Made known by GWR during yesterday's Devon & Cornwall Local Transport forum was that they will be running more 4 car 158s on the Cardiff - Portsmouth services from May. Anyone know how this will be achieved? For instance does it mean that some 3 car 158s we be reformed into 2 car units. Possible end of 3 car 158s on the Tarka Line?

 

When are Transport for Wales releasing 158s?

 
I just had a feeling that they would be coming back. Not that they have ever really left with 2-3 daily diagrams being 158 operated the norm.

 

No inside information, but I can't see it being any time soon. From what I've read the 175s will be the first to leave TfW, and overall stock availability still seems quite tight. And the 158s with their attachment to the Cambrian lines and the amount of splitting and attaching that creates a tangled web of diagrams for the 197s to take over.

 
I worked out from Real Time Trains what's happening in May 2023 ... and prepared a summary for this evenings's WWRUG meeting - just a couple of slides.  I checked them for accuracy with GWR this afternoon - updates as per their additional feedback prior to the meeting.  Now posted to WWRUG pages at https://www.facebook.com/groups/wwrug/posts/1010154083434711/ and also mirrored on our site within the whole of my presentation for this evening.

There are some really good winners in there on the boundary of the WECA area and as a result of the Bristol Metro.  And it has moved on from being validated by Network Rail to being at the following stage which is DfT signoff.  As part of the Bristol Metro project, not funded by the DfT, this has been characterised to me as being quite close to a formality.

 
The idea of 4car 158s has fallen apart.

Today 1F25 16:27 and 1F27 17:27 Cardiff - Portsmouth (the busy peak hour workings) are both reduced to just a 2car unit

Earlier 1F18 from Portsmouth conked out at Fareham and continued to Bristol as empty 5F18

 
Not another temporary casualty of Cheltenham Festival?

 
Yesterday (Monday) some services were reduced to just 2car 158s

Today, it seems some services have also been reduced to mere 2car units, with average train length being 3cars

Whatever happened to 4car working ?

 

Today - Bath Spa through trains to Portsmouth are reported as
4 at 2 cars
7 at 3 cars
5 at 4 cars
1 at 5 cars

 

Took the 15:35 from Bath Spa to Portsmouth and Southsea.    3 car train that looked like it would have been good on a commuter run in the autumn.  No space for luggage, overheating (no working air con) small (3+2) seating and far more passengers that was comfortable, especially as a number  had their luggage on the seat beside them.    On time from Bath Spa ... waited at Batheaston, waited at Dundas, 8 minutes late by Bradford-on-Avon

 

Coming back from Weymouth the other Friday on the day that SWR had run into the sand, staff came through the 3 carriage Bristol train opening anything that wasn't already open: I'd forgotten that these even had aircon. Perhaps it was the same set as on the way down.

Mark

 
GWR have reverted to reducing some workings on the line to 2car again.   No doubt lack of serviceable stock pending transferring some 158s from Devon (if and when sufficient 175s enter service sometime in 2026)

Today's 1F09 Cardiff-Portsmouth is a 2car 158
1F19 Cardiff-Portsmouth also showing a different 2car 158

 

3 Carriages ... do you remember the days when we were promised that Portsmouth to Cardiff trains would all be five carriages?

 

Ah, yes.

Was that pre-Covid? 

Was that before the DfT instructed GWR to make savings on costs?  Which led to them shelving the Class 769 programme meaning 16 Turbos had to stay in the Thames Valley, and a cull of most of the HST Castle Class fleet, which just about limped along until a couple of weeks ago?

Did that prompt a GWR insider to say "With the loss of the Castle sets as well as the expected 165/166 sets we are really squeezing things quite a lot.  Which does concern us, but we will have to work to make the best with what we have."

 
Yes indeed the promise was preCovid

I am answering this - I hope - as a critical considering everything including the elephants in the room

Traffic levels (in terms of passenger ticket purchases) are back to virtually where they were - I have taken Bradford-on-Avon and Warminster as being the best indicators, because the Cardiff - Portsmouth cross country service is only a part of the story elsewhere as it crosses over all the various spokes coming out from the hub of London.

534086 (2018-19) - 532216 (2024-25) BOA
348658 (2018-19) - 355954 (2024-25) WMN

So there is, perhaps, a need for those plans to be back on and promises kept. I fear that the incoming fleet of class 175 trains, as it picks up Castle duties, releases units to supplement services on the St Ives branch for the summer, allows strengthening of trains in the Exeter area, releases IETs by May for the Bristol - Oxford service (which I agree is needed) will leave little or nothing for the Cinderella line from Portsmouth Harbour to Cardiff Central. We may get a couple of 158s back - but there are 8 daily diagrams / trains cycling round.  Slightly better news, perhaps, is that post-covid the awkward peaks that are hard to resource for are not so peaky.

It may be that I should be posting in "Smoke and Mirrors" as we have GWR pointing towards the DfT as the place to take blame for the state of affairs, and we have the DfT suggseting that it's down to GWR.  Convenient for both oraganisations and the truth, perhaps, is that we are in the current state because of both of them.  And when GWR is nationalised, it may mean an end to that convience of buck passing. 

Or perhaps we could think of unpalatable options - perhaps 5 car trains could be provided, overloading reduced, and crews saved by reducing the service to running every 90 or 100 minutes, reducing the number of trains needed in the cycle to 6 or 5?  And perhaps a frequency reduction would also help keep the trains for the people who really need them, helping to keep ovecrowding down. And would a network with fewer services be more robust, helping meet the stated government objective of improving reliability? Just asking.