Route and rolling stock changes which could fix CrossCountry's problems?

[Bletchleyite]

If the trains were longer you would need to double the number of empty stock workings between Barton-under-Needwood and Birmingham New Street as most of the 16 units overnight there currently come in pairs splitting at New Street. You would need more depot capacity, more servicing, all costs which add up.

I don't think anyone is suggesting it would be free, however the present situation with XC overcrowding is clearly unacceptable and needs something done about it. If that isn't capacity increase, it'll have to be either compulsory reservations or whacking fare increases.

 

[py_megapixel]

If the trains were longer you would need to double the number of empty stock workings between Barton-under-Needwood and Birmingham New Street as most of the 16 units overnight there currently come in pairs splitting at New Street. You would need more depot capacity, more servicing, all costs which add up.

Is it feasible to simply couple them in fours then? By passenger standards 16 cars is ridiculously long, but I believe plenty of freight trains are longer than 16×23m.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Is it feasible to simply couple them in fours then? By passenger standards 16 cars is ridiculously long, but I believe plenty of freight trains are longer than 16×23m.

15-car Voyagers (3x5) have run in service on Virgin's "blockade busters" if that is of any help.

 

[The Ham]

If the trains were longer you would need to double the number of empty stock workings between Barton-under-Needwood and Birmingham New Street as most of the 16 units overnight there currently come in pairs splitting at New Street. You would need more depot capacity, more servicing, all costs which add up.

Indeed there would be some other costs (like those highlights) other than the most obvious ones (like staff costs and leasing costs).

I would however suggest that extra paths out of depots would be fairly small. It's also been discussed elsewhere where you could locate that extra depot space (which is another reason for having 7 coach units rather than pairs of units as you'd may need less space overall unless you can get 3 shorter units in a line but only one longer unit).

 

[sprinterguy]

Is it feasible to simply couple them in fours then? By passenger standards 16 cars is ridiculously long, but I believe plenty of freight trains are longer than 16×23m.

There'd be no space to split them in the platforms at New Street.

Though don't get me wrong, it strikes me as quite mental that providing adequate passenger capacity should be stymied for want of a few extra ECS paths: The longest distance inter-city services in the UK should not be based around the operational convenience of 4-car trains.

If Crosscountry took on West Coast's 221s, wouldn't there be additional ECS paths available to get some of them from Barton-under-Needwood anyway, given that West Coast's new trains will be maintained somewhere else?

They wouldn't all start from Central Rivers as some of the additional units would be stabled overnight elsewhere round the country as with current XC diagrams, admittedly putting additional pressure on outbase depots but something needs to be done to increase capacity one way or another and diagrams, stabling and maintenance will ultimately have to be amended to accommodate this one way or another.

 

[JonathanH]

The longest distance inter-city services in the UK should not be based around the operational convenience of 4-car trains.

Maybe not but a lot of the increase in coverage of the Cross Country network was indeed predicated on being able to utilise bits of railway that hadn't previously been available with longer trains - e.g. Reading platform 3 for reversal, the east end of platforms at Birmingham New Street and so on. In some ways they are a bit stuck with it.

If Crosscountry took on West Coast's 221s, wouldn't there be additional ECS paths available to get some of them from Barton-under-Needwood anyway, given that West Coast's new trains will be maintained somewhere else?

West Coast don't really have that many Voyagers at Barton-under-Needwood each night - certainly not as many as the extra ones Cross Country would need to have there to double up.

 

[MarkyT]

Maybe not but a lot of the increase in coverage of the Cross Country network was indeed predicated on being able to utilise bits of railway that hadn't previously been available with longer trains - e.g. Reading platform 3 for reversal, the east end of platforms at Birmingham New Street and so on. In some ways they are a bit stuck with it.

And the old platform 7 bay at Reading (since removed) was also lengthened slightly at the time to take a five car. Platforms 3 and 7 allowed most reversing Virgin XC calls to be removed from the old 8 and 9 where they had previously blocked these scarce through platforms for long periods during run round movements at this busy station. I don't think service frequency could have been doubled realistically with longer trains on the old layout.

