Birmingham - Manchester timings

[eMeS]

In this article, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21934564, Stephanie Flanders writes:

"You can cover the 120-odd miles between London and Birmingham in a train in 84 minutes. Birmingham to Manchester is not much more than half the distance, but I found the fastest train between the two actually took longer: about 90 minutes. "

Can it be true?
My 1988 BR Timetable lists the London - Birmingham New Street distance as 115 miles, and that from New Street - Manchester as 82 miles. Journalistic licence?

There's other comments about provincial travel in the article.

 

[sprinterguy]

In this article, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21934564, Stephanie Flanders writes:

"You can cover the 120-odd miles between London and Birmingham in a train in 84 minutes. Birmingham to Manchester is not much more than half the distance, but I found the fastest train between the two actually took longer: about 90 minutes. "

Can it be true?

Yes, that is correct: The faster of the two direct trains each hour between Birmingham and Manchester takes 1 hour 28 minutes - 88 minutes. The slower of the two takes 14 minutes more! Part of the problem is that the Birmingham to Manchester route features no sections (to my knowledge) of 125 EPS running that features prominently elsewhere on the core West Coast main line route traversed by the London to Birmingham services. The Voyager trains operated by Crosscountry between Birmingham and Manchester do not have tilt capability.

 

[D6975]

Euston - New St is 112m 73ch
New St - Piccadilly is 82m 11ch

'not much more than half the distance' is stretching things a bit..

it's almost three quarters.

 

[tbtc]

The faster of the two direct trains each hour between Birmingham and Manchester takes 1 hour 28 minutes - 88 minutes. The slower of the two takes 14 minutes more!

Presumably part of the reason for those extra fourteen minutes is the need for the half hourly XC service to fit around the 20/40 minute Virgin service through Stoke (i.e. XC can't be half hourly on that section as they'd get too close to the timings of the Virgin services)?

Basically, passengers for London are more important (and everyone else fits around them)?

 

[Searle]

Breaking news in "some parts of track are faster than others" shock at BBC.

You might think High Speed 2 will change this - isn't it all about bridging the North-South divide?

But when you're sitting in Birmingham or Manchester, you can see why many people outside London think high speed rail will actually make things worse.

They worry that a faster connection to London will simply make it even less attractive to go anywhere else.

Apart from the fact that with HS2 it will take 41 minutes to Manchester and 49 to Euston, so surely Manchester is even more attractive with a bigger time saving

 

[67018]

A bit of selective reporting in that article - surely the point really is that the WCML is exceptionally fast. Look at, say, Warrington to Glasgow and the average speed comes out much higher.

The article also quotes the hour it takes to do the 40 miles from Manchester to Leeds as a problem - but isn't this something to do with the whacking great load of hills between the two, and the unelectrified line? Trains south of London take much the same time and nobody is claiming these areas are deprived.

 

[Bevan Price]

The problems with both Manchester - Birmingham & Manchester - Leeds are that you are trying to fit fast trains & local trains onto the same tracks, and also that the routes have locations not designed for high speeds.

Between Stoke & Birmingham you have low speed limits at Stone, Norton Bridge and the approaches to both Wolverhampton & Birmingham.
Between Manchester & Leeds, you have low speed limits at Ardwick, Guide Bridge, Stalybridge, Marsden and the approach to Leeds.

 

[Cherry_Picker]

Basically, passengers for London are more important (and everyone else fits around them)?

Not really. But they are far greater in number and you build the railway to serve the majority.