East Coast: if it served more places

[Mugby]

It's interesting to reflect that, back in the 1960s when BR was considering closing the MML as a through route (and also St. Pancras!) The proposed alternatives to London were via Tamworth for Derby passengers and via Grantham for Nottingham passengers.

 

[cle]

Bradford is bigger than Newcastle and considerably bigger than York and Doncaster.

Population sizes do not determine rail demand and usage. Of course it's a factor, but not the deciding one. Hasn't this point been made so many times?

Certain places are big but have low demand - such as Bradford and Sunderland. Nobody wants to go, and the locals don't leave so much. Whereas other places, either for leisure, business, historical railway (railhead or junction) or other reasons, punch well above their population weight... and I mean O/D rather than connections - York, Chester, Newcastle, Bath, Reading, Cambridge...

 

[westv]

The Friday VTEC service has quite a few London departing passengers who get off at Selby, Brough or Hull. I expect the other days are similar.

 

[DanTrain]

Personally, I think places such as Middlesborough, Scarborough and Grimsby/Cleevegas could do with direct London services, perhaps even just one path alternating every 3 hours to each destination. Serving Notts/Sheffield seems a little idealistic, you'll struggle to beat the journey times once you've pottered down the Grantham/Worksop lines, and it does strike me as a waste of paths. Either spend the money to upgrade the Welwyn viaduct (and more) on the EC or electrify and upgrade the MML, either works, but until then there's no point in upsetting a perfectly ok system.

 

[xotGD]

How many passengers from stations south of Newcastle continue onto the HST to Sunderland late at night?
How many passengers carry on to Bradford Forster Square/Skipton who don't board at Leeds?

I've only been on the down 'Airedale Executive' a couple of times, but the numbers getting off at Skipton have been pitiful - including those boarding at Leeds.

Extending the quarter past five arrival into Leeds from KX would be much more useful; run it just ahead of the 17.26.

 

[edwin_m]

It's interesting to reflect that, back in the 1960s when BR was considering closing the MML as a through route (and also St. Pancras!) The proposed alternatives to London were via Tamworth for Derby passengers and via Grantham for Nottingham passengers.

What would have happened for Leicester passengers (or had they been quietly forgotten about)? The thing with MML is that you have to serve Leicester and having done so it makes sense to continue the same trains to Derby and Nottingham and probably Sheffield too. The plans I recall for closing St Pancras would have involved diverting from Market Harborough to Northampton or Wigston to Nuneaton (or even Rugby?), both of which would have dealt with Leicester too.

Also worth remembering that Euston has getting on for twice the platform capacity of Kings Cross - another constraint on the number of trains that can use the ECML.

 

[cuccir]

Bradford is bigger than Newcastle and considerably bigger than York and Doncaster.

As a geographer, I can't let this claim pass.

It's bigger but in a way which is entirely meaningless in any sensible way. Newcastle is ~300,000; Bradford, 528,000. But Bradford incorporates Keighley, Shipley, Bingley, Ilkley, etc etc etc; Newcastle is a fragment of the Tyneside conurbation. Newcastle, North Tyneside + Gateshead is at around 750,000, and this doesn't include several parts of the conurbation.

Certainly, Leeds-Bradford is bigger than Tyne-Wear but the idea that the claim that 'Bradford is bigger than Newcastle' is of any use to planning a rail network is a stupid one and reveals either idiotic pedantry, or mindless jingoism.

 

[robbeech]

Trying to utilise the line between Retford and Sheffield? One would think the amount of work needed to do this would outweigh the demand especially with the soon to be started 2tph there. If you wanted to serve Sheffield you'd be better off extending a Nottingham service. I don't think anything in VTEC current stock is cleared for the curve between platform 2 and the low level lines at Retford anyway, and returning onto Platform 2 for a southbound service and then blocking the entire ECML to crossover to the UM south of the station? Doesn't sound like a goer.

I was beaten to it about the Nottingham to London routes and it still being permitted via Grantham, I believe via Grantham is only a couple of minutes slower than the **05 trains to STP?

 

[xotGD]

I suppose that when the railways were privatised, folk in Nottingham thought that they would see 'choice' and 'competition' with one company running trains to St Pancras and another running trains to KX. Instead hey were given a privatised monopoly provider. But the trains are now a different colour.

 

[The Ham]

After HS2 a lot of those extra places will likely see ECML services, as travel from York and North of there would likely be quicker via HS2. Therefore more travel would likely be between stations on the ECML or from stations just off of it.

 

[westv]

After HS2 a lot of those extra places will likely see ECML services, as travel from York and North of there would likely be quicker via HS2. Therefore more travel would likely be between stations on the ECML or from stations just off of it.

But by that time we'll have hover boards and flying cars.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

The question I would ask is why not KGX-Darlo-Bishop?

