St Ives - GWR Mainline

[The Prisoner]

Just been down to St Ives for the weekend and traveled on the 1203 departure from Paddington all the way to St Erth on Thursday.

Plenty got off @ St Erth to fill a 150 to St Ives, and journey back was a 4 coach 150 on Sunday morning, which also filled up nicely with customers heading back to London.

The service down was 2 x IET attached together, which got me to thinking are GWR missing a trick by not spitting say one service a day @ St Erth and sending the front to Penzance and detaching the rear to head up to St Ives?

There is clearly a demand for it, St Ives can take five coaches and there must be plenty who would prefer a direct train? I'm not an ops expert, but the train could use platform 2 in both directions and split there, and the shuttle could simply rest in the bay whilst the IET took one diagram?

And apparently the Cornish Riviera Express used to convey through coaches for St Ives back in the 50s.

Just a thought....

 

[co-tr-paul]

Severely out of gauge !!

 

[Esker-pades]

Some immediate thoughts:

As far as I know, there is no link from the Down Main to the St Ives branch (all trains from St Ives to Penzance have to use the Up platform). I'm not sure if there's a way to get Down Main services onto the Up platform when coming from London.

I'm not sure if St Erth has signalling that permits attaching moves. I'm also not sure if St Erth has the staff to permit such moves.

This would decrease overall capacity on the branch. A 5 car IET would have a longer turn-around time than a couple of Sprinters. Plus, there's all the scheduling stuff to do with the return. Would the IET operate the branch over the time (at least a couple of hours) between arriving from London and returning? Or would it just sit at St Ives and block?

This would also happen at the end of a 5 hour plus journey. That means the chance of loosing time is quite high. A tight timetable would mean that the return service from Penzance would either have to sit at St Erth or the St Ives portion would be cancelled outright. Reliability is an issue.

There's also the change of short forming, substitutions (9 vice 5x2) and the like.

 

[The Prisoner]

Some immediate thoughts:

As far as I know, there is no link from the Down Main to the St Ives branch (all trains from St Ives to Penzance have to use the Up platform). I'm not sure if there's a way to get Down Main services onto the Up platform when coming from London.

I'm not sure if St Erth has signalling that permits attaching moves. I'm also not sure if St Erth has the staff to permit such moves.

This would decrease overall capacity on the branch. A 5 car IET would have a longer turn-around time than a couple of Sprinters. Plus, there's all the scheduling stuff to do with the return. Would the IET operate the branch over the time (at least a couple of hours) between arriving from London and returning? Or would it just sit at St Ives and block?

This would also happen at the end of a 5 hour plus journey. That means the chance of loosing time is quite high. A tight timetable would mean that the return service from Penzance would either have to sit at St Erth or the St Ives portion would be cancelled outright. Reliability is an issue.

There's also the change of short forming, substitutions (9 vice 5x2) and the like.

As above you'd have to use platform 2 - platform 1 not linked to the branch. Timing just is what it is - at least if the service is late there is an easy plan B (whole set heads to Penzance - St Ives punters on the shuttle)

 

[telstarbox]

You could turn it around and say that the change at St Erth is easy enough for lots of people to do it, so why not keep it as is?

There is also the Park and Ride at Lelant Saltings which needs a reliable service so that people aren't tempted to drive into St Ives as well.

 

[Esker-pades]

As above you'd have to use platform 2 - platform 1 not linked to the branch. Timing just is what it is - at least if the service is late there is an easy plan B (whole set heads to Penzance - St Ives punters on the shuttle)

In that case, why not just keep the shuttle and get rid of the vast complications?

 

[6Gman]

Some immediate thoughts:
As far as I know, there is no link from the Down Main to the St Ives branch (all trains from St Ives to Penzance have to use the Up platform). I'm not sure if there's a way to get Down Main services onto the Up platform when coming from London.
I'm not sure if St Erth has signalling that permits attaching moves. I'm also not sure if St Erth has the staff to permit such moves.

I don't think there's a facing crossover to allow trains to cross from Down to Up (well, not west of Par anyway ).

So would require new pointwork, new signalling ...

 

[Esker-pades]

I don't think there's a facing crossover to allow trains to cross from Down to Up (well, not west of Par anyway ).

So would require new pointwork, new signalling ...

That's what I thought. I don't often go down there, so I didn't want to be certain and then look like a complete twit when I was wrong.

 

[Western Lord]

I think you will find that trains from London require cleaning by the time they get to Penzance. Who's going to do that at St. Ives?

 

[tiptoptaff]

The crossover from DM to UM is West of St Erth. It trails in both directions, simply for allowing the units on and off the branch. All through services have to use P1 at St Erth. It would be extremely complicated to do. Just keep it as it is and maintain the frequency. Due to how busy it gets, the branch shuttle is double manned for drivers in the summer, so not to lose time changing ends due to the volume of people on the platform at St Ives. You don't want to add anything in that delays the turn around.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

It is a classic example of a high capacity , tightly timetabled single line branch. Best not to tamper with it.

 

[Warwick]

Station times on GWR are plenty long enough now without adding the complication of coupling and uncoupling trains. None of the platforms on the branch could hold a wonder train.

 

[MarkyT]

It is a classic example of a high capacity , tightly timetabled single line branch. Best not to tamper with it.

Indeed. They could do with a little better performance to lengthen turnround time and standardise stopping pattern. Perhaps a cl.230 would be able to accelerate a little better than the 15x units used today. I thought the St Ives P&R was to be relocated to St Erth, which might allow Lelant Saltings station to close.

 

[CMRail]

Plymouth is a station. In gauge. 320 seats detached, 320 carry on. Simples.

 

[Ianno87]

I think you will find that trains from London require cleaning by the time they get to Penzance. Who's going to do that at St. Ives?

You'll also find that SETs probably have minimum turnround times that are linked to train crew union agreements - you can't 'just' timetable a 3 minute turnround time at St Ives to suit the branch shuttle working, even with an 'if it's late, skip the trip' backup plan.

 

[Busaholic]

I thought the St Ives P&R was to be relocated to St Erth, which might allow Lelant Saltings station to close.

There's a pretty large P&R being constructed at St Erth at great expense. I cannot imagine how trains on the branch will cope with all the extra potential passengers presenting themselves. Although a regular bus route or two will also call, they probably won't be popular with many, who may well feel they could just have driven into St Ives and taken their chances, especially if there's a family involved.

 

[Llanigraham]

There's a pretty large P&R being constructed at St Erth at great expense. I cannot imagine how trains on the branch will cope with all the extra potential passengers presenting themselves. Although a regular bus route or two will also call, they probably won't be popular with many, who may well feel they could just have driven into St Ives and taken their chances, especially if there's a family involved.

Why is it going to make a difference to the numbers of passengers using the branch?
I understand that they are closing the P & R car park at the Saltings, following safety complaints from the residents of the estate you have to drive through, and due to problems of traffic between there and the main A30 roundabout, so therefore impoving access off the A30, from where nearly all the passengers arrive.