Here are three Third Party Promoted Schemes listed on page 32 of the Cross Country Franchise Consultation Document (link below.)
http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_railways/documents/page/dft_railways_611834.pdf

Worcester Parkway.

Worcestershire County Council has undertaken studies in 2002 and 2004 to assess the feasibility of a new park and ride station in Worcester to provide access to national long distance rail services. Further business case development work is required.

Worle Strategic Interchange.

North Somerset Council, together with a consortium of partners, has an aspiration to improve Worle station to facilitate calls by inter-city services, provide improved park and ride facilities and allow for better interchange with the M5. Further feasibility and business case development work is required.

Gloucestershire Parkway station.

Gloucestershire County Council have an objective to deliver a park and ride new station near Gloucester and are currently undertaking detailed timetabling and feasibility work. Earlier studies indicated a potentially viable business case. Should funding be secured Gloucestershire County Council anticipate completion of the station by 2011 with an integrated bus, park and ride and railway station.

First , have a look at a map and note the surrounding areas of each of the above proposed stations plus Bristol Parkway.

Then imagine the likely stopping pattern of the new Cross Country Franchise trains , proposed to be 2 per hour between Birmingham & Bristol and 1 per hour continuing south of Bristol. The proposed service frequencies of the new franchise can be found on page 24 of the Consultation Document and a map can be found on page 37.

Then note this proposal from "Growing the Railways."

"Provide a decent station at Bromsgrove − this would have the potential to double or even treble patronage in the short term."

You can see why I am concerned.

A "Where do we stand" topic, posted one year after this site was started.

How is it that First can make the money to pay the government 1 billion pounds over 10 years, as they've said they'll do under the Great Western franchise?    Read the announcements carefully, and you'll see that they're actually receiving a subsidy for the  first few years, which they then pay back and more towards the end of the contract.

The award was announced in 2005.  Where will things stand by 2010 and 2015?  How can the operator (any operator) achieve those figures?

Traffic levels ARE on 'the up', almost across the board, by rail.  Nothing so spectacular as the 35% compund rise we've seen on the transWilts, but on 'the up' never the less. But the system's also creaking at the seams; 2 coach trains run on the Portsmouth to Cardiff service are inadequate, and breakdowns / substitutions on Weymouth, Severn Beach and other services - see here for further examples. I have been told that even if the 1 coach 153 train was packed every time it ran through Melksham, it would not make the money the operator needs - and that was from one of the operator's senior managers, who was also saying that the same thing applies to "even Exmouth" which is their flagship branch.

So - it can't be done by traffic growth on the current setup.   How csan the balance sheet be positively influenced?

a) By raising fares.  16p per mile, Melksham to Swindon, 50p per mile, Chippenham to London.  If you could get away with trebbling fares, you might have a better balance sheet.   Now ... Melksham to Swindon Return COULD rise on a good service level to 9.50 return and I think most people would be happy to pay for the improvement. But to 21.00 return??

b) By cutting out all of the services on which a premium fare could not be charged / all the services that are run with shorter trains, with intermediate stops.   This gives you a network (all expresses) in our area:

1) Cardiff, Newport, Filton Abbey Wood, Bristol, Bath, Bradford, Trowbridge, Westbury, Warminster, Salisbury, Romsey, Southampton, Fareham, Portsmouth.  Run every 2 hours with a unit such as an Adalente or a Voyager, you'll be back very much to the structure of my youth when there was a handful of Swansea to Portsmouth trains each day

2) London, Reading, Didcot, Swindon, Stroud, Gloucester, Cheltenham Again, every 2 hours

3) London, Reading, Didcot (alternate trains), Swindon, Chippenham, Bath, Bristol every 30 minutes possibly extended to Weston-super-mare and Taunton every 2 hours unless the cross-country service continues to run South of Bristil

4) London, Reading, Newbury, Pewsey, Westbury, Castle Cary, Taunton, Tiverton, Exeter, Newton Abbott, Plymouth, major stations only to Penzance every hour to Plymouth, every 2 hours beyond

5) London, Reading, Swindon, Bristol Parkway, Newport, major stations to Swansea every 30 minutes to Cardiff, every hour beyond

These are all 50p / mile services; super-savers have gone already together with a lot of other economic ticketing options, and one of my influential contacts the other day described the new single book-ahead options as "unworkable" for him as he can't plan his timing to be sure of catching the appropriate train.  So on average people will be paying closer to the full fare that has been historically the case.

You'll note that my model includes no train service at all for Dilton March, Bruton, Frome, Yeovil Town, Chetnole, Yetminster, Maiden Newton, Dorchester West, Melksham, Avoncliff, Freshford, Avoncliff, Oldfield Park, Keynasham, Patchway, Pilning, Stonehouse, Kemble, nor for all staions from Stapleton Road to Severn Beach inclusive.  (Further afield, it only serves Cheltenham, Gloucester, Bristol (2 stations), Weston and Taunton on that route, and it excludes branch services to Exmouth, Barnstaple, Paington, Gunnislake, Looe, Newquay, Falmouth, St Ives.)

Existing passengers who require public transport from the places that my model does not serve?  Why - there's so often a bus run by the same operator close at hand.  And that operator is investing in buses, with DfT approval / grants, to parallel routes such as Bath to Bristol (covering Oldfield Park and Keynsham).

The business plan just could be to have this "premier express" only train network running by 2010, and to cream in the money from it until 2015.  With a continental style, high performance bus feeder interchange system integrated with it, with freed-up rail capacity being used to get freight off the roads, wouldn't that be great?  Great theory - but I really fear for a half-baked measure that would give the operator all the profit, at the expense of an overall much worse service for those of us who have to travel.

If "The Twigg and Forster plan" is indeed to turn the railways into an intercity and freight network with good integrate buses - if that's the vision - the would Mr Twigg and Ms Forster please come clean and tell us?  Perhaps we could then all work together for the mutual benefit of government, supplier and customer.  As it is at the moment, it looks like we may have a plan that's being implemented in a secretive and underhand way, and IMHO that's very unlikely to be a visionary way forward for the future.

Question in Parliament - asked in writing on 20th April

361 Chris Grayling (Epsom & Ewell):To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether it is his policy to replace rail services with bus services on the (a) Par to Newquay, (b) Liskeard to Looe, (c) Totnes and Ivybridge to Plymouth, (d) Chippenham to Frome and (e) Severn Beach routes.

See http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmordbk1/60420w01.htm

I'll let you know as and when I see an answer - I'm not sure how long these things take but I expect it will be after the final contracts are decided this week