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Exestudent
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Now that at least a few of the cranks in sinking ship that is FGW seem to have been patched up, temporarily at least, my thoughts have moved towards what I see is their next big problem…Summer…When I was at Wessex Trains, this always was the biggest of all headaches, and involved begging and borrowing at least a couple of extra units from elsewhere for the summer. This, together with the 31’s, and some very creative unit diagramming meant that usually at least the key Weymouth trains, and the St Ives branch were suitably strengthened. And while it wasn’t always pretty, we got by..
My fear is, what happens on the first nice warm day of 2007 in April, when half of Bristol tries to head to Weymouth for the day, to be faced with a single 153 on the 0904 departure…
Has anyone any information on FGW’s plans to cope with the extra demand in the summer months in the westcountry? I haven’t been able to find anything out beyond the May timetable change. Although, the last set of unit diagrams I saw (this was a fair while ago though, so may have changed) had a 153 on the St Ives branch until the end of the timetable in May. This will struggle, in Wessex Days we would have swapped it with a 150 at Easter time.
In an ideal world, during high summer (school hols) we would see something like.
St Ives branch – 2 X 150 (normally 153)
Falmouth branch - 1 x 150 (as normal)
Newquay branch – 3 cars (normally 153)
Looe branch – 1 x 150 (normally 153)
Gunnislake branch – 1 x 150 (as normal)
Paignton / Exmouth, as many services formed of 150’s, as 153’s and 158’s struggle with loading pushchairs and holidaymakers onto them due to narrow doors.
Weymouth – Key services in morning and evening 5 cars.
I’m assuming more 158’s may find their way down here from TPE, although with limited capacity at SPM, and sidings at Gloucester slowly being taken up by more and more Cotswold Rail stock, I’m not sure where they could be stabled, let alone maintained.
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