Virgin Trains to Shrewsbury

[NickJ]

Unfortunately a connection via Crewe is useless for the 170,000 population (and growing) of the Telford area with many multi-national businesses - with the poor commuter services (overcrowded and very irregular timetable) that's why a direct service is essential for Shropshire - the rail industry needs to get its act together to provide a few direct return services a day, at times passengers want to travel.

 

[Gareth Marston]

Lived in Wolverhampton, then just over the boundary in Shropshire until 1998, continue to visit the area several times a year. Even use the trains on occasion, Craven Arms to Wrexham and back one day last November being a recent example.

So demand has increased? You don't say. It has in most places, but has the demand for travel between Shrewsbury, Telford and London soared enough to justify reinstating trains going past Birmingham and electrification of Wolverhampton-Shrewsbury, with the issues that raises for how the other services on the line are operated?

If so, you would think that Virgin Trains would have spotted it and done something about it. But as I said above, they have shown zero interest in the idea except in franchise bids or when W&S appeared.

It's easy to blame Network Rail for the current state of affairs but is Virgin really that bothered? Any pressure to do something seems to be coming from DfT, which is of course desperate to be seen to be doing something after the West Coast franchise fiasco.

Virgin has been running West Coast since 1997. It gave Shropshire trains one year and binned Blackpool trains in 2003, which says all you need to know about its view of both routes. Does anyone really imagine it would have bothered again with either destination if it had not had to go through the franchise contest?

Sorry Jimm your earlier posts didn't make it clear you travel this way nowadays, however nothing in the current railway is a commercial decision due to the high degree of specification from DFT on every aspect.
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That's as may be. But through traffic between North Wales and South Wales is not relevant to this thread.

This threads about restoring or the problems of restoring a direct service between the capital city of England and the only county in England without a direct service to it, the relevance of the Cardiff to Holyhead service is that this is also a service between the capital city and remote rural areas which is set to go hourly in frequency. Compare and contrast as the old exam question says. c15% of the traffic on the Aberystwyth trains is London bound c135K per annum twice the numbers that do north to South Wales trip, yet mid Wales to London Traveler's have to go into West Midlands to change trains.

 

[jimm]

Sorry Jimm your earlier posts didn't make it clear you travel this way nowadays, however nothing in the current railway is a commercial decision due to the high degree of specification from DFT on every aspect.

So DfT specified the increased services on branches in the West Country in recent years, did it? Had rather more to do with sustained pressure from FGW and local authorities, who could see the potential. There are an awful lot of trains running on FGW that are above and beyond what the franchise specifies it should operate, in large part as a result of FGW going and hammering on DfT's door and making it see sense. I'm sure others will know of examples in their neck of the woods.

If Virgin was really convinced that there was a pot of gold to be found in Shrewsbury and Telford (or Blackpool), they would have gone after it and persuaded DfT that it was worthwhile to run there long ago - it's more readies to be paid to DfT at the end of the day. That Virgin hasn't bothered - apart from at franchise time, or when W&S was running - says it all for me.

 

[anthony263]

I do agree Shrewsbury could more than justify a direct service to London via Telford but I do think if services were extended to places such as Aberytsywth passenger numbers could be further increased.

By the way how are passenger numbers on Wrexhams token service to/from London?

 

[transmanche]

This threads about restoring or the problems of restoring a direct service between the capital city of England and the only county in England without a direct service to it, the relevance of the Cardiff to Holyhead service is that this is also a service between the capital city and remote rural areas which is set to go hourly in frequency. Compare and contrast as the old exam question says. c15% of the traffic on the Aberystwyth trains is London bound c135K per annum twice the numbers that do north to South Wales trip, yet mid Wales to London Traveler's have to go into West Midlands to change trains.

That's an extremely desperate attempt at justification. And the 'point' you're trying to make has already been answered upthread, explaining it's irrelevance to Shrewsbury-London direct services.