... why stop there, why not a Frosterley to Paris service.

 

[Deerfold]

I caught the evening VTEC direct service from London to Bradford F Sq a couple of years ago - I counted the passengers who got off at F Sq, 12 in total. No idea how many of those had come all the way from London. Doesn't make much sense to me to run trains that can carry 600 passengers on such marginal extensions except in the early morning / late evening when they are not fully utilised. The East Coast route used to have lots more trains to Bradford, Hull (pre-Hull Trains), Harrogate, Middlesbrough and Cleethorpes which were all gradually scrapped to enable increased frequency on the core routes to Leeds, Newcastle and Edinburgh.

Not many go to Forster Square. Far more get off at Shipley.

 

[Deerfold]

I've only been on the down 'Airedale Executive' a couple of times, but the numbers getting off at Skipton have been pitiful - including those boarding at Leeds.

Extending the quarter past five arrival into Leeds from KX would be much more useful; run it just ahead of the 17.26.

Probably because most of them got off at Keighley.

 

[tbtc]

Why?

It will require more stock (currently the London - Leeds service tend to have an half-hour turnaround at Leeds so not enough time for the little jollies for what will mostly be local passengers), all will require reversals at Leeds [unless you decide to ignore Wakefield and send the services via Hambleton).

Similar to the Newcastle terminators being extended to Sunderland, it will require bi-modes and also pathing might be an issue so the 800 has to reach Pelaw junction before a metro service, then clear out of the way at Sunderland due to platform space, for what will probably be mainly used by local passengers wanting to cut down the journey time vice the metro.

Easiest way for the East Coast is to keep it simple, maybe even getting rid of those "once a day" oddities.

I think you make a number of good points.

Whilst there's always going to be crayon-wielding enthusiasts desperate for more "quirky" services (in a functional world of clock face timetables and simple routes), and some civic desire to put our backwater town "on the map" (by giving it a London link), there's a lot of wibble on this thread!

The shortest train on the ECML (a 130m IET) is still going to be overkill at places like Scarborough/ Grimsby, a complete waste of capacity. Even more so if you are talking a 260m IET (assuming the infrastructure would allow it).

You'd be importing delays from single line areas and other bottlenecks (e.g. pathing problems with the T&W Metro) onto services passing over Welwyn.

You'd potentially struggle for paths on lines like Leeds - Skipton (fine early in the morning/ late at night, but where are the paths for an irregular service through Keighley... and why aren't Northern using them for EMU services?).

Seems a lot of trouble to go to for the sake of variety.

Yes that is perhaps a point worth hammering home (just as it was yesterday in front of the Public Accounts Committee). The InterCity East Coast farnchise is profitable. I think the figure mentioned by the Michael Griffiths of Stagecoach was £200m profit for last year. The problem isn't that the franchise doesn't make money. It's that DfT's premium payments swallow all the profit up (and then some).

No, no, no, you're ruining the simplistic narrative that East Coast were amazing because "they made a profit" (as if that makes them unique on the ECML)!

Population sizes do not determine rail demand and usage. Of course it's a factor, but not the deciding one. Hasn't this point been made so many times?

Certain places are big but have low demand - such as Bradford and Sunderland. Nobody wants to go, and the locals don't leave so much. Whereas other places, either for leisure, business, historical railway (railhead or junction) or other reasons, punch well above their population weight... and I mean O/D rather than connections - York, Chester, Newcastle, Bath, Reading, Cambridge...

Good points - it's not as simple as looking at the population figure on Wikipedia.

There are some large places in the UK that don't attract significant numbers of outsiders travelling there other than for football games - there are some smaller places that get large numbers of tourists/ students all year round.

As a geographer, I can't let this claim pass.

It's bigger but in a way which is entirely meaningless in any sensible way. Newcastle is ~300,000; Bradford, 528,000. But Bradford incorporates Keighley, Shipley, Bingley, Ilkley, etc etc etc; Newcastle is a fragment of the Tyneside conurbation. Newcastle, North Tyneside + Gateshead is at around 750,000, and this doesn't include several parts of the conurbation.

Certainly, Leeds-Bradford is bigger than Tyne-Wear but the idea that the claim that 'Bradford is bigger than Newcastle' is of any use to planning a rail network is a stupid one and reveals either idiotic pedantry, or mindless jingoism.

I might just copy and paste this every time someone tries to claim that Bradford is one of the largest cities in the UK!

(these "my town is bigger than yours" arguments are always skewed - some places like Bradford/ Sheffield have very loose geographical boundaries including Ilkley/ Stocksbridge, some places like Manchester/ Nottingham have tightly drawn boundaries that don't include a lot of places that outsiders would identify as being part of that city - e.g. Beeston, Salford).

