were severe jitters on the Tory back benches.

Publication of the report in January 1983 only made matters worse. Serpell and a majority of his panel set out a range of options: from retaining the network at 10,300 miles to cutting it to 10,000; 7,610; 6,120; 2,210 or just 1,630 miles, which would leave most of the country unserved.

They also proposed that BR economise on maintenance, renewals and signalling safety. And a minority report from Alfred Goldstein, a consulting engineer close to Margaret Thatcher's economic adviser Sir Alan Walters, pointed out that only if cut to 1,630 miles, with season ticket holders stripped of their 40 per cent discount, could the railways make money.

Howell was forced on to the back foot, having to stress as he introduced the report in the Commons that the government was not contemplating a programme of cuts. Serpell, whom the BR chairman Sir Peter Parker found "as cosy as a razor blade", came in for heavy criticism and even personal abuse, once being harangued by the guard on his train home to Devon.

The former Liberal leader Jo Grimond surmised that Serpell must wish he had changed places with Lord Franks, who was then examining whether government actions had contributed to Argentina's invasion of the Falklands. "How relaxing to examine anything as unemotive as a war," he commented.

Having developed an affection for the railways as a member of the BR board from 1974 until his report was commissioned, Serpell regarded criticism of himself as unfair. A minister had asked him a question, and he had answered it; it was no fault of his that the question was not a sensible one.

The Serpell Report left the government and BR exactly where they had been beforehand, and BR went on to reform itself from within under Sir Robert Reid. But the episode terminated Howell's ministerial career. Mrs Thatcher dropped him from the cabinet after the 1983 election. For several years afterwards, transport ministers faced the accusation from Labour and the unions that they were "implementing Serpell by stealth".

The episode was an unsatisfactory footnote to a successful Whitehall career, which led from the wartime ministry of food through the Treasury to Serpell's two permanent secretaryships.

David Radford Serpell was born in Plymouth on November 10 1911, the second son of Charles and Elsie Serpell. He was educated at Plymouth College and Exeter College, Oxford, where he took a third in History; he became an honorary fellow in 1992. He completed his studies at the University of Toulouse, Syracuse University, New York state (marrying the daughter of one of his professors) and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Massachusetts.
Returning to Britain in 1937, Serpell went to work for the Imperial Economic Committee, then on the outbreak of war joined the ministry of food, eventually becoming private secretary to the junior minister, Major Gwilym Lloyd George. When Lloyd George was promoted to minister of fuel and power, Serpell went with him.

In 1945 Serpell moved to the Treasury, remaining there 15 years. As an assistant secretary he led British officials at trade talks with Denmark in 1949, and in 1954 negotiators with Persia on how that country could find a way of buying goods in dollars when its oil revenues were in sterling.

That year he was appointed an under-secretary with special responsibility for defence expenditure. When Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer convened a conference of Commonwealth "brass hats" at Camberley in 1957 to ponder the nuclear scenario, Serpell was one of the few civilians present.

In 1960 he moved to the ministry of transport as deputy secretary responsible for railways and roads; soon after, his minister, Ernest Marples, commissioned the Beeching Report which triggered the halving in size of the rail network. Serpell was also, in 1963, one of an Anglo-French working group which reported that a Channel tunnel could be built for £143 million.

That year, he moved on to the Board of Trade, being promoted to second permanent secretary in June 1966 when Harold Wilson gave the department greater responsibilities. At the end of that year he crossed to the Treasury in the same capacity to take charge of the oversight of government spending.
In 1968 Serpell became permanent secretary at the ministry of transport. The MoT's prime concern was promoting acceptance of the breathalyser; that Christmas he wrote to its 3,000 staff reminding them not to drink and drive. When Edward Heath established the Department of the Environment (which included the MoT) in 1970, Serpell was appointed its permanent secretary. He presided over this mega-department for two years, his ascendancy punctuated by rows with the young Michael Heseltine, one of its junior ministers.

Heseltine was unrepentant, saying: "After the Labour government, civil servants expected junior ministers to behave in the shy, retiring way to which they had become accustomed, and got rather a shock when someone turned up who gave orders. The permanent secretary tried to turn me into a training machine for 20-year-olds straight from Oxford whom he kept sending me as private secretaries, and I was not prepared to be treated like that."

