GWR Brighton services axed from May timetable change

[Peregrine 4903]

Yes, I was looking at doing GWR to and from Brighton, services never really operated at the weekend. Only the chance during weekdays?

Brighton to Southampton service, is that getting split too at Barnham?

No

 

[JonathanH]

I realise mine might be a lonely voice, plaintively piping up to say that I shall miss these services, having used them to connect to Gatwick Airport via a convenient, level interchange at Brighton.

A convenient, level interchange for Gatwick is still available at Fareham.

 

[DaveHarries]

Services to Portsmouth (via Southampton Central) will continue to run and be lengthened, so no issues there.

To what extent will they be lengthened? Already 5 carriages (or supposed to be) so are they sticking more on?

If we’re looking at the only weekday eastbound service, the one that starts 1041 from Great Malvern, then it terminates at Warminster from May 16th:
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:C38335/2022-05-16/detailed

There are also two more. From 17th May:
1037 Westbury - Salisbury, due 1106 (new working)
1112 Salisbury - Worcester Foregate Street, due 1416 (in place of present 0859 Brighton - Worcester Foregate St, which leaves Salisbury at 1112).

Dave

 

[WesternLancer]

Brighton isn't just losing its gwr service , it's losing its only fast service along the west coastway. I guess there's quite a few slow services along the route maybe not enough space for a fast train, maybe no need for a fast train, but for the people that do go to Portsmouth and Southampton the full way, there needs to be more than just a 90 minute stopper

Yes, and meanwhile I think the A27 is being speeded up (Arundel by pass IIRC)....

 

[driverd]

Ah, yes. Terminates at Chichester. I imagine that reflects demand and a lack of staff. The trains aren't full during the week anyway. Hopefully, it saves a bit of money.

The problem here is that in introducing the connection, you make the journey very off-putting to many passengers. So when the usage doesn't recover to anywhere near pre-pandemic levels and the DfT look for culls, a viable service ends up being lost. In other words, managed decline.

The second point of note is that the saved money is so minimal it nears irrelevance. Staff numbers aren't in decline, rolling stock is still being leased, track maintenance still occurs. If we want to hack away services, there's industry wide savings that could be reaped, but as yet, are not.

Personally, I think such services are reasonably viable and the way ahead. Given that the railway, atleast short term, is moving to a leisure customer base, direct services to attractive destinations are absolutely the way to go - on weekends and during school holidays, atleast. With a network only running at 50-75% of pre-covid levels, any capacity gain by withdrawl is going to be irrelevant anyway.

 

[387star]

The problem here is that in introducing the connection, you make the journey very off-putting to many passengers. So when the usage doesn't recover to anywhere near pre-pandemic levels and the DfT look for culls, a viable service ends up being lost. In other words, managed decline.

The second point of note is that the saved money is so minimal it nears irrelevance. Staff numbers aren't in decline, rolling stock is still being leased, track maintenance still occurs. If we want to hack away services, there's industry wide savings that could be reaped, but as yet, are not.

Personally, I think such services are reasonably viable and the way ahead. Given that the railway, atleast short term, is moving to a leisure customer base, direct services to attractive destinations are absolutely the way to go - on weekends and during school holidays, atleast. With a network only running at 50-75% of pre-covid levels, any capacity gain by withdrawl is going to be irrelevant anyway.

Originally there was talk of more GWR Brightons possibly three or more a day for the leisure Market.

 

[The exile]

To what extent will they be lengthened? Already 5 carriages (or supposed to be) so are they sticking more on?

Would be nice if the extra carriages foubd their way onto some of the peak (yes, it does still exist) period stoppers out of Bristol. The 16.45 down the Avon valley is beginning to get quite cosy again….

 

[dk1]

By train - getting on for 3000 a day. Delivering an income of, at a guess, in excess of £50m a year.

A rather different scale of travel than the Bristol area to Sussex.

Didn’t Virgin Trains announce a few years ago that they’d substantially increased the Air/Rail market on the London/Glasgow route firstly with the VHF timetable in 2008 & then going hourly on the route a few years later? What with its green credentials the shift to train must be even greater now.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Feb 2022 ==

Getting back to the route topic though, the comparison is quite amusing between the two

 

[Dr Hoo]

Some people may also define that as bureaucratic tidiness, disregarding any flexible mindset needed to adapt to changing market forces.

Is Portsmouth Harbour really a more useful destination for travellers to/from Bristol or Bath these days, compared to Brighton?

(Having once lived and worked in the Solent area.)

I would have thought that most of the passengers were still making more local journeys, such as Southampton to Portsmouth. Obviously these would still need to be accommodated or are they going to be decanted onto all-stations locals or forced to change at Fareham (or possibly Havant) on relatively short journeys?

