Gloucester on the Cross Country Line

[Gathursty]

Gloucester station is just off the Cross Country Line on the route to South Wales.

Apart from proximity to the town centre, how come there is no (or not any more) station on the mainline to Bristol/SW England?

Should there be a station in Gloucester on the actual mainline?

 

[LowLevel]

Gloucester station is just off the Cross Country Line on the route to South Wales.

Apart from proximity to the town centre, how come there is no (or not any more) station on the mainline to Bristol/SW England?

Should there be a station in Gloucester on the actual mainline?

There was Gloucester Eastgate which was the Midland station, on a line called the Tuffley Loop which whilst still on a divergence didn't require a reversal. It shut in 1975 owing to the number of level crossings on the line and maintenance liabilities from it being on a tight curve. It was only a few hundred yards from what is now known as Gloucester station, Central.

 

[Nick Ashwell]

Gloucester station is just off the Cross Country Line on the route to South Wales.

Apart from proximity to the town centre, how come there is no (or not any more) station on the mainline to Bristol/SW England?

Should there be a station in Gloucester on the actual mainline?

Gloucestershire Parkway was proposed to, IIRC, go on the triangle to get XC trains to stop. I'm unsure whether this would have replaced the existing station or was in addition to it as I don't see why you'd have two close by stations, on linked lines, served by completely seperate trains. Surely it would have been better to build both sides of the Junction down from Cheltenham?

 

[Falcon1200]

IIRC there were once plans to build a station on the main line at Barnwood, allowing Bristol line trains to serve Gloucester without the time penalty of reversal, but the station would have been a long way from the town, and as @Nick Ashwell says this might have led to the closure of Gloucester Central.

 

[Basil Jet]

IIRC there were once plans to build a station on the main line at Barnwood, allowing Bristol line trains to serve Gloucester without the time penalty of reversal, but the station would have been a long way from the town, and as @Nick Ashwell says this might have led to the closure of Gloucester Central.

The centre of the conurbation seems to be approximately at the southern junction of the triangle, whereas the current station is very poorly sited for the conurbation.

 

[30907]

The centre of the conurbation seems to be approximately at the southern junction of the triangle, whereas the current station is very poorly sited for the conurbation.

But the city centre (as opposed to the suburban developments) is south west of the present station. I can see an argument for an additional station towards Tuffley, now there is a decent local service, but I doubt it would justify XC stopping there.

 

[O L Leigh]

On a point of pedantry, Gloucester station is not off the XC network. It merely isn't on the Birmingham-Bristol mainline.

I'm unsure whether Gloucester needs another station or more XC services to stop. There are already direct services to both Birmingham and Bristol and decent connections at Cheltenham Spa, which is also well-served. Or have I missed a detail somewhere?

I can see there possibly being some merit for a Gloucester Parkway station north of Barnwood Jn, but I don't see how a new station would otherwise benefit the city if it resulted in the closure of the existing station.

 

[Noddy]

On a point of pedantry, Gloucester station is not off the XC network. It merely isn't on the Birmingham-Bristol mainline.

I'm unsure whether Gloucester needs another station or more XC services to stop. There are already direct services to both Birmingham and Bristol and decent connections at Cheltenham Spa, which is also well-served. Or have I missed a detail somewhere?

I can see there possibly being some merit for a Gloucester Parkway station north of Barnwood Jn, but I don't see how a new station would otherwise benefit the city if it resulted in the closure of the existing station.

Re Glos to Bristol (a major commuting destination). Although direct it’s typically a slow DMU taking around 45-50 min to Temple Meads. By comparison it’s normally 40-45 min from Cheltenham even though it’s further away. I’m not saying it could or should happen but a 30-35 min time looks far more attractive which is why it gets raised every so often.

 

[O L Leigh]

Re Glos to Bristol (a major commuting destination). Although direct it’s typically a slow DMU taking around 45-50 min to Temple Meads. By comparison it’s normally 40-45 min from Cheltenham even though it’s further away. I’m not saying it could or should happen but a 30-35 min time looks far more attractive which is why it gets raised every so often.

