Who would change at Rugby for Birmingham if travelling from Manchester / Liverpool / somewhere else in the north when there are direct trains from most places, and good connections at Crewe if a direct service doesnt exist / you want to avoid XC?
I am not sure where this came from. That is a completely different kettle of fish. I was not talking about connectivity between towns and cities in the Midlands and North. I am referring to passengers travelling South to North and vice versa and making a suggestion about additional services between London and Manchester:
My point is that if more trains from **London** to Manchester were run, then the capacity should be used to provide connections en route to other places. London - Manchester is pretty well served already don’t forget. Liverpool and Stafford have only 1 fast Avanti service per hour whilst Chester does not even have that.
Changing at Milton Keynes is an option I suppose but not always possible either
I would.
But, to me this is really an argument for HS2, so that I can get from Wilmslow to places via Nuneaton and Rugby simply. I do not see a need for 4 trains an hour Manchester-London, today or pre-Covid anyway.
It seems I’m not the only one who wants better connections at Rugby then. You and I plus many others are on the same page. There is a market for better connectivity
HS2 may fix a lot of capacity issues but it’s still a long way off. Let’s make the most of the capacity we have now. Another train per hour that is first stop Stoke-on-Trent pr Crewe will only ever useful to a certain number of people...
