Virgin confirm seeking approval for additional calls in Trent Valley

[gordonthemoron]

Virgin would be better off adding more stops at Milton Keynes, in the peak and off peak

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Also I believe there is an off-peak ticket in the Trent Valley marked 'Direct'. Priced somewhere around £50? for a day return, which entitles you to board any off-peak LM service to London, and any off-peak service back whether VT or LM. By stopping just ONE off-peak Euston Virgin service in the Trent after 0930, this ticket could surely then be used to do the full return on Virgin Trains?

Revenue from tickets that are not operator specific (ie most of them) is split according to the number of seats provide by each operator.
So VT and LM will both get their revenue split whichever service you actually use.
I guess the split might be close to 50/50 in the Trent Valley with VT offering a few long trains and LM offering more frequent short trains.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Virgin would be better off adding more stops at Milton Keynes, in the peak and off peak

I don't agree, at least northbound. Why give long-distance passengers an uncomfortable journey by filling their train with commuters taking up all the seats for the first half hour?

Additional capacity for MKC should be provided by LM being permitted to order more units (and make other changes as required) to make all peak trains south of Northampton 12-car and all others 8 car throughout the network, which is what is required. 4 car sets have had their day.

 

[Class 170101]

4 car sets have had their day.

I doubt some evening and Sunday services warrant anything other four carriage trains

 

[Bletchleyite]

I doubt some evening and Sunday services warrant anything other four carriage trains

Have you been on the south WCML lately? Notably a good number of Sunday "shopping peak" trains are now 12 (though there was some short forming going on this Sunday) which more reflects the demand.

I suppose early Saturday and Sunday morning are probably adequate as 4s, but that's about it. Evening northbound from Euston appears to be fairly consistently busy enough for 8, and it's not exactly easy to run 4 southbound but 8 northbound unless, I suppose, you leave some at Camden. And almost every train on Saturday evening northbound is now 12.

I wonder if the Direct Award improved this...but it still needs more.

 

[pt_mad]

Well certainly I think one off peak Euston bound service could be stopped at Nuneaton after 0930. Perhaphs that is the plan.

As explained that will then give day trippers the option of using the off peak 'direct' return ticket on VT to and from London rather than just on the way back. One off peak fast service per day isn't much to expect, given they say they are looking to stop some extras.



Long term Nuneaton should see some great changes, with better? (hopefully!) Coventry trains, Alliance Rail providing a fast off peak service every few hours from 2018, and longer 8 car LM trains one day with a bit of luck!

 

[DarloRich]

Virgin would be better off adding more stops at Milton Keynes, in the peak and off peak

you cant say that! Don't you realise Nuneaton is the economic centre of the universe!

Yes they could do with adding more services.

I don't agree, at least northbound. Why give long-distance passengers an uncomfortable journey by filling their train with commuters taking up all the seats for the first half hour?

Money. Lots of money! The market for commuting FROM London to MK is increasing all the time. It is only going to grow as more jobs are moved there.

Additional capacity for MKC should be provided by LM being permitted to order more units (and make other changes as required) to make all peak trains south of Northampton 12-car and all others 8 car throughout the network, which is what is required. 4 car sets have had their day.

That needs to happen to allow strengthening across the whole LM network, particularly the fast Crewe trains.

 

[The Planner]

Yes they could do with adding more services.

Harder than adding Trent Valley stops, more trains to deal with South of Rugby. Post 2026 you will get them in abundance.

 

[DarloRich]

Harder than adding Trent Valley stops, more trains to deal with South of Rugby. Post 2026 you will get them in abundance.

agreed - I didn't say it was practical or possible

 

[The Ham]

Long term Nuneaton should see some great changes, with better? (hopefully!) Coventry trains, Alliance Rail providing a fast off peak service every few hours from 2018, and longer 8 car LM trains one day with a bit of luck!

...and possibly train services to Birmingham Moor Street if the current Camp Hill line proposals (being discusses here) come to fruition.

However there is also some fairly substantial development being proposed at the MIRA site just outside Nuneaton (see here for the masterplan) which will likely increase rail demand.

 

[pt_mad]

you cant say that! Don't you realise Nuneaton is the economic centre of the universe!

Nobody has said that. We are talking about ONE or TWO extra stops here which Virgin look to have decided are viable on the face of it.

Stopping one or two extra services, adding say a 4 minute penalty for just those couple, will mean a great deal for the town or towns involved in the Trent. As said further above, just the ONE off peak morning Euston working per day would add a whole new ticket option for a town such as Nuneaton and day trippers will for the first time in years be able to do a non peak time return daytrip to London in the week on a Virgin train.

