New South Western franchise: Awarded to First/MTR

[gwr4090]

If SWT end up like GWR it would be a massive step backwards, in more ways than one.

I beg to differ. Recent experience of SWT on the Weymouth line has been appauling. My last two journeys from London got me home over 90mins late with two unplanned changes of train (instead a through service) and a severe lack of information. On one occasion we were Told to change at Southampton and after waiting neraly 30mins told to move back to the set we had just left. Then this was terminated short for another long wait. Weymouth has amongst the worst record of any station for train

 

[adamello]

I beg to differ. Recent experience of SWT on the Weymouth line has been appauling. My last two journeys from London got me home over 90 mins late with two changes of train (instead a through service) and a severe lack of information. Weymouth has amongst the worst record of any station for train delays and cancellations.

I saw a news article recently stating that Weymouth was the worst performing on the network, to which my thought immediately would be..

"that makes sense to me, its the terminus station at the end of the mainline, nothing proceeds further so 100% of arrivals terminate, which means any delays picked up on route will likely to snowball until this point. Plus any cancellations part way down on a Weymouth service will always affect this station, but one that is cancelled at Poole, won't affect Bournemouth for example."

 

[swt_passenger]

...its the terminus station at the end of the mainline, nothing proceeds further so 100% of arrivals terminate, which means any delays picked up on route will likely to snowball until this point.

The single track section must have quite a negative impact too?

 

[gwr4090]

The single track section must have quite a negative impact too?

The single track section has relatively little impact (surprisingly). The problem is that SWT has a habit of terminating Weymouth trains at Southampton or Bournemouth and not making adequate provision for passengers travelling to Weymouth.

 

[bb21]

As for staff morale, you're assuming that there was actually any at SWT..

There are some issues, yes, as with all TOCs, where front line staff are concerned.

Generally things are decent, especially at management level.

 

[nw1]

There's a lot to find out in future though. If for instance the west of Southampton leg ran as per the current train then it might still have to include that wait at Brockenhurst, in which case it may not get much use as a through train at all...

Working out how to lose that layover at Brockenhurst (that is a relic of the old Wareham shuttle timings) would probably need a thread in itself...

The service pattern on that is a bit odd; the "stoppers" are timetabled fairly close to the "slower" fast (the xx05 ex Waterloo and vice-versa) meaning Christchurch and Pokesdown in particular have two trains an hour very close to (less than 20 minutes) each other, in both directions. New Milton, Branksome and Parkstone also suffer from the same thing to a lesser extent. By splitting the 'slow' at Brockenhurst, for instance (platform 1 could hold two 4- or 5-car trains) I'd imagine it would be possible to have a more even interval for these stations, e.g the Wareham slow immediately follows the xx35 ex-Waterloo out of Brockenhurst and vice-versa in the up direction. It's exacerbated by the Wareham slow not leaving Brockenhurst until 11 minutes after the Weymouth fast has left.

Persumably this whole Portsmouth Weymouth thing is for publicity only. It might operationally make sense to run a stopper, and that is fine, but they're pushing it for publicity. I'd imagine some additional fast Portsmouth Weymouth would be difficult to path without constraining the existing services.

 

[bb21]

I beg to differ. Recent experience of SWT on the Weymouth line has been appauling. My last two journeys from London got me home over 90 mins late with two changes of train (instead a through service) and a severe lack of information.

Weymouth mainline were severely impacted by infrastructure issues recently. That is a Network Rail issue which a change of operator is highly unlikely to fix.

Performance nationally has been poor last year. There were some improvements this year but the general trend is still down for many operators.

As for the lack of information, probably work still to be done in this area re: communication, but without knowing the specifics it is difficult to say what the root causes were.

Weymouth has amongst the worst record of any station for train delays and cancellations.

I don't know what you are basing this claim on.

Weymouth probably get a rough deal, I can understand that, given its location, but I would rather there are some figures to back this claim up.

 

[nw1]

There's a lot to find out in future though. If for instance the west of Southampton leg ran as per the current train then it might still have to include that wait at Brockenhurst, in which case it may not get much use as a through train at all...

Working out how to lose that layover at Brockenhurst (that is a relic of the old Wareham shuttle timings) would probably need a thread in itself...

