Fast train to Weymouth?

[HamworthyGoods]

Tbf the post you replied didn't say the frequency was bad, mentioning only the hours of operation and the journey time.

Yes but frequency and journey time are usually a direct trade off.

For example to speed up services to Weymouth you would have to take stops out east of Bournemouth and move them into new services, which even if they are detached off the main service at Southampton still require additional traincrew to operate thus increasing cost. The traincrew requirement to detach a portion at Bournemouth is far smaller than detaching it at Southampton and running it separately to Bournemouth.

 

[[.n]]

A half-hourly service to London from places the size of Weymouth (50k population) and Dorchester (18k population) isn’t exactly a poor service.

Look at the likes of Clacton (50k population and also a seaside resort) it only has an hourly service and Harwich (18k population) also an hourly service.

Dorchester and Weymouth actually fare quite well in terms of service provision….

Clacton and Harwich are also much closer to London, and overall have much better transport links in the region [I used to live in north Essex].

Its not just about Dorchester and Weymouth's raw population figures - look at in the context of West Dorset, Weymouth is the biggest place, then Dorchester, then Bridport, etc. (Colchester seems to have a bigger population than West Dorset!) Having better London services (and therefore better services to Bournemouth / Poole / Southampton) is actually useful.

Better in this context does include frequency, as well faster journeys and earlier/later journeys