Reston - should this mean a proper service on the Chathill Flyer?

[Bletchleyite]

From: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/new-reston-station-progress-updates.212306/page-2

I note that a ScotRail stopping service to Berwick would be getting very close to Chathill. It would strike me that this means it would be a sensible thing, if it can be pathed, to operate an EMU local stopping service at least a few times a day (two-hourly?) from Edinburgh to Newcastle, perhaps replacing some of the IC calls.

Any thoughts?

 

[swt_passenger]

Network Rail‘s studies and strategies always seemed to say that a local stopper can’t be pathed. I’m pretty sure one of the proposals for the stretch within Scotland and just to Berwick required another down direction passing loop at one or other of the new stations, I suppose Dunbar might already provide for the up direction.

Then theres also the usual questions about lack of power supply, and Morpeth services being DMU to allow interworking across Newcastle to Metro Centre or beyond. You can almost disregard Chathill in terms of the usual service pattern, it only runs twice a day, so it’s effectively the whole Berwick to Morpeth gap that you have to path.

Also it must depend on whether or not all the full planned LNER, TPE, XC and First open access are all going to be running or not?

 

[adamedwards]

An issue is I assume allowing any stopper to be looped. Aside from Tweedmouth, where can you loop a passenger local?

 

[geordieblue]

An issue is I assume allowing any stopper to be looped. Aside from Tweedmouth, where can you loop a passenger local?

There's loops at Belford IIRC

 

[Bigman]

If the power supply gets upgraded and is no longer a limiting factor, then surely a 100 mph EMU stopper from Newcastle to Berwick should be possible. I bet an EMU could get to Berwick quicker than a current 75 mph sprinter can get to Chathill.

 

[geoffk]

Network Rail‘s studies and strategies always seemed to say that a local stopper can’t be pathed. I’m pretty sure one of the proposals for the stretch within Scotland and just to Berwick required another down direction passing loop at one or other of the new stations, I suppose Dunbar might already provide for the up direction.

Then theres also the usual questions about lack of power supply, and Morpeth services being DMU to allow interworking across Newcastle to Metro Centre or beyond. You can almost disregard Chathill in terms of the usual service pattern, it only runs twice a day, so it’s effectively the whole Berwick to Morpeth gap that you have to path.

Also it must depend on whether or not all the full planned LNER, TPE, XC and First open access are all going to be running or not?

As long as competing Open Access trains get priority, I guess it's difficult. Even without these, there are four fast trains per hour - is this level of service actually needed? Electrification to Metro Centre would be required. The logical terminus of the local service north from Newcastle would have been Alnwick!

 

[swt_passenger]

As long as competing Open Access trains get priority, I guess it's difficult. Even without these, there are four fast trains per hour - is this level of service actually needed? Electrification to Metro Centre would be required. The logical terminus of the local service north from Newcastle would have been Alnwick!

Well this is why there’s an ECML capacity review going on which is discussed somewhere a few weeks ago. Presumably First still think they’ll be running whatever.

(I was quite familiar with the Newcastle (or Heaton) to Alnwick stopping trains in the early 60s. Used to go up to stay with grandparents fairly regularly. I don’t think there were many Newcastle to Edinburgh locals, but didn’t take much notice of happenings further north.)

 

[Clansman]

What do ScotRail get out of running a local all the way through to Newcastle? Unless a head honcho in Northern or the DfT wants to pay a premium to ScotRail to run the service on behalf of Northern and the premiums justify letting one or two 385s loose that could otherwise have been used to strengthen other ScotRail services, it doesn't make much sense to me from a ScotRail perspective.

Although I do recall reading in some online ScotRail document about the scope to extend through to Newcastle when it discussed the paths through to Berwick.

Never say never I guess.

 

[Killingworth]

Reopen the branch to North Sunderland (Seahouses) and run into Newcastle from there! Only 4 or 5 people seem to use Chathill but there'd be more for the coast.

 

[HST43257]

Reopen the branch to North Sunderland (Seahouses) and run into Newcastle from there! Only 4 or 5 people seem to use Chathill but there'd be more for the coast.

Would love a Seahouses to Newcastle service. Don’t stop it at too many places as well. You could pair it up with one from EDB for a half hourly semi fast into NCL. A stopper from Belford can pick up a couple of places as well potentially.

would love Belford to be a hub for that area, potentially as an A1 Parkway

 

[tbtc]

Given the problems caused by Chathill (a lightly used local station to serve a small village on the busy/fast ECML) we shouldn't really be spend twenty million quid on building a station at Reston in the first place IMHO. See also Forum suggestions for stations at Beattock, Shap and other small places on fast main lines that have no local services suitable to stop there.

But, we are spaffing that money on Reston, so the next question is how do we actually serve it (given that there's no "local" service).

