GWR accused of disrupting Wales-England train links by Welsh Government

[Meole]

Rail company accused of disrupting Wales-England train links by Welsh government​

GWR accused of trying to 'disrupt' plans for new west Wales to Bristol trains

Transport for Wales wants to introduce train services between west Wales and Bristol in December.

www.bbc.co.uk

Transport for Wales (TfW), which is owned by the Welsh government, wants the services from Milford Haven or Fishguard, in Pembrokeshire, to start before the end of the year.

It hopes to run two-hourly services from Monday to Saturday, with one beginning in Cardiff and the others in the west.

But Great Western Railway (GWR), which already runs Cardiff to Bristol trains, said the proposals would have a "significant effect" on its revenue.

Awful behaviour by GWR trying to block service improvements for passengers, its surely time for TFW to be given control of cross border routes.

 

[JamesT]

Rail company accused of disrupting Wales-England train links by Welsh government​

GWR accused of trying to 'disrupt' plans for new west Wales to Bristol trains

Transport for Wales wants to introduce train services between west Wales and Bristol in December.

www.bbc.co.uk

Awful behaviour by GWR trying to block service improvements for passengers, its surely time for TFW to be given control of cross border routes.

I don’t see it as aggressive. It’s entirely reasonable for GWR to object to another operator wanting to run services that could negatively affect theirs. That’s why we have the ORR as an independent regulator to determine who can run services. Is it an improvement if there’s an increase in unreliability thanks to adding too many trains?

Where do you draw the line for TFW running cross border services? Paddington? Euston? Edinburgh?

 

[zwk500]

For balance, the full consultation responses are available here: https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/defaul...lemental-agreement-consultation-responses.pdf

 

[fishwomp]

When it says "GWR" .. is this not just GWR acting under the instruction of the Government. It's the Government that gets the revenue and that will be running GWR routes directly in a few months.

 

[AlterEgo]

Nothing "aggressive" there whatsoever of course. Just a TOC doing what it is bound to do under its agreement with the govenrment, which in this case is a defensive manoeuvre.

 

[dk1]

Nothing new here. Back in the late 1990s Anglia Railways tried to stop Great Eastern operating additional & faster services between Liverpool St & Ipswich. After failing to win they started to call at Ingatestone and introduced an additional Norwich peak service (18:42 ex-Liv St) purely to call at Chelmsford. Both were for revenue raiding purposes especially the latter. Just a little surprised GWR are that bothered this late in the privatisation day.

 

[WelshBluebird]

I feel GWR are being very clever by claiming they operate up to 3 trains an hour between Cardiff and Bristol. I assume this is a timetabling quirk based on some very carefully selected times as normally its 2 per hour. And actually reading the orr link above I am glad to see TfW specifically call that out as the claim is somewhat misleading.

To me the more interesting bit is that part of the objection is around the potentially future enhanced metrowest services and the future burns stations stopping services.

 

[bb21]

Is there even capacity at Temple Meads to accommodate additional trains?

 

[The exile]

Is there even capacity at Temple Meads to accommodate additional trains?

At the right points of the hour, yes. Whether there’s the capacity to reverse any more across the East end throat (at one point the proposal was Cardiff-Bath, ISTR) is another matter, but probably now irrelevant.
Ironically, longer layovers at TM might help - they can run through to one of the less busy “even” platforms and sit there while something nips in and out of the corresponding “odd” one.

 

[WelshBluebird]

Also, whilst I wouldnt class either side as being aggressive, the shade being thrown in some of the responses is a lot more than what I would have expected.

e.g. GWR raised the issue of the services from West Wales continuing to Bristol delaying GWR services, and in reply TfW replied basically saying GWR services also cause lots of delays to TfW services thanks to the frequent issues nearer London, and that yhere iisk to the new services of GWRs ex Portsmouth trains being unreliable coming into Cardiff.