The service pattern on that is a bit odd; the "stoppers" are timetabled fairly close to the "slower" fast meaning Christchurch and Pokesdown in particular have two trains an hour very close to (less than 20 minutes) each other, in both directions. New Milton, Branksome and Parkstone also suffer from the same thing to a lesser extent. By splitting the 'slow' at Brockenhurst, for instance (platform 1 could hold two 4- or 5-car trains) I'd imagine it would be possible to have a more even interval for these stations, e.g the Poole slow immediately follows the xx35 ex-Waterloo out of Brockenhurst.

Presumably this whole focus on Portsmouth Weymouth thing is for publicity only. It might operationally make sense to run it as a stopper by joining up several stopping services, and that is fine, but they're pushing it for publicity. I'd imagine some additional fast Portsmouth Weymouth would be difficult to path without constraining the existing services.

Probably better would be to run it as a Portsmouth-Poole to preserve the existing Weymouth Waterloo service.

 

[adamello]

Weymouth mainline were severely impacted by infrastructure issues recently. That is a Network Rail issue which a change of operator is highly unlikely to fix.

Performance nationally has been poor last year. There were some improvements this year but the general trend is still down for many operators.

As for the lack of information, probably work still to be done in this area re: communication, but without knowing the specifics it is difficult to say what the root causes were.



I don't know what you are basing this claim on.

Weymouth probably get a rough deal, I can understand that, given its location, but I would rather there are some figures to back this claim up.

This was the article I read..


http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/15458983.OFF_THE_RAILS__Station_is__worst_in_country__for_train_delays/

WEYMOUTH railway station has the worst delays in the country, it has been found.

Data from Network Rail has revealed that Weymouth railway station has the highest percentage of delays and cancellations.

The data showed that 22.5 per cent of trains were delayed by at least 10 minutes or cancelled, which is a higher percentage than stations in London.

Dorchester West and Upwey railway stations also faced a high percentage of delays with 17.7 per cent and 16.3 per cent of trains delayed by at least 10 minutes or cancelled respectively.

The data also revealed the worst days to travel by train nationwide. Almost 50 per cent of evening trains on Tuesdays were late by at least one minute and 15.2 per cent were five minutes late or cancelled.

The railway stations with the highest percentage of delays were Weymouth, Westerfield, Georgemas Junction, Bruton and Dorchester West.

The stations with the least amount of delays were Paisley Canal, Carnoustie, Duffield, Turkey Street, Wemyss Bay, Belper, Theobalds Grove, Poppleton, Sheringham, Saltburn, Cardiff Bay and Stourbridge Town.

The figures come after severe disruption to the service between Weymouth and Wool and also on the Bristol line on Sunday because of overrunning engineering works in the Dorchester area.

...article continues...

 

[nw1]

The 2 Portsmouth stoppers are planned to both be semi fasts running a stop/skip pattern with no overtakes anymore.

The difficulty is how do they do that while preserving the two trains an hour Farncombe and Godalming (as has been mentioned) as the current Farncombe-Godalming-Haslemere-all stations needs to be looped at Haslemere to allow the fast to pass.
Even transferring Worplesdon to the other service would not, I suspect, solve the problem.

I can imagine they could do it with a complete re-cast of the times out of Waterloo (e.g. have the two slower trains at xx10 and xx40 rather than xx15 and xx45) but I doubt they'd be doing that.

 

[bb21]

This was the article I read..


http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/15458983.OFF_THE_RAILS__Station_is__worst_in_country__for_train_delays/

I see. Funny how they picked the 10-minute benchmark. Infrastructure has definitely suffered on the line especially of late.

Standard recovery during disruption is to restart services at Bournemouth on time with a replacement, and shuttles at Weymouth end if stock and crew allows, although I think staffing at Bournemouth has been tight of late.

Interesting to note that FirstGroup's statement made no mention of improved punctuality.

Given that Dorchester West were also at the top of this list, GWR are hardly contributing towards the figures at Weymouth in a positive way.

 

[swt_passenger]

I see. Funny how they picked the 10-minute benchmark. Infrastructure has definitely suffered especially of late.

Interesting to note that FirstGroup's statement made no mention of improved punctuality.

They'll hopefully halve the number of late Waterloo - Weymouth trains at a stroke, as they won't be running at all...