 

[merlodlliw]

I do agree Shrewsbury could more than justify a direct service to London via Telford but I do think if services were extended to places such as Aberytsywth passenger numbers could be further increased.

By the way how are passenger numbers on Wrexhams token service to/from London?

As this service replaced an ATW Mon/Fri Shrewsbury to Chester local service,all I can tell you is.
1.Passengers get into Chester later Mon/Fri,some from Gobowen/Chirk/Ruabon having to hang around platform two for the VT to arrive.
2.I would estimate having used the service last week around 60 board at Wrexham,I noticed around a dozen remain on board after arrival at Chester, some of course could get off at Crewe
3.On the return leg,it is 90% boarding at Chester for Wrexham,then change
for stations to Shrewsbury.

I am sure if it had not been for W/S, VT would not have bothered.
We managed to get ATW to run Chester to Shrewsbury on bank holidays as VT dont do bank holidays. This prevents a two hour wait.
I also presume VT get some money running the service.The majority of business people from Wrexham area find the arrival in Euston too late(0940) & drive to Chester for an earlier train.

 

[Gareth Marston]

Is part of the problem the fact that proposals overlay a new service on top of the existing service rather than replacing it. Thus higher costs without similar increases in revenue?

Wales and Shropshire services were additional. The proposed Virgin services would be additional. I can't recall the overall service level when BR ran every two hours to Shrewsbury.

For example, a London to Shrewsbury service could use existing Virgin paths as far as Wolverhampton and then replace (at different times) limited stop Arriva Trains paths to Shrewsbury. Or other combinations. I note the issue of Pendolinos / Voyagers and platform lengths, but such issues are not insurmountable

As discussed by many of the same people on a West Wales thread, however you arrange a service pattern / link services together, you will please some passengers and displease others. The ony solution is a single service which runs over every line, eventually serving every station in the land! A sort of Mega Buffer Puffer.

Is a direct service, every hour, really required from Mid Wales through to Wolverhampton, or Birmingham, or International or beyond? It may be desirable but is it necessary, outside of peak hours say? What proportion of passengers alight at Shrewsbury anyway, to go into town or catch other onward train services?

Would an Aberystwyth to Crewe service, with all the connections available there, be just as good an alternative?

As London Midland Region the Euston trains were arranged with the Cambrian services feeding into it, several of them ran onto Crewe and a working to Chester which was the home base for the units. After sectorisation this changed and when Sprinters were introduced based at Tysley the Cambrian trains then ran through to Birmingham effectively taking passengers off the InterCity trains. The final iteration was the InterCity services and the Cambrian running on different hours to each other into Birmingham with an all stops service to Wolverhampton every hour as well.

Crewe is attractive as the market to the North West is relatively strong but suppressed due to poor connections.

 

[merlodlliw]

W&S was an open access operator, Chiltern is a franchised operator. The rules, not unreasonably, say you can't mix the two up - HT and FGW can't share their 180s for that reason. Any DfT penalty was neither here nor there. If DB and Renaissance thought the operation had a viable long-term future as it stood, they would have stuck with it.

As I have already said, the paths W&S got were the ones that were available through the very busy tracks in the West Midlands, nowt to do with revenue abstraction - and W&S was launched by its backers in the full knowledge of the moderation of competition clause in Virgin's franchise.

I agree W/S did launch with belated knowledge of Modcompi,having attended many meetings, it was VT who brought this up late on,ORR never mentioned or were aware of it until the application was put in,W/S decided to go ahead being kept out of pick ups at Wolverhampton.

As for mixing stock open access & franchise, this was a major mistake ATW made in their Aber/Marylebone 158 idea in my opinion

 

[rdeez]

Am I missing something here?

The service rejected by Virgin would have taken 2h29m.
Checking NRE I see that current journey times Shrewsbury-London are between 2h28m and 3h08m with the average being around 2h40m at peak.

