London to Wick direct

[LilLoaf]

I've been thinking recently about the succesion of Open Access companies. Small simple to run companies with not many trains seem to run pretty smoothly (apart from Grand Central) everytime i see their trains they are late !

So i was wondering where else can open access companies run to from London and came up with these routes.

London Euston - Rugby - Birmingham - Wolverhapton - Shrewsburry - Pwhelli.
There are slots available on the single track section i've checked.

London Kings Cross - Newark - Lincoln - Nottingham.

London Euston - Preston - Glasgow - Perth - Inverness / Wick and or Kyle.

London Paddington - Reading - Bristol - Cardiff - Swansea - Pembrook Dock



To me these are a lot better idea's than suggestions already made by train companies like London - Huddersfield all people have to do is catch a TPE service to Leeds then NXEC, or over to Manchester for the Virgin train

There is then the suggestion of London - Knarsbourgh. Again people just need a Northern train to York then NXEC to London.

Anyone else got any thoughts on this, i've looked into timetable patterns for most of the routes suggested so if anyone has any questions then drop a comment.

 

[heart-of-wessex]

do you think Wick and thurso would be able to run up there with a path free? Plus to be honest since it takes 6 - 8 hours alone just to to Aberdeen, I'd prefer to use the sleeper to Inverness and get the morning Wick train from Inverness, and vice versa for the down trip.

As for Pembroke dock, this would probably have to be Monday to Firday only in the summer due to FGW's summer saturday Pembroke diagrams, depends how useful it is really...


Otherwise not bad ideas!

Cheers,

James.

 

[P156KWJ]

London-Newark-Lincoln-Nottingham?

Either you don't know the area well or you are odd in thinking. This would require coming off the flat crossing to go 20 odd miles via Swinderby to Lincoln to come back over the crossing (another 20 miles) to go to Nottingham, which would mean EMT's service from Newark to Nottingham ttakes about 30 minutes, your's would take about 1.75 to 2 hours :???:

 

[Metroland]

London St Pancras - Sheffield- Leeds - Carlisle - Glasgow

Ipswich - Peterborough - Sheffield - Manchester - Glasgow

Hull - Doncaster - Derby - Birmingham - Bristol - Plymouth

Brighton - Guildford - Reading - Oxford - Worcester - Hereford - North Wales

 

[P156KWJ]

London St Pancras - Sheffield- Leeds - Carlisle - Glasgow

Ipswich - Peterborough - Sheffield - Manchester - Glasgow

Hull - Doncaster - Derby - Birmingham - Bristol - Plymouth

Brighton - Guildford - Reading - Oxford - Worcester - Hereford - North Wales

London to Glasgow has a great service provided by Virgin Trains up the newly upgraded WCML :???:

 

[Craig]

London St Pancras - Sheffield- Leeds - Carlisle - Glasgow

The Thames-Clyde Express would be a good name for that

 

[metrocammel]

London Euston - Rugby - Birmingham - Wolverhapton - Shrewsburry - Pwhelli.


There are slots available on the single track section i've checked.

What traction would you use??? (Please don't say 158s!)

And look at the trouble WSMR have had with Wolves, it would have to be SD/PU only at Rugby, Brum and Wolves or else Virgin would have a fit. I also doubt WSMR would be impressed with it going to Shrewsbury!

London Kings Cross - Newark - Lincoln - Nottingham.

Again, traction?

and secondly, Why?

There will soon be a KGX-Lincoln service, and Nottingham is well served by EMT, isn't it?

London Euston - Preston - Glasgow - Perth - Inverness / Wick and or Kyle.

Do you realise how long it takes to get to Wick?!

And it'd have to be a 125mph capable unit, as there's a reversal at Inverness, and I'm not even sure you can get onto the correct platforms for Wick without complicated shunting. You could always have it doing the Inverness avoiding line!!
[/quote]

London Paddington - Reading - Bristol - Cardiff - Swansea - Pembrook Dock

sp. It's Pembroke dock

As HoW said, fGW do this service on summer Saturdays, and realistically, how many people go to Ireland out of season via Pembroke Dock? I can't see it being well frequented at all- and....

yet again....