Serpell retired in August 1972, but he had a heavy workload ahead of him. The next year he took the chair at the Nature Conservancy Council, staying there four years. In May 1977, just before he stood down, he declared the 172-acre Great Barrows limestone pavement in Lancashire, Britain's biggest, a Silver Jubilee nature reserve. He was also appointed to the National Environment Research Council, and served on the council of the National Trust.

In 1978 Peter Shore, the environment secretary, commissioned Serpell to run the rule over the Ordnance Survey. His verdict was unflattering: the OS (Ordnance Survey) would "need to transform itself from being a rather inward-looking and conservatively run organisation into one that looks to the future and is responsive to change and development." But he made no proposals to alter its status; in 1982 Heseltine, back at the DoE, shelved his report and recommended making the Ordnance Survey a trading fund.

He was appointed OBE in 1944 and CB in 1962, and knighted in 1968.

David Serpell, who died on July 28, was twice married: to Anne Dooley in 1938 (their marriage was dissolved in 1971) and secondly, in 1972, to Doris Farr, who died in 2004. His three sons by his first marriage survive him.
Logged
John R
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 4416


View Profile
« Reply #9 on: December 28, 2016, 08:48:48 »

OK, so here's my crack at the list given:-

No replacement service/station

Clayton West branch (Jan 83)
Elmer's End to Sanderstead (May 83)
Croxley Green branch (Jan 83)
Kilmalcolm branch (Jan 83)
Tun Wells to Eridge (July 85)
Sinfin Branch (May 93)

Altofts
Attercliffe Rd
Balloch Pier
Broad St
Coulson North
Elsham
Gogarth, Abertafol, Llangelynin
Folkestone Harbour
Miles Platting
Newhaven Marine
Radipole
Tilbury Riverside
Weymouth Quay

Replaced by something better or comparable

Allerton
Ardrossan Winton Pier
Brightside
Bedford St Johns
Bury branch
Godley East
Holborn Viaduct
Navigation Rd
North Woolwich
Oldham Mumps, Shaw,Compton
Pendelton
Waddon Marsh/Beddington Lane

No advertised public service in 83

Ampress Works Halt
Rowntree
Wadsley Bridge

Other

Corby (wasn't open in 83, and reopened anyway)
Workington North (temporary because of bridge wash out)


It's also worth putting this list in the context of services which have opened since 1983.   Just looking at line reopenings, I can think of the following:-

Aberdare branch
Maesteg branch
Vale of Glamorgan line
City line (Cardiff)
Ebbw Vale branch
Melksham branch
Oxford to Bicester
Eastleigh to Chandlers Ford
Thameslink core
HS1 (High Speed line 1 - St Pancras to Channel Tunnel) and associated lines
Corby branch
Willesden to Kensington Olympia
Walsall to Rugeley
Lichfield City to Trent Valley
Nuneaton to Coventry
Birmingham Snow Hill lines
Nottingham to Worksop
Windsor Link (Manchester)
Heysham Branch
Rose Grove to Hebden Bridge (+ curve last year)
Blackburn to Clitheroe
Brighouse branch
Larkhall branch
Alloa branch
Airdrie to Edinburgh (in two stages)
Borders Railway
North Glasgow suburban (Anniesland branch)

I'm sure I've missed a few too!
 

 
Logged
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 40692



View Profile WWW Email
« Reply #10 on: December 28, 2016, 10:32:38 »

What an excellent breakdown, John R - and indeed confirmation that it's been both ways.     Looking at it nicely tabulated, I appear to have left out a few closures - oops - such as Dover Marine and Etruria, and we currently have services suspended with no resumption date at Norton Bridge, Barlaston and Wedgwood.

The re-opening list is impressive and would be the more so if you add stations on lines that were open right through anyway and (conversely) the closure list would grow by a few if you / I were to list lines that had no stations on them that have gone.   March to Spalding went (I suspect) while Serpell was at the printer's.  Others such as the curve at Newport were quite recent, and the curve at Westbury has been and gone in the last few years.   Reading West towards Didcot?

Also left out ... stations which have moved a very little (and may have been renamed) - Balloch Central to Balloch and Uckfield - both to eliminate level crossings.
Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Acting Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, Option 24/7 Melksham Rep
John R
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 4416


View Profile
« Reply #11 on: December 28, 2016, 11:53:57 »

Yes, and I've thought of a couple more, namely Errol and Tiverton Junction (the latter far enough from its replacement to be included in the list, unlike Bromsgrove, which I would judge close enough not to be included).   Oh and there's Cefn Onn, Westbourne Park and Primrose Hill. 