No doubt, but I don't think you're going to get anything like that sort of time saving by stopping additionally at a Gloucester Parkway station wherever you site it.

Cheltenham Spa to Barnwood Jn is timetabled to take 5 minutes with Tuffley Jn being an additional 1.5 minutes. Add in a station stop and you're going to eat significantly into any possible savings. It would also mess with the timings across both Standish and Westerleigh Jns, which are pinch points. I know from experience that there is precious little "air" in the timings between these two locations for XC services.

I know that the GWR service is not especially fast, partly because of the stock used for them. Linespeed is no higher than 100mph for the majority of the route, so the Turbos top out only 10mph below that, but they don't have brilliant acceleration. You might get better results by swapping out the Turbos for IETs during the peak or perhaps running additional peak-time fast services using IETs.

 

[Grecian 1998]

As came up on the recent discussion about Worcestershire Parkway, XC shouldn't stop anywhere extra until they have sufficient capacity that overcrowding isn't an issue on just about any service through the core formed of a single 220. Given the general lack of interest in tackling the problem over the last 20 years, that isn't likely to change any time soon.

XC are also unlikely to want to serve yet another local market given they haven't reinstated a number of Chesterfield calls or any Brockenhurst stops post-COVID.

 

[Noddy]

No doubt, but I don't think you're going to get anything like that sort of time saving by stopping additionally at a Gloucester Parkway station wherever you site it.

Cheltenham Spa to Barnwood Jn is timetabled to take 5 minutes with Tuffley Jn being an additional 1.5 minutes. Add in a station stop and you're going to eat significantly into any possible savings. It would also mess with the timings across both Standish and Westerleigh Jns, which are pinch points. I know from experience that there is precious little "air" in the timings between these two locations for XC services.

I know that the GWR service is not especially fast, partly because of the stock used for them. Linespeed is no higher than 100mph for the majority of the route, so the Turbos top out only 10mph below that, but they don't have brilliant acceleration. You might get better results by swapping out the Turbos for IETs during the peak or perhaps running additional peak-time fast services using IETs.

I don’t doubt that XC simply will not stop there and that’s the main reason as someone fairly local I’d be extremely sceptical about it as a project.

However, to play devils advocate, Bristol TM to Gloucester Yard is easily achieved in sub 35 minutes on XC. Cheltenham-Bristol is typically 2 per hour XC plus 1 per hour GWR (slow). Gloucester is typically 1 per hour GWR, and takes longer even though it’s closer. And as a sop to Cheltenham, you could use the hypothetical station for Cheltenham-London trains instead of reversing knocking 10 min off those as well.

EDIT: Precovid Gloucester had about 1.5 million users and Cheltenham 2.5 million even though they are both roughly the same size. So you could also argue there’s a missing million passengers if Gloucester had the same service as Cheltenham.

 

[JonathanH]

In the grand scheme of things, Gloucester has a Cross Country service calling once each hour, with connections available at Birmingham (or indeed Derby) to the rest of the network. It also has frequent connections to Cheltenham. Therefore, there is only really an issue for travel from and to Gloucester to places beyond Bristol.

It seems somewhat difficult to justify building a new station on the bypass line to slow down Cross Country services when the connections required are largely there.

 

[BrianW]

I don’t doubt that XC simply will not stop there and that’s the main reason as someone fairly local I’d be extremely sceptical about it as a project.

However, to play devils advocate, Bristol TM to Gloucester Yard is easily achieved in sub 35 minutes on XC. Cheltenham-Bristol is typically 2 per hour XC plus 1 per hour GWR (slow). Gloucester is typically 1 per hour GWR, and takes longer even though it’s closer. And as a sop to Cheltenham, you could use the hypothetical station for Cheltenham-London trains instead of reversing knocking 10 min off those as well.

EDIT: Precovid Gloucester had about 1.5 million users and Cheltenham 2.5 million even though they are both roughly the same size. So you could also argue there’s a missing million passengers if Gloucester had the same service as Cheltenham.

