• Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

May 2023 changes

Status
Not open for further replies.
Watershed

Watershed

Veteran Member
Associate Staff
Senior Fares Advisor
Joined
26 Sep 2020
Messages
16,582
Location
UK
JonathanH said:
Is that true? What has happened is removal of a working diagram, not a change in the unrostered units.
Click to expand...
A unit that has been sent to the West, so yes, there is one less in the LTV that's not required for service.
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

D

DylanThomas

Member
Joined
23 Apr 2014
Messages
19
JonathanH said:
Is that true? What has happened is removal of a working diagram, not a change in the unrostered units.
Click to expand...
Deleted as question answered by another user

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

JonathanH said:
Yes, but that unit used to have peak work that has now been removed from the timetable.
Click to expand...
It is in GWRs own increased risk assessment pdf above
 
J

JonathanH

Veteran Member
Joined
29 May 2011
Messages
23,264
DylanThomas said:
It is in GWRs own increased risk assessment pdf above
Click to expand...
Yes - sorry I missed the point that that is what was being discussed. The circumstances of the removal of this unit had been discussed in a different thread.

Hopefully it is a one timetable period issue as the presentation also comments on the potential for making the North Downs timetable more efficient. Getting back to the position which existed for a long time of only needing six diagrams for the off-peak service would help with freeing up a spare unit.
 
D

DylanThomas

Member
Joined
23 Apr 2014
Messages
19
JonathanH said:
Yes - sorry I missed the point that that is what was being discussed. The circumstances of the removal of this unit had been discussed in a different thread.

Hopefully it is a one timetable period issue as the presentation also comments on the potential for making the North Downs timetable more efficient. Getting back to the position which existed for a long time of only needing six diagrams for the off-peak service would help with freeing up a spare unit.
Click to expand...
I wonder what will happen if they end up with a broken Turbo in the Thames Valley?

Scrap the peak Marlow donkey (Bourne End to Marlow) and run it as bus replacement until off-peak?

The Turbos are very expensive to maintain now. Believe I read that engine overhaul costs have tripled.
 
DelW

DelW

Established Member
Joined
15 Jan 2015
Messages
5,946
JonathanH said:
Hopefully it is a one timetable period issue as the presentation also comments on the potential for making the North Downs timetable more efficient. Getting back to the position which existed for a long time of only needing six diagrams for the off-peak service would help with freeing up a spare unit.
Click to expand...
Presumably that basically means undoing most or all of the changes that were made to the NDL timetable to accommodate the 3tph service using 769s? None of those were needed as it turned out, since neither the second hourly Gatwick nor the bimodes were ever operated. The pointless delay to Redhill trains at Guildford, wasting time sitting still to allow overtaking by a non existent Gatwick service, is an ever present reminder of the cost of the whole 769 debacle. As passengers and taxpayers we paid a huge amount of money to end up with a worse service than before.

I suppose at least we're better off than in the days when Southern Region ran it with the dreadful Tadpoles.
 
J

JonathanH

Veteran Member
Joined
29 May 2011
Messages
23,264
TT-ONR-NRN said:
A redundant unit due to a peak only diagram being eliminated, so a counteracting move/balance.
Click to expand...
I suppose the point that GWR and other posters are making is that once that morning peak work was completed, it was available to provide cover for the rest of the day.
 
B

Benjwri

Established Member
Joined
16 Jan 2022
Messages
3,269
Location
Bath
Does anyone know why the Bristol to London services call at Didcot at 2tph, but the London to Bristol only has calls for 1tph?

Originally both directions were 1tph but the Up direction has increased its frequency. I'm not complaining, but if one way can, couldn't the other?
 
M

mangyiscute

Established Member
Joined
6 Mar 2021
Messages
1,524
Location
Reading
Benjwri said:
Does anyone know why the Bristol to London services call at Didcot at 2tph, but the London to Bristol only has calls for 1tph?

Originally both directions were 1tph but the Up direction has increased its frequency. I'm not complaining, but if one way can, couldn't the other?
Click to expand...
Especially because the one that doesn't stop has the Cheltenham service 5 minutes after, so there's no use claiming that you can connect off of that service, it just means Didcot (and by extension Oxford) to Bristol and beyond is down to hourly
Furthermore, half of the trains have pathing allowance in their Reading to Swindon time which would allow for a Didcot stop without issue or change to journey times (they're gonna end up just sitting at Swindon), and the other half from what I can tell could easily run 3 minutes later from Didcot onwards without pathing issues
 
Last edited:
B

Benjwri

Established Member
Joined
16 Jan 2022
Messages
3,269
Location
Bath
mangyiscute said:
Especially because the one that doesn't stop has the Cheltenham service 5 minutes after, so there's no use claiming that you can connect off of that service, it just means Didcot (and by extension Oxford) to Bristol and beyond is down to hourly
Click to expand...
Although I'm sure the answer to anyone asking what they should do is just buy the more expensive via Reading ticket!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

Also rather hilariously this is such a last minute change it isn't even included in their published PDF timetable, which lists only the xx:30 services as stopping at Didcot, and I am absolutely sure this wasn't changed in journey planners 2 weeks ago.

One has to wonder what has forced this last minute change. Presumably political pressure, but the opposite direction couldn't be changed without a recast?
 
