Okehampton 2018 Daily And new station?

[swt_passenger]

The priced option in the 2012 GW franchise ITT was for 8 return trips per day, and they hoped to start in 2014. That turned out well...

 

[yorksrob]

I think 8 return trips throughout the day would be a decent service. This is what they ought to start with IMO.

 

[The Ham]

I think 8 return trips throughout the day would be a decent service. This is what they ought to start with IMO.

Last time I checked it wasn't well timed to travel from Crediton to Exeter for work (arrival times of circa 8 am then circa 10 am). If the Okehampton service could arrive for about 8:30 that would probably attract extra passengers from the shared stops like Crediton.

Given that Crediton has a population of about 8,000 it only has about 55,000 passengers a year so there should be some scope for extra passenger flows (but then my presentation of that could just be because a station near to me in a settlement with a similar population has over 10 times that passenger flow, which is probably just abnormally high and skewing my view of normal).

 

[HowardGWR]

The present reasonably frequent 'rail replacement bus' service starts from St Davids. I don't know what will happen to that. It always seems peculiar to me that it doesn't start at Central. Perhaps it goes that way, RTT doesn't tell one that. Some go through to Bude.

 

[yorksrob]

Last time I checked it wasn't well timed to travel from Crediton to Exeter for work (arrival times of circa 8 am then circa 10 am). If the Okehampton service could arrive for about 8:30 that would probably attract extra passengers from the shared stops like Crediton.

Given that Crediton has a population of about 8,000 it only has about 55,000 passengers a year so there should be some scope for extra passenger flows (but then my presentation of that could just be because a station near to me in a settlement with a similar population has over 10 times that passenger flow, which is probably just abnormally high and skewing my view of normal).

Or it could be that your local station acts as a railhead to a larger area. Which one is it out of interest ?

 

[Starmill]

Or it could be that your local station acts as a railhead to a larger area. Which one is it out of interest ?

There are not that many places it could be.
Some that might fit the description include:
Virginia Water
Knebworth
Martins Heron
Princes Risborough
North Berwick
Rochford
Battle
Bradford-on-Avon

You will note all have a markedly better service than Crediton does!

 

[plymothian]

The present reasonably frequent 'rail replacement bus' service starts from St Davids. I don't know what will happen to that. It always seems peculiar to me that it doesn't start at Central. Perhaps it goes that way, RTT doesn't tell one that. Some go through to Bude.

That's because it's a Stagecoach public service (6/A), not a GWR RRB, which starts at the bus station; through rail tickets are [supposed to be] only accepted from Exeter SD.

Same for the Airport bus link.

 

[yorksrob]

There are not that many places it could be.
Some that might fit the description include:
Virginia Water
Knebworth
Martins Heron
Princes Risborough
North Berwick

I wouldn't have guessed any of them !

 

[richw]

Grayling is suddenly showing this interest, as all the West Devon and Cornish MPs lobbied him for dawlish avoiding, and D&C spending and better infrastructure reliability or they’d vote against HS(2/3?) spending. Once he has their support and vote done I suspect it’ll all go quiet again.

 

[snowball]

Grayling is suddenly showing this interest, as all the West Devon and Cornish MPs lobbied him for dawlish avoiding, and D&C spending and better infrastructure reliability or they’d vote against HS(2/3?) spending. Once he has their support and vote done I suspect it’ll all go quiet again.

Well HS2 phase 2a has just passed its second reading and I doubt there'll be any further relevant votes of the whole house for quite a while.

 

[Cowley]

Or it could be that your local station acts as a railhead to a larger area. Which one is it out of interest ?

Rob - The problem with Crediton is that the station is at the very southern end of the town and just isn’t very convenient to most of the yokels locals.
Crediton is quite a long thin town really and most potential passengers will catch a bus from the town centre and sit on it through an enormous traffic jam to get to Exeter, rather than walk the best part of a mile down to the station for the train.
That said though, the traffic on the A377 is getting so bad now, that eventually people may give up on the bus and make the trek towards the station as even with the walk it may end up being quicker, especially on a cold rainy winters morning (the traffic always seems to be twice as bad on those days).
Some days when I’m going the other way and working in Crediton, the road is one solid queue from Cowley Bridge right up to Newton st Cyres and beyond.
Plenty of full buses stuck in the queue too...

 

[The Ham]

There are not that many places it could be.
Some that might fit the description include:
Virginia Water
Knebworth
Martins Heron
Princes Risborough
North Berwick
Rochford
Battle
Bradford-on-Avon

You will note all have a markedly better service than Crediton does!

All good guesses, but none of them (in fact the station I was thinking of actual has a higher passenger flow than 600,000).

The point I was making was that with a better service then it is likely to see an increase in passenger numbers.

 

[The Ham]

Or it could be that your local station acts as a railhead to a larger area. Which one is it out of interest ?

I didn't say it was my local station, just one close to me. The station I was thinking of was Hook.

