HS2

[Joseph_Pestell]

27 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

The GWR/ Crossrail interchange might be easier at OOC than Paddington?

 

And is Reading to Manchester/ Leeds via XC really going to be preferable to going via HS2 at OOC? Not to mention Liverpool and Scotland.

 

If time is not of the essence, I could see a lot of passengers from Reading and points west & south thereof preferring to use XC than HS2.

[caradoc]

10 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

If time is not of the essence, I could see a lot of passengers from Reading and points west & south thereof preferring to use XC than HS2.

 

Maybe if they have a direct service, but if a change is required anyway (eg for Liverpool or Glasgow) HS2 via Old Oak Common will IMHO be a viable alternative.

[Zomboid]

Or anywhere on HS2 to/from Swindon.

 

OOC is more about spreading the load from Euston than it is to provide a connection for northbound passengers from Newbury & Swindon.

[caradoc]

4 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

Or anywhere on HS2 to/from Swindon.

 

OOC is more about spreading the load from Euston than it is to provide a connection for northbound passengers from Newbury & Swindon.

 

Maybe, but if passengers from Swindon and Newbury have to go to Reading and change there anyway, they might be as well going the extra 20 minutes to OOC for a faster and (hopefully !) much more capacious train there.

 

[Joseph_Pestell]

33 minutes ago, caradoc said:

 

Maybe, but if passengers from Swindon and Newbury have to go to Reading and change there anyway, they might be as well going the extra 20 minutes to OOC for a faster and (hopefully !) much more capacious train there.

 

 

Who knows what XC might be running by then? Could be more Voyagers spare, if they last that long. Or could be entirely new trains with more capacity.

[Zomboid]

You'd hope that XC will at least stop running 4 car voyagers on services which are overcrowded with 5 cars...

 

They should get some of those bi-modes that EMR are ordering, they'd be ideal. But that's only tenuously related to HS2...

[pete_mcfarlane]

1 hour ago, Zomboid said:

You'd hope that XC will at least stop running 4 car voyagers on services which are overcrowded with 5 cars...

 

They should get some of those bi-modes that EMR are ordering, they'd be ideal. But that's only tenuously related to HS2...

4 car Voyagers? Luxury! We had to stand all the way to Birmingham on a 2 car class 170.

 

 

[Zomboid]

Some new 5 car bi-modes for Manchester - Bournemouth (seems the most bi-modey route, maybe even a tri-mode for the bit on the Southern) and the 220s can replace the 170s and everyone's a winner.

[Siberian Snooper]

On the odd occasion when I travel from Plymouth to York or further north I travel via London as it's sometimes a bit quicker but more importantly it tends to be cheaper and if the whole shebang is up and running before I run up the  curtain, I would definitely change at Old Oak. That assumes that the fare structure is similar to the current situation.

 

 

[Edwin_m]

4 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

If you were travelling to, say, Liverpool or Manchester from Bicester which way would you go if you could change trains at either a brand new station or Birmingham New St (also of course in many respects a new station).  Similarly would you like to travel on a 150% loaded Voyager from Oxford or get an East-West train in order to change for a reserved seat from Calvert Junction?

 

Interesting thing about rail travel is that it often expands to make use of the routes available.  For example if there is no  reason for Calvert as an interchange why should GWR longer distance services call at Old Oak Common when every station they will have called at (except Newbury) would have presented a valid alternative to changing to HS2 at OOC?

The question is more whether you'd prefer to change trains and possibly stations at Birmingham, which have or will have good facilities, or at Calvert which judging by its French equivalents would be basic and windswept.  Adding more capacity on the CrossCountry routes isn't much more than getting more longer trains, and would solve a lot more problems than Calvert would.  

 

For similar reasons I'm not sure there is a very good case for GWR to stop long-distance trains at OOC.  Swindon to Birmingham may be quicker via OOC but it wouldn't beat the existing routes from Bristol and Cardiff.  

Edited February 26, 2020 by Edwin_m

[jamie92208]

1 hour ago, pete_mcfarlane said:

4 car Voyagers? Luxury! We had to stand all the way to Birmingham on a 2 car class 170.

 

 

Just out of interest, XC are getting the centre cars from The West Mids 172 fleet to lengthen their170's.

 

Jamie

[phil-b259]

3 hours ago, Zomboid said:

You'd hope that XC will at least stop running 4 car voyagers on services which are overcrowded with 5 cars...

 

They should get some of those bi-modes that EMR are ordering, they'd be ideal. But that's only tenuously related to HS2...

