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06:30 Bristol Temple Meads to London Paddington
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07:49 Bedwyn to Newbury
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08:46 Bedwyn to Newbury
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06:37 Plymouth to London Paddington
06:48 Exeter St Davids to Exmouth
07:03 London Paddington to Paignton
07:24 Exmouth to Paignton
07:38 Bristol Temple Meads to Penzance
07:40 Bristol Temple Meads to Westbury
08:35 Plymouth to London Paddington
10:35 London Paddington to Exeter St Davids
12:15 Penzance to London Paddington
Delayed
23:45 London Paddington to Penzance
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07:10 Penzance to London Paddington
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10:04 London Paddington to Penzance
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Question: What is your overall opinion of FGW (First Great Western)'s service over the last 10 years?
FGW (First Great Western) really has transformed travel!
There's been a good improvement overall.
There's been a marginal improvement.
Things are much the same.
The service has worsened slightly overall.
The service is noticable worse overall .
FGW (First Great Western) now provide an awful service compared with 1999.

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Author Topic: 10 years on - what improvements has a privatised railway brought to the west?  (Read 46609 times)
Btline
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« Reply #15 on: April 28, 2009, 18:53:25 »

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.

Quite right. There is no excuse for empty trains like these. The M4 is always busy, so there is demand! Preferably more Super-Off-Peak fares, and some extra Advances.

However, if the service were to be scrapped:

The HSTs (High Speed Train) displaced would be needed on the Cotswold line to get rid of the Thames Turbos on ALL Oxford fasts (and therefore, all trains to Worcester and Hereford). Although off peak demand is weak here too, it could be increased with cheaper fares on off peak services.
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IndustryInsider
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« Reply #16 on: April 28, 2009, 20:52:19 »

Route 3: London Paddington - Gloucester & Cheltenham Spa

Cheltenham and Gloucester have traditionally seen their services to the capital provided by a mix of local trains running to/from Swindon connecting into other fast trains with several direct trains mingling in with them. The last 10 years have seen a steady increase in the direct trains which now total 9 in each direction on weekdays. This compares with 6 up trains and 5 down trains back in 1999. That's a pretty healthy increase overall.

The spacing of the trains has also been improved over those years - 4 trains leaving Cheltenham between 05:55 and 08:31 cater for the regular business and long distance commute market and after that direct trains are provided every two hours from 08:31 until 18:31. In-between there's a local service to Swindon on a two-hourly basis too which gives a 1tph service throughout the day until the evening. The return journey from Paddington is very similar, with the majority of services biased towards the evening peak.

To give an indication of the improvements, ten years ago the direct trains from Cheltenham left at:
06:03, 06:54, 11:36, 14:19, and 15:59
Now it's:
05:55, 06:30, 07:31, 08:31, 10:31, 12:31, 14:31, 16:31 and 18:31.

Journey time wise, as in common with other routes, the point-to-point timings have marginally increased. Back in 1999 the down Cheltenham Spa Express was timed to do the journey in 2hrs 1minute which is 14 minutes quicker than anything on offer today, though towards London the increases are much less significant.

Early morning and late evening services are generally better than they used to be, notably from Gloucester you can now reach London for 07:16 whereas it used to be 07:52.

All trains on the Swindon-Gloucester corridor also call at Kemble and Stonehouse, and the total number of trains on that section has grown from 17 to 18 per day. The better spacing of the trains makes for a much better service too.

Serious consideration is being given to redoubling the single line section from Swindon to Kemble and if this happens then this will further allow the route to develop as well as acting as a strategic diversionary route. There is still scope for improvement, 18:31 is still quite early for the last direct train back to London, but is way than the previous offering of 15:59! I think marked improvements have been made on this route, which FGW (First Great Western) should be congratulated for.
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Chris from Nailsea
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« Reply #17 on: April 30, 2009, 22:09:56 »

Some subsequent posts, originally made on this topic, have been moved to a new topic, simply to avoid any confusion on this excellent summary of the changes in the railway service over the past 10 years.

Chris  Smiley
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IndustryInsider
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« Reply #18 on: May 01, 2009, 12:04:36 »

Route 4: London - Exeter, Plymouth and Penzance

Probably considered FGW (First Great Western)'s flagship service is the route from London down to Devon and Cornwall. Important all the year round, but especially so over summer when holidaymakers swell the numbers on trains significantly, either using the train to get to their holiday destination, or using them for short day trips out when they get there.

Back in 1999, excluding the sleeper service, there were 8 through trains from Paddington to Penzance (9 on Fridays). Now there's one extra which gives an hourly service from the capital from 1-6pm (7pm on Fridays).

Journey times through to Penzance are as follows:
5h 48m, 5h 05m, 5h 05m, 5h 31m, 5h 30m, 5h 38m, 5h 27m, 5h 28m, 5h 12m, 5h 36m

In 1999 they were:
5h 36m, 4h 55m, 5h 27m, 5h 27m, 5h 44m, 5h 24m, 5h 57m, 5h 05m, 5h 25m

Not much change there - though again the quickest train today takes longer than the quickest train 10 years ago - but then the 4h 55m minute journey time was achieved with only ten stops en-route. Now that's a minimum of 13.

Coming back the other way it's a similar story, though departures don't follow the same clockface pattern that they do in the other direction. A 4h 57m journey time is possible on the first train of the day, but again it used to be quicker at 4h 44m for the 305 mile trip at a shade under a 65mph average (62mph today). Impressive given the nature of the route through Cornwall.

Plymouth and Exeter (the principal stops en-route) see a similar pattern - a couple of extra trains a day on what there were, but at the expense of a couple of minutes extra on the journey time on average.