 

[cle]

Agreed re Bradford. It's an oversized 'northern town', not vastly different from Huddersfield for example - I'd argue much less dynamic and visible, and definitely the best example of where population and demand diverge.

 

[daodao]

Personally, I think places such as Middlesborough, Scarborough and Grimsby/Cleevegas could do with direct London services, perhaps even just one path alternating every 3 hours to each destination. Serving Notts/Sheffield seems a little idealistic, you'll struggle to beat the journey times once you've pottered down the Grantham/Worksop lines, and it does strike me as a waste of paths. Either spend the money to upgrade the Welwyn viaduct (and more) on the EC or electrify and upgrade the MML, either works, but until then there's no point in upsetting a perfectly ok system.

Serving Sheffield/Nottingham would duplicate existing routes, but surely there is a case for occasional services to Grimsby/Cleethorpes and Middlesbrough, even if only once daily (up in the morning and down about 6 pm).

 

[jimm]

I've only been on the down 'Airedale Executive' a couple of times, but the numbers getting off at Skipton have been pitiful - including those boarding at Leeds.

Extending the quarter past five arrival into Leeds from KX would be much more useful; run it just ahead of the 17.26.

More useful for Skipton-bound commuters perhaps, but not very useful for the provision of the 17.45 service back towards London formed by the 17.15 arrival.

As a geographer, I can't let this claim pass.

It's bigger but in a way which is entirely meaningless in any sensible way. Newcastle is ~300,000; Bradford, 528,000. But Bradford incorporates Keighley, Shipley, Bingley, Ilkley, etc etc etc; Newcastle is a fragment of the Tyneside conurbation. Newcastle, North Tyneside + Gateshead is at around 750,000, and this doesn't include several parts of the conurbation.

Certainly, Leeds-Bradford is bigger than Tyne-Wear but the idea that the claim that 'Bradford is bigger than Newcastle' is of any use to planning a rail network is a stupid one and reveals either idiotic pedantry, or mindless jingoism.

Agreed re Bradford. It's an oversized 'northern town', not vastly different from Huddersfield for example - I'd argue much less dynamic and visible, and definitely the best example of where population and demand diverge.

The population of the former county borough of Bradford (ie the pre-1974 boundary), as opposed to the current metropolitan district incorporating adjacent bits of Airedale and Wharfedale, looks to be in the region of 320,000 (crude calculation removing council wards that used to be adjacent UDCs and RDCs), so bigger than the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and something like two Huddersfields - and firmly in the 20 largest cities in the UK.

That Bradford (and the other large towns near to Leeds) don't have lots of through trains from London probably has a lot to do with railway history and geography in Leeds.

Both the Midland Railway and Great Northern built routes into the city that ran into central termini, rather than through stations. If one or the other company had built a through station offering easy operating on to Bradford, it would probably have led to more direct services between London and Bradford as a logical end point in a large city. As termini, Leeds Central and Wellington were end points, which clearly influenced the shape of services to the rest of that part of Yorkshire.

Portion working to/from Leeds or Wakefield on the King's Cross route became the established practice for serving Bradford until the HSTs arrived on the East Coast in 1978/9. There was the odd exception, such as BR's 1970s Bradford Executive service, which ran direct between Bradford and Wakefield both ways via the now abandoned Wortley curve in Leeds.

Direct services and the convenience they offer has a lot to do with driving passenger demand and Grand Central has been operating to Bradford for nearly eight years now, so there is clearly a market, even if their round-the-houses route between Bradford and Doncaster means people from Bradford wanting a faster journey will probably continue to drive to Wakefield and catch East Coast services there.

Whether it survives as a result of the latest East Coast upheaval remains to be seen, but Stagecoach/Virgin's planned future service pattern includes a two-hourly Bradford service. Combine that with Grand Central's offer and Bradford (city proper and the wider metropolitan district) will be served pretty well.

 

[DanTrain]

The population of the former county borough of Bradford (ie the pre-1974 boundary), as opposed to the current metropolitan district incorporating adjacent bits of Airedale and Wharfedale, looks to be in the region of 320,000 (crude calculation removing council wards that used to be adjacent UDCs and RDCs), so bigger than the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and something like two Huddersfields - and firmly in the 20 largest cities in the UK.

That Bradford (and the other large towns near to Leeds) don't have lots of through trains from London probably has a lot to do with railway history and geography in Leeds.

Both the Midland Railway and Great Northern built routes into the city that ran into central termini, rather than through stations. If one or the other company had built a through station offering easy operating on to Bradford, it would probably have led to more direct services between London and Bradford as a logical end point in a large city. As termini, Leeds Central and Wellington were end points, which clearly influenced the shape of services to the rest of that part of Yorkshire.