What percentage of trips are through from Bristol/Bath to Brighton (or Hove, actually)?

 

[WesternLancer]

(Having once lived and worked in the Solent area.)

I would have thought that most of the passengers were still making more local journeys, such as Southampton to Portsmouth. Obviously these would still need to be accommodated or are they going to be decanted onto all-stations locals or forced to change at Fareham (or possibly Havant) on relatively short journeys?

What percentage of trips are through from Bristol/Bath to Brighton (or Hove, actually)?

I guess the percentage of trips relevant would be those from anywhere it stops east of Portsmouth and West of Southampton, as those will be the passengers who will lose out from a less conveneint service.

In some ways the service has been in managed decline for years - with the dramatic decline in train length following sprinterisation and I think it used to run at slightly more attractive times, but I'd have to check that and may stand corrected. Didn't they all used to go to on to Cardiff at one time which seemed to me a more attractive destination but that may not be the case.

 

[Alex365Dash]

Given that the railway, atleast short term, is moving to a leisure customer base, direct services to attractive destinations are absolutely the way to go - on weekends and during school holidays, atleast.

If referring to the direct Portsmouth/Southampton - Brighton services, these do at least continue to run on weekends.

 

[Dr Hoo]

I guess the percentage of trips relevant would be those from anywhere it stops east of Portsmouth and West of Southampton, as those will be the passengers who will lose out from a less conveneint service.

In some ways the service has been in managed decline for years - with the dramatic decline in train length following sprinterisation and I think it used to run at slightly more attractive times, but I'd have to check that and may stand corrected. Didn't they all used to go to on to Cardiff at one time which seemed to me a more attractive destination but that may not be the case.

Well, going back to the early-to-mid 1980s when I was familiar with it, the service was very hit and miss. (The long-running single track working through Southampton Tunnel for re-construction at the time obviously didn't offer much flexibility or spare capacity.)

Yes, Class 33s with rakes of five or six carriages might have looked quite generous but there was no Brighton service at all, except on Saturdays and Sundays.

Odd workings to/from Portsmouth Harbour-Bristol did extend to/from Cardiff but the Bristol-Cardiff service itself was awfully irregular and infrequent at the time, with a change at Bristol Parkway often needed.

But, ho-humm, 'managed decline' ever since sectorisation, sprinterisation and privatisation.

 

[nw1]

Brighton isn't just losing its gwr service , it's losing its only fast service along the west coastway. I guess there's quite a few slow services along the route maybe not enough space for a fast train, maybe no need for a fast train, but for the people that do go to Portsmouth and Southampton the full way, there needs to be more than just a 90 minute stopper

I do agree that I think there needs to be one fast service along Coastway West per hour. Something like Hove-Portslade-Shoreham-Worthing-Barnham-Chichester-Emsworth-Havant, then probably to Southampton as it's the longer-distance destination of the two cities. Could the timetable be re-jigged to allow such a path?

As I said above, in the late 90s-early 00s there were two available fast paths per hour along Coastway West, one taken by the '46' (Victoria-Gatwick-Hove-Southampton) and the other taken by the xx00 (which went to either Reading, Basingstoke or Cardiff, depending on the hour). And, IIRC, they still managed to fit in three stoppers per hour west of Brighton.

EDIT: just checked 1996 from timetableworld, service pattern from Brighton was this, but connections were poorer than they could have been:

xx00 fast, varying destinations (see above)
xx03, xx23, xx43 all-stations to Worthing stoppers

The '46' left Hove xx19, so it was actually quite a poor connection from Brighton (xx03), so not quite as good as it could have been for Brighton-Hampshire journeys.

Not sure how well the xx00 connected into Portsmouth or Southampton services.

 

[swt_passenger]

I do agree that I think there needs to be one fast service along Coastway West per hour. Something like Hove-Portslade-Shoreham-Worthing-Barnham-Chichester-Emsworth-Havant, then probably to Southampton as it's the longer-distance destination of the two cities. Could the timetable be re-jigged to allow such a path?

As I said above, in the late 90s-early 00s there were two available fast paths per hour along Coastway West, one taken by the '46' (Victoria-Gatwick-Hove-Southampton) and the other taken by the xx00 (which went to either Reading, Basingstoke or Cardiff, depending on the hour). And, IIRC, they still managed to fit in three stoppers per hour west of Brighton.

EDIT: just checked 1996 from timetableworld, service pattern from Brighton was this, but connections were poorer than they could have been:

xx00 fast, varying destinations (see above)
xx03, xx23, xx43 all-stations to Worthing stoppers

The '46' left Hove xx19, so it was actually quite a poor connection from Brighton (xx03), so not quite as good as it could have been for Brighton-Hampshire journeys.