And at the weekend just the ONE extra Virgin stopper at a place like Nun on a Saturday evening will give the town an hourly return service for day trippers arriving between 1800 - 2200.

And besides that, Virgin seem to suggest that with time speed engineering improvements now made it may not cause any penalty to existing journey times elsewhere.

 

[The Planner]

And besides that, Virgin seem to suggest that with time speed engineering improvements now made it may not cause any penalty to existing journey times elsewhere.

Ummm, which ones? I don't see how there cannot be a penalty.

 

[DarloRich]

Nobody has said that. We are talking about ONE or TWO extra stops here which Virgin look to have decided are viable on the face of it.

Stopping one or two extra services, adding say a 4 minute penalty for just those couple, will mean a great deal for the town or towns involved in the Trent. As said further above, just the ONE off peak morning Euston working per day would add a whole new ticket option for a town such as Nuneaton and day trippers will for the first time in years be able to do a non peak time return daytrip to London in the week on a Virgin train.

And at the weekend just the ONE extra Virgin stopper at a place like Nun on a Saturday evening will give the town an hourly return service for day trippers arriving between 1800 - 2200.

And besides that, Virgin seem to suggest that with time speed engineering improvements now made it may not cause any penalty to existing journey times elsewhere.

and, instead of having a mini melt down, if you actually read my posts you would see i am quite comfortable on the issue of a couple of peak hours calls if they can be fitted into the timetable without a large adverse impact on more profitable services. The desires of, say, 50 should not outweigh the needs of 500.

My issues is the suggestion that towns like Nuneaton need a constant off peak intercity service. I don't think they do.

 

[jimm]

and, instead of having a mini melt down, if you actually read my posts you would see i am quite comfortable on the issue of a couple of peak hours calls if they can be fitted into the timetable without a large adverse impact on more profitable services. The desires of, say, 50 should not outweigh the needs of 500.

My issues is the suggestion that towns like Nuneaton need a constant off peak intercity service. I don't think they do.

Well if we're talking about "more profitable services", then how much profit is each 390 between Manchester and Euston actually making as part of a three trains per hour service with a grand total of 1,800 seats to fill every hour?

While you - and others - seem fixated on London as a destination, the remarks cited in the original post appear to indicate Virgin is also looking at other places, which might just involve travel in the opposite direction:

More markets need to be built before HS2 opens and so we're looking at how these stations fit into the calling pattern.

Markets plural. While the current Virgin calls at Nuneaton are in Liverpool and North Wales trains, who's to say they aren't looking at adding in some Manchester stops as well to see if that does indeed help to build a new market? Somewhere which oddly enough happens to be one of the places HS2 is meant to end up.

And what does "Towns like Nuneaton" mean exactly? As I and others have pointed out back up the thread, Hinckley and Bedworth are just down the road 10-15 minutes away, making Nuneaton their natural 'Parkway' station. So that's 170,000 people as a catchment. A lot more than there are around the likes of Newark or Grantham. Not forgetting the people living in and around Tamworth and Rugby, who also seem to be in Virgin's sights.

Maybe now that the Virgin timetable has settled down after various tweaks over the years, giving some sort of stability to travel patterns and use of their trains, and they have converted some first class coaches to standard, they are looking around for ways to fill available capacity they have identified and realised that some of the people living in Rugby and up the Trent Valley might use their trains and fill some of those seats, in both directions, if more of them actually stopped there.

The LM services have indeed been a very good thing for the Trent Valley stations but there is no doubt that they have their limitations, especially if you are going north and want to go somewhere other than Stafford, Stoke or Crewe, with some pretty long waits for onward connections.

 

[DarloRich]

Well if we're talking about "more profitable services", then how much profit is each 390 between Manchester and Euston actually making as part of a three trains per hour service with a grand total of 1,800 seats to fill every hour?

While you - and others - seem fixated on London as a destination, the remarks cited in the original post appear to indicate Virgin is also looking at other places, which might just involve travel in the opposite direction:

I am not obsessed with London. I simply point out that the LM services have created or developed a market for commuting between towns on the TV line and to Milton Keynes as well as London. It is worth considering that the ongoing development of business in MK is only going to increase the numbers commuting there and more people will be coming from towns like Nuneaton and Lichfield and Tamworth due to house prices

I am sure that with more Virgin peak hours calls ( which i am sure there is a market for) those towns would become of greater interest to London commuters. Already the affordable commuter house price wave is at Rugby, being well beyond MK. With a 2 bed terrace in Blethcley costing around £200k you can see why! At present the same type of house is about £85k in Nuneaton


BTW connections at Stoke are pretty good to Manchester. I use the LM Crewe train fairly often and an XC and Virgin run quite close behind at Stoke. I have also changed at Stafford for the same XC train to Manchester.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I am sure that with more Virgin peak hours calls ( which i am sure there is a market for) those towns would become of greater interest to London commuters. Already the affordable commuter house price wave is at Rugby, being well beyond MK. With a 2 bed terrace in Blethcley costing around £200k you can see why!