Portion working to/from Leeds or Wakefield on the King's Cross route became the established practice for serving Bradford until the HSTs arrived on the East Coast in 1978/9. There was the odd exception, such as BR's 1970s Bradford Executive service, which ran direct between Bradford and Wakefield both ways via the now abandoned Wortley curve in Leeds.

Direct services and the convenience they offer has a lot to do with driving passenger demand and Grand Central has been operating to Bradford for nearly eight years now, so there is clearly a market, even if their round-the-houses route between Bradford and Doncaster means people from Bradford wanting a faster journey will probably continue to drive to Wakefield and catch East Coast services there.

Whether it survives as a result of the latest East Coast upheaval remains to be seen, but Stagecoach/Virgin's planned future service pattern includes a two-hourly Bradford service. Combine that with Grand Central's offer and Bradford (city proper and the wider metropolitan district) will be served pretty well.

I didn’t know about a promise of 1tp2hr to Bradford on EC, that sounds promising! Especially when paired with a new Northern Connect route to Nottingham, and Bradford is (rightly) bein reconnected to the national network properly now.

However, I think there are also socio-economic factors here. In the same way that Liverpool receives 1tph VT to 3 to Manchester, Leeds is also more mobile and with its large financial and legal industries, it is inivetibly going to need a much better connection. Bradford, on the other hand, (and I know this is a generalisation) has more people who will stay there, and maybe only leave to go on holiday once a year and to visit family now and again. The demand is lower, so I’m sure there is a limit as to how connected it needs to be.

Then again I think that level has to be above where it is now, as I believe it’s currently the worst connected city per-capita in the UK.

 

[Trainfan344]

I think we should run an hourly Lowestoft/Great Yarmouth to Edinburgh service splitting and joining at Norwich, running via the Ely avoider to Peterborough, then calling York, Newcastle and Edinburgh only...

 

[jimm]

I didn’t know about a promise of 1tp2hr to Bradford on EC, that sounds promising! Especially when paired with a new Northern Connect route to Nottingham, and Bradford is (rightly) bein reconnected to the national network properly now.

However, I think there are also socio-economic factors here. In the same way that Liverpool receives 1tph VT to 3 to Manchester, Leeds is also more mobile and with its large financial and legal industries, it is inivetibly going to need a much better connection. Bradford, on the other hand, (and I know this is a generalisation) has more people who will stay there, and maybe only leave to go on holiday once a year and to visit family now and again. The demand is lower, so I’m sure there is a limit as to how connected it needs to be.

Then again I think that level has to be above where it is now, as I believe it’s currently the worst connected city per-capita in the UK.

East Coast enhancement plans

2019 and beyond

Direct links between London and Huddersfield, Dewsbury, Thornaby and Middlesbrough

2-hourly service from London to Lincoln, Bradford and Harrogate

https://www.virgintrainseastcoast.com/about-us/Better-connected-for-a-better-future/

Does anyone actually have any hard evidence - as opposed to anecdote - that people in Bradford are less likely to want/need to travel than those in Leeds? Does the same go for Huddersfield, as opposed to Halifax, now that the latter has London services courtesy of Grand Central?

Railway operating convenience has always had a great deal to do with how Bradford, etc, were served in the past and just as GWR is taking advantage of the five-car IET to revive portion working west of Plymouth, the VTEC plan for Bradford and Harrogate services is also based on the arrival of a type of train that is more flexible than a long single-unit HST or 91+Mk4 formation - which inevitably was always going to be carrying around air much of the time beyond Plymouth or Leeds.

The inflexibility of the big trains arguably acted as a big factor in the removal of all-day EC Bradford services under BR and has probably put a cap on the number of through services between London and Cornwall during a period of rising demand for rail travel in recent years, which will change from the start of next year.

 

[Senex]

Both the Midland Railway and Great Northern built routes into the city that ran into central termini, rather than through stations. If one or the other company had built a through station offering easy operating on to Bradford, it would probably have led to more direct services between London and Bradford as a logical end point in a large city. As termini, Leeds Central and Wellington were end points, which clearly influenced the shape of services to the rest of that part of Yorkshire.

Despite the Leeds geography, the Midland Railway and its successors always served Bradford pretty well by the standards of the day, with through trains reversing in Leeds. Bradford was always regarded as the northern terminus of the Yorkshire service. (When the opening of the Kettering & Manton line in 1880 established the Nottingham line to the north, the new express service that was put on was of 5 trains one way and 4 the other between St Pancras and Bradford.) The Leeds-Bradford line was important enough to justify quadrupling, despite the tunnels and the cost of the Armley flyover. Bradford also had a fine Midland station, complete with hotel. Both the Great Northern and the Lancashire & Yorkshire also gave Bradford a decent service. But then Bradford used to be a place of very much greater commercial and industrial significance than it has now.