10 years on - what improvements has a privatised railway brought to the west?

[whole diary]

[IndustryInsider]

I thought it would be interesting to see how things have changed regarding the levels of service on FGW^▸ (First Great Western)'s routes for the coming 'Summer' timetable as compared with the same timetable of 10 years ago. I'll be breaking down the timetable as FGW have broken down their timetables for this timetable, so each route can be covered in some detail and I would love to see your own comments about the changes - good and bad - that have taken place.

Firstly a bit of history. Ten years ago is an ideal starting point if you are going to see what successes privatisation have bought to the railway industry. Most of the Franchises let after the demise of BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) had a couple of years experience to mean they had been given chance to settle it to running a TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) and the various idiosyncrasies that this new system brought with it.

The trains currently operated by First Great Western now were covered by three separate franchises back in 1999.

1) There was the FGW franchise which operated the HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) services FGW currently operates which had taken over from Great Western Trains (basically a management buy-out with back up from Badgerline and 3i) who operated the service initially up until this take-over in 1998.
2) The regional services in the west country, now operated under FGW's 'West' banner were operated by Wales & West which covered a much larger area including Wales and parts of the North West, until 2001. Wessex Trains was then formed and the region was made much smaller. Wessex Trains were then merged with FGW in 2006 to create the current 'West' division.
3) Thames Trains was operating the suburban service out of Paddington and longer distance services to Bedwyn, Hereford and Stratford-Upon-Avon. It also operated trains on a number of branch lines and the route from Reading to Gatwick. It was taken over by FGW in 2004, initially as First Great Western link before eventually becoming the LTV^▸ (London [and] Thames Valley) (London & Thames Valley) sector of the current FGW franchise. Apart from the Stratford trains going to Chiltern Railway the routes LTV operate over haven't changed.

For the purposes of the comparison I'll usually only cover the weekday timetable, and like I say your comments on your own impressions of what has changed will make my efforts worthwhile and hopefully provide some useful informed! I'll add a new route to the thread every couple of days.

Right - I'll now start with Route 1 - Paddington to Bath Spa, Bristol TM^‡(resolve) and Weston-Super-Mare - I'll cover Bristol Parkway when I do the South Wales route

The basic service frequency hasn't changed much. There's a train off-peak every 30 minutes between Bristol and London stopping at Bath, Chippenham, Swindon and Reading. With one train also stopping at Didcot Parkway. This frequency continues through the peak hours. A couple of trains back in 1999 missed out Swindon. The journey time for the off-peak services was also similar to today, although the peak-hours service was generally slightly quicker with one train each way missing out a stop at Reading, now all trains stop at Reading. The last train out of Paddington used to be at 00:45 but now that's much earlier at 23:30 although the actual number of late evening trains has generally increased slightly.

The total number of direct trains from London to Bristol TM was 33 and is now exactly the same!

Through trains between London and Weston-Super-Mare have increased from a total of 12 to 16.

There was also a total of 11 through trains between Bristol and Oxford which had the effect of providing additional services on the Bristol-Didcot part of the route. These were withdrawn from the timetable around 2003.

Possibly not the most interesting route to start with, but I'll continue with another soon...

[John R]

Returning to the original subject....

Surely one of the original franchise commitments was to increase the service from 3 tph on the HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) to 4 tph as far as Swindon (2 to Cardiff, 2 to Bristol TM^‡(resolve)).  I can't remember exactly when this happened but it should be included as a privatisation benefit of the HSS, as it enhanced the service on the Bristol run.

[IndustryInsider]

Surely one of the original franchise commitments was to increase the service from 3 tph on the HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) to 4 tph as far as Swindon (2 to Cardiff, 2 to Bristol TM^‡(resolve)).  I can't remember exactly when this happened but it should be included as a privatisation benefit of the HSS, as it enhanced the service on the Bristol run.

That's right. I'll be covering the additional Cardiff trains in the next route on here - I believe they started in 2002?

[devon_metro]

They started with the introduction of class 180s.

[John R]

They started with the introduction of class 180s.

OK, so the initial conclusion that privatisation has brought no real benefit on the London to Bristol run isn't quite right, in that the service has increased from 3 trains per two hours to 4 trains per two hours.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Returning to the original subject....

Thanks, John R.

As this particular original topic was beginning to run in competition with a discussion on the EU^» (European Union - about) directive requirement for annual timetable changes, I've split those posts that are more relevant there, to a new topic, Annual timetable changes.

Hope this clarifies things!

Chris 

[IndustryInsider]

Thanks, Chris - It's amusing how one choice of word in a long post can send a thread spiralling in a completely different direction to the original intention of the post!

[Boppy]

Nice idea for a discussion IndustryInsider.

For me personally I found the cutting of the 00:45 service so that the 23:30 is now the last HST^▸ (High Speed Train) one hard to take.  About 7 years ago I sometimes worked late at a bar as a second job before commuting back to Reading and this train was ideal.  It was also great because as anyone who has got a late night train back from Paddington knows the policy of using 2 or 3 carriage turbos which are crammed with drunks getting home can be quite an awful ordeal.  The 00:45 provided a nice avoidance of this with their being plenty of seats/space for everyone.