I share that skepticism. A station at shall we call it Gloucester East- whether it be to the north or south or mid-triangle?- will draw customers that are currently using Gloucester (Central) or Cherltenham. It will cost money and may result in fewer trains at Gloucester Central! So expenditure for little or no certain improvement over the current arrangement however unsatisfactory, IMHO.

 

[Dr Day]

Metrowest phase 2 included an extra train Gloucester - Bristol Temple Meads as well as the Henbury new service. Or at least did pre-covid.

 

[Noddy]

I share that skepticism. A station at shall we call it Gloucester East- whether it be to the north or south or mid-triangle?- will draw customers that are currently using Gloucester (Central) or Cherltenham. It will cost money and may result in fewer trains at Gloucester Central! So expenditure for little or no certain improvement over the current arrangement however unsatisfactory, IMHO.

I think any threat to the existing station would depend entirely on where they built this hypothetical station, but having said that stations close together can still be successful (eg nearby, Bristol Parkway and Filton Abbey Wood show this). My main concern would be that I think it extremely unlikely that any XC services would actually stop but there would be a strong temptation to divert the London-Cheltenham trains, making connections to that service significantly worse.

Metrowest phase 2 included an extra train Gloucester - Bristol Temple Meads as well as the Henbury new service. Or at least did pre-covid.

Metrowest 2 also includes the provision of a new station at Charfield. So while there will be more services they’ll be even slower, not quicker!

 

[PTR 444]

I think Gloucester could merit an additional station to the south of the city in the Quedgeley area, however this would probably be better off as a local rather than Intercity station. A station here in addition to one on the Cross Country Route at Stonehouse could be quite well-used if the additional tph from Bristol to Gloucester goes ahead.

 

[tbtc]

Three years ago it was worth discussing where XC would want to stop/ not stop at Gloucester (same with Worcestershire Parkway), as they tried to balance revenue with resources (e.g. they could divert everything into the existing Gloucester station but it’d come at the cost of every service taking “ten” minutes longer, meaning one additional Voyager/ at least half a dozen additional staff/ bigger fuel bills… would the additional passengers from Gloucester be worth the loss of longer distance passengers put off by the increased journey times… will the Bristol to Birmingham passengers stop using the train so often if there’s lots of shorter distance passengers to compete with… will the diversion really attract lots more people or will it just mean half the passengers who previously used Cheltenham now use Gloucester instead, so no real increase in passengers but quite an increase in costs)…

…however, it’s all up to the government now - if the government tweak the contract to demand that Gloucester gets at least an hourly XC service to Bristol/ Exeter then they’ll meekly comply with the instruction - much easier for local MPs to make a case since they don’t have to worry about the economics stacking up, as long as they shout loudly enough about “left behind” cities and silent majorities and hidden rural poverty etc - emotions count for more than finances

That said, there’s no reason why it has to be XC that provide a fast hourly link from Gloucester to Bristol/ Birmingham.

There could be an extension of the TfW service to the West Midlands (coordinated roughly half hourly with the XC Nottingham service in terms of Cardiff -Birmingham… if it wasn’t for “politics” I’d suggest combining everything on that corridor into a half hourly Cardiff to Nottingham with a service that ran “semi fast” in one direction being the stopper on its journey back and vice versa, but Cardiff Bay won’t want to give up control of the route through Chepstow, but it’d be crazy to get them responsiblity for running everything as far as Nottingham!)…

…or what about GWR supplementing their one slow service from Gloucester to Bristol with a faster one each hour (maybe the Worcester/ Great Malvern trains could stop at just Bristol Parkway plus one other station, with the other calls picked up by an hourly Gloucester stopper, so that longer distance passengers has a faster journey and local passengers weren’t competing for the same seats as them?)

My point being that other TOCs could run some faster regional links, rather than expecting everything to get dumped onto the busy Voyagers

 

[JonathanH]

That said, there’s no reason why it has to be XC that provide a fast hourly link from Gloucester to Bristol/ Birmingham.

