Plan for Worcester

[whole diary]

[Not from Brighton]

Is there a plan for Worcester? Does anyone have any idea what will happen to Worcester in the future?
A search of this forum for threads with Worcester in the title brings up quite a lot of different ideas and thoughts that affect the future of Worcester and I was wondering if anyone anywhere was thinking about joining up the dots?  I think Worcester suffers somewhat from being at the wrong end of four different routes, changes that affect Worcester are almost always driven by the needs of London or Birmingham.

Some things that have been mentioned on this forum (in no particular order):
Worcester parkway station. (supported by council, less so by NR^» (Network Rail - home page))
Closure of Shrub Hill station (usually associated with Parkway scheme).
Much overdue signaling upgrade / track layout improvements.
Improvements to facilities at Foregate Street.
Cross city metro/tram sharing railway with current services. (proposed by council I think)
New station serving the west of the city.

Most of the routes into Worcester are being improved either now or in the near future potentially fueling demand when Worcester seems to be running at capacility as it is. Is there a plan? Or will Worcester just make do and mend?

[Don]

Worcester is a problem. There are plans, but no champion or money, so as a result nothing really will happen for it seems many years.  The only thing currently happening is that London Midland are looking at ways of providing a better service / more income from the Worcester area, but realistically it is tinkering at the edges.

Worcester parkway station. (supported by council, less so by NR^» (Network Rail - home page))
Yes supported by the council, but would have to be sponsored by Cross Country trains, as it is their trains stopping there that would make it worthwhile.  Neither Cross Country or it's Virgin predecessor wants to stop trains there as this will make their services slower and would mess up their clock-face timetable and Network Rail pathing slots.

Closure of Shrub Hill station (usually associated with Parkway scheme).
Yes tied in with the Parkway scheme so moribund and again no money or direction of what to do.  Shrub Hill is I believe getting a new car park to try to increase communting travel to Birmingham - one of London Midland's ideas.

Much overdue signaling upgrade / track layout improvements.
Current plan is for Birmingham Satley's new computerised signalling control centre to replace all the signal boxes in Worcester. Six years away, and with it a new track layout for Worcester allowing better pathing for trains.

Imrovements to facilities at Foregate Street.
Cross city metro/tram sharing railway with current services. (proposed by council I think)
New station serving the west of the city.
All pie in the sky - given the lack of money.

Useless.

[willc]

But the key to doing anything at Worcester is resignalling and the opportunity it will bring for extra capacity all round.

Even Parkway will hinge on this, because of the issue of stopping Cotswold Line trains - which would be pretty fundamental in making the station pay its way from London traffic - on what will remain a single-line section for the time being.

Maybe with several years to prepare, all parties involved can come up with a masterplan to tackle all the issues at one go - and work out where the money will come from.

[Btline]

The priority is to get the track layout/signalling (TASK 1) updated to allow full bi-directional working to/from all platforms in the whole area. (on which a standard pattern of operations can be kept to, but with extra flexibility and capacity for disruption)

This should expand capacity at Foregate Street (renamed Worcester Central - TASK 2) to allow more trains to be extended there. The LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) Gloucester and remaining FGW^▸ (First Great Western)/LM trains should be extended.

To lift constraints at the WOF platforms, a better turnaround area should be constructed (TASK 4) to the West (Henwick area) so that terminating trains can run around and then return later on the other platform. This might require extra train diagrams to compensate for longer turnarounds - LM's new 172 order should reflect this. It currently doesn't.

Worcester Foregate Street:
*extend platforms to HST^▸ (High Speed Train) length;
*extend canopies to where they used to end;
*put a lot more benches on the platform;
*give the subway/concourse area a clean! ( )
*install ticket barriers (and at Shrub Hill to provide a "ring of steel" around Worcester).

[Not from Brighton]

If Foregate street were to be enhanced, could it handle all the traffic currently dealt with by Shrub Hill?

[Don]

Since almost all the Cross Country traffic no longer stops at Shrub Hill, pretty well everything that passes through Foregate St. also passes through Shrub Hill.  However there are two problems:

• Ideally Worcester needs to be on the Cross Country route;
• Only Shrub Hill has car parking facilities.