 

[theironroad]

If a down Weymouth semi fast train is running about 20 late, it often be turned back at Dorchester south to ensure it has a right time start back up to London. Wool and Wareham are sometimes used if it's running much later.

It's not ideal but upwey and Weymouth passengers will only have a 15 minute wait at Dorchester for the next Weymouth which will usually then stop additionally at upwey.

 

[dctraindriver]

Agreed.

In addition, uncertainty results in much reduced staff morale, especially amongst middle management who are essentially the life blood of the business.

I was genuinely surprised First did not retain any of the executive team.

Give it 12 months and we will see where the business gets to.

I'm sorry I can't agree about middle management being the lifeblood of the business, that's the staff on the coalface. Of course they have a responsible role but look more towards the staff who deal constantly with joe public. That's who are the lifeblood, that's who the public speak too.......

 

[bb21]

I'm sorry I can't agree about middle management being the lifeblood of the business, that's the staff on the coalface. Of course they have a responsible role but look more towards the staff who deal constantly with joe public. That's who are the lifeblood, that's who the public speak too.......

I won't get into what I see as lifeblood as different people have different views. Let's just say neither are disposable. No company can function without either.

 

[dctraindriver]

I won't get into what I see as lifeblood as different people have different views. Let's just say neither are disposable. No company can function without either.

Well we can agree on that point.

 

[nw1]

Hoping they won't go Parly on Beaulieu Road - it's quite a useful station for me getting groups of Scouts to/from Ferny Crofts!

Amen to that, it's an extremely useful station for walking in the New Forest as you can 'get out and go' straight away. Pub there too. Current service is fine on Sundays and OK on Saturdays, though I would provide a later up service on Mon-Fri as during summer weekday evenings, say April to September, as there's a potential demand from people doing an evening walk in the Forest, particularly after work (I find the 1730 SOU to Beaulieu Road very useful in that respect). An extra stop appears to be possible on the slows with no penalty (they just wait longer at SOU if they don't stop). At the moment the last train back is 1838, way too early for the summer months (or the 2044 to Brockenhurst with backtracking, a more expensive fare, and a 55-minute wait at Brockenhurst.. though there are a few pubs!); they could potentially stop the 2033 Brockenhurst at Beaulieu Road with no penalty.

 

[nw1]

This has been suggested and discussed earlier in the thread and seems reasonable because of the present timings of the stopper's arrival at Southampton, only being a few minutes after the present Poole stopper's departure.

However in pompeyfan's earlier summary, his quote described it as a semi fast. Can a train that is all stations Portsmouth to Southampton, and also Poole to Weymouth, reasonably be described as semifast? Or can 'semifast' just refer to the bit west of Southampton?

But I also think a key point is that everyone's guesses are starting with the default position that other existing through services have to remain in the exact same timings.

Lastly, regarding running regular Brighton services via Eastleigh, don't forget this had been tried before and SN were knocked back in favour of the extra XC service, it went to a dispute resolution panel decision...

It would need to pick up Totton, Ashurst and (some hours) Beaulieu Road as well, would it be semi-fast west of Bournemouth with the London-Weymouth picking up the extra stops? But as I've mentioned already I can't help thinking it would be better to make it a Poole service than a Weymouth - or even a Brockenhurst service with a Brockenhurst-Poole shuttle to ensure even-interval service for Christchurch, etc.

Re Southampton to Portsmouth what they really need to do is run the extra semi-fast so that it combines with the GWR to produce an evenly-spaced SOU to Portsmouth service. i.e. ensure that it leaves Southampton 20-40 mins after the GWR and arrives Portsmouth 20-40 mins before the next GWR. There does seem to be a potential path between the two Southerns at the Southampton end (around xx20) but not so sure if this conflicts at the Portsmouth end. It could call at Woolston and Netley too to give those stations 2 an hour, but to compensate, perhaps miss out Portchester which already has two Portsmouth services an hour.

 

[DelW]

The difficulty is how do they do that while preserving the two trains an hour Farncombe and Godalming (as has been mentioned) as the current Farncombe-Godalming-Haslemere-all stations needs to be looped at Haslemere to allow the fast to pass.
Even transferring Worplesdon to the other service would not, I suspect, solve the problem.

