The Cardiff to Portsmouth service suffers "Cross Country Syndrome". Just as the number of passengers departing on the 09:25 from Plymouth (the Dundee train) travelling all the way to Dundee is probably pretty small, so I suspect the number leaving Cardiff Central on a Portsmouth Harbour train and actually travelling to Portsmouth Harbour is likely to be pretty small. Yes - there are noticeable numbers of through passengers at Birmingham / Sheffield / Newcastle / Edinburgh (or Bristol / Bath Spa / Salisbury / Southampton) but there's also a very high proportion of people off and on. And many other people are using both of the trains in these examples for much shorter intermediate journeys, never going anywhere neither either end of the route, and not staying on the train for anything like the full journey time.
Nail hit firmly on the head! I once managed to shoehorn myself into a Portsmouth - Cardiff service on morning, on my way from Temple Meads to a meeting in Cardiff. After Filton Abbey Wood, I had a choice of carriages, let alone seats. I would suggest that there are a lot of passengers using it for Cardiff to Newport or return, Bristol and Keynsham to Bath and vv, plus any number of short local journeys in Wiltshire and Hampshire. There may the occasional Cardiff-based jolly jack tar going to join his ship in Pompey, but he will probably be asleep by Newport.
The route, like many others, seems designed to fit a train crew's shift whilst serving major centres of population and employment, rather than catering for people travelling between the two termini. I wonder how many people on the
XC▸ service from Bristol to Manchester actually go the whole distance, even though it is a true inter-city route.
Does anyone here have a breakdown (or the knowledge to guess) how long / how many miles the average passenger on a Cadiff to Portsmouth train does on that train. Or have any idea if they went through the train and surveyed at a random point how the journey times of people on there would break down? I actually suspect you might find that the highest proportion of people sitting on a turbo operating out of Bristol for over 80 minutes would be found if you surveyed as the train ran between Yeovil Pen Mill and Castle Cary!
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