Yes there's a change of train involved but with the difference in times being so insignificant and there being 10 possible departures from Shrewsbury to London between 5am and 8am...what's the big deal about having a direct link

 

[Squaddie]

I believe that direct links are hugely valued in the UK because of the problems associated with changing trains - long waits at unwelcoming stations, missed connections, the concerns about not getting a seat (or seats together) when changing onto a connecting service. Much has been written on this forum, for example, about the very poor connections at Shrewsbury.

In countries where the railways have better reliability and capacity, changing trains is not seen as an issue: a journey in Switzerland, for example, involving four or five changes of train en route is not perceived as an inconvenience because the connections will almost always be cross-platform transfers of a few minutes and there will always be sufficient seats free on every train.

Rather than giving in to demands for direct services between every conceivable pair of cities, the industry should be striving to make connections less stressful for the passenger. It will take a while for the entrenched perception to catch up with the reality, but eventually people will come to accept changes of train without trepidation.

 

[rdeez]

I believe that direct links are hugely valued in the UK because of the problems associated with changing trains - long waits at unwelcoming stations, missed connections, the concerns about not getting a seat (or seats together) when changing onto a connecting service. Much has been written on this forum, for example, about the very poor connections at Shrewsbury.

In countries where the railways have better reliability and capacity, changing trains is not seen as an issue: a journey in Switzerland, for example, involving four or five changes of train en route is not perceived as an inconvenience because the connections will almost always be cross-platform transfers of a few minutes and there will always be sufficient seats free on every train.

Rather than giving in to demands for direct services between every conceivable pair of cities, the industry should be striving to make connections less stressful for the passenger. It will take a while for the entrenched perception to catch up with the reality, but eventually people will come to accept changes of train without trepidation.

That makes sense, and I can understand the appeal of a direct link over changing trains, though I'd assume that the business passenger who presumably is able to plan in advance would think ahead and make a seat reservation if seating was a concern, and Wolverhampton isn't a large station to navigate around for connections, though as you say there is a lot that could be done to make the experience smoother.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

c15% of the traffic on the Aberystwyth trains is London bound c135K per annum twice the numbers that do north to South Wales trip, yet mid Wales to London Traveler's have to go into West Midlands to change trains.

So that's 370 passengers per day mmm.....

 

[Squaddie]

So that's 370 passengers per day mmm.....

370 London-bound passengers per day suggests that every train between Aberystwyth and Shrewsbury carries about 50 passengers heading for London. Is that really feasible?

 

[Llanigraham]

So that's 370 passengers per day mmm.....

And?
Are you suggesting that Gareth is incorrect?
I would suggest that Gareth knows a lot more about passenger figures and the such-like on the Cambrian than nearly everyone else here.

370 London-bound passengers per day suggests that every train between Aberystwyth and Shrewsbury carries about 50 passengers heading for London. Is that really feasible?

Yes, quite possibly.
Remember that this is an average figure, so think of the number of students at Aber, for example.

 

[Squaddie]

Remember that this is an average figure, so think of the number of students at Aber, for example.

If that's the case, then the daily average number of passengers travelling to London is not a useful measure of demand for a direct rail service because the average will be inflated by occasional large passenger flows and on most days the number will be significantly lower.

I'd be interested to see some actual figures for the number of tickets sold each day from Cambrian stations to destinations in and beyond London, if such figures exist.

 

[Gareth Marston]

370 London-bound passengers per day suggests that every train between Aberystwyth and Shrewsbury carries about 50 passengers heading for London. Is that really feasible?

16 trains a day Monday to Saturday, 12 on Sundays average in low 20's but we do have some well established ebbs and flows on passenger numbers on the Cambrian, throughout year and season and within week. No prizes for guessing that mid week at end of Januray is about as quite as it gets.
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So that's 370 passengers per day mmm.....