Ideally, there'd be some kind of service that was of use from getting from Alnmouth to Morpeth in one direction and Berwick in the other direction. It seems a shame that these towns have effectively no useful service (sure, there are some trains that stop at two of them but pretty irregularly) - but we are stuck in a position where there'd be outrage if Edinburgh lost (some of) its trains to London/ Leeds/ Manchester/ Birmingham - nobody wants to see long distance services slowed down - there's the First Open Access services on the horizon - slow freight paths exist (whether they are used or not) - so there's not much hope of finding space for a 100mph EMU with several intermediate stops.

And even if there were paths at the Edinburgh end (which is doubtful, given the North Berwick and Tweedbank services in addition to the English services), I don't think that Chathill would be getting any additional stops.

Maybe you could have two "fast" trains per hour from Newcastle to Edinburgh (bi-hourly stops at one of Morpeth/ Alnmouth/ Berwick/ Dunbar, so that they retain a fast service) plus two "semi-fast" per hour from Newcastle to Edinburgh (stopping at at least four out of Cramlington/ Morpeth/ Alnmouth/ Berwick/ Reston/ Dunbar/ one East Lothian station*, maybe in line with the peak flows - e.g. Cramlington getting a reduced northbound service in the morning so that more stops can be allocated to the Reston/ Dunbar commuters heading into Edinburgh, but Cramlington getting a half hourly service in the afternoon with Reston/ Dunbar dropping down to bi-hourly)...

...but that would affect the current number of fast services from Edinburgh to English destinations - as well as the complications of who'd operate such a service - especially given the "politics" - I can't see it being easy. So maybe Reston will just be served by extending some Edinburgh - Dunbar services to Berwick, with no change for the long suffering people of Northumbria.

(* - since this would be replacing the existing Dunbar - Edinburgh ScotRail services, I think you'd need to give Dunbar some stops at somewhere else in East Lothian)

 

[Starmill]

Wouldn't it be simpler to just withdraw the Chathill and Morpeth services and have one of the long-distance trains each hour call at Morpeth and Cramlington? Another should call at Alnmouth more consistently.

There's next to no business available at the intermediate stations between Morpeth and Alnmouth, or at Chathill. This proposal would increase reliability by removing 75 miles/hour paths, release DMUs to work elsewhere from Heaton, and cut staff costs. The industry is meant to be watching its costs. There is suitable capacity available for the Cramlington and Morpeth passengers to be accommodated already.

The only issue is it leaves Manors mothballed, which is potentially useful for city centre commuters from Cramlington and Morpeth.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Mar 2021 ==

But, we are spaffing that money on Reston, so the next question is how do we actually serve it (given that there's no "local" service).

To be fair there's no compulsion to use the limited operating subsidy we have available in England for something that supports a new station with an extremely questionable business case that the Scottish Government decided to fund. Transport Scotland will no doubt work out for themselves how Reston will be served. Perhaps they'll extend 4tpd of ScotRail services to Berwick-upon-Tweed and then have to offer to pay LNER a subsidy to stop trains early morning and late evening. For example perhaps the 0548 Edinburgh to London Kings Cross could leave at 0543 and call at Reston, and the 1900 London Kings Cross to Edinburgh could call and arrive a few minutes later in Edinburgh.

 

[geordieblue]

Considering their service, Pegswood, Widdrington and Chathill are actually fairly well used, and there's opportunities for infill stations - Belford and Killingworth stand out. There's definitely potential for a decent usage with an hourly service, but the question is how to fit such a service in. Stopping the interworking to points south of the Tyne would allow an EMU to operate (if you start running a regular service north of Morpeth you don't even need to wire the turnback siding there), and the fact that such a service can be pathed at peak hours does suggest it's possible to run something regular, it's just bad for resilience. More resilience means four-tracking, which is expensive, although this bit of Northumberland is fairly flat. Four-tracking from Newcastle to Benton Junction might be worth doing anyway with the Ashington services starting soonish, although that does mean replacing a couple of bridges, including over the Coast Road.

 

[Peregrine 4903]

Considering their service, Pegswood, Widdrington and Chathill are actually fairly well used, and there's opportunities for infill stations - Belford and Killingworth stand out. There's definitely potential for a decent usage with an hourly service, but the question is how to fit such a service in. Stopping the interworking to points south of the Tyne would allow an EMU to operate (if you start running a regular service north of Morpeth you don't even need to wire the turnback siding there), and the fact that such a service can be pathed at peak hours does suggest it's possible to run something regular, it's just bad for resilience. More resilience means four-tracking, which is expensive, although this bit of Northumberland is fairly flat. Four-tracking from Newcastle to Benton Junction might be worth doing anyway with the Ashington services starting soonish, although that does mean replacing a couple of bridges, including over the Coast Road.

There clearly is capacity for such a service to run if its pathed at peak hours. Like you say, it would probably just reduce reliability on that part of the ECML.