With regard to the latter, London Midland run trains from Shrub Hill to Birmingham as well as the Hereford/Malvern/Foregate St. to Birmingham service.

[Btline]

Some LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) services from Birmingham don't fit into Foregate Street (roughly 1 train an hour/ every two hours)

The two hourly LM service to Gloucester doesn't fit either.

All others do, and most FGWs^▸ (First Great Western) do.

So it would be 2 extra trains at most per hour (fewer normally).

[Don]

Some LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) services from Birmingham don't fit into Foregate Street (roughly 1 train an hour/ every two hours)

Who/where/what would loose out if this service stopped if Shrub Hill closed?

The two hourly LM service to Gloucester doesn't fit either.

Most, if not all of this service starts/finishes at Malvern and therefore goes through Foregate Street already.

[Btline]

Wrong, only the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) Gloucester services go to Malvern. (although this may be stopping soon, as FGW look at diagram robustness)

All LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) Gloucester services terminate at Shrub Hill.

As for the places the would loose out, Worcester for a start - only having one train in some hours to Kidderminster, Stourbridge, Birmingham Snow Hill. (all of which would also loose out on Worcester trains)

A few extra peak New Street services, which have been squeezed in over the years, terminate/start at Shrub Hill. Removing these would cause even more overcrowding on existing services.

So the answer is to extend all of these to Foregate first, before a closure.

[Mookiemoo]

Who/where/what would loose out if this service stopped if Shrub Hill closed?

Before Shrub hill closes - find me a station where I can park at reliably five days a week and dont have to walk from a town centre car park.

Not going to happen at foregate street.

I cant see them closing foregate - its the city centre - so its a park way or shrub hill.

If the hoards that met the 1551 off Pad tonight had to all pick up on foregate street - the city would grind to  a halt.

[Btline]

Yes, and the Parkway would be inconvenient for many!

I expect LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) will develop P&R^▸ (Park and Ride) at Shrub Hill.

[Mookiemoo]

Yes, and the Parkway would be inconvenient for many!

I expect LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) will develop P&R^▸ (Park and Ride) at Shrub Hill.

Although I did find someone asking at shrub hill "when is the next train to foregate street"  - I nearly interrupted and said - walk you idle goit - they were not visibly infirm!

The only way they can improve shrub hill is to get rid of the obnoxious office block and turn it into a multi storey

Although I have to say - UI've only been back on the trains a week but the amount pf parking at shrub is significantly less than last november

Back then - you could park for the 630ish train but you were not left with many choices - the 730ish - forget it - park in short stay and pray

Now - the 630 - car park is empty save a few and I suspectg the 730 would still get to park

[Btline]

Yes, and the Parkway would be inconvenient for many!

I expect LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) will develop P&R^▸ (Park and Ride) at Shrub Hill.

Although I did find someone asking at shrub hill "when is the next train to foregate street"  - I nearly interrupted and said - walk you idle goit - they were not visibly infirm!

The only way they can improve shrub hill is to get rid of the obnoxious office block and turn it into a multi storey

Although I have to say - UI've only been back on the trains a week but the amount pf parking at shrub is significantly less than last november

Back then - you could park for the 630ish train but you were not left with many choices - the 730ish - forget it - park in short stay and pray

Now - the 630 - car park is empty save a few and I suspectg the 730 would still get to park

So don't you mean there is more parking?

[Mookiemoo]

Yes, and the Parkway would be inconvenient for many!

I expect LM^▸ (London Midland - recent franchise) will develop P&R^▸ (Park and Ride) at Shrub Hill.

Although I did find someone asking at shrub hill "when is the next train to foregate street"  - I nearly interrupted and said - walk you idle goit - they were not visibly infirm!

The only way they can improve shrub hill is to get rid of the obnoxious office block and turn it into a multi storey

Although I have to say - UI've only been back on the trains a week but the amount pf parking at shrub is significantly less than last november

Back then - you could park for the 630ish train but you were not left with many choices - the 730ish - forget it - park in short stay and pray

Now - the 630 - car park is empty save a few and I suspectg the 730 would still get to park

So don't you mean there is more parking?

No- I meant but phrased badly that there is significantly less parking going on!