Virgin Trains to Shrewsbury

[transmanche]

I think Wrexham & Shropshire proved beyond reasonable doubt that there is insufficient demand for a through service from Shropshire to London

All it proved is that a slow service which is not able to serve two large markets en-route (Wolverhampton and Birmingham), is not profitable.

A bit like NoL Eurostars: if they'd been allowed to carry domestic passengers, they'd probably be profitable and running today. But relying solely on through traffic means they'd never be viable.

 

[Aictos]

I have a question for The Planner, will this impact on the proposed Blackpool/Stirling services? Also, were the Stirling services proposed to be Voyagers or dragged 390s?

As to the proposed Shrewsbury services, surely a better idea would be to improve connections between ATW and VT at New Street instead of running a VT service to Shrewsbury?

 

[Eagle]

Ideally, you'd have the hourly Wolverhampton trains extended to/from Shrewsbury, connecting seamlessly into and out of an hourly Cambrian service.

Wouldn't work as the hourly Wolverhampton services now continue to Glasgow or Edinburgh. You'd need to extend one of the other two Birmingham services.

Somewhat ironically, one of the reasons the timetable was changed like that was to free up a few Voyagers, one of which would have worked the now-cancelled Shrewsbury services (and another would have done Blackpool).
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As to the proposed Shrewsbury services, surely a better idea would be to improve connections between ATW and VT at New Street instead of running a VT service to Shrewsbury?

It would be better to make the connections at Wolverhampton or International, as those are much easier interchanges.
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As to the proposed Shrewsbury services, surely a better idea would be to improve connections between ATW and VT at New Street instead of running a VT service to Shrewsbury?

It would be better to make the connections at Wolverhampton or International, as those are much easier interchanges.

 

[EltonRoad]

No through service from Shrewsbury to London in living memory has taken less than 3 hours, some taking a lot longer. The new VT services are timed at 2h 15mins (down) - this is significantly faster and will surely have an impact on the number of people prepared to use it.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I have a question for The Planner, will this impact on the proposed Blackpool/Stirling services? Also, were the Stirling services proposed to be Voyagers or dragged 390s?

An extra problem for Blackpool is the application from Alliance Rail (Arriva) to run there, unlike Shrewsbury where nobody else is interested.
ORR has yet to pontificate on both applications.

VT bid for 2 return trips to Blackpool, as for Shrewsbury (because they have 2 Voyagers spare, one for each service), but only got the single Shrewsbury off-peak path from NR which they have rejected.
If WCML performance improves, all these paths could be in for December 2014.
That would also sew up 4 of the xx33 paths out of Euston.

Stirling was intended to be run by Pendolinos from 2016 (one service a day I think, early out and late back), and was conditional on NR wiring the route from Coatbridge as part of EGIP.
After delays this seems back on the agenda now with Transport Scotland saying it will go ahead.
However, that was for the 15-year ICWC franchise bid which was cancelled.
Who knows what will happen in 2017 when ICWC is rebid.

 

[Gareth Marston]

I could have sworn the capital of Wales was Cardiff

Yes but outside of west and South Wales the travel market is predominantly east to west and Cardiff a minor destination.
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Wouldn't work as the hourly Wolverhampton services now continue to Glasgow or Edinburgh. You'd need to extend one of the other two Birmingham services.

Somewhat ironically, one of the reasons the timetable was changed like that was to free up a few Voyagers, one of which would have worked the now-cancelled Shrewsbury services (and another would have done Blackpool).
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It would be better to make the connections at Wolverhampton or International, as those are much easier interchanges.
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ATW paths have been straight jacketed into the current slots for 13 years is three any prospect of change before HS2?
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Impossible to do now and you will only get the Welsh contingent over excited bringing this one back up. It was Marylebone they would have gone to anyway.

Possibly the MP for Ceredigion and Railfuture Cambrian branch anyway!