I think that's the things, often you can normally squeeze in extra services into the timetable and they will be tpr compliant. But as they are considered a performance risk, they are not considered, even though there is actually capacity for them.

 

[HSTEd]

The cynic in me suggests that this station is being built as a place for border controls to be established post Scottish independence, assuming cross-border traffic survives at all.

But if we were to in good faith try to get services into the timetable, its going to have to be stops on long distance trains really isn't it?

EDIT:

Given the stretches of 110-125 etc - would something like a Class 395 (I know, my favourite train) help?

If we are spending £20m on the station, a few million more on a couple of sets for an Edinburgh-Newcastle shuttle doesn't seem utterly silly.

 

[swt_passenger]

The May timetable has the morning peak Chathill to Carlisle stopping service waiting in Wooden Gates loop (just south of Alnmouth) for 13 minutes. Obviously not quite as easy to path as thought...

 

[Peregrine 4903]

The May timetable has the morning peak Chathill to Carlisle stopping service waiting in Wooden Gates loop (just south of Alnmouth) for 13 minutes. Obviously not quite as easy to path as thought...

But still possible though, not impossible like some people are suggesting. Whether it actually leads to good journey times and a reliable service is obviously a different story.

 

[swt_passenger]

But still possible though, not impossible like some people are suggesting. Whether it actually leads to good journey times and a reliable service is obviously a different story.

Yes, I think there’s numerous possibilities if looping is allowed. I‘d suppose when people think impossible they mean a service that doesn’t get looped anywhere.

By the time the early Chathill flyer gets to Manors there’s another LNER right behind it, so that suggests another call at eg a reopened Killingworth wouldn’t be that easy.

But as an aside, regarding the earlier mention of four tracking from Benton Junction, I wonder if you’d get away with only extending the third line from alongside Heaton depot to the junction. My idea would be for down trains to the Ashington direction to use what is effectively the depot access line leaving Central, but up stoppers from Ashington would stay on the existing up main if necessary. That is up and down Ashington trains would effectively do right hand running. The problem then is how to serve Manors...

 

[Bletchleyite]

The cynic in me suggests that this station is being built as a place for border controls to be established post Scottish independence, assuming cross-border traffic survives at all.

There will not be a hard border between England and Scotland as part of independence; I'd put several grand on that. It's just impractical. Scotland would just join the CTA alongside the Republic of Ireland (indeed, my view is that an independent Scotland would be a very similar country to the RoI and relate to England in a very similar way), and if customs declarations were needed they'd be done online and checked with random spot-checks, just like happens between Switzerland and the EU. There would be no benefit to Scotland joining Schengen, so while it's *nominally* a requirement of joining the EU it is unlikely to be forced on them as it wouldn't be to the benefit of either Scotland or the EU.

So no, that's not why it's being built.

As for closing the Chathill Flyer local stations, you could do that without doing anything else, but I don't think that would be the right thing to do.

With regard to paths, would stopping TPE's misadventure to Edinburgh allow an hourly stopping modern EMU to fit in (perhaps skip-stopping to give the quieter places a two-hourly service)? Either a Northern 331 or a ScotRail 385, either would do; there's already precedent for "joint" operation around Carlisle.

 

[Anvil1984]

Wouldn't it be simpler to just withdraw the Chathill and Morpeth services and have one of the long-distance trains each hour call at Morpeth and Cramlington? Another should call at Alnmouth more consistently.

There's next to no business available at the intermediate stations between Morpeth and Alnmouth, or at Chathill. This proposal would increase reliability by removing 75 miles/hour paths, release DMUs to work elsewhere from Heaton, and cut staff costs. The industry is meant to be watching its costs. There is suitable capacity available for the Cramlington and Morpeth passengers to be accommodated already.

The only issue is it leaves Manors mothballed, which is potentially useful for city centre commuters from Cramlington and Morpeth.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Mar 2021 ==

Thanks for trying to find ways to make me redundant. I'm pretty sure the passengers of Cramlington and Morpeth will be thrilled when their trains are either curtailed / stops missed out at the first sign of disruption or services potentially cut a la Chester Le Street. TPE haven't exactly shown too much dedication to their Scottish services since COVID and XC presently couldn't stop there unless they promised no more than 4 car units for Cramlington (no SDO on Voyagers and Cramlington 110m each way). Not saying Berwick, Alnmouth and Morpeth shouldn't be better connected but Morpeth to Newcastle should really be more than 1tph

Manors gets more passengers than its given credit for. Because of the busyness of the southbound Chathill flyer (and flexibility for hometime) a lot of the Manors passengers have tickets to and from Newcastle. However Manors does need something changing to make it easier to serve and a quicker way to the Quayside side

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Mar 2021 ==

The May timetable has the morning peak Chathill to Carlisle stopping service waiting in Wooden Gates loop (just south of Alnmouth) for 13 minutes. Obviously not quite as easy to path as thought...