 

[dk1]

Virgin Trains were masters at this famously getting ’moderation of competition’ which allowed no other operator to compete with them on many routes including Bristol/Oxford to Birmingham. Central Trains tried their hardest to operate to Oxford and Wrexham & Shropshire had to go round the houses to operate to London & then only Marylebone with stops at Wolverhampton only to pick up in the down direction and set down only up road depriving them of what turned out to be desperately needed revenue. They were also very vocal about their dislike of any other open access competition on the WCML which was ironic as this is the market they have since tried & failed to get into.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Jun 2026 ==

Oh and once W&SR got going of course Virgin extended two daily Chester services to/from Wrexham General thus offering far faster services from there to London Euston.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Virgin Trains were masters at this famously getting ’moderation of competition’ which allowed no other operator to compete with them on many routes including Bristol/Oxford to Birmingham. Central Trains tried their hardest to operate to Oxford and Wrexham & Shropshire had to go round the houses to operate to London & then only Marylebone with stops at Wolverhampton only to pick up in the down direction and set down only up road depriving them of what turned out to be desperately needed revenue. They were also very vocal about their dislike of any other open access competition on the WCML which was ironic as this is the market they have since tried & failed to get into.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Jun 2026 ==

Oh and once W&SR got going of course Virgin extended two daily Chester services to/from Wrexham General.

MoC wasn't just VT's choice. It was part of their franchise agreement due to the need to recoup the costs of West Coast Route Modernisation, and their franchise agreement REQUIRED them to object to anything that breached it as a result.

 

[dk1]

MoC wasn't just VT's choice. It was part of their franchise agreement due to the need to recoup the costs of West Coast Route Modernisation, and their franchise agreement REQUIRED them to object to anything that breached it as a result.

Thank you. It was a massive undertaking so quite understandable.

 

[Horizon22]

MoC wasn't just VT's choice. It was part of their franchise agreement due to the need to recoup the costs of West Coast Route Modernisation, and their franchise agreement REQUIRED them to object to anything that breached it as a result.

Still a rather perverse way of trying to operate!

 

[Tram Inn SB]

I feel GWR are being very clever by claiming they operate up to 3 trains an hour between Cardiff and Bristol. I assume this is a timetabling quirk based on some very carefully selected times as normally its 2 per hour. And actually reading the orr link above I am glad to see TfW specifically call that out as the claim is somewhat misleading.

To me the more interesting bit is that part of the objection is around the potentially future enhanced metrowest services and the future burns stations stopping services.

3 Trains per hour to “Bristol” is correct Portsmouth and Taunton (points west) and London Paddington via Bristol Parkway…..

Language again, “Bristol” is doing some moderate lifting granted as Parkway is South Gloucestershire.

 

[Meole]

The GWR claim that 197 are inherently unreliable is ridiculous especially when TFW has dozens of spare 197s.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The GWR claim that 197 are inherently unreliable is ridiculous especially when TFW has dozens of spare 197s.

Spare 197s? Those putting up with 2-car short forms despite 197s not even being on the Cambrian yet probably disagree!

 

[Peter Mugridge]

When it says "GWR" .. is this not just GWR acting under the instruction of the Government. It's the Government that gets the revenue and that will be running GWR routes directly in a few months.

That's probably the point... the DfT will get the revenue from the GWR services but it won't from the TfW services will it? The result of the new TfW services would probably be to reduce GWR's revenue on the route somewhat.

 

[GuyGibsonVC]

Isn’t this the most distilled form of Privatisation as promised all those years ago? Letting the market decide and giving passengers choice?

You have to laugh.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Privatisation can take two forms - competition at the point of use and competition at the point of tendering. The railway has been the latter for a very long time, with the exception of the relatively small scope of Open Access. With regard to Manchester's buses (as an example) there was a move from the first to the second. Some things, e.g. London buses or household bin emptying, have only ever been the second.

 

[Horizon22]

Privatisation can take two forms - competition at the point of use and competition at the point of tendering. The railway has been the latter for a very long time

This was explained to me about 10-15 years ago (its what rail franchises are/were), and honestly hadn't really clocked "privatisation" in that way before that point, so understand that lots of people don't either. But it does lead to problems like "over-bidding and over-promising" and then essentially talking yourself out of unrealistic commitments later down the line without paying the full penalties for non-compliance/delivery as its so embedded by that point. Or "handing the keys back" in extremis. This is the fault of both bidders but also those carrying out the tender to scrutinise it better. But you need experts to do that, and normally they are on the bidding side!

