Network Rail looking at how it could bring in 24 hour train service

[Chester1]

Manchester could certainly support a night service around small and large engineering works. If Oxford Road or Victoria was used instead of Piccadilly to concentrate passengers to help police the drunks it would less trouble. Either station would have two 2 routes to Stalybridge, 2 to Stockport and 3 to Wigan.

 

[Bald Rick]

it was indeed but track inspections for loose nuts and bolts can always be done during the day

On some lines perhaps, but on others - typically the busy ones where night services may be popular - certainly not, at least not under traffic.

 

[Clip]

On some lines perhaps, but on others - typically the busy ones where night services may be popular - certainly not, at least not under traffic.

Quite but those busy lines can be quieter at a weekend too to allow it where possible.

My original post was about the claim by one poster who was implying that it could only be done at night.

 

[radamfi]

How many cities are linked by 24hr coach services? I know London-Oxford and Edinburgh-Glasgow are - any others?

Not really 24 hour as such, but many cities are connected by overnight National Express and Megabus coaches. Brighton to Heathrow via Gatwick is 24 hour so you can go between London and Brighton 24 hours a day by changing at Gatwick as both trains and coaches run 24 hours a day between London and Gatwick.

I wouldn't live anywhere that didn't have a 24 hour service. I'm not particularly interested in going out late at night but overnight trains and coaches are useful for reaching airports and central London terminii early in the morning. Coaches are often more use than trains for getting to central London terminii for early trains. For example, from Poole or Bristol there is effectively no train service arriving into London before 10 on weekdays, whereas you can get a coach from Poole to London at 0210 or 0420, or from Bristol to London at 0350.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Eh?

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W90157/2018/05/02/advanced - arrives Waterloo at 0723

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/C55739/2018/05/02/advanced - arrives Paddington at 0627

 

[radamfi]

Eh?

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/W90157/2018/05/02/advanced - arrives Waterloo at 0723

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/C55739/2018/05/02/advanced - arrives Paddington at 0627

I said *effectively*, as those trains are only available to those with deep pockets. There might be reasonably priced Advance or split tickets available, I haven't checked. For most normal people, coach is the only affordable option.

 

[deltic]

Not really 24 hour as such, but many cities are connected by overnight National Express and Megabus coaches. Brighton to Heathrow via Gatwick is 24 hour so you can go between London and Brighton 24 hours a day by changing at Gatwick as both trains and coaches run 24 hours a day between London and Gatwick.

I wouldn't live anywhere that didn't have a 24 hour service. I'm not particularly interested in going out late at night but overnight trains and coaches are useful for reaching airports and central London terminii early in the morning. Coaches are often more use than trains for getting to central London terminii for early trains. For example, from Poole or Bristol there is effectively no train service arriving into London before 10 on weekdays, whereas you can get a coach from Poole to London at 0210 or 0420, or from Bristol to London at 0350.

Am I missing something here, first train from Poole arrives London 07.25, first from Bristol PArkway at 06.27 and Bristol TM at 07.47 . While not as early as the coach its still a long time before 10am

 

[winks]

About time this happened on some routes between Friday and Sunday at the very least. Southern emailed me back in 2009 saying there would be later trains from Brighton on west coast way but it never happened. 10pm last train to Pompey is a joke !

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

I'd be nice if they could run a service from (say) Birmingham to Stansted Airport overnight (and the other way)...

Currently, here in Peterborough:-

The last trains on the Stansted to Birmingham route leave at roughly the same time (2021 Stansted & 2025 B'ham) and then that's it until (0519 from B'ham & 0516 from Stansted)

Unless of course, you want to travel via London!!!

It's a bit of a trek, if you've got either a early/late flight @ Stansted!!!!

I agree - during the day it is possible for me to get to 3 small to medium airports - Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham - within an hour's train journey, and to all of the 6 London airports, plus East Midlands, Bristol, Cardiff and maybe a few others within about two to two and a half hours.

But the earliest journey opportunities to most of these mean it isn't feasible to take a flight departing before around 10am. This can severely limit the choice of dates where there are affordable flights, as for example Ryanair run many of their cheapest flights departing at near 7am.

The only option I then have in those circumstances, if I want to take those flights, is to take the coach, which typically means leaving home at a very late hour, making a journey right at the time where I would rather be sleeping, and then arriving at a very early hour. Depending on my luck with the prices, it may be considerably cheaper than the train journey, or at worst approximately the same.

A 24 hour rail service on all of the 4 track mainlines isn't too much to expect in my opinion, even if it were only at a third, or even a quarter, of the frequency the daytime off-peak service. But sadly the earliest trains from my station are around 05:30 and the last ones around 23:00.

 

[bussnapperwm]

I think it's a great idea, and frankly well overdue.

I understand about the need to do essential maintenance on the infrastructure etc, however surely this can be countered in the same way as the railway does today??

I quite often have found myself working late in Birmingham City Centre, going past the last train and bus times for getting home. Pain in the backside.