So as to put some scope on the potential Shropshire to London market, the London market from Mid Wales and North Wales we know to average 12.5% of the market according to the Wales Rail Planning Assessment. Footfall for Shropshire stations was 4,650,000 in 2011/2012. So maybe 500,000.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Observing the basics -yesterdays 1624 to Aber from New Street was a 2 car 158 - it had a load factor of around 230% - many with bags and cases. The poor conductor did not have room to work in. Not good. Most of those would have stood to at least Salop.

 

[philjo]

Am I correct in thinking that similar arguments were made saying that the single daily service from Hull to London was all that could be justified yet Hull Trains has proved that regular direct services increases the passenger numbers?
I do think that it may have to wait for Woverhampton to Shrewsbury to be wired though which would allow half hourly London Midland stopper services and one of the New Street pendolinos to extend to Shrewsbury (possibly on alternate hours) - hopefully connecting into the additonal Cambrian service which could start at Shrewsbury or run to Manchester (the existing 2 hourly one would still run to Birmingham)

 

[tbtc]

This threads about restoring or the problems of restoring a direct service between the capital city of England and the only county in England without a direct service to it, the relevance of the Cardiff to Holyhead service is that this is also a service between the capital city and remote rural areas which is set to go hourly in frequency. Compare and contrast as the old exam question says. c15% of the traffic on the Aberystwyth trains is London bound c135K per annum twice the numbers that do north to South Wales trip, yet mid Wales to London Traveler's have to go into West Midlands to change trains.

I have to admit that I was surprised to see on Wiki that Aberystwyth has considerably more passengers (326,000 in 2011/2012) than Holyhead (242,000 in 2011/2012).

Considering that Holyhead has a much more frequent service, better long distance links (inc London) and the ferry trade (which people keep using to justify EU investment), I think Aberystwyth has a fairly raw deal.

 

[Eagle]

Think part of the difference may be the road networks; Holyhead is pretty well connected by the A55 North Wales Expressway, whereas Aberystwyth is only really accessible from the slow and tortuous A44.

 

[tbtc]

If that's the case, then the daily average number of passengers travelling to London is not a useful measure of demand for a direct rail service because the average will be inflated by occasional large passenger flows and on most days the number will be significantly lower

Though, to be fair, the same could be said of many other London flows - do we discount services to Devon/ Cornwall because they are inflated by the tourist trade?

 

[Gareth Marston]

Observing the basics -yesterdays 1624 to Aber from New Street was a 2 car 158 - it had a load factor of around 230% - many with bags and cases. The poor conductor did not have room to work in. Not good. Most of those would have stood to at least Salop.

Given that the average number of passengers that use each train west of Shrewsbury on the Aberystwyth line is 125 (footfall divided by trains per year)that a 2 car unit couldn't cope at peak times is no surprise...
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I have to admit that I was surprised to see on Wiki that Aberystwyth has considerably more passengers (326,000 in 2011/2012) than Holyhead (242,000 in 2011/2012).

Considering that Holyhead has a much more frequent service, better long distance links (inc London) and the ferry trade (which people keep using to justify EU investment), I think Aberystwyth has a fairly raw deal.

Aberystwyth is a serious contender for title of the busiest station in the UK with a service frequency of less than 1 tph.

 

[transmanche]

Given that the average number of passengers that use each train west of Shrewsbury on the Aberystwyth line is 125 (footfall divided by trains per year)that a 2 car unit couldn't cope at peak times is no surprise...

What proportion of services are formed by 4-coach trains?

 

[Gareth Marston]

Think part of the difference may be the road networks; Holyhead is pretty well connected by the A55 North Wales Expressway, whereas Aberystwyth is only really accessible from the slow and tortuous A44.

Only if you want to come up past the Kington branch from Leominster there's loads more slow and torturous rural roads to get to Aberystwyth by, you could treat yourself to coming off A55 Expressway at Llandudno Junction and down the A470 down the Conwy Valley, over Crimea pass into Balenau Ffestiniog and past Trawsfynydd and turn off down the back of Cader Idris after coming past Dolgellau and through Corris to Machynlleth and pick up the good old A487 coast road.