Not sure how well the xx00 connected into Portsmouth or Southampton services.

There was a speculation thread about this last November, I don’t think there are any real possibilities for a regular fast service, since the 2008 or 2009? timetable introduced the Brighton - Southampton service. West of Barnham to Havant you have numerous stations, no passing opportunities, and 5 tph of which one is an all stations stopper Littlehampton to Portsmouth. The Two Brightons are half an hour apart, and the two Victorias half an hour apart.

West Coastway (Havant A Clue How To Improve It?)

How would you like to organise West Coastway services, given the flat junctions/ competing demands between a variety of places/ fixed number of paths into London etc? For all of the discussions about minor rural lines (and reconnecting tiny villages etc), we don't discuss busy routes like the...

www.railforums.co.uk

But pre Covid reductions, did that many through passengers to/from Southampton really seek out the 2 services per day GWR “fasts”, (only 1 eastbound), rather than using the SN services that ran every hour all day, 2 tph as far as Barnham?

 

[nw1]

There was a speculation thread about this last November, I don’t think there are any real possibilities for a regular fast service, since the 2008 or 2009? timetable introduced the Brighton - Southampton service. West of Barnham to Havant you have numerous stations, no passing opportunities, and 5 tph of which one is an all stations stopper Littlehampton to Portsmouth. The Two Brightons are half an hour apart, and the two Victorias half an hour apart.

West Coastway (Havant A Clue How To Improve It?)

How would you like to organise West Coastway services, given the flat junctions/ competing demands between a variety of places/ fixed number of paths into London etc? For all of the discussions about minor rural lines (and reconnecting tiny villages etc), we don't discuss busy routes like the...

www.railforums.co.uk

Just taken a look at that. I guess one bone of contention would be: does the Coastway West need two trains per hour to London? That is one of the key changes made recently compared to the 90s or early 00s. It always used to be one. Is a fast Brighton to Portsmouth or Southampton service (and only one of the two needs to be fast, I think) more, or less, important than a second train per hour from Coastway West to London?

 

[JonathanH]

Just taken a look at that. I guess one bone of contention would be: does the Coastway West need two trains per hour to London? That is one of the key changes made recently compared to the 90s or early 00s. It always used to be one. Is a fast Brighton to Portsmouth or Southampton service more, or less, important than a second train per hour from Coastway West to London?

Pretty sure a 2tph London service will bring in more revenue than fast services from Brighton to Portsmouth or Southampton.

 

[75A]

Pretty sure a 2tph London service will bring in more revenue than fast services from Brighton to Portsmouth or Southampton.

You'd think so wouldn't you?
People from Bognor / Barnham and the west tend to go to Portsmouth, people from Littlehampton and the east tend to work in Brighton.
Bognor has always been aligned with Portsmouth (Telephone Area) rugby club in Hampshire League etc.
Littlehampton (Brighton Telephone Area) etc, the River Arun being the 'border'

 

[swt_passenger]

Just taken a look at that. I guess one bone of contention would be: does the Coastway West need two trains per hour to London? That is one of the key changes made recently compared to the 90s or early 00s. It always used to be one. Is a fast Brighton to Portsmouth or Southampton service more, or less, important than a second train per hour from Coastway West to London?

I think it’s more to do with Portsmouth and Southampton areas both having demand for direct trains to Crawley, Gatwick, and Croydon? But back when the Victoria to Southampton (formerly Bournemouth) ran via Hove, wasn’t there also a Victoria to Portsmouth via Horsham? My memory doesn’t go back that far…

 

[Taunton]

Strange that they are train savvy & still don’t know, particularly if they live anywhere near the route of operation. I live near Norwich & have always known they exist.

I like to think likewise, but arriving at Brighton station one day there was a diesel unit with Great Malvern showing as a destination, which I thought must be some error. It's also not particularly useful as probably the majority along the south coast have no idea which way it goes, or that this might be the train to Southampton.