Amusing that you made the same misspelling of Bletchley that Z&S once did on their destination blinds!

£200K for a 2-bed? Crikey, that's some rise. Mine (a small 3 bed which is really a 2 bed with an extra wall, as the master bedroom won't take a king size bed but would if you removed said wall) was £147500 about 5 years ago!)

Nonetheless MK is pretty cheap for the South East - but the situation you mention could easily lead to MK being largely occupied by London commuters, and those people being replaced during the day by people commuting in from the south Midlands!

 

[DarloRich]

Amusing that you made the same misspelling of Bletchley that Z&S once did on their destination blinds!

£200K for a 2-bed? Crikey, that's some rise. Mine (a small 3 bed which is really a 2 bed with an extra wall, as the master bedroom won't take a king size bed but would if you removed said wall) was £147500 about 5 years ago!)

Nonetheless MK is pretty cheap for the South East - but the situation you mention could easily lead to MK being largely occupied by London commuters, and those people being replaced during the day by people commuting in from the south Midlands!

Fat finger syndrome sorry

flats are about 200K ( of which there are many) houses anything between 175 and 200.

I think the level of commuting into MK by rail is not widely known but your view on where people come from might well be true in the near future! being 30-45 minutes by rail from London is always going to drive up prices

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think the level of commuting into MK by rail is not widely known but your view on where people come from might well be true in the near future! being 30-45 minutes by rail from London is always going to drive up prices

Rail commuting no, but I definitely recall the Council quoting that there are more commuters (as a whole, including car, bike, bus etc) in than out, and that was a while ago - the more business comes in, the more commuting in there will be.

 

[nuneatonmark]

Rugby's commuter traffic is quite significant despite the cost of a season ticket, although the LM only season ticket is much cheaper and the services are still pretty good. It's only a matter of time before more people see the benefits of going one stop further to Nuneaton. A four bedroomed house in the catchment area of the best performing non-selective school in Warwickshire, 5-10 mins from the station - £250000! It's already on the increase, season ticket is a lot of money though.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Rugby's commuter traffic is quite significant despite the cost of a season ticket, although the LM only season ticket is much cheaper and the services are still pretty good. It's only a matter of time before more people see the benefits of going one stop further to Nuneaton. A four bedroomed house in the catchment area of the best performing non-selective school in Warwickshire, 5-10 mins from the station - £250000! It's already on the increase, season ticket is a lot of money though.

True, though I don't think such ridiculous commuting is to be encouraged. It might on the other hand work for those only going to London maybe 2 days a week.

 

[DarloRich]

Rugby's commuter traffic is quite significant despite the cost of a season ticket, although the LM only season ticket is much cheaper and the services are still pretty good. It's only a matter of time before more people see the benefits of going one stop further to Nuneaton. A four bedroomed house in the catchment area of the best performing non-selective school in Warwickshire, 5-10 mins from the station - £250000! It's already on the increase, season ticket is a lot of money though.

Agreed! And further north as well. As i said we have people coming in from all stations on the TV south of Stafford (although mainly Lichfield and south) and Stoke by Virgin.

True, though I don't think such ridiculous commuting is to be encouraged. It might on the other hand work for those only going to London maybe 2 days a week.

It is under an hour for Rugby - Euston by the most attractive ( aka expensive ) trains 1:15/1:20 via Northampton.

I assume Nuneaton would be similar plus 10/12 minutes

 

[jimm]

I am not obsessed with London. I simply point out that the LM services have created or developed a market for commuting between towns on the TV line and to Milton Keynes as well as London. It is worth considering that the ongoing development of business in MK is only going to increase the numbers commuting there and more people will be coming from towns like Nuneaton and Lichfield and Tamworth due to house prices

I am sure that with more Virgin peak hours calls ( which i am sure there is a market for) those towns would become of greater interest to London commuters. Already the affordable commuter house price wave is at Rugby, being well beyond MK. With a 2 bed terrace in Blethcley costing around £200k you can see why! At present the same type of house is about £85k in Nuneaton


BTW connections at Stoke are pretty good to Manchester. I use the LM Crewe train fairly often and an XC and Virgin run quite close behind at Stoke. I have also changed at Stafford for the same XC train to Manchester.