A 24 hour service on the Cross City line, even if it was only hourly, would be fantastic. Even if there was engineering works preventing the rail service from running, there would (I assume) be a Rail Replacement laid on, so either way, in the small hours of the morning, I would be getting home without the need for a hefty taxi fee.

I'm all for it.

Agree with you there. Make a hourly network of 2300-0600 services from New Street to terminate at destinations such as

Longbridge, Dorridge, Stourbridge, Wolvo, Walsall, Four Oaks, airport & Coventry.

 

[The Planner]

All fine in theory, but as long as people then dont complain if we take a route out for 54 hours to catch up.

 

[w1bbl3]

I said *effectively*, as those trains are only available to those with deep pockets. There might be reasonably priced Advance or split tickets available, I haven't checked. For most normal people, coach is the only affordable option.

The parkway train is £34 one way (standard super off peak) and the poole £59. NatEx on a flexible fare is £30 for both so the train from Parkway is only £4 more hardly a deep pockets option.

 

[Bald Rick]

All fine in theory, but as long as people then dont complain if we take a route out for 54 hours to catch up.

And be happy that ticket prices may have to go up to deal with a significant increase in maintenance costs....

 

[The Ham]

All fine in theory, but as long as people then dont complain if we take a route out for 54 hours to catch up.

I could see that there could be ways of minimising the impact of the night time services to allow services to continue.

For instance of you could operate services so that they left Waterloo as a 12 coach train as then as it went along it split to serve different end points with the potential to decide the line up into 15 minute long sections. That could allow an hourly service to most places (maybe with a few connection services, especially to Salisbury) effectively over a single line for a few sections a night (by using reverse running and clustering departures by direction).

It may require a slightly flexible timetable (in that Monday's departures are a few minutes different to the other days for one strain but at another it's Tuesday) and finding a way of safety running trains the wrong way on tracks (so trains call at an up platform when running down).

However it shouldn't be insurmountable to provide 50% of the access to any section over the course of a week before needing to resort to overnight/weekend closures.

(Waits for the advice suggestion to be torn to shreds).

 

[edwin_m]

In terms of disruption a 12-car train every hour isn't much better than a 4-car every 20min - once the time to confirm the route is free of trains and to confirm it is safe to run trains afterwards are subtracted there's none left to do any work. A few double track routes are signalled for reversible working - the capacity is then a lot less than half that of normal running - but most aren't so would need hand-signalling with much longer journey times.

So quicker means of taking and handing back possessions and isolations would help, as would more bi-directional signalling. But some tasks can't be done with the adjacent line open (eg work in the area between the tracks) so there would still be situations when both tracks of a double track have to be closed at the same time.

 

[infobleep]

Fantastic for those wanting to use it. Hell on earth for those of us that would have to somehow get the 0400 crowd home safely.

Certainly hope this doesn't come in where slam door stock is still in use. Otherwise I'm ok with it!

If it's a Saturday morning then in some places you already do that as an industry. If it's Sunday then of course you don't as far as I'm aware so no trains at 4am.

The way I see it is that currently people say they can't run later trains due to maintenance but if Network Rail can resolve this then people will no longer be able to reply, oh they can't run later trains due to maintenance.

Certainly would welcome a later train to Portsmouth on Fridays and Saturdays. There is one on Sunday night (Monday morning), run to enable Royal Navy personelp to get back to base.

If going to a concert at the O2 I will always choose Sunday night if at all possible.

 

[The Ham]

In terms of disruption a 12-car train every hour isn't much better than a 4-car every 20min - once the time to confirm the route is free of trains and to confirm it is safe to run trains afterwards are subtracted there's none left to do any work. A few double track routes are signalled for reversible working - the capacity is then a lot less than half that of normal running - but most aren't so would need hand-signalling with much longer journey times.

So quicker means of taking and handing back possessions and isolations would help, as would more bi-directional signalling. But some tasks can't be done with the adjacent line open (eg work in the area between the tracks) so there would still be situations when both tracks of a double track have to be closed at the same time.

It was more a thought that on a four track line (as is the case for Waterloo) it would allow any two tracks to be maintained without an adjacent line to be in use.

 

[edwin_m]

It was more a thought that on a four track line (as is the case for Waterloo) it would allow any two tracks to be maintained without an adjacent line to be in use.

There are still areas (between the two tracks signalled for the same direction in the case of the South Western) where no work could be done unless both lines were out of use. To ensure access to all areas the middle two tracks would have to be bi-directional as on the widened section of the Trent Valley line. Even then a lot of stations wouldn't have service, as they only have platforms on the Slows.

 

[gazzaa2]

Manchester could certainly support a night service around small and large engineering works. If Oxford Road or Victoria was used instead of Piccadilly to concentrate passengers to help police the drunks it would less trouble. Either station would have two 2 routes to Stalybridge, 2 to Stockport and 3 to Wigan.

Just a later train or two would help. You go to MEN or Etihad for a concert/evening match and it can be a mad dash for the last train back.

I often get the last train out of Lime Street on a Friday or Saturday to Manchester, the stopper service to Man Pic, and it's always overcrowded. If they ran it later it'd be more staggered then rather than everyone piling on the last train at 23:38. I know if I miss that i'm paying £20 in a taxi.