 

[nw1]

I think it’s more to do with Portsmouth and Southampton areas both having demand for direct trains to Crawley, Gatwick, and Croydon? But back when the Victoria to Southampton (formerly Bournemouth) ran via Hove, wasn’t there also a Victoria to Portsmouth via Horsham? My memory doesn’t go back that far…

Yes, there was: hourly Victoria to Portsmouth and Bognor divider. Existed until 1984 and from 1990 onwards. In the intervening period, the via-Hove service went to Portsmouth and the Arun Valley was Bognor only. (The 1984-90 period was incidentally a very poor period for the Arun Valley with stations such as Amberley losing a regular off-peak service altogether).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Feb 2022 ==

You'd think so wouldn't you?
People from Bognor / Barnham and the west tend to go to Portsmouth, people from Littlehampton and the east tend to work in Brighton.
Bognor has always been aligned with Portsmouth (Telephone Area) rugby club in Hampshire League etc.
Littlehampton (Brighton Telephone Area) etc, the River Arun being the 'border'

I do know people that commute from Brighton to Hampshire (and are always complaining about the service), also remember Brighton is a leisure destination in its own right which could perhaps benefit from at least semi-fast trains from the Solent area.

But if it can't be done and the second London train is seen as essential, then I'll accept it can't be done.

 

[HPinder500]

I have to say these GWR Brighton services will be missed from a convenience side of things. As a student in Brighton with parents in the Salisbury area timing my journeys to use these on the odd weekend or holiday period saves around 30 mins and means i dont have to change at Southampton Central. Only reason i didnt use it more was because of lockdowns and the lack of a midday service, which has been a journey fraught with cancellations on southern/GWR a lot in recent months due to covid absences, further increasing the journey time.

I understand my journeys are infrequent, but the service always seemed busy beyond Portsmouth heading towards Brighton, and would remain busy until Southampton heading west.

 

[WesternLancer]

Well, going back to the early-to-mid 1980s when I was familiar with it, the service was very hit and miss. (The long-running single track working through Southampton Tunnel for re-construction at the time obviously didn't offer much flexibility or spare capacity.)

Yes, Class 33s with rakes of five or six carriages might have looked quite generous but there was no Brighton service at all, except on Saturdays and Sundays.

Odd workings to/from Portsmouth Harbour-Bristol did extend to/from Cardiff but the Bristol-Cardiff service itself was awfully irregular and infrequent at the time, with a change at Bristol Parkway often needed.

But, ho-humm, 'managed decline' ever since sectorisation, sprinterisation and privatisation.

Thanks - I'll need to take a look at timetables. I recall regularly getting it Brighton to Chichester in the mid 80s, and several trips Brighton to Bristol in around '85 to '87 if memory serves me correctly. The change to sprinters was of course good for the modern ambience, if not the leg room - but the drop to 2 cars was an immediate serious downside for obvious reasons. That is what I meant by managed decline - severe shortage of rolling stock.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Feb 2022 ==

I don't think you can necessarily assume that ('ever' is a big word, who is to know what the future brings?)
It's only recently that Covid restrictions and fear of Covid have dissipated. With time I suspect many will want to return to a place of work, for one thing for the social aspect and the change of scene. Many of us, having left home regularly for several hours per day since the age of 5, are not used to being stuck inside the same four walls all day.

Having said that, I am not arguing against the concept of leisure-oriented services, and I do support the idea of such services, and that these can potentially make money in some cases.

Thanks - I take your point - but it's not showing up with many of my colleagues and at least one of our offices has been sold in the meantime - if people want to come back full time there won't be any desks to come back to! Lots of new jobs will be created in future that never assume you will have a place of work that you go to regularly. I am sure of this - even if I think it is far from ideal for the reasons you say.

 

[BayPaul]

I'm sure that for a long time the standard west coastway pattern included something like
2tph semi fast Brighton - Southampton/Portsmouth
2tph Victoria semi fast to Worthing then slow to Littlehampton
2tph Brighton - Littlehampton /Bognor
2tph Brighton - W Worthing slow
2tph Brighton - Hove shuttle
2tph Arun Valley dividers to Bognor and Portsmouth /Southampton
1tph? Littlehampton - Portsmouth.
1tph? Littlehampton - Bognor

If it is possible to fit all that lot in, with some very clever interlocking of timetables, surely a decent service on all combinations is entirely practical.

 

[JonathanH]

If it is possible to fit all that lot in, with some very clever interlocking of timetables, surely a decent service on all combinations is entirely practical.

Yes, I think that is the pre March 2020 timetable other than you have added a Brighton to Littlehampton / Bognor service group that didn't exist - I have long thought it was very well constructed, especially how it fitted in the same timetable paths West of Havant that applied before.

 

[nw1]

Thanks - I'll need to take a look at timetables. I recall regularly getting it Brighton to Chichester in the mid 80s, and several trips Brighton to Bristol in around '85 to '87 if memory serves me correctly. The change to sprinters was of course good for the modern ambience, if not the leg room - but the drop to 2 cars was an immediate serious downside for obvious reasons. That is what I meant by managed decline - severe shortage of rolling stock.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Feb 2022 ==


Thanks - I take your point - but it's not showing up with many of my colleagues and at least one of our offices has been sold in the meantime - if people want to come back full time there won't be any desks to come back to! Lots of new jobs will be created in future that never assume you will have a place of work that you go to regularly. I am sure of this - even if I think it is far from ideal for the reasons you say.