A lot of the London market problem from a mid Wales point of view is changing at New St is not cross platform, overcrowding on ATW services and interconnected the portion working and reversing at Shrewsbury, the carriages are not labelled Pwllheli or Aberystwyth but often its a question of just squeezing in where you can, when the conductor comes round after departing Shrewsbury theres invariably a procession of passengers with luggage swapping carriages effectively meaning change twice from London. Also the two hourly service limits choice of when you travel meaning you can't avoid the rush hour at Euston and New St

 

[Aictos]

An extra problem for Blackpool is the application from Alliance Rail (Arriva) to run there, unlike Shrewsbury where nobody else is interested.
ORR has yet to pontificate on both applications.

VT bid for 2 return trips to Blackpool, as for Shrewsbury (because they have 2 Voyagers spare, one for each service), but only got the single Shrewsbury off-peak path from NR which they have rejected.
If WCML performance improves, all these paths could be in for December 2014.
That would also sew up 4 of the xx33 paths out of Euston.

Stirling was intended to be run by Pendolinos from 2016 (one service a day I think, early out and late back), and was conditional on NR wiring the route from Coatbridge as part of EGIP.
After delays this seems back on the agenda now with Transport Scotland saying it will go ahead.
However, that was for the 15-year ICWC franchise bid which was cancelled.
Who knows what will happen in 2017 when ICWC is rebid.

Thanks for this, would Blackpool have also have seen 390s or would they have seen 220s/221s?

It would be better to make the connections at Wolverhampton or International, as those are much easier interchanges.

I don't know the area, I only suggested New Street as a guess it be better but if
Wolverhampton or International is better then they should time the ATW services to offer a decent connection on and off the VT services which would better any though service if timetabled properly, this I guess would also help with the limited number of paths available on both the WCML and Chiltern Mainline.

 

[All Line Rover]

It would be better to make the connections at Wolverhampton or International, as those are much easier interchanges.

Or, even better, Crewe. A 2h 20m journey time is possible if you don't mind a (unofficial) 5 minute connection. (The minimum connection time is 10 minutes but it really should be 5 minutes - Crewe is not a large station and on no occasion does it take more than 5 minutes to walk from one platform to another).

 

[Kettledrum]

As to the proposed Shrewsbury services, surely a better idea would be to improve connections between ATW and VT at New Street instead of running a VT service to Shrewsbury?

Better for who?

Certainly not for the Shropshire folk who want to get to London quickly to do business. It would probably have limited effect on the numbers of potential passengers who are currently dissuaded from travelling because the journey time makes the trip unviable. There would probably continue to be suppressed demand - but it might make it easier for commuting to Birmingham, so would have a positive impact on employment opportunities etc.

Might be better for the Rail Regulator who would look at the few numbers of passengers making the through journey, and use it to justify their decision not to allow Virgin to operate direct trains.
(Yes I know any such justification would be flawed, but someone else commented that the Wrexham & Shropshire service was unviable without mentioning the critical information about the long journey times and the inability to serve key intermediary destinations such as Birmingham New Street - so it shows how easy it is for passenger numbers alone to get misinterpreted).

 

[The Planner]

I can think of worse connections for a Euston Shrewsbury and v.v
Euston to International arriving at xx.53, depart xx.09 on the ATW
ATW to International arriving xx.48, depart xx.00 on a Virgin (or a very dodgy 3 minute leap at New St to a xx.30)

 

[tbtc]

Might be better for the Rail Regulator who would look at the few numbers of passengers making the through journey, and use it to justify their decision not to allow Virgin to operate direct trains

This is the core problem - what actual demand is there for a direct service?

Is it more than the demand for a direct Walsall - London service, for example (if we are talking about extending some West Midlands - London services)?

Or, the demand for various other markets with no direct service at the moment (from the perennial Huddersfield/ Middlesbrough/ Blackpool to London suggestions to recently lost links like Portsmouth to Birmingham or Cardiff to Liverpool or Wakefield to Manchester)?