 

[FOH]

All fine in theory, but as long as people then dont complain if we take a route out for 54 hours to catch up.

That happens anyway. No weekend trains yet again this weekend on my 4 track route. At least under BR they operated a one way system.

 

[The Planner]

Indeed it does, but it would happen more often than it does now.

 

[IanXC]

In my view the achievable starting point for services such as are being suggested here is routes where there are entirely separate alternative routes - and only serving the locations which are shared by both routes.

To a great degree this reflects how North Transpennine services operate overnight; York to Leeds via Garforth or Castleford, Leeds to Huddersfield via Dewsbury or Wakefield Kirkgate, Huddersfield to Manchester via Stalybridge to Vic or Picc or even via Hebden Bridge to Vic.

Other routes were similar logic could be used include Liverpool to Manchester (there is currently just a 0337 departure but presumably options to run more of a service), Leeds (or even Bradford) to Sheffield could be an option (available routes being variously (I won't attempt to describe all the possibilities among them) via, Brightside or Tinsley, Rotherham Central or Masborough, Barnsley or Moorthorpe, Outwood or Methley, Bradford Interchange or Bradford Forster Square, etc). Manchester to Preston opens up a similar (if slightly less lengthy) list of options.

Something that probably does need to be ironed out is whether it is acceptable to serve particular alternative stations. For instance, in the above example, would calling at Wakefield Westgate or Wakefield Kirkgate be acceptable? Can suitable terms and performance measures be agreed such that a timetable could list 2 alternative stations? Clearly the timings with these services are going to allow for alternative times and routes anyway, but if such services are to be worthwhile I'd argue that there needs to be some flexibility in being able to serve some alternative locations without the need for replacement transport between stations.

 

[yorksrob]

Something that probably does need to be ironed out is whether it is acceptable to serve particular alternative stations. For instance, in the above example, would calling at Wakefield Westgate or Wakefield Kirkgate be acceptable?

It would certainly be preferable to the current situation where Wakefield would be missed out on some services.

We're used to different terminals being used (from Ashford, Kent, your Charing Cross train could end up diverted to any of Victoria, Cannon Street, Blackfriars and now Waterloo, for example), so I don't see why it shouldn't be acceptable for intermediate stations.

 

[Deerfold]

Well, I can't speak for everyone, but I could well imagine getting a train at silly o'clock from W Yorks to London, precisely because it avoids the need for a hotel !

There's a busy NX coach from Leeds to London at 00:20, which seems to cater for that sort of market, however whether there's much scope for more passengers I wouldn't know.

Not to mention the Megabus services at 0100 and 0230.

I used to catch any of those three from time to time, despite having a Leeds to London Season ticket - the last train is annoyingly early at 2045 and the early trains i could not connect with.

 

[Deerfold]

I'd be nice if they could run a service from (say) Birmingham to Stansted Airport overnight (and the other way)...

Currently, here in Peterborough:-

The last trains on the Stansted to Birmingham route leave at roughly the same time (2021 Stansted & 2025 B'ham) and then that's it until (0519 from B'ham & 0516 from Stansted)

Unless of course, you want to travel via London!!!

It's a bit of a trek, if you've got either a early/late flight @ Stansted!!!!

Presumably that's why National Express puts on special fast coaches from Birmingham to Stansted (and Luton) to meet early and late flights - they're actually faster than many of the direct trains.

http://www.nationalexpress.com/assets/uploads/pdf/timetables/R777.pdf

 

[Class 170101]

The 03:38 Liverpool to Manchester has a choice of routes too.

 

[deltic]

Not to mention the Megabus services at 0100 and 0230.

I used to catch any of those three from time to time, despite having a Leeds to London Season ticket - the last train is annoyingly early at 2045 and the early trains i could not connect with.

How well used were they?

 

[Railguy1]

Would there be demand for national rail services to call 24 hours to railway stations which serve airports?

 

[philthetube]

On a more prosaic point where are the drivers/train managers/OBS/guards/dispatchers going to come from to run these services? Even if you're only talking about drivers the impression I've gained from reading these forums that there's not a vast surplus of drivers just waiting around to be deployed to this.

Not a problem as long as sufficient time is given for the training.

Its n't that the problem there shouldn't to be any small scale stuff. The railway should be built so no work is needed for 10 years, and then its closed for a month or so to make it fit to last another 10 years

Great idea, perhaps they could do the same with roads as well.

 

[w1bbl3]

Would there be demand for national rail services to call 24 hours to railway stations which serve airports?

I'd suspect not very few airports have scheduled arrivals for a genuinely 24 hour operation. Manchester has under 10 scheduled arrivals and departures between midnight and 6am. Heathrow is limited by quota to approximately 17 flights per night which are mostly packed into the 5am to 6am time block as long haul arrivals. It's really Gatwick and Stansted that have notable number of flights at roughly 70 and 40 respectively but then these are only during the summer peak, outside of summer the numbers for both are under 10 per day.