Paignton sees a total of two through train on weekdays at 10:00 and 17:33. Back in 1999 there were three on the route from Paddington, so that's a reduction of one train a day. It's worth noting that South West Trains also operate two direct trains from Waterloo to Paignton (as they did back in 1999), though these are slower.

One weekday addition to the timetable is a through service between London and Newquay which didn't operate in 1999 - though there were through trains at the weekends.

The Night Riviera sleeper service continues to operate overnight in each direction despite whisperings over the years of it's viability.
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« Reply #19 on: May 02, 2009, 10:45:22 »

Route 4: London - Exeter, Plymouth and Penzance
Back in 1999, excluding the sleeper service, there were 8 through trains from Paddington to Penzance (9 on Fridays). Now there's one extra which gives an hourly service from the capital from 1-6pm (7pm on Fridays).
I might be misunderstanding you here, but if you referring to the 19:03 departure that runs Monday - Friday..
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devon_metro
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« Reply #20 on: May 02, 2009, 11:02:06 »

Fridays only from May
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Ollie
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« Reply #21 on: May 02, 2009, 14:41:58 »

Aha shows how much attention I have paid to the new timetable..apologies.
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Zoe
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« Reply #22 on: May 02, 2009, 17:49:20 »

Fridays only from May
Interesting to see one of the few "improvements" introduced in the December 2006 timetable is to end.  This is going to make the Golden Hind even more busy Monday to Thursday then.
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« Reply #23 on: May 02, 2009, 18:01:02 »

Fridays only from May
Interesting to see one of the few "improvements" introduced in the December 2006 timetable is to end.  This is going to make the Golden Hind even more busy Monday to Thursday then.
I would agree it is poor, especially seeing as you change at Plymouth for onward connection to Penzance Mon-Thurs, I fail to understand the reasoning for this.
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devon_metro
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« Reply #24 on: May 02, 2009, 18:19:50 »

It means that there is a morning Plymouth - Penzance operated by an HST (High Speed Train).
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Zoe
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« Reply #25 on: May 02, 2009, 18:25:03 »

It means that there is a morning Plymouth - Penzance operated by an HST (High Speed Train).
So running an HST on a Plymouth to Penzance local is more important than a later direct service from Paddington to Penzance?
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« Reply #26 on: May 03, 2009, 15:16:19 »

It means that there is a morning Plymouth - Penzance operated by an HST (High Speed Train).
So running an HST on a Plymouth to Penzance local is more important than a later direct service from Paddington to Penzance?
the 1903 from Pad is very quite after Plymouth, bear in mind it stops everywhere in Cornwall and gets to Pnz at 0035! The morning HST that will operate additional during July and August from Ply-Pnz replaces a unit that despite being 3 cars in high summer is usually rammed! being the first convenient train to get from north/East Cornwall to Penzance and St Ives.
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Zoe
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« Reply #27 on: May 03, 2009, 17:46:26 »

It should also be noticed that since the December 2006 timetable there are quite a few more stops at Tiverton Parkway and Totnes.
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« Reply #28 on: May 04, 2009, 21:50:03 »

Route 5: London Paddington and Reading to Newbury and Westbury

The biggest change on this route since 1999 has been the speeding up of the hourly off-peak Paddington-Bedwyn service, which is now non-stop from Paddington to Reading. It used to stop at Ealing Broadway, Southall, Hayes, Slough and Maidenhead on the relief lines and removal of these stops has reduced the journey time from London to Newbury and Bedwyn from 69 and 89 minutes to 52 and 73 minutes respectively. This makes them much more competitive compared with a car journey down the M4, though the majority of them are still operated by Turbos.

Another change is the introduction of an occasional semi-fast service from Paddington to the west which offers better opportunities when travelling west from Newbury, Hungerford and Bedwyn.

The stations west of Bedwyn, namely Pewsey, Westbury and Castle Cary remain lumbered with a very haphazard timing of trains throughout the day, although the total number of trains has increased. Passengers from Pewsey have seen an increase in their trains to London up from 5 to 9 per day, and in general most stations have seen a slight increase in the number of services stopping over the past 10 years, but there are exceptions to this rule; for example there are now 41 trains from Newbury to Reading every weekday, this was 43 back in 1999.

Journey times on the majority of services have not changed by more than a few minutes, other than the Paddington-Bedwyn trains detailed in the first paragraph.

The town of Frome has gained a through service to London with two departures a day in each direction provided.
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« Reply #29 on: May 06, 2009, 11:42:48 »

Route 6: Reading to Basingstoke

Not a huge amount to talk about here to be honest. A pattern of half-hourly stopping services operated by FGW (First Great Western) throughout the day is supplemented by roughly hourly Cross Country services running non-stop to give a total of 52 trains a day from Reading to Basingstoke (50 in the other direction).

Ten years ago the same pattern of half-hourly stopping services ran (though there was an extra train thrown into the mix between 9-10am). There were less Cross Country services (then operated by Virgin trains) although South West Trains operated a service roughly every three hours on the route which was extended from/to Brighton. These were withdrawn about four years ago I think? This meant a total of 50 trains from Reading to Basingstoke, and 49 in the other direction, so there has been a marginal increase in services.

From Basingstoke to Reading the first train of the day gets in at 06:05 - this was 05:43. The earliest arrival at Reading from Bramley and Mortimer is now 06:32 which is 50 minutes later than it used to be.

Other notable changes are the removal of the last train from Reading to Basingstoke at 00:10 - the latest is now at 23:34 meaning a late night out has to be curtailed a bit.

That's pretty much it for this route. Please chip in with your own comments on what I've said or anything I might have missed folks.

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