 

[Gareth Marston]

This is the core problem - what actual demand is there for a direct service?

Is it more than the demand for a direct Walsall - London service, for example (if we are talking about extending some West Midlands - London services)?

Or, the demand for various other markets with no direct service at the moment (from the perennial Huddersfield/ Middlesbrough/ Blackpool to London suggestions to recently lost links like Portsmouth to Birmingham or Cardiff to Liverpool or Wakefield to Manchester)?

On our side of the dyke we have some idea of the size of the existing users flows as we've had things Like the Wales rail planning assessment in 2007 and this year a breakdown of travel in Wales by unitary authority giving destination in Wales by UA but annoyingly lumping England all togethar ORR are promising an English regional breakdown to be published later this year.

 

[Whistler40145]

IMHO if paths could be made available, have an early morning Crewe or Chester to Euston via Wrexham, Shrewsbury & Wolverhampton with an early to mid evening return working?

 

[dannypye9999]

18:43 Euston to Crewe could run to Telford and Shrewsbury. I don't know what impact this will have on morning services unless it continues from Shrewsbury to Crewe.

 

[Wolfie]

Or, even better, Crewe. A 2h 20m journey time is possible if you don't mind a (unofficial) 5 minute connection. (The minimum connection time is 10 minutes but it really should be 5 minutes - Crewe is not a large station and on no occasion does it take more than 5 minutes to walk from one platform to another).

That may be better for Shrewsbury, it certainly is NOT for Telford which happens to be the largest town in Shropshire.....
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I think Wrexham & Shropshire proved beyond reasonable doubt that there is insufficient demand for a through service from Shropshire to London, and expecting every part of the country to have through trains is unrealistic. We should be concentrating on improving the connections from Shrewsbury and mid-Wales into the existing Virgin services from Wolverhampton.

Really! Tell that to all the Salopians who drive to Stafford to get a decent fast/direct service to London!

All it proved is that a slow service which is not able to serve two large markets en-route (Wolverhampton and Birmingham), is not profitable.

Spot on.

Or, even better, Crewe. A 2h 20m journey time is possible if you don't mind a (unofficial) 5 minute connection. (The minimum connection time is 10 minutes but it really should be 5 minutes - Crewe is not a large station and on no occasion does it take more than 5 minutes to walk from one platform to another).

That may be better for Shrewsbury, it certainly is NOT for Telford which happens to be the largest town in Shropshire.....

 

[dvboy]

Wouldn't work as the hourly Wolverhampton services now continue to Glasgow or Edinburgh. You'd need to extend one of the other two Birmingham services.

I wrote a long post before being booted out and losing it, explaining that had they not introduced the through services, they could have extended the Wolverhampton service to Shrewsbury quite easily, with at 15-20 minute turnaround at Shrewsbury.

The through services is an extension of a Birmingham service actually, with the Wolverhampton service now cut short at Birmingham, so you could still extend the northbound train, but there is no path southbound now that the train from Scotland takes the xx45 path to Euston, it's old path from Wolverhampton can't join any Euston train from Birmingham.

It would be better to make the connections at Wolverhampton or International, as those are much easier interchanges.

Even if the above had happened, this would still be the case because it would be a longer wait at Shrewsbury.

 

[tbtc]

On our side of the dyke we have some idea of the size of the existing users flows as we've had things Like the Wales rail planning assessment in 2007 and this year a breakdown of travel in Wales by unitary authority giving destination in Wales by UA but annoyingly lumping England all togethar ORR are promising an English regional breakdown to be published later this year.

It will be interesting to see this - at the moment we have a lot of arguments on here about how popular a direct link is and how many people would be inconvenienced by it being withdrawn - this could certainly settle a lot of debates!

 

[YorkshireBear]

Would people catch the train is there was regular fast services to New Street? As that seems more achievable.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I think Wrexham & Shropshire proved beyond reasonable doubt that there is insufficient demand for a through service from Shropshire to London

I don't think it did any such thing.

