James Gray looks forward on Corsham

[whole diary]

[ChrisB]

If those 4 are to be stopping trains, then additional track capacity will be needed. Of course, the council has no funds for this, so it'll stay on the wants list for some considerable time.

[simonw]

Worcestershire Parkway will work because Cross Country will drop Ashcurch and Bromsgrove, and there is a parallel route along Bristol-Birmingham  through Malvern and Worcester.

The chronic traffic on the M5/M42 near by is driving up train use in the area, which is already beyond capacity, so an extra fast route to Birmingham will work.

[Bmblbzzz]

Wasn't there some kind of scheme to close Shrub Hill once W. Pkway was up and running?

Also, which XCs^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) stop at Ashford?

[ChrisB]

He doesn't mean Ashford - he means Ashchurch.

And Ashchurch want to keep their XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) calls naturally as they have few enough services already.

[simonw]

Thanks for the note, I did mean Ashchurch.

Currently, the Caridff-Nottingham XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) service has a randon stopping patter for small stations, Lydnew, Ashchurch, Bromsgrove, etc.

There is talk that CrossCountry want to drop Ashchurch, and also Bromsgrove, especially when the extra rolling stock arrives and there may be an hourly service from Bristol to Worcester.

I don't believe there is any plan to shut either Worcester station, as they are both small and serve local communities.

[ChrisB]

I'm guessing you mean extra rolling stock for GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway), not XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) as indicated?

No talk from GWR about an hourly stopping service Bristol-Worcester (yet) - I was discussing this only last week with their Head of Timetables. Of course, XC don't run Bristol-Worcester, so you must again be referring to GWR?

You are obviously not local to Worcester? Shrub Hill is the junction station for Malverns/Hereford, Birmingham, Cotswolds & the South, so it makes sense to stop there. Foregate Street is bang in the centre of Worcester, so it makes sense to stop there as well for commuters & shoppers. There is *less* reason for stopping in Parkway currently, frankly.....

[ellendune]

Until the extra housing is built around Wantage/Grove, I would suggest that there is no untapped pax wanting to travel, as they all currently travel via Didcot - see the car park usage there!

So building that station will wait until a) the houses are being built, and b) capacity between Swindon/Didcot is capable of carrying stopping trains. The 387s to Didcot extended through to Swindon would be the obvious carrier towards London, with EWR being the cross-country carrier you are discussing above.

Wantage and Grove had a combined population of 18,000 in 2011 how big do you think a place needs to get to support a station?  Melksham had 14,000 in 2011. Didcot had a population of 25,000 in 2011, but kept a station when it was far smaller than Wantage and Grove are now.

[ChrisB]

If you took that argument solely, they'd be queue several pages long for a new station! :-)

I was saying that the commuters from that area all currently drive tro Didcot - hence why Didcot has reached the capacity it is now, not just based on their 25,000 population. Thus constructing it now would simply extract from Didcot mainly with a few from Swindon & thus very few new journeys towards London would be created.

Thus, it'll need those new houses proposed but unstarted to generate *further* demand before the new station will get its funding. And it'll need the track capacity too....

[didcotdean]

That is more or less the 2011 Census population for Didcot but it predates the start of Great Western Park. The estimated figure now is somewhere between 29-30k, plus those that live in contiguous development outside of the current Didcot boundary (at least another 1k).

Cross country BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) services started calling at Didcot in the early 1970s when the population was 14k. They stopped when there were about 10k more people ...

Reducing people driving to Didcot would be one of the rationales for a Grove station, particularly to take pressure away from the Milton Interchange and/or Harwell

[Tim]

presumably, the site of Didcot power station will eventually be housing and/or a business park??

[didcotdean]

One, the other or both possibly. As well as a road that will go over the railway. Maybe. The are currently trying to attract a university to put an outpost in the town. Somewhere there is probably a map showing a potential site for a Cathedral.

[ellendune]

I was saying that the commuters from that area all currently drive tro Didcot -

I disagree. If I were commuting to Reading or London, yes I would. However the drive from Wantage to Didcot is not a good journey and I would suggest the most of those commuting to Oxford will either drive to the Botley Park & Ride or perhaps take the bus to Oxford.  The Wantage Oxford traffic is untapped demand and a significant proportion of the working population of Wantage and Grove work there!

[ChrisB]

Hmmm, I'd debate the 'significant', but yes, I'd agree there's an Oxford commuter base in that area. Possibly no more than would fit in a single peak train each way, but wouldn't sustain a station.

What it would do is open up employment opportunities for those reliant on decent public transport & obviously needed once they start building x,000 houses there.

[grahame]

Melksham had 14,000 in 2011.

Melksham is comprised of two parishes - Melksham (Town) and Melksham Without.  Melksham Town parish indeed had a population of a little over 14,000 in 2011, with a further 6,000+ in Melksham Without, which virtually surrounds Melksham Town; the total urban area of the township being over 20,000 at that point which has risen to about 25,000 today.  Much of the rise has been in Melksham Without, though come the next financial year some 700 homes (so that's around 1,900 in population) will be transferred to Melksham Town, as they're in an area of housing that's only accessible by road through the town.  Melksham Station is about 9 minutes walk from the town centre bridge.  A further few minutes walk (200 yards according to a map I just looked at) and you're still in the built up area but no longer in "Melksham Town" - you're in Melksham Without.  The new housing that's being built on the old school site (which served the whole of Melksham), just five minutes walk from the station, actually has the boundary going through the middle of the development and some houses are in Melksham Town and others in Melksham Without!

How is the population of Melksham Town Parish (that was the 14k in 2011) rather than the Melksham urban catchment area relevant to railhead and passenger justification comparisons?  (You are in good company looking to make this comparison - The SRA^» (Strategic Rail Authority - about) and successor DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) department did the same thing and I failed to understand their logic either!)

[Bmblbzzz]

On Shrub Hill vs Parkway, I thought the reasoning was meant to be that Parkway would serve as the junction station, with trains between Bristol and Birmingham (and further south and north) on one line and Worcester to Oxford on the other. Basically the same function as Shrub Hill but a parkway. Leaving Foregate St as the city centre station, with services to Bhm via Droitwich, Bristol and Cotswolds – so pretty much all the current ones. I'm not really keen on the parkway station concept, they don't seem greatly useful except for car commuters from rural areas (with a few exceptions like BPW^» (Bristol Parkway - next trains) where the nearby city has expanded to effectively make them an urban station). However, they seem popular, probably for those very reasons.

All a bit of a tangent in a thread supposedly about Corsham.