In essence this is basically the very long arm of DfT/GBR setting itself up against the TfW/Welsh government and a bit of muscle-flexing going on if you distill it to the very top.

It sort of shows why the ORR still has some part to play.

 

[The exile]

I don’t see it as aggressive. It’s entirely reasonable for GWR to object to another operator wanting to run services that could negatively affect theirs. That’s why we have the ORR as an independent regulator to determine who can run services. Is it an improvement if there’s an increase in unreliability thanks to adding too many trains?

Where do you draw the line for TFW running cross border services? Paddington? Euston? Edinburgh?

The next question that arises if TfW running services to Bristol is a hit on GW's revenue is whether GW's bottom line is improved or damaged by running beyond Swansea (or even Cardiff!).

Just needs a bit of quiet back-room diplomacy and it'll all get sorted out...

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

This thread just illuminates so nicely what has become of our railways and the quicker GBR is established the better to stop such nonsense which then gets exploited by the media.

 

[43096]

I feel GWR are being very clever by claiming they operate up to 3 trains an hour between Cardiff and Bristol. I assume this is a timetabling quirk based on some very carefully selected times as normally its 2 per hour. And actually reading the orr link above I am glad to see TfW specifically call that out as the claim is somewhat misleading.

Seems fairly accurate to me: half-hourly Paddington to Cardiff (and extensions to Swansea/Carmarthen) and hourly Portsmouth to Cardiff. So two Bristol Parkway-Cardiff and one Bristol TM-Cardiff per hour.

 

[The exile]

This thread just illuminates so nicely what has become of our railways and the quicker GBR is established the better to stop such nonsense which then gets exploited by the media.

Though this is an example of something that GBR won’t affect (as TfW are effectively a “foreign railway). In all honesty, I suspect similar (or worse) has gone on since the dawn of the railway age and neither Grouping, Nationalisation, Privatisation nor Renationalisation has made / will make much difference.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

TfW services to Bristol were forecast in several of the later franchise competitions, notably TfW's in 2019. It can't have been a surprise to either GWR or DfT.
The intention was that access to Bristol would follow the upgrade of the routes through the Severn Tunnel and down to Temple Meads, which is now complete (except, perhaps, for wiring from Filton into Bristol TM).

But DfT wants its return on the investment (eg of Bristol East resignalling and Filton Bank quadrupling).
DfT allows TfW 1tph into Manchester, Liverpool, Glos/Cheltenham and Birmingham. It just adds Bristol TM to this list.

At the other end of the country, TfW allowed Northern to compete on the Manchester-Warrington-Chester route, so it's just the reverse of that change.
In a GBR context, you could imagine TfW being the future main operator South Wales-South West.
The old Wales & West franchise did something like that until Wales & Borders and Greater Western came into being.

 

[irish_rail]

In a GBR context, you could imagine TfW being the future main operator South Wales-South West.
The old Wales & West franchise did something like that until Wales & Borders and Greater Western came into being.

Depends what you mean by south west. As if TFW where to replace GBR on the Cardiff to Plymouth and Penzance route then that will require separate traincrew depots somewhere on route. Keep it under GBR and existing traincrew can work the services. I see zero advantage in TFW taking over that route. There is also the question of how much TFW would care about the service operating well away from Wales.

 

[Kite159]

In a GBR context, you could imagine TfW being the future main operator South Wales-South West.
The old Wales & West franchise did something like that until Wales & Borders and Greater Western came into being.

Replacement of 5 coach IET sets with 2 coach 197s, I can see the majority of passengers being happy with that as they attempt to board...

 

[Warrior2852]

This thread just illuminates so nicely what has become of our railways and the quicker GBR is established the better to stop such nonsense which then gets exploited by the media.

This particular situation will not be affected by GBR, as Transport for Wales (and ScotRail/Caledonian Sleeper) are remaining independently ran by devolved government - keeping their brands and independent operation separate from GBR.

 

[The exile]

Seems fairly accurate to me: half-hourly Paddington to Cardiff (and extensions to Swansea/Carmarthen) and hourly Portsmouth to Cardiff. So two Bristol Parkway-Cardiff and one Bristol TM-Cardiff per hour.

Add the Taunton / Exeters and that makes four!