Chiltern attempted to use W&S to fulfil their franchise commitments, and were fined by DafT for breaching those franchise commitments as a result. The end result of that fine was that W&S was wound up and conveniently enough the stock was transferred to Chiltern.

W&S struggled because it had to take a slow route around Birmingham to avoid revenue abstraction, but I don't think it was ever the financial basket case that DB tried to imply after the event.

W&S made Virgin sit up to the extent that there is now a train every two hours to Chester and that Wrexham now has a direct train service to London.

I think Grand Central proved that, with the right paths, direct trains to smaller towns and cities- even on a slower route- will work. I fully expected Grand Central to bomb and they didn't. For that reason I don't think a few trains to Shropshire every day would bomb either.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Oh for some common sense + finding some spare money and jsut electrify Wolverhampton -Shrewsbury. It would help considerably.

 

[merlodlliw]

I don't think it did any such thing.


W&S made Virgin sit up to the extent that there is now a train every two hours to Chester and that Wrexham now has a direct train service to London.

Very true, but its hourly now to/from Chester. Has for the old ATW Aberyswyth/Marylebone 158 idea

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Thanks for this, would Blackpool have also have seen 390s or would they have seen 220s/221s?

The original (cancelled franchise bid) plans would have used new short Pendolinos on Blackpool and Shrewsbury post-2016 when Blackpool was wired (and diesel haulage for Shrewsbury).
The current bids (without any new Pendolinos forthcoming) are solely to use spare Voyagers, and therefore could start now.
I think Blackpool would have problems hosting a full-length Pendolino, but is being remodelled anyway for electrification.

 

[Proud Salopian]

Oh for some common sense + finding some spare money and jsut electrify Wolverhampton -Shrewsbury. It would help considerably.

Alas, this is England. No common sense and any spare money is wasted in ways that are simply breath-taking.

 

[Gareth Marston]

It will be interesting to see this - at the moment we have a lot of arguments on here about how popular a direct link is and how many people would be inconvenienced by it being withdrawn - this could certainly settle a lot of debates!

Will have to wait a while Im afraid.

August 2014 Website Regional usage statistical release Annual (2012/13) August 2014 TBC

 

[anthony263]

Here is the pdf document on the ATW Aberystywth to London proposal.

I believe one objection to this proposal from Chiltern was the 90mph top speed of the class 158's would mean some of Chilterns services being held up following the ATW services.

Also I have to wonder if ATW could have resourced these 158's for this service had it gone ahead when they seem to struggle for stock now in fact this proposal shows that ATW do have the stock available to allow an hourly Cambrian service but funding is one reason why such a service is not happening yet.

I think a service from Aberystwyth to London would have been popular with students and tourists (as the new megabus service from Aberystwyth to London shows) but I am not sure whether or not I would like to do the full trip on a 158. Then again there are some who travel from Milford Haven to Manchester on a 158 and ATW's are not that bad with the recent refurbishment

 

[Geezertronic]

Here is the pdf document on the ATW Aberystywth to London

Any reason for not stopping at Coventry?

 

[Proud Salopian]

Travelling on a 158 to London? No thanks. Bad enough travelling on one of those from Shrewsbury to the Cambrian coast. Won't exactly impress business people from our capital or abroad.

 

[Llanigraham]

Travelling on a 158 to London? No thanks. Bad enough travelling on one of those from Shrewsbury to the Cambrian coast. Won't exactly impress business people from our capital or abroad.

So what else would you suggest, since it is only 158's that are currently ERTMS equipped?

 

[martinsh]

Alas, this is England. No common sense and any spare money is wasted in ways that are simply breath-taking.

That's the answer - get Shropshire to become part of Wales !!

 

[Eagle]

Any reason for not stopping at Coventry?

Virgin's moderation of competition, again.

(Worth remembering that the MOC lapsed two years ago, so this would not be a problem today.)