Fewer carriages for Cornwall?

[YorkshireBear]

Back in the "good old days" of loco haulage, Paddington to Penzance services generally detached half their carriages at Plymouth. This matched the loadings well, half the passengers would have got out at Taunton, Exeter or Plymouth, far more than joined.

Always seemed to me that the two 5-car units of the new trains, one only running to the major intermediate point, are an efficient manner of running things. The same applies beyond Cardiff on the South Wales line, and to be honest beyond even Oxford on the Hereford line. Sure there may be the odd busier service at the extremities, but generally this is how loadings go.

The only real issue is expecting Cornwall passengers to get up to the front unit when Paddington puts the platform up on the board, as so often nowadays, at just 2 minutes before departure.

Is there any catering beyond Plymouth nowadays? The refreshment vehicles were also always detached at Plymouth.

I hope that they will provide sufficient time at plymouth for splitting and stranglers.

 

[Mordac]

I hope that they will provide sufficient time at plymouth for splitting and stranglers.

I don't want any stranglers in my train, thanks.

Unless it's these ones:

 

[broadgage]

Back in the good old days, loco hauled trains did indeed divide at Plymouth, with only the front portion going further west. This generally worked fine.

At Paddington, passengers could join any part of the train for say Penzance, perhaps partaking of refreshment in the restaurant or buffet. Before the Plymouth stop, passengers could walk through the train so as to be in the correct portion. The guard would remind people to move whilst checking tickets.

Cant do that with the new DMUs, passengers must board the correct portion at Paddington, or alight and run along the platform at some intermediate stop, remembering that the new DMUs are not gangwayed.
In the unlikely event that a Pullman is provided in one unit, then anyone joining the wrong unit will be out of luck.

Dividing at Plymouth may work fairly well under normal conditions, but I doubt that any provision will be made for peak flows or out of course events.
If a service is booked to be a double 5 car DMU to Plymouth and then a single unit west thereof, then I predict that that is exactly what we will get, no matter how busy.
Are they really going to look at a train on a summer Saturday and say "that looks very crowded, we had better run it full length throughout" Of course not.
Booked as a 5 car, that will be what you get.

 

[JN114]

It's not as if splitting non-gangwayed trains is an utterly alien concept that's never been done before. It happens all the time on he West and LTV fleets and I've yet to encounter anyone who has ever had an issue with it. It's always well advertised on CIS and backed up with manual PAs.

The vast majority of the time the Pullman restaurant is fully booked from origin, where the Pullman staff stand on the platform welcoming customers onto the train. Again I don't see why this will be any different with the new trains. The turn up enroute demand that might cause issues with a no gangways between sets just doesn't exist. Besides that, again I'm sure it will be well advertised - as it is now - where on the train the Pullman restaurant is and where you need to be to use it.

 

[Jamesrob637]

Class 68 and Mark 5s for the Pullman?! (All 200km/h rated!)

Fantasy methinks but it'd be a return to the good ol' locomotive hauled trains to the West Country of yesteryear!

 

[ainsworth74]

Or we could just use the train that have already been ordered with full kitchens precisely so that they could provide a Pullman service?

 

[jimm]

Before the Plymouth stop, passengers could walk through the train so as to be in the correct portion. The guard would remind people to move whilst checking tickets.

And naturally, in ye olden days everyone on board did just what they were told and no one ever scrambled for their belongings and had to leg it down the platform at Plymouth when the penny finally dropped...:roll:

Dividing at Plymouth may work fairly well under normal conditions, but I doubt that any provision will be made for peak flows or out of course events.
If a service is booked to be a double 5 car DMU to Plymouth and then a single unit west thereof, then I predict that that is exactly what we will get, no matter how busy.
Are they really going to look at a train on a summer Saturday and say "that looks very crowded, we had better run it full length throughout" Of course not.
Booked as a 5 car, that will be what you get.

No, GWR haven't got a clue which trains are busy, or that lots of people want to travel on summer Saturdays.

Naturally all the IETs that aren't needed elsewhere on the GWR network on a Saturday - as passenger flows are different from weekdays - will just be left parked in the depot - like all those HSTs now... oh, except that GWR doesn't park up lots of HSTs on summer Saturdays, does it?

It actually sends some of them to deepest Devon and Cornwall to add extra capacity where it is needed. And for the past few summers, the HST that normally works the 17.50 to Worcester has been pinched every Friday to work an extra service into Devon instead, clearly demonstrating GWR's inability to understand what people's travelling habits are...

The idea might just occur to GWR that a Penzance service that is fine most of the year with a five-car IET set west of Plymouth could do with being a nine or 10-car formation on a summer weekend and diagram sets accordingly. Even an unsouped-up 800 formation would have no problems getting to Torbay, in order to free up 802s to work further west.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Or we could just use the train that have already been ordered with full kitchens precisely so that they could provide a Pullman service?

Yeah but they haven't got kitchens because they aren't loco hauled. The kitchens won't work as the engines wont have enough power due to having to get up the devon banks, which a loco would be better at.



As I have yet to experience the pullman properly it is pleasing to know it will continue and i do not have to rush and do it.

 

[CosherB]

Yeah but they haven't got kitchens because they aren't loco hauled. The kitchens won't work as the engines wont have enough power due to having to get up the devon banks, which a loco would be better at.

As I have yet to experience the pullman properly it is pleasing to know it will continue and i do not have to rush and do it.

Can you substantiate the above claims? I'm sure Hitachi would be interested to hear about it.

I'll side with ainsworth74.

 

[RPI]

Summer Saturday's are relatively quiet these days, also the vast majority of travel within cornwall is local travel, when working a busy HST from Penzance the amount of people travelling beyond Plymouth is actually not that great, the half hourly service should help spread that load

 

[co-tr-paul]

I wouldnt say quiet. Night Riviera has been fully booked each friday down for some weeks now as my staff's aching bodies will tell you !! 90 beds.

 

[ainsworth74]

Can you substantiate the above claims? I'm sure Hitachi would be interested to hear about it.

I'll side with ainsworth74.

I believe that was sarcasm

Though it's always nice to have people on my side