 

[HSTEd]

With the new fleet ICWC is getting.... how about extending the current Wolverhampton terminators to Manchester Picadilly, using the same stopping pattern as XC?
It makes better use of the Stockport paths...

 

[swt_passenger]

And the old platform 7 bay at Reading (since removed) was also lengthened slightly at the time to take a five car. Platforms 3 and 7 allowed most reversing Virgin XC calls to be removed from the old 8 and 9 where they had previously blocked these scarce through platforms for long periods during run round movements at this busy station. I don't think service frequency could have been doubled realistically with longer trains on the old layout.

I think P3 also had a short length increase to deal properly with 221s.

 

[py_megapixel]

With the new fleet ICWC is getting.... how about extending the current Wolverhampton terminators to Manchester Picadilly, using the same stopping pattern as XC?
It makes better use of the Stockport paths...

Are these West Coast or XC services you're thinking of?
From what I have read elsewhere on the forum, there realistically isn't any SPT-MAN capacity left, so they would have to take over paths from other services.

 

[Bletchleyite]

With the new fleet ICWC is getting.... how about extending the current Wolverhampton terminators to Manchester Picadilly, using the same stopping pattern as XC?
It makes better use of the Stockport paths...

Much as removing more DMUs under the wires would be good, I don't think the new stock increases the fleet size enough for that when you consider other planned enhancements.

 

[JonathanH]

With the new fleet ICWC is getting.... how about extending the current Wolverhampton terminators to Manchester Picadilly, using the same stopping pattern as XC?
It makes better use of the Stockport paths...

What Wolverhampton terminators? They go through to Scotland, Shrewsbury (or Oxley depot at the start / end of service).

 

[greatvoyager]

Good thinking and it makes sense for half of the fleet of 4-car Voyagers to run doubled up - equalling 34 8-coach Voyagers.

Another idea - run some 5-car Voyagers in place of 4-car sets and then use 23 of the 4-car Voyagers to run in place of 5-car ones. There's plenty that could do with more than 5 coaches but 2 in particular are both the weekday 14:27 and 15:27 Manchester to Bournemouth services. So a 7 or 8 (2x4) coach train on these will be most welcome.

Hopefully XC will have enough staff to train on the 222's, should they get them, and not do it resulting in cancellations due to staff shortages!

Don't 222s and 220/221s share the same cab anyway?

 

[Mitchell Hurd]

Don't 222s and 220/221s share the same cab anyway?

Not quite if I'm right - the body is slightly wider on the 222's.

 

[greatvoyager]

Not quite if I'm right - the body is slightly wider on the 222's.

Thanks, but I was referring to the cab layout and controls, and driver training.

 

[HSTEd]

What Wolverhampton terminators? They go through to Scotland, Shrewsbury (or Oxley depot at the start / end of service).

Huh, are they all extended to Scotland now?

In that case, just extend one of the Birmingham terminators, with the XC service terminating in it's place.
Instead of a Voyager or two, we can have a 9-11 car Pendolino through Stockport.

Are these West Coast or XC services you're thinking of?
From what I have read elsewhere on the forum, there realistically isn't any SPT-MAN capacity left, so they would have to take over paths from other services.

Essentially Manchester XC services would be cut back to Birmingham and replaced with an extended Birmingham-London service.
Whilst Manchester-Bournemouth passengers would lose out, this is counterbalanced by the drastic improvement of capacity and elimination of under-wires running north of Birmingham.

 

[py_megapixel]

Essentially Manchester XC services would be cut back to Birmingham and replaced with an extended Birmingham-London service.
Whilst Manchester-Bournemouth passengers would lose out, this is counterbalanced by the drastic improvement of capacity and elimination of under-wires running north of Birmingham.

That seems like change for the sake of change to me. There are already 3 Manchester to London services per hour, which tend to be fairly empty outside of peak times. I think the capacity is better used serving a greater range of destinations.
What is truly needed is more Manchester to Birmingham capacity, as these trains tend to be very crowded. I can see the appeal for routing one existing London service via Birmingham, thereby taking some strain off existing XC, but not removing existing useful destinations in return for more capacity to the capital.