WHAT TRACTION?!!

There is literally nothing available nowadays, so unless there's new build, I can't see what these services could use!

 

[me123]

Glasgow-West Yorkshire IMO. Glasgow-Carlisle-Leeds would be a very good company. It could also extend from time to time to meet the Europeans ferries at Hull, provide holiday services to Scarborough and perhaps to Sheffield. It's a service that would have a good customer base which would probably expand with direct trains.

Glasgow to Blackpool as well would be simple, but you would need to reverse at Preston. Anyway, that route's well served by the Virgin/Northern combo so there's probably not much demand for a direct train.

Might also be demand for a Glasgow-Edinburgh-Dover train or something else that could connect to ferries to France.

London to Wick, however, will never be feasible I'm afraid; low client base and good service already from the sleepers. If it did run, you'd have to avoid Glasgow so your best bet is probably ECML to Edinburgh.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The Thames-Clyde Express would be a good name for that

Basically, this would be a good service but there's no need to go through to London.

 

[LilLoaf]

do you think Wick and thurso would be able to run up there with a path free? Plus to be honest since it takes 6 - 8 hours alone just to to Aberdeen, I'd prefer to use the sleeper to Inverness and get the morning Wick train from Inverness, and vice versa for the down trip.

As for Pembroke dock, this would probably have to be Monday to Firday only in the summer due to FGW's summer saturday Pembroke diagrams, depends how useful it is really...


Otherwise not bad ideas!

Cheers,

James.

The times i have came up with for the London - Wick service is as follows:

Northbound

London Euston - 0906
Preston - 1040
Carlisle - 1140
Motherwell - 1245
Perth - 1345
Pitlochry - 14.23 - 14.31 (passes 1254 Inverness to Edinburgh FSR)
Aviemore - 15.25 - 15.30 (passes 1451 Inverness to Glasgow FSR)
Inverness - 1605 - 1615 (10mins allowed for turnaround)
Muir of Ord - 16.30- 16.35 (passes 1236 Wick - Inverness FSR)
Rogart - 18.12 - 18.16 (passes 1600 Wick - Inverness FSR)
Wick - 2020

Southbound

Wick - 1040
Georgemass - 1055 - 11.00 (0706 Inverness - Wick FSR will be there)
Rogart - 1230 - 1235 (passes 1038 Inverness - Wick FSR)
Muir of Ord - 1415 (passes 1356 Inverness - Wick FSR)
Inverness 1430 - 1440 (10mins allowed for Turnaround)
Dalwhinne 15.45 - 1605 (passes 1335 Edinburgh - Inverness
Perth - 1640
Glasgow - 17.45
Carlisle - 19.15
Preston - 20.20
London Euston - 22.10


As you can see i have thought it through there will be some problems i expect but i think i have covered most things.

 

[Techniquest]

London to Preston in 1h34m?! That would be a fast run, but I can't imagine that's physically possible.

 

[me123]

hock: 1h34 to Preston?!? What speeds are you going at there?

You'd need Pendolinos and tilting Voyagers which are all in use, and wouldn't be put to good use trundling up the Far North Line.

 

[LilLoaf]

Traction would be 180's. Hull trains are only using them as a tempory measure while 222 is out of use, and then there are a few to get back off Northern.

 

[me123]

180s would never reach the required speed on the WCML. In fact, they'd probably need to allow Virgin services to overtake at certain points. They can't tilt, you see.

 

[Techniquest]

There's more chance of a London to Fishguard Harbour and return boat train using a HST set making a come-back under FGW than this London to Wick service. At least there would be more than 1 person on the train to Fishguard!

 

[andylloyd]

Are there still services by FGW that go upto Fishguard Harbour to connect with the Sea crossings?