Yes, but XC do provide a fast hourly link from Gloucester to Birmingham, so that direction is already catered for. While it goes to Derby and Nottingham and not Manchester or Newcastle, direct links to everywhere aren't possible.

Is a link from Gloucester to stations beyond Bristol that important in the grand scheme of things?

Running the existing XC services to Plymouth via Gloucester is fraught with issues as the onus to avoid Gloucester to save time in the instance of late running is obvious, so calls at Gloucester would come with some inherent unreliability. Moreover, reversals are a nuisance to timetable and operate, particularly if they are at broadly similar times in each direction. Through passengers with a forward facing preference don't like reversals either.

My point being that other TOCs could run some faster regional links, rather than expecting everything to get dumped onto the busy Voyagers

While valid points about other operators, I doubt there is any desire to increase frequencies in the Gloucester area. The peak service to Bristol is already quite frequent, with five departures before 8am, one of those at 0700 to Penzance. There is a train back from Penzance as well

One off-peak train an hour from Gloucester to Bristol extending to Worcester every other hour is an established level of service with few expecting more, despite some discussion about it prior to 2020. Stopping at Yate and Cam & Dursley only adds about five minutes.

So a station on the avoiding line is really just an awkward status symbol for the city, borne of the desire to have longer distance links, almost like the debates people have about other places not on the XC network.

 

[tbtc]

Yes, but XC do provide a fast hourly link from Gloucester to Birmingham, so that direction is already catered for. While it goes to Derby and Nottingham and not Manchester or Newcastle, direct links to everywhere aren't possible.

Is a link from Gloucester to stations beyond Bristol that important in the grand scheme of things?

Running the existing XC services to Plymouth via Gloucester is fraught with issues as the onus to avoid Gloucester to save time in the instance of late running is obvious, so calls at Gloucester would come with some inherent unreliability. Moreover, reversals are a nuisance to timetable and operate, particularly if they are at broadly similar times in each direction. Through passengers with a forward facing preference don't like reversals either.


While valid points about other operators, I doubt there is any desire to increase frequencies in the Gloucester area. The peak service to Bristol is already quite frequent, with five departures before 8am, one of those at 0700 to Penzance. There is a train back from Penzance as well

One off-peak train an hour from Gloucester to Bristol extending to Worcester every other hour is an established level of service with few expecting more, despite some discussion about it prior to 2020. Stopping at Yate and Cam & Dursley only adds about five minutes.

So a station on the avoiding line is really just an awkward status symbol for the city, borne of the desire to have longer distance links, almost like the debates people have about other places not on the XC network.

I agree with how awkward it would be to serve Gloucester as well as some locals would like, it’s a posher version of Sunderland/ Bradford/ Rotherham in that respect, a big place but one that’s not big enough to massively inconvenience lots of existing railway passengers by diverting/ extending lots more services that way (given the railway geography which means that these places Street on the main line, yet some other/ seemingly smaller places do get an inter-city/ long distance service

But the last time I was in Gloucester, some of the XC trains were in the hands of two coach 170s, the FGW/GWR services were single 150s and the Wales & Borders/ Arriva/ TfW trains were either a solo 153 or 150 (I can’t remember whether this was before/ after the various name changes, it was certainly pre-Covid), so I could see the argument that journeys of that distance features a stock upgrade if they didn’t warrant a frequency increase (especially given how poor the quality looks compared to the 800s towards Swindon/ Reading/ London)

 

[Noddy]

Yes, but XC do provide a fast hourly link from Gloucester to Birmingham, so that direction is already catered for. While it goes to Derby and Nottingham and not Manchester or Newcastle, direct links to everywhere aren't possible.

Is a link from Gloucester to stations beyond Bristol that important in the grand scheme of things?

Running the existing XC services to Plymouth via Gloucester is fraught with issues as the onus to avoid Gloucester to save time in the instance of late running is obvious, so calls at Gloucester would come with some inherent unreliability. Moreover, reversals are a nuisance to timetable and operate, particularly if they are at broadly similar times in each direction. Through passengers with a forward facing preference don't like reversals either.