I can imagine they could do it with a complete re-cast of the times out of Waterloo (e.g. have the two slower trains at xx10 and xx40 rather than xx15 and xx45) but I doubt they'd be doing that.

I'll be interested to see how their new timetable will work as well.

IIRC, in late BR / shadow franchise days, there were 3 through trains per hour off-peak on the Direct, leaving Waterloo at xx.00, xx:20 & xx:40, one of which ran fast Guildford - Havant, one stopped additionally at Haslemere and Petersfield (as the present faster trains do), and one stopped at all stations except Milford and Witley, which were served only by a Guildford - Haslemere shuttle that also provided the second tph at Godalming and Farncombe. I need to dig out some old timetables to be sure, but if that's correct, Haslemere only gained its 4tph service when the overtaking and Haslemere terminators were introduced. Prior to that it would have had 2tph at roughly 20/40min intervals. The Godalming and Farncombe times were also more unevenly split in each hour than they are now.

I think Stagecoach once stated an intention to go to 4 tph through to PMS, but said eventually that they were unable to achieve it. It will be interesting to see how FirstMTR attack the problem.

 

[swt_passenger]

It would need to pick up Totton, Ashurst and (some hours) Beaulieu Road as well, would it be semi-fast west of Bournemouth with the London-Weymouth picking up the extra stops?

I'm just assuming it will something very like the "west of Southampton" calling pattern shown in the ITT service specification. As I said in a previous post, the spreadsheet suggestion is that none of the three trains is 'all stations' between Brockenhurst and Poole. The Portsmouth - Weymouth is shown as the all stations stopper west of Bournemouth. Indeed as published the stopper doesn't call at Brockenhurst or Poole - which cannot be correct.

Until a draft timetable gets published we just won't know precisely what timings they intend.

But my post you quoted above (#2134) has been overtaken by events, the track access quote I posted later (see #2151) states unambiguously that the new Portsmouth service will take over the Southampton to Poole and Poole to Weymouth legs of the two existing services that are being altered.

 

[pompeyfan]

I'm just assuming it will something very like the "west of Southampton" calling pattern shown in the ITT service specification. As I said in a previous post, the spreadsheet suggestion is that none of the three trains is 'all stations' between Brockenhurst and Poole. The Portsmouth - Weymouth is shown as the all stations stopper west of Bournemouth. Indeed as published the stopper doesn't call at Brockenhurst or Poole - which cannot be correct.

Until a draft timetable gets published we just won't know precisely what timings they intend.

But my post you quoted above (#2134) has been overtaken by events, the track access quote I posted later (see #2151) states unambiguously that the new Portsmouth service will take over the Southampton to Poole and Poole to Weymouth legs of the two existing services that are being altered.

So basically, there's actually no winners at all? No one benefits compared to the current set up (except St Denys oddly)

 

[tpebpn]

Used to love using the pmh-wat superfast service.
Only called pms,ftn,hav,hsl and wat and usualy went via the cobham route

 

[GarethW]

Amen to that, it's an extremely useful station for walking in the New Forest as you can 'get out and go' straight away. Pub there too. Current service is fine on Sundays and OK on Saturdays, though I would provide a later up service on Mon-Fri as during summer weekday evenings, say April to September, as there's a potential demand from people doing an evening walk in the Forest, particularly after work (I find the 1730 SOU to Beaulieu Road very useful in that respect). An extra stop appears to be possible on the slows with no penalty (they just wait longer at SOU if they don't stop). At the moment the last train back is 1838, way too early for the summer months (or the 2044 to Brockenhurst with backtracking, a more expensive fare, and a 55-minute wait at Brockenhurst.. though there are a few pubs!); they could potentially stop the 2033 Brockenhurst at Beaulieu Road with no penalty.

Couldn't agree more the skewed weekday service with far fewer up than down trains and that v early last train back is a personal nuisance to me.

Though I'm fully aware the number of leisure travellers who want to start and finish their journeys is at Beaulieu Road is vanishingly small.

 

[infobleep]

This was the article I read..


http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/15...ation_is__worst_in_country__for_train_delays/

I'll make sure I never travel to or from Weymouth ever again, so along as it's a Tuesday evening.

Rest of the week will be fine of course.

