An ambitious idea for Bristol rail services

[PTR 444]

I have been working on my own idea to revolutionise rail services around the vicinity of Bristol Temple Meads, in a similar fashion to the so called "Bristol Metro" project. Basically my idea is to introduce a hierarchy of Intercity, Regional Express and Local services on all lines out of Bristol at clockface intervals. It would mean each mainline gets at least six trains per hour, with the core routes seeing departures at five or ten minute intervals. The Portishead and Henbury lines would also be utilised in my plan, while new stations would be opened at Portway Parkway, Horfield, St Anne's Park, Saltford, Box and Corsham on existing lines. My proposed service pattern would be as follows:

INTERCITY
2tph Bristol TM - London Paddington via Bath (30 min intervals)
2tph XC Southwest - Manchester/Newcastle*
1tph Bristol TM - London Paddington via Bristol Parkway*
1tph Bristol TM - Norwich via BPW (pending completion of EWR)*

* These services will run at equal 15 minute intervals between BRI and BPW

REGIONAL EXPRESS
1tph Cardiff Central - Portsmouth
1tph Cardiff Central - Taunton (With provision to extend to Exeter if local stations west of Taunton reopen)
1tph Gloucester - Frome (1tp2h continues to Weymouth)
1tph Great Malvern - Taunton

All of the above services combined will form a 15 minute frequency between Filton Abbey Wood and Temple Meads. Due to the nature of timings, GLS-FRO and GMV-TAU trains will have a 20 minute layover at Temple Meads rather than 5 in order to enable a 30 minute interval frequency to each of Taunton and Westbury.

LOCAL
1tph Portishead - Severn Beach
1tph Portishead - Bristol Parkway via Avonmouth & Henbury
1tph WSM - Avonmouth via Filton & Henbury
1tph WSM - Bristol Parkway via Filton
1tph Bristol TM - Chippenham (all stations including newly opened Box & Corsham)
1tph Bristol TM - Westbury (all stations. Regional Expresses will no longer call at Avoncliff, Freshford or Oldfield Park)

In order for my plan to come to fruition, redoubling of the Avonmouth branch and WSM loop would be necessary to enable the additional trains to run along these routes. As for electrification, I would wire the entire network in the vicinity of Temple Meads, extending as far south as Taunton and Westbury, and as far north as the already wired GWML. This would mean that all the "Local" services could use class 387s, while a fleet of bi-modes such as the class 755 FLIRT could be ordered for the Regional Express routes.

This is also my first speculative idea to include a taktplan timetable which I have designed from scratch. It is attached here alongside the map so please feel free to take a look

 

[The Planner]

Get what you are trying to do but trying to force trains to arrive/depart 5 minutes apart is a terrible use of capacity.

 

[stuu]

The local services are pretty terrible so it would be good to improve them, but I think there would need to be more infrastructure to run 4 stopping trains an hour to Weston. I (used to) commute to Bristol from Taunton on the XC service, and its 50/50 whether it gets delayed by the local service with 2tph to Weston. Electric trains will help but probably not enough.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Just to play devil's advocate... Who would be using these trains? Liverpool has a heavy-rail metro, which works because the main destination stations (Lime Street and Central) are in the city centre, where people want to go. Temple Meads isn't (although I appreciate that there is development in progress, what with the new tax office and so on). Is the expectation that people would travel to/from Temple Meads, either to be in the Temple Meads area or for onward train travel? Or would significant numbers of people travel between stations in the Bristol area, changing as necessary between services at Temple Meads?

 

[Tomos y Tanc]

Good point, Fawkes Cat! It's instructive to compare Bristol with Cardiff across the water. Most of Cardiff's big employers, retailers and leisure operators are within a five minute walk of either Central, Queen Street, Cathays or Cardiff Bay stations. The south Wales Metro will take people where they want to go. The location of TM is a big drawback for a Bristol version.

 

[JKF]

It’s not just that the station is badly sited in Bristol, the one local branch line to Severn Beach takes quite an indirect route, and even the more direct route to Bath is fairly slow.

It‘s also been the victim of local government reorganisation which split the city and many of the commuter towns between different authorities, so transport planning hasn’t been coordinated. Bring back the Avon Metro!

i seems to recall a proposal a number of years ago for alternating services on the Portishead line to run to a station at Wapping Wharf, which would have been a more useful destination for the city centre, but that now has a bus route on half the formation and a chunk of the remainder recently fell in the river...

 

[Rhydgaled]

INTERCITY
2tph Bristol TM - London Paddington via Bath (30 min intervals)
2tph XC Southwest - Manchester/Newcastle*
1tph Bristol TM - London Paddington via Bristol Parkway*
1tph Bristol TM - Norwich via BPW (pending completion of EWR)*

* These services will run at equal 15 minute intervals between BRI and BPW

Aren't GWR planning to run 2tph between Temple Meads and Paddington via Bristol Parkway, and which case your suggestion would be a reduced service between Bristol and London? That said, COVID-19 may have reduced the importance of London services if the move to working from home / holding meetings over Teams/Zoom/Google/Skype is long-term in which case your suggestion is not bad although I would suggest running the Norwich service via Bath rather than Bristol Parkway.

All of the above services combined will form a 15 minute frequency between Filton Abbey Wood and Temple Meads. Due to the nature of timings, GLS-FRO and GMV-TAU trains will have a 20 minute layover at Temple Meads rather than 5 in order to enable a 30 minute interval frequency to each of Taunton and Westbury.

My own ideas for EWR (as an early phase, with full electrification etc. coming later) were:

• electrify Didcot-Oxford-Bicester-Bletchley before introduction of services between Bicester and Bletchley (avoiding disrupting services after they are introduced)
• complete GWML electrification to Bristol Temple Meads via Bath (and via Bristol Parkway, but that's not relevant to my ideas for EWR)
• electrify the EWR spur from Calvert to Aylesbury, again taking advantage of the lack of present services on most of this section

That paves the way for:

• hourly (or 2tph) outer-suburban EMU service (eg. class 387 or class 350 with 2+2 seating) between Aylesbury and Milton Keynes
• half-hourly (2tph) outer-suburban EMU service (eg. class 387 class 350 with 2+2 seating) between Bristol Temple Meads and Milton Keynes
  • this would call at all stations, including new ones such as Corsham, Royal Wooton Bassett and Grove for Wantage
• hourly bi-mode regional express service between Oxford and Bedford using something like a 444/442 - would be nice if this started back from Bristol as well

The use of EMUs should help acceleration from Oldfield Park and Keynsham which no longer be served by DMUs towards Westbury.

I agree with putting on more local services to Westbury to cut more stops from regional expresses to Portsmouth and Frome/Weymouth, using the 444/442-like bi-modes I suggested above (with the addition of a 3rd rail mode for Portsmouth). I would however treat the Cardiff-Taunton as more of a local service (since it stops at many stations and uses the slower route via Weston-Super-Mare so probably doesn't carry many pepole from Bristol to Taunton) and split it at Temple Meads allowing the Cardiff-Bristol section to be run using an EMU. The Bristol-Taunton stopper would then be extended to start back from Gloucester or beyond, using 166/165 DMUs for now until more electrification can happen. You could also add a regional express to Exeter/Plymouth calling at Nailsea, Highbridge and Bridgwater but not going via Weston-Super-Mare.