While valid points about other operators, I doubt there is any desire to increase frequencies in the Gloucester area. The peak service to Bristol is already quite frequent, with five departures before 8am, one of those at 0700 to Penzance. There is a train back from Penzance as well

One off-peak train an hour from Gloucester to Bristol extending to Worcester every other hour is an established level of service with few expecting more, despite some discussion about it prior to 2020. Stopping at Yate and Cam & Dursley only adds about five minutes.

So a station on the avoiding line is really just an awkward status symbol for the city, borne of the desire to have longer distance links, almost like the debates people have about other places not on the XC network.

While that is all perfectly reasonable and rational from an operating a railway perspective, it could equally be used as manifesto for opening an hypothetical station on the XC line!

Cheltenham and Gloucester are roughly same size (I'd argue Gloucester is larger but let's say they're the same). Basically all current services pass through both settlements, but Gloucester has a more limited service as basically no fast XC services call. Looking at the passenger figures pre-covid it's 1.5 million for Gloucester vs 2.5 million for Cheltenham, over 60% more passengers. I would also point out that while both stations are fairly poorly served by road due to traffic issues, Gloucester is better located for the city centre and major employers such as Gloucestershire Royal Infirmary, whereas Cheltenham is poorly located for the two centre, hospital, uni etc, but is well located for the low density suburbs. So all things being equal you'd expect them to be broadly same (or Gloucester even slightly ahead given its better commuting potential, both outwards to Bristols and inwards) but there is a significant difference.

In terms of the existing Gloucester-Bristol service you note that they only stop at Yate and Cam & D but they also stop at Filton Abbey Wood, adding another couple of minutes. There are also plans to add additional stations at various locations including Charfield (MetroWest2), Stonehouse (Stroud MP has got money from Gov to look at this) and Tuffley/Quedgeley(council led??). Clearly not all these are going to go ahead but even if only one does that's another couple of minutes added to the journey (five intermediate stops before Temple Meads). The current services are likely to be held for other faster services including XC, and they are operated by slow 30 year old DMUs, with no sign that they will be replaced by something modern or faster. I don't use the service that regularly, but pre-covid rush hour trains (of which there is 1 an hour PM) were regularly standing in both directions between Bristol and Yate. And that's before even starting on Birmingham services, with only an hourly service compared to a roughly three an hour at Cheltenham (two of which don't stop anywhere on route). None of this is conducive to attracting folk from Gloucester off the M5.

Now as I've said twice already I'd personally be extremely sceptical about such a station but there are obviously issues around the service provision at Gloucester, which is clearly suppressing demand. I think everyone would agree reversing XC trains is a mistake, so the obvious alternative, for those who maybe don't fully understand the situation (especially around XCs own issues) is a new station on the mainline...

 

[O L Leigh]

Cheltenham and Gloucester are roughly same size (I'd argue Gloucester is larger but let's say they're the same). Basically all current services pass through both settlements, but Gloucester has a more limited service as basically no fast XC services call. Looking at the passenger figures pre-covid it's 1.5 million for Gloucester vs 2.5 million for Cheltenham, over 60% more passengers. I would also point out that while both stations are fairly poorly served by road due to traffic issues, Gloucester is better located for the city centre and major employers such as Gloucestershire Royal Infirmary, whereas Cheltenham is poorly located for the two centre, hospital, uni etc, but is well located for the low density suburbs. So all things being equal you'd expect them to be broadly same (or Gloucester even slightly ahead given its better commuting potential, both outwards to Bristols and inwards) but there is a significant difference.

It would be interesting to speculate just how many of those 1 million additional journeys from Cheltenham are made by people who would otherwise have started their journeys at Gloucester. It might also be interesting to wonder whether the differing socio-economic status of each settlement has any bearing on the number of people commuting from each location. Clearly both stand about equal in terms of being employment centres themselves and, given the number of passengers who travel solely between the two, each seems to contribute a share in terms of commuting from one to the other. There's also the question of where all of these passengers are heading. Given that the only direction in which there is room for improvement is towards Bristol, it would be important to know what the travelling patterns are in that direction and to filter out the numbers who are travelling either north, west or towards London.