The 00:45 removal was also followed up a few years later with the removal of the hourly service to Reading through the night (it's now bi-hourly) - although I appreciate this is another route in the discussion here it does go with FGWs^▸ (First Great Western) policy of cutting these night services back since 10years ago.

Boppy.

[super tm]

The 0045 used to be a two car turbo not an HST^▸ (High Speed Train)

[Zoe]

The 00:45 removal was also followed up a few years later with the removal of the hourly service to Reading through the night (it's now bi-hourly) - although I appreciate this is another route in the discussion here it does go with FGWs^▸ (First Great Western) policy of cutting these night services back since 10years ago.

To be fair, I think the frequency was reduced by Thames Trains.  Did it ever run through the night Saturday into Sunday back in the BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) days?

[IndustryInsider]

Route 2: London Paddington - South Wales

The main change on this route in the last 10 years was the introduction of the hourly off-peak Cardiff-Paddington services following the introduction of the Adelantes earlier in the decade. The Adelantes are now gone, but the trains remain - now being operated by HST^▸ (High Speed Train)'s.

This means that Cardiff Central (as well as Newport and Bristol Parkway) now get a half-hourly frequency to the capital between the start of service and the 18:25 ex Cardiff. In the other direction it's half-hourly between 06:45 and 19:15. Cardiff (and Newport) now sees 30 weekday trains to London compared with 23 back in 1999 (and two of those were very slow services to Waterloo operated by Wales & West).

The Swansea services run hourly, and as in 1999, the peak-hour Cardiff trains also continue to/from Swansea to give a 30 minute frequency. There's 3 additional FGW^▸ (First Great Western) trains running from Swansea now though as there is an additional evening service from Swansea and two in the morning. The last direct train of the day from Swansea to London is at 20:29 - that used to be as early as 18:30 on all days except Friday! Early birds won't be so pleased though as the first train from South Wales doesn't reach London until 07:32 whereas it used to get there at 06:36.

The opposite is true in the other direction. First arrival at Swansea from London is at 08:57 rather than 10:03 as it was. There's 21 direct trains from London-Swansea up from 18 - the last train back is later too, at 22:45 rather than 22:00.

The additional Cardiff trains have also provided further benefits, giving a 2tph service from Bristol Parkway (to complement the 2tph from Bristol Temple Meads), and in conjunction with the Bristol-Paddington route, there are now far more trains from Swindon-London - a total of 71 now operate. It was 47, so that's a huge increase (helped by the investment in a new platform at Swindon).

Didcot Parkway is now regularly served by trains to/from South Wales which used to happen on an occasional basis in the peak hours only. This has softened the blow of losing the through Oxford-Bristol trains and means that you can still get to Cardiff from Oxford with just the one change. The number of trains from Didcot to London has not changed much though as some of the Oxford-London trains that used to call there off-peak now don't.

Journey times off-peak have crept up by a couple of minutes on most services, though they follow a more consistent pattern than before.

Journey times in the peak hours are typically 10 minutes or so longer than they were in 1999. Mainly due to the fact that all trains now stop at Reading and Swindon whereas several peak hour trains missed out a Reading stop in 1999 and one train each was ran non-stop between Bristol Parkway and Paddington. That did the trip in 77 minutes; the quickest now is 82 minutes.

The only other changes of note are are the removal of the through 'boat' trains from Paddington-Fishguard.

So, overall a marked improvement in the number of trains, though nothing to shout about in terms of journey times. It'll be interesting to see whether the Cardiff half-hourly trains survive the Recession as there has been talk over the years as to their viability, and it would be the obvious service to remove from the HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) family of trains should times get too tough...

[Zoe]

It'll be interesting to see whether the Cardiff half-hourly trains survive the Recession as there has been talk over the years as to their viability, and it would be the obvious service to remove from the HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) family of trains should times get too tough...

The SRA^» (Strategic Rail Authority - about) did suggest that they could be withdrawn in the new franchise back in 2005.

[r james]

If they were cut..... what would happen to the rolling stock?

[IndustryInsider]

If they were cut..... what would happen to the rolling stock?

Three realistic options; they'd be snaped up by another TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company), they'd sit in sidings somewhere in long term storage until the leasing company can find them a home or FGW^▸ (First Great Western) wants them again, or they'd end up on the scrap heap!

I haven't heard any talk about this happening recently though, but if you look at the off-peak loadings they are not exactly spectacular...

[devon_metro]

The obvious solution would be to adjust the fares system:

Cardiff - Paddington
Peak Return: ^173.00 : Single ^86.50
Off Peak Return: ^61.00 : Single ^60.00
Super Off Peak Return: ^30.00 : Single ^20 (valid between 1155 and 1455 towards Paddington, and 1115 and 1415 towards Cardiff.

Or, just massively increase the Advance Purchase availability on the xx55 from Cardiff and xx15  from London. Nobody benefits from empty trains so they might as well "flog" a few extra seats.