What is a 'true intercity' service?
It's no less an intercity service than the GWML (ignoring the WofE services)
It's arguably more 'intercity' than the ECML as it serves places of importance, which the ECML doesn't except Leeds and Edinburgh!
Okay so Peterborough, York, Newcastle, Durham etc aren't that important?
The Midland Mainline is no more InterCity then Chiltern is and that's a much more fairer assessment.
There's also the problem that nobody has solved - how to obtain these four objectives with one timetable
- A roughly half hourly London - Sheffield service
- A roughly half hourly London - Nottingham service
- A roughly half hourly London - service for intermediate stations like Market Harborough
- Not making all of the Sheffield services slow south of Leicester/ not making all of the Nottingham services slow south of Leicester
One way or another you either end up disappointing one of the big cities by making all of their services "slow" south of Leicester or you end up with some 15/45 minute frequencies (instead of simpler half hourly ones). Not an easy square to circle (and I don't think going back to the Turbostar days where services waited ten minutes at Leicester to be overtaken is the answer - the ECML/ WCML/ GWML have relatively similar journey times on the regular off-peak services to Leeds/ Manchester/ Bristol, so I don't think it'd be popular to go back to Sheffield/ Nottingham having just one proper London service per hour, plus a stopper that runs within a few minutes of it and then waits ages at Leicester to be overtaken by a service to the other city).
Indeed so as Nottingham has one fast and one semi fast why can't Sheffield have one fast and one semi fast?
Equally why not run a Sheffield service as it is to Leicester then splits, so one portion runs non stop to London and one calls semi fast to London leaving 10 mins or so after it?
That was Sheffield still retains their fast service but also introduces better connections for Luton, Bedford, Kettering, Wellingborough etc to South Yorkshire.