 

As has been explained many, many times - the need to platform share or use short bay platforms at Reading** and Birmingham NS means most XC services via Oxford can NEVER be longer than 5 x 23m units*.

 

True some extra bi-modes would help make sure all XC services are as long as possible - but that requires HM Government to get off its arse and re-let the XC franchise and stop issuing short term ‘direct awards’ - unfortunately as with much else, the blame for that can largely be attributed to the car crash that is Brexit which totally gummed up the ability of the Government to deliver on day to day issues.

 

*Yes BR used to run longer trains but they were far less frequent and the railway as a whole is trying to run twice the number of services BR did with many pinch points unchanged*

 

* *Please note that although Reading gained extra through platforms this was at the expense of the freight avoiding lines and the short east + west facing passenger bay platforms. Any notional increase in platform capacity is thus in practice not useful - particularly with extension of Crossrail to Reading which are so long that they take out an entire platform during their layover.

[black and decker boy]

33 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

Just out of interest, XC are getting the centre cars from The West Mids 172 fleet to lengthen their170's.

 

Jamie

It’s WMT class 170 centre cars going to XC. The driving cars go to EMR

 

the class 172s are retained by WMT to work alongside the new class196 units

[The Stationmaster]

On 26/02/2020 at 16:28, Zomboid said:

The GWR/ Crossrail interchange might be easier at OOC than Paddington?

 

And is Reading to Manchester/ Leeds via XC really going to be preferable to going via HS2 at OOC? Not to mention Liverpool and Scotland.

I think the Reading northwards situation will boil down to who is prepared to change trains, where they are prepared to change trains, and comparative journey times (and of course price).  There seems to be a reasonable market on XC for people who prefer the through journey to the quicker alternative and while travelling through from Newcastle to Reading I certainly saw other passengers joining at Durham and York who went to either Oxford or Reading (and those journeys are a lot quicker via London).

 

GWR/Crosrail interchange eastbound will definitely be best at Ealing Broadway off GWR local services (same)  platform and at Old Oak off semi-fasts etc.  Westbound it would be more logical for longer distance passengers to change at Paddington because it gives them the greater chance of getting a seat if they don't have one reserved.

[The Stationmaster]

20 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

As has been explained many, many times - the need to platform share or use short bay platforms at Reading** and Birmingham NS means most XC services via Oxford can NEVER be longer than 5 x 23m units*.

 

True some extra bi-modes would help make sure all XC services are as long as possible - but that requires HM Government to get off its arse and re-let the XC franchise and stop issuing short term ‘direct awards’ - unfortunately as with much else, the blame for that can largely be attributed to the car crash that is Brexit which totally gummed up the ability of the Government to deliver on day to day issues.

 

*Yes BR used to run longer trains but they were far less frequent and the railway as a whole is trying to run twice the number of services BR did with many pinch points unchanged*

 

* *Please note that although Reading gained extra through platforms this was at the expense of the freight avoiding lines and the short east + west facing passenger bay platforms. Any notional increase in platform capacity is thus in practice not useful - particularly with extension of Crossrail to Reading which are so long that they take out an entire platform during their layover.

Extra, longer platform capacity would be available at Reading if Crossrail trains terminated further east.  (bet nobody else thought of that one  ).

 

21 hours ago, Edwin_m said:

The question is more whether you'd prefer to change trains and possibly stations at Birmingham, which have or will have good facilities, or at Calvert which judging by its French equivalents would be basic and windswept.  Adding more capacity on the CrossCountry routes isn't much more than getting more longer trains, and would solve a lot more problems than Calvert would.  

 

For similar reasons I'm not sure there is a very good case for GWR to stop long-distance trains at OOC.  Swindon to Birmingham may be quicker via OOC but it wouldn't beat the existing routes from Bristol and Cardiff.  

From a quick check of existing times and previously mentioned HS2 journey time Swindon to Birmingham would be no quicker - and probably slower - once you feed in the walking time between platforms even for the tightest possible connection.  Simple addition of journey times suggests virtually no difference from the current time via Cheltenham and I suspect the fare would be considerably more (unless there is some sort of bargain basement connectional fare on HS2).

 

Reading to BIrmingham might be quicker but not by very much once you feed in the connecting times but HS2 would, I expect, be less prone to delays than the XC route.