Given that Basingstoke isn't too far west Winchfield isn't too far east and with Reading and Alton to the north and south and only fairly small villages (with the exception of Odiham which could go to either Hook or Winchfield stations) I wouldn't have thought that it acted that much as a rail head.

Yes it's prime commuter belt (but then less than 10% of the working population travel to work the required distance to be doing that) and there's a number of big employers (including Virgin Media's HQ) and so least 2 trains or hour all of which boost passenger numbers but with circa 800,000 (just below in the 2016/17 figures and just above in the 2015/16 figures) it's significantly higher than the 55,000 of Crediton.

 

[The Ham]

Rob - The problem with Crediton is that the station is at the very southern end of the town and just isn’t very convenient to most of the yokels locals.
Crediton is quite a long thin town really and most potential passengers will catch a bus from the town centre and sit on it through an enormous traffic jam to get to Exeter, rather than walk the best part of a mile down to the station for the train.
That said though, the traffic on the A377 is getting so bad now, that eventually people may give up on the bus and make the trek towards the station as even with the walk it may end up being quicker, especially on a cold rainy winters morning (the traffic always seems to be twice as bad on those days).
Some days when I’m going the other way and working in Crediton, the road is one solid queue from Cowley Bridge right up to Newton st Cyres and beyond.
Plenty of full buses stuck in the queue too...

As indicated in my post having trains that aren't well timed for people with office jobs probably doesn't help.

Given that a commuter would be something like 450 movements a year if you added an extra 12 then passenger usage would jump by 10%.

With a train timetabled to arrive at Exeter for about 8:30 and with a train at 8:00 as well it starts becoming more attractive. Even for those arriving on the earlier train as if there's is cancelled they can still catch another and be on time or not that late rather than getting to work at about 10.

 

[JohnR]

One of the posts above suggests that 2021 is the earliest a full service will be available, which seems quite a way into the future.

Yes, theres a bit of infrastructure work that needs doing, and of course, its got to be included in the franchise agreement ( or Direct Award). May 2021 is still only 3 years away.

 

[yorksrob]

Rob - The problem with Crediton is that the station is at the very southern end of the town and just isn’t very convenient to most of the yokels locals.
Crediton is quite a long thin town really and most potential passengers will catch a bus from the town centre and sit on it through an enormous traffic jam to get to Exeter, rather than walk the best part of a mile down to the station for the train.
That said though, the traffic on the A377 is getting so bad now, that eventually people may give up on the bus and make the trek towards the station as even with the walk it may end up being quicker, especially on a cold rainy winters morning (the traffic always seems to be twice as bad on those days).
Some days when I’m going the other way and working in Crediton, the road is one solid queue from Cowley Bridge right up to Newton st Cyres and beyond.
Plenty of full buses stuck in the queue too...

Yes, it would be interesting to see how Crediton would fare if it were a stop for longer distance services - say Plymouth - Waterloo, as more might railhead. But that's obviously some way off.

 

[yorksrob]

I didn't say it was my local station, just one close to me. The station I was thinking of was Hook.

Given that Basingstoke isn't too far west Winchfield isn't too far east and with Reading and Alton to the north and south and only fairly small villages (with the exception of Odiham which could go to either Hook or Winchfield stations) I wouldn't have thought that it acted that much as a rail head.

Yes it's prime commuter belt (but then less than 10% of the working population travel to work the required distance to be doing that) and there's a number of big employers (including Virgin Media's HQ) and so least 2 trains or hour all of which boost passenger numbers but with circa 800,000 (just below in the 2016/17 figures and just above in the 2015/16 figures) it's significantly higher than the 55,000 of Crediton.

Ah yes, sped through it many times !

 

[yorksrob]

Yes, theres a bit of infrastructure work that needs doing, and of course, its got to be included in the franchise agreement ( or Direct Award). May 2021 is still only 3 years away.

I can see that being the case if the whole thing was starting in 2021. It's just if, as some are suggesting, a more limited service is going to start earlier, I would have thought it would be as easy to start the whole thing.

 

[HowardGWR]

That's because it's a Stagecoach public service (6/A), not a GWR RRB, which starts at the bus station; through rail tickets are [supposed to be] only accepted from Exeter SD.

Same for the Airport bus link.

Thanks, I looked them up and see what you mean. By the way, the Stagecoach website is a sight better than than First (bus).
It strikes me that with improved parking facilities at Crediton, much better business could be done there. Last time I was there, it seemed there was plenty of room for those. Devon CC should take a leaf out of the northern transport partnership's book and make the parking free. That actually should happen everywhere where stations are not central.

 

[Cowley]

Thanks, I looked them up and see what you mean. By the way, the Stagecoach website is a sight better than than First (bus).
It strikes me that with improved parking facilities at Crediton, much better business could be done there. Last time I was there, it seemed there was plenty of room for those. Devon CC should take a leaf out of the northern transport partnership's book and make the parking free. That actually should happen everywhere where stations are not central.

Yes definitely. The area by and to the south of the station is being developed quite rapidly now and there’s plenty of new houses being built on the hills near the big Tesco’s so the station will be very useful for people living there.