Magor has a population of around 4,000 people. You’ll be lucky to get a couple of hundred users per day.
……and I bet that would include the results of people being driven into the village and dropped off (which won’t be so great for the locals).
Don't forget Undy too. Bus service is slow to Newport so a lot of younger people may use it.
Well maybe. But the question is whether it is worth the £ and the slower journeys for other passengers.
Well if that doesn't stack up then they shouldn't build it but the growing population of the area and popularity of Severn Tunnel, it may be required to help allow for future growth in rail travel in the area.
Pedestrians, cyclists, public transport users and blue badge holders. I think the basic idea is that the people of magor and undy currently have to drive to severn tunnel junction to get the train. Since the whole point of the project is to reduce demand for east/west car journeys and replace it with demand for east/west rail journeys, saving a chunk of cash while avoiding the cardiff and bristol gridlock the m4 bypass would have created, that seems sensible.
1 extra stop isn't going to make a massive difference? People won't start to drive instead of using the train because it takes another 2 minutes?
Which is why you also add extra services so you have the current fast (ish) services (hopefully made faster by proper electrification of Filton Bank into temple meads and appropriate rolling stock) and new stopping services.
Outside of this topic but relevant to the extra stops in Wales is that electrification throughout to Bristol and use of electric stock would help negate the time penalty of stops such as Magor.
At the recent TravelWatch SouthWest conference, it was mentioned that TfW have aspirations to run a Cardiff - Bristol stopping service, which would presumably serve the above-mentioned new stations, as well as Filton Abbey Wood and Ashley Down. No doubt Bristolians would welcome the new Stadler trains! This is all some years in the future of course.
It would certainly make sense to see the SW Metro and Metro West as an interlinked network. The paucity of services between south Wales and Bristol is shocking.
I take the point made later that this delay may be offset by other factors. But if people didn’t react at all to 2 minutes you could incrementally add 2 minutes each six months forever and demand would never reduce!
I read about that and had a look back at the last Network Rail proposal for redeveloping Central, and it was in 2015! Welsh NR projects do rather feel like they're at the bottom of the pile.I dont think Magor & Undy station will break any passenger records, but it is an easy win as no realignment of relief lines needed. Cardiff East is arguably the most needed - did recent electrification have any provision for the realignments at these stations??
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This news is looking promising
..planning application to be submitted before end of the year..not long to wait but I am expecting to be underwhelmed...When a new look Cardiff Central station is hoped to be unveiled
A report on the plans for the redeveloped railway station shows that a planning application is expected to be submitted for the scheme before the end of the yearwww.walesonline.co.uk
That's true but it's likely that only one or two stations are added to the route and if can get electric traction the impact would be minimal. Let's be honest driving into or out of both Cardiff and Bristol is a nightmare and would take an awfully slow journey to persuade me to take the car instead of the train.
Only if you're going to the city centres and can walk to or park at your departure station. The car wins hands down for other journeys.
That's usually where I'm going hence why keen for a station at Magor to be part of the South Wales Metro. Means jaunts into Cardiff will be much easier and some postings have indicated positive noises being made about said station.
Indeed - and better frequency would help, to some extent, offset the increase in journey times by more stops.
Experience suggests that increasing the journey time by a certain percentage reduces the demand by about the same amount. So it's a question of whether the extra demand from the station outweighs the loss of through passengers - who are of course making longer journeys so generally delivering more benefit per person in terms of cars off the road as well as revenue to the railway.
Old Green Roundabout is a blight on Newport in it's current state.
It is way off-topic, but the longer distance services from the South West to Cardiff should just be Temple Meads, Newport and Cardiff with a separate Bristol to Cardiff picking up the intermediate calls.
The big problems seem to be caused - by slow traffic lights on Queensway and the reduction in capacity caused by bus lanes on Queensway and Clarence Place. These do not help buses as they cause tailbacks to the Old Green itself and to the traffic lights at Clarence Place. Bus priority is a great idea - but only when it works. Unless the changes to the OLd Green address this, they won’t help.
….agree about the walking though.
If just stopping the existing trains at the new stations was the plan you'd be correct. But the tunnel doesn't run at capacity and the tracks between the tunnel and cardiff run way off their potential capacity. So we are really talking about extra trains through the tunnel to Bristol temple meads stopping at existing stations (severn tunnel junction at least 4tph) and maybe one extra and extra trains at least chepstow to cardiff stopping at the new ones.
There are those along the Ebbw Vale line who don't want trains serving these extra stations between Newport abd Cardiff because they don't want an increase in journey times.
Then Ebbw <-> Cardiff will run on the relief lines. They are supposed to be having the line speed increased as part of this plan.