Train fares - good news?

Fri 23 Dec 2011, 18:09

Carl

What you said was that the single line was causing delays. If the train heading towards London was late on to the Cotswold Line at the Worcester end, or was delayed at Charlbury by a preceding westbound train leaving Oxford late (the latter being a likely scenario based on my recent experience), that is hardly the fault of the single-line sections, is it? It is delay imported from elsewhere.

Restructuring the timetable would help but with the current rebuilding of Reading station*, to be followed by electrification to Oxford, major changes in that respect are likely to be some years off.

In terms of fares, John's mention of Swindon should give Cotswold Line commuters pause for thought before they complain too loudly. The standard class annual season between Swindon and Paddington, plus zones 1-6 travelcard, from January 2 will be £8,048. A similar ticket from Charlbury will be £6,408. And off-peak Swindon passengers are not able to get discounted walk-up fares, as the Network Railcard zone ends at Didcot.

• This may be a good opportunity to mention that over the Christmas break, several platforms at Reading station will be renumbered. The current platform 4, used by most trains heading to the Cotswold Line, will become platform 7.

Thu 22 Dec 2011, 12:37 (last edited on Thu 22 Dec 2011, 18:01)

Carl's experience of trains being held at Oxford is unusual. From my experience, in the event of a delay, it is usually the Oxford bound train which is held at Charlbury. This prevents congestion at Oxford causing delays to other services there. The real problem is the timetable. This has not been significantly altered to take advantage of the new double track, on which very few trains are actually scheduled to pass one another. The reason for this is the constraint on timings at each end of the Cotswold Line. At Oxford, we need to fall in with the regular times to/from London. At Worcester, we have to contend with London Midland (and FGW) services to/from Great Malvern/Hereford. If we only ran between Oxford and Worcester, we could have a wonderful service - see what's on offer during the post Christmas period, when the line between Oxford and Didcot is closed for point renewal work.
Regarding fares, some years ago, I undertook, on behalf of the Cotswold Line Promotion Group, a survey of comparative peak fares to London from places a similar distance (77 miles) away. Charlbury came out second cheapest - I think that Long Buckby was the one which was cheaper. Fares from places like Swindon and Pewsey were about double. Unfortunately, I no longer have easy access to fares to make a similar comparison, but I suspect that the situation has not significantly changed.

Thu 22 Dec 2011, 10:25

William,

I understand the issues around the cable thefts and am aware that it is beyond the control of FGW and NR. My original assertion is a result of the train manager announcing to the train that delays (both times we were held at Oxford) were due to the London bound train coming along the single track therefore the problems have not been eradicated

Thu 22 Dec 2011, 00:27

Carl,

The fundamental aim of the redoubling was to ensure Cotswold Line trains towards London reach Oxford on time. Previously late running was causing major knock-on problems for trains from South Wales, Bristol, etc, heading into London and on their return journeys west, which was why funding for the redoubling work was approved.

Full redoubling would have cost too much (probably something like double the £60-odd million that was spent) and would have raised other issues, such as whether Finstock and Combe stations should survive, plus the signalling at both Oxford and Worcester is due for renewal post-2015, so no expenditure will be authorised for major alterations in those two areas until then. Network Rail has made clear that redoubling from Oxford to Charlbury will be looked at when the scope of the Oxford area resignalling and associated capacity enhancement work is being decided, presumably in conjunction with the forthcoming Oxford-London electrification work.

You assert that the remaining single line sections are responsible for causing delays. My own experience in the past few months is that when there is disruption, the principal cause is that westbound trains are incurring delays on the section of their journeys between London, Reading and Oxford, leading to problems when they get on to the Cotswold Line itself. And when there is disruption, the extra double track now available minimises it and helps sort any problems out much faster than was the case in the past.

In addition, there have been a series of thefts of signal cables in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, which haven't helped matters. For details of some of the most recent incidents, see www.btp.presscentre.com/Media-Releases/CABLE-THIEVES-MAY-BE-POSING-AS-RAIL-WORKERS-1829.aspx

Wed 21 Dec 2011, 10:44

I take your point, but I think we sometimes forget how much better the Cotswold Line is than many of the railways out there. Every time I travel up to Shropshire, the FGW journey is the pleasant part of the trip; for the remainder (via Arriva Trains Wales) it's consistently standing-in-the-vestibules territory. I've largely given up travelling to work (in the Midlands) by train since CrossCountry jacked their fares up at levels way beyond 5.9%. FGW and the Cotswold Line may not be perfect, but they're much better than they were five, ten years ago, and much better than many other lines.

Wed 21 Dec 2011, 10:25

Richard,

We don't have a redoubled railway. Hanborough is still a one platform station. There is also a single stretch still in place beyond Evesham. Both sections of single track have caused delays over the last few weeks and I still can't understand why NR didn't carry out a full redoubling of the line.

5.9% is not acceptable in my view. For those of us who depend on the trains to get to work, it's almost like an extra tax and season tickets are becoming far too expensive.

Wed 21 Dec 2011, 09:21 (last edited on Wed 21 Dec 2011, 09:21)

The flex is a max of 5% - so (RPI+1%) 6%+5%=11% max, rather than 20%

Tue 20 Dec 2011, 17:33

I think this is probably good news!

FGW has said that it will be implementing the 5.9% standard increase on most of its turn-up-and-go fares.

In particular, it has said it is "waiving the option to use 'average fare baskets' to raise some fares above
this figure". It could have said, for example, that fares on the Swindon line would go up by 4% but those on the (less busy) Cotswold Line by 20%, and that they'd average out at 5.9%. Given that we've now got a redoubled railway and more trains, I know some people were expecting this to happen.

Obviously 5.9% is still 5.9% but this is much better than expected, I think.