Simon__200 wrote:Filton Abbey Wood to Bristol Temple Meads Monday 20-April-2020
1. Depart 21:20 Arrive 21:28 £3.90
2. Depart 22:12 Arrive 22:23 £3.90
3. Depart 00:25 Arrive 00:39 £3.90
Cardiff Central to Pontypridd Monday 20-April-2020
1. Depart 21:00 Arrive 21:31 £4.80
2. Depart 22:06 Arrive 22:36 £4.80
3. Depart 06:11 Arrive 06:41 £4.80
Great, you have two trains coming out at Filton to Temple Meads after 22:00. Sometimes you're lucky and these late trains can have lots of carriages as they're getting them in place for the morning rush, but typically they're two to three carriages. Are several thousand people going to rely on this service? Unless they put on extra local trains it won't be reliable.
Think about it, London's O2 has a capcity of 20,000. The Jubillee Line operates trains of 7 carriages, with an official capacity of 964, running in two directions, typically every 5-10mins at that time of night (the Jubilee line as also part of the Night Tube). Despite that, it's still an effort to get out of the venue.
Most gigs finish around 11:00 with the noise curfew, then you have to factor in time to get out of a venue. Could you realistically get hundreds, potentially thousands of people from Filton to Cardiff (and then beyond) that late at night? You'd be cutting it fine via public transport, which means you'd either have to drive or stay in Bristol overnight, adding to the cost.
I agree the current train times from Cardiff to Pontypridd are dismal. But this timetable is supposed to be drastically improved with the Metro (let's see if that happens).
This arena for Bristol was supposed to be sited around Temple Meads, but they dithered so much that land has now gone to the new Bristol Uni campus. Sticking it out in Filton is going to be far from an ideal situation for servicing Bristol, nevermind about trying to pinch business from the Cardiff area.
I think the current proposal for Cardiff are good and will really fill a gap, let's try to be a bit more optimistic about Cardiff.