 

[The Planner]

Huh, are they all extended to Scotland now?

Have been for ages.

In that case, just extend one of the Birmingham terminators, with the XC service terminating in it's place.
Instead of a Voyager or two, we can have a 9-11 car Pendolino through Stockport.
Essentially Manchester XC services would be cut back to Birmingham and replaced with an extended Birmingham-London service.
Whilst Manchester-Bournemouth passengers would lose out, this is counterbalanced by the drastic improvement of capacity and elimination of under-wires running north of Birmingham.

Bristol Manchester loses out too. You could extend the current xx.25 Virgin New St arrival into the xx.31 Manchester slot. That XC currently arrives Man Picc at xx.00 and works back at xx.27 and arrives at New St at xy.57. You would expect that to possibly slot into the xy.10 New St departure to Euston but it doesn't as that is the Anglo Scot.

 

[HSTEd]

What is truly needed is more Manchester to Birmingham capacity, as these trains tend to be very crowded. I can see the appeal for routing one existing London service via Birmingham, thereby taking some strain off existing XC, but not removing existing useful destinations in return for more capacity to the capital.

But the journey time via Birmingham is in no way competitive.
There are no more paths between Birmingham and Manchester.
If you want more Birmingham-Manchester capacity you have to get it by taking away one of the existing trains and replacing it with a longer one.

 

[py_megapixel]

But the journey time via Birmingham is in no way competitive.
There are no more paths between Birmingham and Manchester.
If you want more Birmingham-Manchester capacity you have to get it by taking away one of the existing trains and replacing it with a longer one.

I see, but that should involve using longer trains on XC, not replacing useful routes with yet more capacity to London which will go unused throughout the off-peak.

 

[greatvoyager]

As reported in Rail Magazine, will the addition of the 6 centre cars from 170630-635 make much difference on the 170 services operated by CrossCountry?
https://www.railmagazine.com/news/fleet/east-midlands-railway-plans-spring-2020-start-for-class-170s

 

[Bletchleyite]

As reported in Rail Magazine, will the addition of the 6 centre cars from 170630-635 make much difference on the 170 services operated by CrossCountry?
https://www.railmagazine.com/news/fleet/east-midlands-railway-plans-spring-2020-start-for-class-170s

I'd think so, yes. 2-car sets are the worst problem over that way.

 

[Edders23]

I suspect this is most likely to be the solution, given that they are very suitable for XC and they are not really any use anywhere else so will probably be on offer quite cheap.

also there might be some Mk 4 stock and DVT's available plenty of locos available to hire in so could not some of the most heavily used diagrams be covered by some Mk4 sets allowing a cascade of units to other routes the Birmingham Stansted route desperately needs 4 coach trains to replace all the twinsets ( permanently coupled twinsets ?) and the 3 coach sets are often overcrowded

 

[greatvoyager]

I'd think so, yes. 2-car sets are the worst problem over that way.

It's positive that part of the capacity problem is being looked at.

 

[221129]

In what way is there a need for them to be retired?

Because they are old, mechanically and structurally dubious, falling apart and cost an absolute fortune to run.

 

[221129]

There are realistically 2 options.

221s from Virgin and starting a refurb programme.
Or
New build and replace the entire long distance fleet.

 

[greatvoyager]

Because they are old, mechanically and structurally dubious, falling apart and cost an absolute fortune to run.

I agree, even though they still do their job well, they are over 40 years old so they must be life expired soon.

 

[greatvoyager]

There are realistically 2 options.

221s from Virgin and starting a refurb programme.
Or
New build and replace the entire long distance fleet.

I see those both happening, with refurbishment starting in the early 2020s, and replacement from 2030.

 

[Meerkat]

Call me cynical but I wonder if XC will get 800s when Newton Aycliffe runs out of work and Hitachi mutter that it might be at risk....

 

[JonathanH]

plenty of locos available to hire in

Not using the paths currently timed for Voyagers - XC will not see any form of LHCS.