 

Overall I think various factors mitigate against GWR stopping longer distance trains at OOC - there is the question of the time cost, which is likely to be considerable especially during the peaks when most trains on the Main Lines are running on 3 minute headways (or tighter).  That in turn will impact overall journey times and punctuality and it raises continues the question of which journeys will really benefit from the new connectional opportunity with quite a long walk, involving three different levels, between trains.  There is also the rather obvious point that it will be well nigh impossible to even consider offering to maintain booked (if such they are?) connections and thereby feeding delay from one route directly to the other.  Northbound onto HS2 this might not be too much of a problem with a potentially very frequent service for some destinations.

 

On the other hand will whoever is the incumbent on GWR going to want to sacrifice what they will no doubt in future be likely to publicly brand what they refer to internally as 'Superfast Services' of which there will be a lot more by the time HS2 is opened.  Is a direct competitor with the M4 going to be prepared to worsen highly competitive journey times between Bath./Bristol and London?  Lots of interesting questions and doubts in there for whoever is the GWML long distance services operator when HS2 opens.

[Zomboid]

27 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

 Is a direct competitor with the M4 going to be prepared to worsen highly competitive journey times between Bath./Bristol and London?

If they're prepared to claim Worcestershire Parkway is in Worcester, then claiming that OOC is a form of London (given the easy Crossrail connection and Zone 2 or 3 location it wouldn't be a ridiculous claim) wouldn't be out of the question and would actually reduce the headline journey time. Paddington itself is nowhere near anything that you'd want to go to in London anyway...

 

Clapham Junction is quite a good parallel, and both SWR and Southern stop most of their long distance off peak services there because of the interchange opportunities into. With multiple platforms for each track at a new OOC station then even peak time calls wouldn't necessarily wreck line capacity.

[bimble]

11 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

If they're prepared to claim Worcestershire Parkway is in Worcester, then claiming that OOC is a form of London (given the easy Crossrail connection and Zone 2 or 3 location it wouldn't be a ridiculous claim) wouldn't be out of the question and would actually reduce the headline journey time. Paddington itself is nowhere near anything that you'd want to go to in London anyway...

 

 

We have 'London Oxford Airport', and that time in 2006 when RyanAir was offering flights from Oslo to London Prestwick... compared to them, OOC is certainly London... after all, it's well inside the M25!

[lmsforever]

Flew once Ryan Air Stanstead to Stockholm landed at a flying club sixty miles from Stockholm never again thank you.Much activity by contractors off of the A413 outside of Aylesbury and at Gt Missenden tunnel machines have arrived much activity in the area lorries everywhere.North of Aylesbury in Quainton by preservation centre and in fields  going north not sure what they are doing but a definite step up in work.

[melmerby]

London Gatwick, London Luton, London Stansted?

Next we have London Birmingham

[melmerby]

3 hours ago, bimble said:

 

We have 'London Oxford Airport', and that time in 2006 when RyanAir was offering flights from Oslo to London Prestwick... compared to them, OOC is certainly London... after all, it's well inside the M25!

5 miles as the crow flies from Euston, less from Marble Arch.

Worcestershire (note "shire"!) Parkway is 3.5 miles from central Worcester.

[Joseph_Pestell]

4 hours ago, bimble said:

 

We have 'London Oxford Airport', and that time in 2006 when RyanAir was offering flights from Oslo to London Prestwick... compared to them, OOC is certainly London... after all, it's well inside the M25!

 

Really? Why would Ryanair have claimed that Prestwick was London when they were flying to Oslo (Torp) from Stansted.

 

Of course, Torp is nowhere near Oslo. 50+ miles on the coach but quite a pleasant journey.

[jjb1970]

OOC is certainly in London, and with the planned transport links it will be well connected. 

[Zomboid]

7 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Really? Why would Ryanair have claimed that Prestwick was London when they were flying to Oslo (Torp) from Stansted.

 

Of course, Torp is nowhere near Oslo. 50+ miles on the coach but quite a pleasant journey.

"Glasgow" Prestwick is enough of a stretch.

[Zomboid]

7 hours ago, melmerby said:

5 miles as the crow flies from Euston, less from Marble Arch.

Worcestershire (note "shire"!) Parkway is 3.5 miles from central Worcester.

They're claiming under 2h from Worcester to London on the back of the Parkway station, which is presently in a decidedly rural setting. I wouldn't say it's necessarily misleading either since it's more convenient for a lot of places in and around Worcester than the other stations are. Exactly the same could be said for the OOC station on the GWML.

Edited February 28, 2020 by Zomboid

[Northmoor]

8 hours ago, melmerby said:

5 miles as the crow flies from Euston, less from Marble Arch.

Worcestershire (note "shire"!) Parkway is 3.5 miles from central Worcester.

And Bristol Parkway is nearly 7 miles from the centre of Bristol.