You may think the connections are good - I don't, many of them involve waits of 15-20 minutes - some are 35 minutes - and doing Nuneaton-Crewe changing at Stafford usually saves all of about six minutes compared with going all the way on LM via Stoke in 90 minutes - whereas a Virgin fast, doing it direct, takes 40-45 minutes.

From Birmingham to Manchester the fastest trains get you there in under 90 minutes but over a similar distance from Nuneaton it's more like two hours, due to the hanging around for connections. If you want to go to Preston or points north, it is often quicker to catch the LM dmu into Coventry, join a Virgin service to Glasgow there and trundle all the way through the West Midlands than to take the apparently more logical step of going north up the Trent Valley.

So the current state of affairs is hardly an incentive to encourage northbound travel from Nuneaton.

 

[Bletchleyite]

15-20 minutes isn't terrible, time to go and get a coffee or something. It's actually waits of 10 mins or so, or 30 mins-1hr I find annoying - not enough to do anything with but enough to get cold, or in the latter case enough to be boring but not enough to go for a sit down meal or similar.

I recognise that doesn't do the journey times any favour, though.

 

[gordonthemoron]

when I was looking at houses a couple of years back, it seemed the tipping point for prices was between Tring & Leighton Buzzard

 

[dk1]

Rugby's commuter traffic is quite significant despite the cost of a season ticket, although the LM only season ticket is much cheaper and the services are still pretty good. It's only a matter of time before more people see the benefits of going one stop further to Nuneaton. A four bedroomed house in the catchment area of the best performing non-selective school in Warwickshire, 5-10 mins from the station - £250000! It's already on the increase, season ticket is a lot of money though.

I was amazed at how cheap property was in Nuneaton considering some Virgin services complete the journey non-stop in a mere 55mins.

 

[jimm]

I was amazed at how cheap property was in Nuneaton considering some Virgin services complete the journey non-stop in a mere 55mins.

But the annual season ticket isn't exactly cheap at £6,320 just to get to Euston, before you add in Oystercard or Travelcard costs.

Edit: And that's the LM-only rate. One valid on Virgin is £8,764.

 

[The Ham]

But the annual season ticket isn't exactly cheap at £6,320 just to get to Euston, before you add in Oystercard or Travelcard costs.

However, if you are paying a mortgage for every £500 more you pay in season ticket prices over the year the cost of your home would need to drop by about £8,000.

That means that if you are looking at somewhere with house prices of £300,000 and a £2,000 season ticket then you can afford to buy a house for about £230,000 and pay the season ticket price from Nuneaton.

That will get you a fairly modern 4 bed house in Nuneaton, whilst in more traditional commuter towns in Hampshire about an hour from London you maybe lucky to get a 3 bed property for £300,000, unless it's in an area where you would want to avoid.

 

[jimm]

However, if you are paying a mortgage for every £500 more you pay in season ticket prices over the year the cost of your home would need to drop by about £8,000.

That means that if you are looking at somewhere with house prices of £300,000 and a £2,000 season ticket then you can afford to buy a house for about £230,000 and pay the season ticket price from Nuneaton.

That will get you a fairly modern 4 bed house in Nuneaton, whilst in more traditional commuter towns in Hampshire about an hour from London you maybe lucky to get a 3 bed property for £300,000, unless it's in an area where you would want to avoid.

With all due respect to Nuneaton, I'm not sure it will ever feature on a list of top commuter communities, however much of bargain the house prices look in comparison with the insanity that is London or its more traditional commuter belt.

 

[Bletchleyite]

With all due respect to Nuneaton, I'm not sure it will ever feature on a list of top commuter communities, however much of bargain the house prices look in comparison with the insanity that is London or its more traditional commuter belt.

And if it did, the house prices would not stay that low for long, so locals should be careful what they wish for.

 

[The Ham]

With all due respect to Nuneaton, I'm not sure it will ever feature on a list of top commuter communities, however much of bargain the house prices look in comparison with the insanity that is London or its more traditional commuter belt.

As things are currently I would be included to agree with you.

House prices can be cheap but there is a lot more to picking where you live than just what value for money you get in buying your house. Such as quality of schools, frequency of (fast) rail services, local facilities, range of local shopping opportunities, location of spouses work, where in London you are heading, location of friends and family, and so on.