M

mangyiscute

Established Member
Joined
6 Mar 2021
Messages
1,524
Location
Reading
Furthermore, half of the trains have pathing allowance in their Reading to Swindon time which would allow for a Didcot stop without issue or change to journey times (they're gonna end up just sitting at Swindon), and the other half from what I can tell could easily run 3 minutes later from Didcot onwards without pathing issues
Click to expand...
From looking deeper into it, the half of the trains that have pathing allowance have a freight/ECS service running in front of it at a slower speed, so they have to wait outside Swindon for a bit since they catch it up. There's absolutely no reason that I can see that this spare time couldn't be used sat at Didcot rather than travelling at a slower speed for a while. This is the reason that I get annoyed at timetables sometimes, it's when there's a clear change that could be made that wouldn't makes anyone's journey worse but would make a lot of people's journeys better.
 
B

Benjwri

Established Member
Joined
16 Jan 2022
Messages
3,269
Location
Bath
mangyiscute said:
From looking deeper into it, the half of the trains that have pathing allowance have a freight/ECS service running in front of it at a slower speed, so they have to wait outside Swindon for a bit since they catch it up. There's absolutely no reason that I can see that this spare time couldn't be used sat at Didcot rather than travelling at a slower speed for a while. This is the reason that I get annoyed at timetables sometimes, it's when there's a clear change that could be made that wouldn't makes anyone's journey worse but would make a lot of people's journeys better.
Click to expand...
To be fair a significant amount don't, and I believe that stopping them at Didcot would mean the Cheltenham service would have to be pushed back, and then the Swansea service that's non stop behind it would have to be pushed back, slowing down both journeys. It's stupid that it was removed in the first place, but now that it's been done I can see that it can't be undone without another recast.
 
ThameslinkUser

ThameslinkUser

Member
Joined
31 Dec 2019
Messages
995
Location
uk
Does anybody know anywhere to find the booked train lengths of services in the timetable? Specifically for GTR...
 
J

JonathanH

Veteran Member
Joined
29 May 2011
Messages
23,264
ThameslinkUser

ThameslinkUser

Member
Joined
31 Dec 2019
Messages
995
Location
uk
JonathanH said:
As far as the public domain goes, I think it will be wait and see tomorrow,
Click to expand...
So much for "plan your journey" if there's no information available on whether you can actually get a seat or not... I should imagine the obfuscation is to play down the impacts of changing the vast majority (if not all) 12 car services to 8 or fewer.
 
PGAT

PGAT

Established Member
Joined
13 Apr 2022
Messages
2,123
Location
Selhurst
JonathanH said:
As far as the public domain goes, I think it will be wait and see tomorrow, then referring to Tiger - https://tiger.worldline.global/ECROYDN/ciss;graphic=1.

There was also some commentary in this thread https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...nd-class-313-replacement.247724/#post-6191760
Click to expand...
Tiger only shows the next 30 minutes, each GTR website (Southern, Thameslink and Great Northern) all show lengths for the next 2 hours. (EDIT: nevermind you have to zoom out to see the whole thing)

If all else fails it's pretty easy to guess fairly accurately
 
M

mangyiscute

Established Member
Joined
6 Mar 2021
Messages
1,524
Location
Reading
Benjwri said:
To be fair a significant amount don't, and I believe that stopping them at Didcot would mean the Cheltenham service would have to be pushed back, and then the Swansea service that's non stop behind it would have to be pushed back, slowing down both journeys. It's stupid that it was removed in the first place, but now that it's been done I can see that it can't be undone without another recast.
Click to expand...
The cheltenham trains either have a couple minutes of pathing between didcot and swindon, or they sit in swindon for a couple mins, so they'd be fine to be pushed back a couple minutes as they could still leave Swindon maximum a couple minutes later and they'd be fine to run a couple minutes later to Gloucester and then 8 mins reversal there rather than 10. The swansea service gets to Swindon over 10 minutes after the Cheltenham leaves so it would not cause any issue to that.

edit: before the change, the Cheltenham train left Reading at xx:53 and the Bristol at xx:57. The Bristol train would get to Swindon at xx:27 with both of them calling at Didcot. Now, they have swapped their times at Reading, so if they both stopped at Didcot the Cheltenham train could pull into Swindon at xx:27 and then leave at xx:29 as it does currently, since there's proof that this timing does work.
 
Last edited:
C

CptCharlee

Member
Joined
31 Jan 2018
Messages
123
Crosscountry are touting "an increase in services between Bristol and Plymouth"

Yet I don't see anything other then the hourly Edinburghs? So nothing extra.
 
hexagon789

hexagon789

Veteran Member
Joined
2 Sep 2016
Messages
18,287
Location
Glasgow
CptCharlee said:
Crosscountry are touting "an increase in services between Bristol and Plymouth"

Yet I don't see anything other then the hourly Edinburghs? So nothing extra.
Click to expand...
The gaps, at for example 1145 and 1945, off Bristol have been filled. So it's back to properly hourly.
 
M

Mitchell Hurd

On Moderation
Joined
28 Oct 2017
Messages
1,754
DylanThomas said:
More info on GWR changes
Click to expand...

Thanks for this - found it really interesting!

I am concerned about the use of scheduled single 5-car sets on the Wales / Bristol / West of England diagrams though. However, looking at the planned diagrams, it seems like GWR have clearly thought of this so I trust them with their allocations!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top