 

[merlodlliw]

Think part of the difference may be the road networks; Holyhead is pretty well connected by the A55 North Wales Expressway, whereas Aberystwyth is only really accessible from the slow and tortuous A44.

No trains run from Holyhead Mon/Sat after 2040, yet a substantial number foot passengers arrive in Holyhead by ferry after this time and travel by bus,
Even CIE run a service Holyhead to Leeds via Manchester and arrive before the fist train leaves Holyhead.

 

[Gareth Marston]

What proportion of services are formed by 4-coach trains?

One train a day runs from Aberystwyth as a 4 car the 0930 departure all other services into Aberystwyth are 2 car.
6 trains a day between Shrewsbury and Machynlleth are booked as 4 car part form Mondays when the 1st UP is a 2 car.

Of course to get an average you divide the total footfall by the total number of trains. As no trains have been stabled overnight in Aberystwyth since 1982 the 2 early morning departures are formed by stock that comes down from Machynlleth (0435 & 0645) as scheduled trains as are the last 2 trains at night back to Machynlleth (2130 and 2335) these carry small numbers of passengers and lower the average.

The 0514 ex Aber can be busy on Monday when its 2 car I've seen people standing leaving Welshpool on this and Saturdays, the 0730 and 0930 tend to be the busier trains all week round with the 1530 and 1730 loading heavy toward the weekend. Quite often people will move forward at Machynlleth into the quieter portion that's come off the Coast. The demand for through trains off the coast in the winter months is very small. One of the biggest gripes is that the 4 car trains do not go through to Aberystwyth.

the 0930 off Shrewsbury is pretty busy on Saturdays, Mondays and in the summer and the 1530 ,1730 and 1930 departures tend to be the well loaded ones all year round. Of the 8 departures from Shrewsbury i'd say 70% of the passengers load into those 4 then again I used the 2142 from Shrewsbury this Saturday and its was 2 car and 85-90% full.

The Montgomeryshire stations have had growth (108%) in excess of national average in the last 15 years. Welshpool has clocked 130%.

 

[transmanche]

6 trains a day between Shrewsbury and Machynlleth are booked as 4 car part form Mondays when the 1st UP is a 2 car.

So three-quarters of the services are 4-car?

 

[Gareth Marston]

So three-quarters of the services are 4-car?

Through Newtown yes but Not if you travel between Aberystwyth and Machynlleth where it's only 5% of trains or on the coast where only one northbound and one southbound train a day in the height of summer get strengthened. A relatively lightly loaded 4 car train on a wet Wednesday afternoon in January can be overcrowded at other times of the week/ year. School holidays, Easter and summer see greater usage as does weekends it's all cyclical and well established however unlike yesteryear more or less the same number of seats per day are provided 365 days a year.

As a previous poster said when you get a2 instead of a 4 it's very noticeable.

 

[transmanche]

Through Newtown yes but Not if you travel between Aberystwyth and Machynlleth where it's only 5% of trains or on the coast where only one northbound and one southbound train a day in the height of summer get strengthened.

Quite. But until the long-awaited hourly service is instigated, there's little option for anything other than the existing "4-cars on most services between Shrewsbury and Machynlleth". (Unless you reduce the coast service to a shuttle from Machynlleth - and even that would need extra stock.)

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

If Virgin was really convinced that there was a pot of gold to be found in Shrewsbury and Telford (or Blackpool), they would have gone after it and persuaded DfT that it was worthwhile to run there long ago - it's more readies to be paid to DfT at the end of the day. That Virgin hasn't bothered - apart from at franchise time, or when W&S was running - says it all for me.

Not quite true.
Once the Pendos/Voyagers were introduced there was not enough stock for excursions to Blackpool/Shrewsbury.
Even Holyhead had to have a hybrid service with 57 haulage for a while.
The difference today is the 4 new Pendolinos, which have given VT some new (limited) options.
The planned services are also entirely at VT risk.
Despite various ministerial statements, these routes are not part of the franchise spec.