Snow Hill Lines: A Missed Opportunity?

[bussnapperwm]

Having been looking at the WM Rail timetable and ones over the years, I've noticed they've missed an opportunity to realign the Snow Hill lines timetable to a standard pattern at the Worcester end.

At the moment Shrub Hill gets a service from Stourbridge every hour and half with some carrying on to Malvern, some terminating there and some carrying onto Foregate Street.

On the other hand, Foregate Street has some gaps of a hour to/from Stourbridge, some journeys from Stourbridge to Great Malvern and some terminating.

With the soon to be open Worcestershire Parkway, there exists a chance for WMR to standardise the Snow Hill to Worcester service.

My idea is to have either the existing xx09 or xx39 service from Stourbridge to terminate at Worcester Parkway via Shrub Hill, giving a new opportunity for Snow Hill passengers to connect with Cheltenham/Cardiff services with the opposite half hour being Great Malvern via Foregate Street services.

Working it out, it'll need 2 extra units (which can be attained by converting a pair of 5 car diagrams to 2 lots of 2 car diagrams and 2 3 car diagrams).

Any thoughts?

 

[Clip]

Without knowing these stations - is it possible that they are at the said times and with said gaps due to having to fit in at other ends of their journeys?

Its ok saying this should be at xx:xx but if it cant get anywhere at the other end then its a bit of a futile exercise

 

[edwin_m]

Seems reasonable, but probably needs signaling changes to allow turnback at the Parkway. And is there capacity on the single lines to Parkway and for trains that continue beyond Great Malvern?

 

[option]

Any problems with a WMR train between Shrub Hill & W/Parkway will end up blocking the (more important) GWR London/Cotswolds service.

WOS-WOP is timed at 4.5minutes with a HST
The current terminating services, eg the Dorridge service, have a 2minute turn-around at Shrub Hill. It's the Great Malvern services that have a 10minute turn-around.

Also, there are very few services going to be stopping at W/Parkway, so if your already at Shrub Hill your better just getting on a southbound service for Cheltenham/Gloucester/Bristol etc (ok not Cardiff, but are many wanting to do that? If so, just change at Gloucester)

 

[RT4038]

Working it out, it'll need 2 extra units (which can be attained by converting a pair of 5 car diagrams to 2 lots of 2 car diagrams and 2 3 car diagrams).

So there are some 5 car diagams in the Birmingham area that could be converted to 2 or 3 car diagrams, without upsetting any folk? If that is really true, wouldn't it be better to send these spare carriages to another area (Manchester or another Birmingham line?) just crying out for additional capacity, rather than carrying a few passengers around Worcester to make a pretty timetable?