My point is simply that I don't think that comparing bald figures necessarily gives the whole view and that the creation of a Gloucester East/Parkway station on the mainline wouldn't simply mean a re-distribution of that 4 million total between the three locations rather than a growth in usage from Gloucester. That said, given the size and nature of the catchment area for both settlements, I do see the benefit of a parkway station on the mainline at Gloucester, although clearly thought would need to be given to service patterns and the relationship between the parkway and city centre stations to ensure that it doesn't actually have a detrimental effect for rail users compared to the current provision. My preferred location for that would have been to the north of Barnwood Jn where the railway passes over the A417, but sadly the site is already under development as (presumably) yet another distribution centre.

 

[Noddy]

It would be interesting to speculate just how many of those 1 million additional journeys from Cheltenham are made by people who would otherwise have started their journeys at Gloucester. It might also be interesting to wonder whether the differing socio-economic status of each settlement has any bearing on the number of people commuting from each location. Clearly both stand about equal in terms of being employment centres themselves and, given the number of passengers who travel solely between the two, each seems to contribute a share in terms of commuting from one to the other. There's also the question of where all of these passengers are heading. Given that the only direction in which there is room for improvement is towards Bristol, it would be important to know what the travelling patterns are in that direction and to filter out the numbers who are travelling either north, west or towards London.

My point is simply that I don't think that comparing bald figures necessarily gives the whole view and that the creation of a Gloucester East/Parkway station on the mainline wouldn't simply mean a re-distribution of that 4 million total between the three locations rather than a growth in usage from Gloucester. That said, given the size and nature of the catchment area for both settlements, I do see the benefit of a parkway station on the mainline at Gloucester, although clearly thought would need to be given to service patterns and the relationship between the parkway and city centre stations to ensure that it doesn't actually have a detrimental effect for rail users compared to the current provision. My preferred location for that would have been to the north of Barnwood Jn where the railway passes over the A417, but sadly the site is already under development as (presumably) yet another distribution centre.

Absolutely valid points. Gloucester’s socio-economic status is obviously lower although I don’t have any specific stats for that, or how that relates to rail use. On the other hand perhaps that could mean more people would use a better service to/from Gloucester as they are statistically less likely to have access to a car?

I agree that any new station is also likely to abstract from the existing stations at Gloucester and Cheltenham, although don’t I think it would be huge from Cheltenham, and I think probably generate far more new journeys. I imagine journeys that start in Gloucester involving driving to Cheltenham first are in the 10s of thousands rather 100s of thousands? Certainly not 500 thousand which would equalise the numbers.

The question is more how much would any potential station abstract from Gloucester ‘Central’. Personally I would be totally against anything up by the A417 as it’s would likely result in the loss of Cheltenham-London GWR trains from the ‘central’ station without any net benefit for travel to/from Bristol, unless you live in the northern suburbs or outside the city. In the current situation/timetable with such a station Gloucester ‘Central’ would loose the London trains, but meanwhile Gloucester Parkway/East would not get the fast twice an hour XC services and only the existing slower hourly Turbostar service would stop there.

Personally, I would probably build it on the railway land to the south side of Metz Way as an interchange station with four platforms across both the ‘main line’ and the Gloucester-Bristol line, with road access off Metz Way, a large car park, and a foot entrance to the south to allow access to Barton and Abbeymead. This would also have its own problems; assuming the current service levels and London-Cheltenham GWR services being diverted it would only have one train per hour between Gloucester ‘East’ and Gloucester ‘Central’ so you’d need to have some sort of shuttle. And move Gloucester yard. And it would also be ridiculously expensive. So not really practical…

 

[JonathanH]

The ironic thing is that a Gloucester 'East' station would probably be closer to the centre of Gloucester than Cheltenham's station is to the centre of Cheltenham.

However, is it any easier to get a shuttle train between Gloucester 'Central' and Gloucester 'East' than what is effectively a similar connecting train service between Gloucester 'Central' and Cheltenham?

