South West’s struggles

A lot of innovation and development is being carried out on our railway system throughout most of the UK, which is most welcome.

However, precious little seems to be filtering down to the far South West. Hopefully this will change with the introduction of the new trains on Great Western Railway and the major timetable recast promised for next May.

The morning train service to Penzance needs a major overhaul, as currently it is far from adequate. There are plenty of trains making stock moves from Plymouth to Penzance before 0814, but then - when off-peak travel kicks in at 0900 - the trains dry up.

The 0814 ex-Plymouth leaves Lostwithiel at 0900, so west of there has a convenient service for a day out in West Cornwall.

The next train is a two-car Sprinter that leaves Plymouth over an hour later at 0921. It arrives chock-a-block with passengers, most of whom alight there. But by the time it reaches Liskeard at 0950 it has filled up again, often with standing room only. In summer, a Class 153 is attached at Plymouth, but that is insufficient to cope with all the families and day-trippers heading west towards St Ives.

The next train after that is the first HST out of London, which arrives in Plymouth an hour and 20 minutes later and arrives at Penzance at 1237, not very convenient for a day on the beach.

Therefore, the 0921 two-car sprinter is the only convenient mid-morning train through Cornwall. What is needed is at least a four-car train plus a couple of others, which is what used to happen up until about a decade ago. Since then the trains have become a lot busier, but there are less of them. Hopefully the new timetable will remedy this.

Then there’s the reinstatement of the Bere Alston to Tavistock line, a distance of six miles with no obstructions. This was promised a few years ago for reopening in 2019, but nothing has happened. Meanwhile, the north of Plymouth is currently at near gridlock, while the A386 Tavistock road is being upgraded to cope with the huge volume of traffic, which would undoubtedly diminish if the line was reopened.

Finally, there’s the line avoiding Dawlish, which was promised by David Cameron three years ago. He’s gone, and so (it seems) has the promise of the diversionary line. We’re out on a limb here, geographically and apparently politically as well. Mike Thompson, Plymouth