I'd be inclined to exclude curves, as they are unlikely to have much of an impact to the travelling public. (That could be the subject of a debate though I guess.) But March to Spalding was indeed a serious closure, which means that today the growing volume of container traffic from Felixstowe to the East Coast line has to travel via Peterborough. (Though this list is focusing on passenger services.) 

Happy to edit the list if you think it worthwhile.
Logged
Richard Fairhurst
Global Moderator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 1204


View Profile Email
« Reply #12 on: December 28, 2016, 12:49:45 »

I like the way that the Vale of Rheidol is AXED in C3, but reinstated in option D, presumably as a highly important connection to Aberystwyth from... er... a waterfall.

(Off-topic, but recent changes to Ordnance Survey are really a reflection of wider changes to the global geodata market: the fact that Serpell suggested some of them in the 1980s, in a vastly different market, is probably coincidence.)
Logged
grahame
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 40692



View Profile WWW Email
« Reply #13 on: December 28, 2016, 13:49:32 »

I like the way that the Vale of Rheidol is AXED in C3, but reinstated in option D, presumably as a highly important connection to Aberystwyth from... er... a waterfall.

 Grin Grin

Classic illustration of accountancy over everyone else including local knowledge?   Vale of Rheidol much more financially attractive than keeping the line to Machynellth - £20 return for 12 miles each way = 83p mer mile to Devil's Bridge, whereas just £6.80 return for the 17 miles each way to Machynellth = 20p per mile.  Those are 2016 fares.
Logged

Coffee Shop Admin, Acting Chair of Melksham Rail User Group, Option 24/7 Melksham Rep
4064ReadingAbbey
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 455


View Profile
« Reply #14 on: December 28, 2016, 21:45:18 »

What an excellent breakdown, John R - and indeed confirmation that it's been both ways.     Looking at it nicely tabulated, I appear to have left out a few closures - oops - such as Dover Marine and Etruria, and we currently have services suspended with no resumption date at Norton Bridge, Barlaston and Wedgwood.

The re-opening list is impressive and would be the more so if you add stations on lines that were open right through anyway and (conversely) the closure list would grow by a few if you / I were to list lines that had no stations on them that have gone.   March to Spalding went (I suspect) while Serpell was at the printer's.  Others such as the curve at Newport were quite recent, and the curve at Westbury has been and gone in the last few years.   Reading West towards Didcot?

Also left out ... stations which have moved a very little (and may have been renamed) - Balloch Central to Balloch and Uckfield - both to eliminate level crossings.

I'm not quite sure how to parse the 'Reading West towards Didcot' phrase. The curve has never been closed and is now being electrified as it's one of the routes from the re-sited maintenance depot lying to the north of the Reading - Didcot route to Platforms 1 to 3 for the Basingstoke and Newbury services. (Trains can leave the west end of the depot, run to Tilehurst and set back round the curve to Reading West. Another reversal brings them to the bay platforms).

There are now no scheduled passenger services over the west curve as the Cross-Country trains reverse in the main station but there are essentially hourly container trains in both directions between Southampton and the Midlands.
Logged
Do you have something you would like to add to this thread, or would you like to raise a new question at the Coffee Shop? Please [register] (it is free) if you have not done so before, or login (at the top of this page) if you already have an account - we would love to read what you have to say!

You can find out more about how this forum works [here] - that will link you to a copy of the forum agreement that you can read before you join, and tell you very much more about how we operate. We are an independent forum, provided and run by customers of Great Western Railway, for customers of Great Western Railway and we welcome railway professionals as members too, in either a personal or official capacity. Views expressed in posts are not necessarily the views of the operators of the forum.

As well as posting messages onto existing threads, and starting new subjects, members can communicate with each other through personal messages if they wish. And once members have made a certain number of posts, they will automatically be admitted to the "frequent posters club", where subjects not-for-public-domain are discussed; anything from the occasional rant to meetups we may be having ...

 
Pages: [1] 2
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.2 | SMF © 2006-2007, Simple Machines LLC Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!
This forum is provided by customers of Great Western Railway (formerly First Great Western), and the views expressed are those of the individual posters concerned. Visit www.gwr.com for the official Great Western Railway website. Please contact the administrators of this site if you feel that the content provided by one of our posters contravenes our posting rules (email link to report). Forum hosted by Well House Consultants

Jump to top of pageJump to Forum Home Page