 

[Noddy]

The ironic thing is that a Gloucester 'East' station would probably be closer to the centre of Gloucester than Cheltenham's station is to the centre of Cheltenham.

Indeed, Cheltenham station is terribly located for just about everything (and doesn’t even have a decent car park to make up for it) which is why I suspect there is a lot of suppressed demand in Gloucester.

However, is it any easier to get a shuttle train between Gloucester 'Central' and Gloucester 'East' than what is effectively a similar connecting train service between Gloucester 'Central' and Cheltenham?

Because of the distances and time involved especially heading south? Going to Bristol would allow 2 trains per hour taking circa 35 min plus the existing service versus the current 1 per hour at 45-50min (and potentially even longer if more stations on the route are opened). Going north, the savings would only be a couple of minutes to Cheltenham, and maybe 6 minutes to Birmingham. But again you’d have two per hour of these, plus the existing service.

And the fact you don’t have to connect. For many folk commuting out of Gloucester the ‘East’ station would be probably be their primary station. But this is a negative for the existing station (and inward commuting) which is where the issues arise.

 

[Snow1964]

Metrowest phase 2 included an extra train Gloucester - Bristol Temple Meads as well as the Henbury new service. Or at least did pre-covid.

West of England Combined Authority (WECA) sanctioned the funding on 27th January

The Committee RESOLVED:
(1) MetroWest Phase 2 –to approve funding to cover stage 1 and remaining elements of the scheme. As set out elsewhere on this agenda a Full Business Case (FBC) has been produced seeking the award of £13.663m of funding (£2.6m beyond that previously awarded) for stage 1 of the project which will include the construction and opening of Ashley Down Station, secure planning approval for North Filton and Henbury stations and tender detailed design and construction works. An allocation of £6.245m from the Investment Fund (IF) is proposed for the delivery of the remaining elements of the scheme.

https://westofengland-ca.moderngov.co.uk/documents/g536/Decisions%2027th-Jan-2023%2013.00%20West%20of%20England%20Combined%20Authority%20Committee.pdf?T=2

We also know the Rail Minister made following statement on 18th January (copied from Hansard)

I have been offered assurances from GWR’s managing director, who has been clear that his team have identified the rolling stock required for the extra trains and that the training will be in place for May. There are also provisional plans for the service to be funded by the West of England Combined Authority for three years after it is operational, as part of an agreement with GWR.

So big question is what extra trains for Bristol-Gloucester, and of course how many, especially as seem to be struggling to keep enough spare parts in stock for 165s and 166s (even though they have committed to keeping them until 2028). And please don't make me laugh by saying parts are sourced on a just in time basis.

 

[4-SUB 4732]

Run the existing hourly "fast" Plymouth to North East.

Amend the Cardiff to be the other fast path, so Gloucester gets a proper service.

Make the Bristol service a 170, as people in the likes of Worcester Parkway and Ashchurch will probably prefer Bristol connections than the Cardiff.

That, and it makes more sense as you only need to overlay the hourly slow Worcester - Gloucester - Bristol.

 

[leytongabriel]

Also worth remembering that the present Gloucester station is convenient for Gloucester Bus Station which has bus and coach services.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Make the Bristol service a 170, as people in the likes of Worcester Parkway and Ashchurch will probably prefer Bristol connections than the Cardiff.

How does that work the 3 times in the day the XC service from Bristol starts in Torbay? There’s been a consultation before to remove XC from Torbay which was rejected and the May 23 restores the missing daytime service.

 

[4-SUB 4732]

How does that work the 3 times in the day the XC service from Bristol starts in Torbay? There’s been a consultation before to remove XC from Torbay which was rejected and the May 23 restores the missing daytime service.

170s to Torbay or the Exeter bay platform could be hellfire.

 

[MattRat]

XC is designed around Birmingham. I don't see how helping Gloucester to Bristol travel works for XC. Now a terminating service that goes through Birmingham, on the other hand, sounds much more like XC, but is Gloucester a big enough destination for that? Or is there something through Gloucester that could be served by XC instead with an extension?