 

[Craig]

Basically, this would be a good service but there's no need to go through to London.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames-Clyde_Express

When Northern (or was it Arrive back then?) ran Leeds - Glasgow, the services were fairly well loaded whenever I used the service. As you've said, running through to Hull or somewhere would probably increase usage. A service like this would be well suited to a 22x as they'd have have speeds for the WCML good acceleration for the S&C. Good pathing combined with limited stops on the S&C could produce fairly fast timings too.

 

[LilLoaf]

London to Preston in 1h34m?! That would be a fast run, but I can't imagine that's physically possible.

Northbound departure is now 0845

Southbound arrival 2245

Thats a bit better i think.

 

[Craig]

London to Preston in 1h34m?! That would be a fast run, but I can't imagine that's physically possible.

1S45 which leaves EUS at 0830 arrives at Preston at 1038 with stops at Warrington and Wigan, so I doubt a 180 could do it much faster...

 

[LilLoaf]

London St Pancras - Sheffield- Leeds - Carlisle - Glasgow

Ipswich - Peterborough - Sheffield - Manchester - Glasgow

Hull - Doncaster - Derby - Birmingham - Bristol - Plymouth

Brighton - Guildford - Reading - Oxford - Worcester - Hereford - North Wales

All good routes there i'll see if i can come up with times. However there secret rule of Open Access company is it has got to go to London. Apparently everyone wants to go to London.

Trouble with London - Sheffiled - Leeds - Carlisle - Glasgow is only S&C services would have a direct service to London whereas they didn't before.

 

[glynn80]

Traction would be 180's. Hull trains are only using them as a tempory measure while 222 is out of use, and then there are a few to get back off Northern.

Are you taking the ****, to do the 209 miles required from London to Preston in 1 hour 34 minutes you would need to do an AVERAGE speed on 133 miles per hour. That's average speed so it is likely it would need to do around a top speed of 150 mph to be able to do the journey speeds you claim to have thought out. 180s are not capable (barely able to do 125 mph) of this and neither is the WCML. Also Hull Trains are not using the 180s as a temporary measure, they are soon to be a permanent measure as their 222s are moving to East Midlands Trains to run the Corby service and are being replaced by cascaded FGW 180s.

 

[37412]

Going by your timings how would the Northbound pass the Southbound, the only way I imagine it could without checking the timetable to see the existing times or getting my quail out to check the distances would be at the loop south of Aviemore (Kincraig?) but I would have thought this would require retiming of existing FSR services?

 

[Craig]

You are of course aware that Thurso/Wick and Kyle struggle to stay open and wouldn't if it wasn't for heavy subsidy and low fares. Do you think a private comany could make profit out of it? I doubt it.

What's the name of your open access company, Great Stoat Railways?

Also, Northbound run via Motherwell but Southbound via "Glasgow". Not very consistent, how you do you plan to route Motherwell to Perth in 1 hour (nigh on impossible) and which "glasgow" on the way back. How do you propose a run in that time to Central and how do you propose a run from Glasgow QS to the west coast?

Epic fail.

 

[87015]

Wolverhampton - Walsall. Fragonset Styley top and tail load 2 with engines from a pool of crank-friendly engines based at Bescot. Extending via reopened shacks at Aldridge, Streetley, Sutton Park and Sutton Town.

 

[Mintona]

Liloaf, none of those will work. They just wouldn't. There wouldn't be enough of a market.

The best one is "Thames Clyde"

 

[90019]

Might also be demand for a Glasgow-Edinburgh-Dover train or something else that could connect to ferries to France.

There's the Eurocentral Freight Terminal just by the M8, pretty much halfway between Edinburgh and Glasgow (AFAIK, it's still going), with a direct rail link to the channel tunnel, so, I suppose, with some modification, you could, in theory, have a direct Scotland - France rail link.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Northbound departure is now 0845

Southbound arrival 2245

Thats a bit better i think.

Despite this being an impossible dream, you'd be willing to spend 14 hours on a 180?