I guess the one thing that will change it is if the associated loss of social contact brings mental health issues which prevent people doing their job properly and thus affects the bottom line. Or, businesses realise that people are actually less productive away from the office and call them back in again. We are essentially a social species, it's wrong I think to assume that many of us can function as well in isolation as we can having social contact with a range of people on a daily basis. And home brings all manner of distractions.

As I said it's still early days, and who is to know whether currently, lingering fear of Covid is, rightly or wrongly, affecting some people's behaviour. And it's incorrect to assume the present reflects the future - for example, I personally believed we had reached a state of equilibrium before the credit crunch hit and basically life would remain as it was circa 2007/2008 or so for the long term. If only that was the case...

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Feb 2022 ==

I'm sure that for a long time the standard west coastway pattern included something like
2tph semi fast Brighton - Southampton/Portsmouth
2tph Victoria semi fast to Worthing then slow to Littlehampton
2tph Brighton - Littlehampton /Bognor
2tph Brighton - W Worthing slow

Did both of these run? I thought there were only 2tph all-stations slows from Brighton, and 4tph out of Brighton at some of the smaller stations (Lancing, Southwick) was provided by stopping the Southampton/Portsmouth services there.

 

[paul1609]

You'd think so wouldn't you?
People from Bognor / Barnham and the west tend to go to Portsmouth, people from Littlehampton and the east tend to work in Brighton.
Bognor has always been aligned with Portsmouth (Telephone Area) rugby club in Hampshire League etc.
Littlehampton (Brighton Telephone Area) etc, the River Arun being the 'border'

Having lived in Littlehampton for many years that's not actually true. Littlehampton has a lot of self-contained employment but other areas that people commute to being Chichester (County Town) Gatwick Airport/ Crawley. Theres not really much Brighton influence in the town.
The rail service reflects this with off peak the direct service being to Portsmouth via Chi, a shuttle to Bognor and 2 tph via Worthing and Gatwick to Victoria. To get to Brighton you need to change at Hove. I used to commute from Littlehampton to London Bridge 35 years ago and there were only a handful of commuters then, I get the impression they are more of less extinct now. On the other hand there are now regular commuters to Southampton/Fareham from as far along the coast as Barnham which wasn't the case even 25 years ago.

 

[train_lover]

I did this once when it originally started at Great Malvern. It took an absolute age to reach Brighton. I'd imagine the Fratton train crew are sad to see it go.

I've always thought that the XC Reading services should run through to Brighton. The original Virgin XC services should never of been pulled to Brighton

 

[387star]

I did this once when it originally started at Great Malvern. It took an absolute age to reach Brighton. I'd imagine the Fratton train crew are sad to see it go.

I've always thought that the XC Reading services should run through to Brighton. The original Virgin XC services should never of been pulled to Brighton

Fratton crew probably weren't even told

 

[WesternLancer]

I guess the one thing that will change it is if the associated loss of social contact brings mental health issues which prevent people doing their job properly and thus affects the bottom line. Or, businesses realise that people are actually less productive away from the office and call them back in again. We are essentially a social species, it's wrong I think to assume that many of us can function as well in isolation as we can having social contact with a range of people on a daily basis. And home brings all manner of distractions.

As I said it's still early days, and who is to know whether currently, lingering fear of Covid is, rightly or wrongly, affecting some people's behaviour. And it's incorrect to assume the present reflects the future - for example, I personally believed we had reached a state of equilibrium before the credit crunch hit and basically life would remain as it was circa 2007/2008 or so for the long term. If only that was the case...

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Feb 2022 ==


Did both of these run? I thought there were only 2tph all-stations slows from Brighton, and 4tph out of Brighton at some of the smaller stations (Lancing, Southwick) was provided by stopping the Southampton/Portsmouth services there.

I do tend to agree with your points, but as you say, we shall have to see in the fullness of time.

 

[Wyrleybart]

I like to think likewise, but arriving at Brighton station one day there was a diesel unit with Great Malvern showing as a destination, which I thought must be some error. It's also not particularly useful as probably the majority along the south coast have no idea which way it goes, or that this might be the train to Southampton.

But with respect, it is a GWR green train and timetables must show it as a GWR. Do passenger actually loojk at the destination display on the front or a train ? Yeah, I know some folk were clued up on the SR two digit route numbers - back when everything was painted blue and grey.