The Chathill to Newcastle morning trip has had at least 10 minutes in Wooden Gates for at least 7/8 years to be honest. At one point it used to get looped twice (either at Chevington or Morpeth North) and the evening one looped for a few minutes at Morpeth North, these have now changed however

 

[swt_passenger]

The Chathill to Newcastle morning trip has had at least 10 minutes in Wooden Gates for at least 7/8 years to be honest. At one point it used to get looped twice (either at Chevington or Morpeth North) and the evening one looped for a few minutes at Morpeth North, these have now changed however

I thought so but I had also noticed that the time was increasing a bit. I doubt it’ll ever start going down again...

 

[waverley47]

Chathill isn't ever really going to work, it's too far from Alnmouth and by extension Newcastle for a simple service extension, and too far from Berwick to extend anything southbound. You're nver going to persuade any of the big operators to make more stops on this stretch, not before HS2 and better journey times are available via another route, making connectivity the main driver of improvements.

The ScotRail stoppers extended southbound only works as far as Berwick before getting looped. There will be four stops and a speed differential of about 20 minutes, which is just enough time to clear the platform before the LNER comes in. Northbound I haven't seen the path yet. It gets looped at tweedmouth to change ends.

ScotRail aren't going to sponsor a unit south of the border for two hours at a time, and northern (DfT) aren't going to pay ScotRail to buy the two units needed. If more of the north east network was wired, this may be possible to join up and extend but it's not possible currently.

While it would be great for more stops along this line, the current stops are adequate I think. None of these places are very big, and while the connectivity argument of an hourly stopper is great, there would never be enough to justify it.

 

[Anvil1984]

I thought so but I had also noticed that the time was increasing a bit. I doubt it’ll ever start going down again...

I think its for reliability of the LNER stopper which overtakes it at Wooden Gates. The Flyer leaves Chathill and Alnmouth 2 minutes earlier and picks up usual timings afterwards. This of course depends on the XC which the Flyer waits in Crag Mill to follow being on time, it can be tight

 

[Starmill]

Thanks for trying to find ways to make me redundant.

Sounds like a very strange reaction to me. I would argue that just removing the Morpeth Northern services takes a small proportion of the jobs away from only one depot, this could near certainly be managed without any need for compulsory redundancy. If thr TPE service calls at Cramlington long-term, that also secures roles to crew those. In addition, the change has the potential to deliver the other benefits I suggested, including faster journeys between Morpeth and Newcastle, and increasing reliability and line capacity. Long-term, this means that the industry will offer more secure and better paid roles, compared to the current political and financial uncertainty, which cannot be good? Northern could always resume serving Morpeth in 5 - 10 years if justified, for example with a Morpeth - Darlington service of 4 and 8 car EMUs.

 

[Anvil1984]

A small proportion of the jobs at the depot I'm traincrew at at so I believe the reaction is justified and I stand by the remainder of my comments regarding how TPEs dedication to their Scotland extention and how they've treat Chester Le Street since the 802s were introduced

 

[Starmill]

A small proportion of the jobs at the depot I'm traincrew at at so I believe the reaction is justified and I stand by the remainder of my comments regarding how TPEs dedication to their Scotland extention and how they've treat Chester Le Street since the 802s were introduced

Unfortunately, the objective of the industry is to provide overall best value for the public at large and the passenger and freight customers it serves, rather than just focusing on your personal employment circumstances.

 

[Anvil1984]

Unfortunately, the objective of the industry is to provide overall best value for the public at large and the passenger and freight customers it serves, rather than just focusing on your personal employment circumstances.

Thanks. I also think it’s not worth the value. Again you keep ignoring the points regarding how TPE treat Chester Le Street and their current route North of Newcastle and yet you wish them to take over the Northern stuff

 

[Starmill]

Thanks. I also think it’s not worth the value. Again you keep ignoring the points regarding how TPE treat Chester Le Street and their current route North of Newcastle and yet you wish them to take over the Northern stuff

If Northern could provide a long, fast EMU to run through to somewhere on the other side of Newcastle, then that would be more efficient a use of resources. However at the moment there's not the capability locally to provide such a service. Therefore, rationalising the service to a more efficient operation, such as one with long trains using AC power, is sensible. I don't see how TPE's recovery from disruption is particularly relevant either to finding a long term efficient solution. Running a special train just to go to Chathill twice a day for the benefit of next to nobody is very wasteful when the industry is facing such risks.

 

[Anvil1984]

I’m just going to say I totally disagree. I’m pretty sure the Cramlington and Morpeth passengers would have loved seeing their services cancelled earlier this week when TPE weren’t running north of York for a few hours. Great value!!!