But theoretically you don’t have to stop at all stations. You could lose a couple, such as having one miss Beltring and Yalding, and the other East Farleigh and Cuxton, and therefore drive down the journey time by another 4 minutes. Push that to the Strood ends and it’s a bit less wobbly.
That's true, I'm not sure some of the smaller stations really justify two trains an hour.
If there are two trains per hour and even frequency is desired, they have to call at the approximately same number of stops. However, if they alternate stops, local connectivity will be destroyed so the only possibility is to have all trains calling at all stations to spread out the load.
Also, if as many suggest the peak may not come back for a few years, are we stuck with relatively poor off-peak services for many years to come? Will this encourage modal shift to the trains, or rather will it encourage modal shift to the car? For instance, Brighton to Southampton is deeply unattractive by train right now. Such a route should really have a semi-fast regional express type service, stopping at medium-sized and larger stations only (like the Portsmouth-Cardiff) - yet as a result of the cutbacks, it stops everywhere as far as Chichester.
Southampton - Brighton is a route which the fare over distance on off-peak fares is nearly the lowest in the country. The railway already wins by price alone.
In most places, the railway is a long way from the position of the bus industry where evening and later buses no longer run. Half hourly services where once there were four trains an hour is not the end of the world if there is capacity on those trains.
If that extra growth costs more to provide than the revenue gained it isn't worth aiming for, particularly given that a lot of it is discretionary travel.
For local travel, a reduction from 4 to 2 trains per hour massively reduces attractiveness. Look at South London on the routes where trains now only run at 2 trains per hour.
I would say that, for local urban travel, 4 trains per hour is the minimum frequency for a route to be useful.
Half hourly is in many ways a "sweet spot". Frequent enough to be useful, infrequent enough to be punctual. The south WCML has run on a half hourly frequency base for years (generally 2tph to quieter stations, 4tph to busier, more to MKC) and people seem fine with it.
It may be true for regional travel but definitely not on a local metro-type service.
Most of the railway is about discretionary travel these days though, to suggest we shouldn't chase revenue because of that is nonsense as that segment of the market was never profitable to start with.
Establishing a viable or cost effective railway by only pursuing lower costs is only self defeating in the long run, prime example is the September cuts on GTR where ARL performance on the Sydenham corridor in the peaks has suffered because of overcrowding, and an increasing number of Southern services are experiencing crowding both on Southern Metro and Coastway because the timetable has been cut too far. All that does is constrain not promote growth.
By pursuing lower costs, the railway can be sustainable without charging higher fares by price-competing against other modes of transport.
In the case of Southern Metro and West Coastway, metro trains (e.g. class 378) should be put on the route in order to increase capacity without increasing costs, as they are local metro services.