 

[adamello]

I'll make sure I never travel to or from Weymouth ever again, so along as it's a Tuesday evening.

Rest of the week will be fine of course.

its 50/50 for a Tuesday!

 

[swt_passenger]

An extra stop appears to be possible on the slows with no penalty (they just wait longer at SOU if they don't stop).

The new franchise spec is for 12 calls each way, as mentioned at the time this discussion first appeared. But as said earlier they probably won't be in Waterloo trains.

 

[nw1]

I'll be interested to see how their new timetable will work as well.

IIRC, in late BR / shadow franchise days, there were 3 through trains per hour off-peak on the Direct, leaving Waterloo at xx.00, xx:20 & xx:40, one of which ran fast Guildford - Havant, one stopped additionally at Haslemere and Petersfield (as the present faster trains do), and one stopped at all stations except Milford and Witley, which were served only by a Guildford - Haslemere shuttle that also provided the second tph at Godalming and Farncombe. I need to dig out some old timetables to be sure, but if that's correct, Haslemere only gained its 4tph service when the overtaking and Haslemere terminators were introduced. Prior to that it would have had 2tph at roughly 20/40min intervals. The Godalming and Farncombe times were also more unevenly split in each hour than they are now.

That is correct as I remember it clearly; I suspect (I can't remember) that the Guildford-Haslemere shuttles would have connected with the very fast one (which was the xx40) to give Haslemere 3 trains an hour to London through changing.

A bit later, and this was the case in 1997, the 'shuttle' became a through slow service to Waterloo (missing out Byfleet and NH, Hersham and Esher, otherwise all Guildford to Surbiton) though it was faster to change at Guildford onto a fast service.

The 15-minute service came in during 1999 though initially was 08/23/38/53 out of Waterloo. Again at first both slows went through to Portsmouth by means of some kind of skip-stopping pattern, but one looped at Haslemere and the other didn't meaning Liphook and Liss had two trains in 15 mins then nothing. Some time later one of them was cut back to Haslemere, and the current pattern came in during Dec 2004.

 

[nw1]

So basically, there's actually no winners at all? No one benefits compared to the current set up (except St Denys oddly)

It's a shame I no longer live within 10 minutes walk of St Denys, with its stop on the Waterloo semi-fast; didn't someone also mention that the semi-fast Southampton-Portsmouth would stop there as well? This will _massively_ increase the station's services over the current almost-at-the-same-time-of-the-hour two trains to and from Central. When I lived there one thing that was notable about the Mon-Sat service is how poor many of the onward connections at Central and Parkway were.

 

[swt_passenger]

It's a shame I no longer live within 10 minutes walk of St Denys, with its stop on the Waterloo semi-fast; didn't someone also mention that the semi-fast Southampton-Portsmouth would stop there as well?

It has only been suggested in the forum that the existing train will be diverted, as in 'hang a right at St Denys', no one has mentioned it calling there AFAICS. The staff website FAQs suggest it will only call at Swanwick then Fareham etc... that was before it became clear that the train it would be joined to would definitely be the existing all stations stopper...

 

[ChiefPlanner]

That is correct as I remember it clearly; I suspect (I can't remember) that the Guildford-Haslemere shuttles would have connected with the very fast one (which was the xx40) to give Haslemere 3 trains an hour to London through changing.

A bit later, and this was the case in 1997, the 'shuttle' became a through slow service to Waterloo (missing out Byfleet and NH, Hersham and Esher, otherwise all Guildford to Surbiton) though it was faster to change at Guildford onto a fast service.

The 15-minute service came in during 1999 though initially was 08/23/38/53 out of Waterloo. Again at first both slows went through to Portsmouth by means of some kind of skip-stopping pattern, but one looped at Haslemere and the other didn't meaning Liphook and Liss had two trains in 15 mins then nothing. Some time later one of them was cut back to Haslemere, and the current pattern came in during Dec 2004.

All deliberately done to block planned open access by Anglia Railways - who ended up doing the odd "Norwich - Basingstoke , and points in between via the NLL" , but who wanted to run main line to both Pomo and Soton.

I in turn blocked their ideas of getting to both Northampton and MK ....(from Ipswich via the NLL and Camden Road) that is how it was in the early days of cut throat privatisation ....