South West Trains 159's coming to Bristol........hopefully!

XPTE · Post by **XPTE** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 1:18 pm

South West Trains are in talks to extend some of their London Waterloo-Salisbury services onto Bristol Temple Meads. Hope this happens, as it will be great to be able to catch a more comfortably 6-car 159 to Waterloo and back rather than a 2-car 158 Arriva Trains Wales train which can get very busy, especially on the outward journey to Waterloo. Plus the "walk on" fare will be half the price of the excessive FGW fare of Â£41.

Here's hoping it happens.........

nightbeaver911 · Post by **nightbeaver911** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 1:59 pm

That would be very nice since everytime I have traveled those old Alphaline services between Bristol and Sailsbury they have been very over croweded, did they say anything about the frequencys? Also it could use a SWTs turbo instead of 159s.

XPTE · Post by **XPTE** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 2:15 pm

Nope, didn't say how frequent they'd be. Was just a very short article about I read. I'd imagine it would probably only be about 2 or 3 services per day in each direction due to scheduling these extra services amongst the existing Wessex and FGW services between Salisbury/Bath Spa and Bristol.

Would be good to have Class 170's running to Bristol too, if they use these instead of 159's. Don't think I've travelled on a 170 before.

Of course it's still not definiate yet though. SWT are only "in talks".

thedarkness · Post by **thedarkness** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 3:03 pm

XPTE wrote: Of course it's still not definiate yet though. SWT are only "in talks".

southcoasttrains · Post by **southcoasttrains** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 8:07 pm

I can see this service as a Eurostar feeder.

What are they going to do to the services that Terminate at Yeovil Junction? They ought to reverse them to Penn Mill and Westbury so the yokals don't have to walk far to the station for a London Service.

Tomnick · Post by **Tomnick** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 8:33 pm

Nah...it'll do 'em good to walk

. And it won't feed Eurostar too well when they go over to St. Pancras...

mattvince · Post by **mattvince** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 10:41 pm

A shrewd move by the SRA and SWT. Why? Because the majority of SWT services lose portions at Salisbury (the wonderful cathedral city

), normally these head to the depot, and it's conceivable that these portions could run through to Bristol. I wouldn't bet on Turbostars appearing too often, they seem to be well occupied on Romsey-Totton, Reading-Brighton, and boosting peak capacity on Waterloo-Salisbury trains.

As an aside, 159001 is still running as a two-car set.

jdjonny · Post by **jdjonny** » Sun Jan 11, 2004 9:51 am

I've only ever seen the SWT 159s at Plymouth, (one at Penzance), but the interior is quite manked up most of the time. They're a lot dirtier than wessex or FGW. It could have been just because they were at the end of a journey (and a long one at that), but they're never cleaned before they go back.

Still, rather that than a 150, 153, maybe not a 4 car 158 though.

JDJonny

thedarkness · Post by **thedarkness** » Sun Jan 11, 2004 9:29 pm

mattvince wrote:A shrewd move by the SRA and SWT. Why? Because the majority of SWT services lose portions at Salisbury (the wonderful cathedral city ), normally these head to the depot, and it's conceivable that these portions could run through to Bristol.

Yeah and we all know they just go into the depot out of the way

South West trains believe in maintenance.