 

[Pumbaa]

Yeah - impossible timings, plus no-one really wants to go to Wick on a daily basis from London. Virgin won't allow you to stop in their territory really, and well, it's a crap idea.

 

[LilLoaf]

There were other suggestions i made like the London - Wales one.

The Wick - London has a lot of benifits:
Provides a extra train on the Wick - Inverness which otherwise see's a perthetic service level, Also extra train Inverness to the South in a addition to the NXEC service, it allows direct jounrey's from varies places that cannot be linked without changes trains serveral times.

I didn't say i had all the answers but i COULD be onto something.

And yeah i quite like the 180's, Virgin forced people to spend 12 hours on voygers and 180's better than voyagers.

 

[Waverley125]

a few simple services that need introducing (not all stops included, some required infrastructure improvements):

Leeds-Skipton-Carlisle-Glasgow

Kings X-Peterborough-Grantham-Nottingham (wired for FCC)

Kings X-Peterborough-Spalding-Sleaford-Lincoln (wired for FCC)

Kings X-Dcaster-Leeds-Bradford F Square
hourly alternating with
Kings X-Dcaster-Leeds-Skipton

Kings X-York-Knaresborough-Harrogate
alternating hourly with Hull service, also wired

Kings X-Dcaster-Rotherham-Sheffield (wired for NXEC)

Kings X-Pboro-York-Scarborough

Kings X-Pboro-York-Northallerton-Middlesbrough
alternating hourly with Sunderland service

St Pancras-Leicester-Sheffield-Leeds-Glasgow Ctrl

St Pancras-Leicester-Derby-Manchester

Leeds-Wakefield-Doncaster-Lincoln

Leeds-Bradford Int-Halifax-Brighouse-Huddersfield-Dewsbury-Leeds

Leeds-Harrogate-Knaresbrough-York-Leeds

Leeds-Wakefield Westgate-Rotherham Central-Sheffield

Cambridge-Peterborough-Leicester-Birmingham-Bristol-Cardiff

 

[LilLoaf]

a few simple services that need introducing (not all stops included, some required infrastructure improvements):

Leeds-Skipton-Carlisle-Glasgow

Kings X-Peterborough-Grantham-Nottingham (wired for FCC)

Kings X-Peterborough-Spalding-Sleaford-Lincoln (wired for FCC)

Kings X-Dcaster-Leeds-Bradford F Square
hourly alternating with
Kings X-Dcaster-Leeds-Skipton

Kings X-York-Knaresborough-Harrogate
alternating hourly with Hull service, also wired

Kings X-Dcaster-Rotherham-Sheffield (wired for NXEC)

Kings X-Pboro-York-Scarborough

Kings X-Pboro-York-Northallerton-Middlesbrough
alternating hourly with Sunderland service

St Pancras-Leicester-Sheffield-Leeds-Glasgow Ctrl

St Pancras-Leicester-Derby-Manchester

Leeds-Wakefield-Doncaster-Lincoln

Leeds-Bradford Int-Halifax-Brighouse-Huddersfield-Dewsbury-Leeds

Leeds-Harrogate-Knaresbrough-York-Leeds

Leeds-Wakefield Westgate-Rotherham Central-Sheffield

Cambridge-Peterborough-Leicester-Birmingham-Bristol-Cardiff

The trouble is with a lot of them places already have a link to London one way or the other.

I was trying to get as far off mainline as possible to serve places with no or very little trains to London.

I like the Cambridge - Cardiff idea though.

 

[90019]

Provides a extra train on the Wick - Inverness which otherwise see's a perthetic service level

There's probably a pretty good reason for that.

And yeah i quite like the 180's, Virgin forced people to spend 12 hours on voygers and 180's better than voyagers.

Yes, but, with fanciful timings, it would be 14 hours, if you make it more realistic, you could be looking at most of a day spent on a 5 car 180 with no buffet and what looks to me to be an interior desingned for short intercity trips, not one designed for a day's travelling.