Virgin London-Glasgow timings

[bengolding]

Having used this service a few times this year, it is great to see vastly improved timings over pre-VHF days, with the typical xx30s from Euston now taking 4h31 Mon-Sat. Prior to December, the typical timing was just over 5h, and when I first did the route several years back, the first train from Euston at 06:20 took 6h!

VT now have signifcant market share between London-Manchester, and I understand they are now keen to take on the London-Glasgow rail market. The fastest service via the east coast takes 5h15.

Aside from the 16:30 express, is there any scope for further improvements for faster journey times? My morning departure from Euston on Monday arrived several minutes early in Glasgow (could have been faster if not for red signals at Motherwell) - a total journey time of 4h23 with 6 intermediate stops. Can we realistically get headline sub-4 hour journey times without significant infrastructure improvements being made? From my observations, the trains slow done signifcantly at Stafford, Crewe and Carlisle.

I've found passenger loadings on east coast services to Edinburgh (in First) to be consistently high, but generally loadings in First Class on services approaching Glasgow with Virgin are always very low. Prior to December, VT ran a daily London Euston-Edinburgh service. With improved journey times now, they can give NXEC a run for their money with equivalent or better journey times than the average 4h45 from Kings Cross.

 

[Failed Unit]

I've found passenger loadings on east coast services to Edinburgh (in First) to be consistently high, but generally loadings in First Class on services approaching Glasgow with Virgin are always very low. Prior to December, VT ran a daily London Euston-Edinburgh service. With improved journey times now, they can give NXEC a run for their money with equivalent or better journey times than the average 4h45 from Kings Cross.

I think that most Glasgow passengers would say give us an hourly service before focusing on Edinburgh, but the 4h45 is not the average journey time, there are quite a few that do it around 4h25 (the 1500 is 4h13). The average journey time on the east coast will be around 4h20 in 2010. Would be nice to see the East Coasts times lowered to 4h which has been done before.

Once Virgin get Glasgow sorted, it would be nice to see them apply some pressure on the ECML. The ECML does have significant Edinburgh - York / Newcastle traffic.

 

[The Planner]

Probably not, to find 23 minutes on a tightly timed timetable would be incredibly difficult. Running it non stop would probably get you around 15 minutes based on 90 second dwells and the savings in braking and accelerating.

 

[rail-britain]

Aside from the 16:30 express, is there any scope for further improvements for faster journey times? My morning departure from Euston on Monday arrived several minutes early in Glasgow (could have been faster if not for red signals at Motherwell) - a total journey time of 4h23 with 6 intermediate stops

When you consider the timing of the 16:30 in the timetable overall, it is effectively an extra service within the hourly pattern
As you quite rightly identify the major issue is the slowing of northbound trains as soon as they reach Motherwell
There are a few which follow a stopping service, even though it travels via Bellshill, and delays the Euston service all the way to Rutherglen
Ironically, holding the local service for just 60 seconds longer would allow the non-stop service to pass, but they just won't do it

 

[me123]

The timings are great as they are, and the faster, more freuqent service is of huge benefit to Glasgow, London and all intermediate calls in the North West. Aside from the painful engineering works, this has been a fantastic project in terms of the Scotland service.

As for Edinburgh, well it would be great to have competition on the service between both Capital cities, but when you look at the WCML timings with the current high frequency timetable it would be difficult to slot in. If Edinburgh were to regain it's WCML service, it must not be at the expense of the other destinations, and I'm not sure if that's possible. Certainly, the number of journey opportunities would not be as good as on the ECML and Virgin would probably struggle to take that many passengers off the East Coast given that the journey time isn't much better and they probably won't beat NXEC's frequency.

I honestly do not thank that that much more work should be done, or really needs to be done. Sub 4 hours is probably unrealistic without 140mph running for significant portions of the route, and this would probably require a lot of engineering work on effectively brand new lines. The High Speed line in the future will hopefully allow for an extension to Glasgow and Edinburgh as needed, which would probably be the best future development for London-Scotland trains.

 

[gingerheid]

Yeah; the timings are great. Wish I could afford to go on them

I fly as despite preferring the trains (even the way they were before the new timetable), cheap tickets are like hen's teeth (even with flexibility on day of travel) I just can't justify spending that much more to go by train.

 

[Failed Unit]

Yeah; the timings are great. Wish I could afford to go on them

I fly as despite preferring the trains (even the way they were before the new timetable), cheap tickets are like hen's teeth (even with flexibility on day of travel) I just can't justify spending that much more to go by train.

I have never found a problem getting the cheapest tickets, but I must admit I try to book at least 2 months ahead.

If they had more pendo's joining up a London - Birmingham service with the Birmingham - Scotland service could be useful. It maybe wouldn't get many people away from the ECML, but at least Rugby could be relinked to Scotland.

Virgin offer a better quality product then national express so they could easily steal passengers, but as Me123 says serving it would probably be to the expense of Glasgow.

 

[bengolding]

A TM recently mentioned that VT were asking Network Fail to look at a new Stafford bypass rail line to cut down the London-Glasgow journey time, and also look at improving speeds through Crewe station. Whenever I'm on a non-stop train through Crewe, we always go at minimal speed on approach - what is the max speed permited in the area if passing through, in comparison to say Rugby?

 

[The Planner]

Stafford by-pass is a waste of cash, it would save about 4 minutes tops. Grade seperate Norton Bridge and get the line speeds back up to 125 through there and you would sort out a much bigger bottleneck for about 25% of the cash.

Crewe is 80mph whilst Rugby is the full 125mph EPS. If you are going to speed up Crewe, you might aswell do Warrington and Wigan as they are both 80 too. Preston is only 35.

 

[156499]

For the year it is i think we could reduce journey times more, 4 hours 30 is far to long for the amount of miles it is, esepcially on a boring peadolino

 

[tbtc]

If they had more pendo's joining up a London - Birmingham service with the Birmingham - Scotland service could be useful. It maybe wouldn't get many people away from the ECML,

That makes sense to me. Whilst an hourly service through Coventry/ Birmingham/ Woverhampton would obviously be a lot slower, it'd add a few new links and give some places a second hourly service to London.

As for the longer distance market - I think that London - Glasgow is a big enough market without wasting resources on a token Edinburgh service