How can CrossCountry realistically be improved?

[Doctor Fegg]

Then you extend it through to International or any one of a number of alternative termini (you could even do a circular service that loops round via Aston and Perry Bar).

Realistically, with the reduced service that's likely to persist for the foreseeable future, I don't think that pathing is what's stopping this from happening.

I thought this deserved breaking off into a separate Speculative Ideas thread:

Birmingham-Manchester standalone service?

Birmingham–Manchester is currently reduced to an hourly service (as with much of the CrossCountry network). Several times in recent weeks on this forum, the idea of a standalone Birmingham-Manchester service has been mooted to restore a half-hourly frequency, perhaps using the surplus 350s for...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[Master29]

XC will recieve Avanti's Voyagers and potentially some 222s but then it's a matter of the limited capacity all over the country to run more services when needed.

Do you have a source for this?

 

[option]

Presumably the HSTs would go too which would simplify logistics.

There's equally a lot of talk in this thread which underestimates the practical issues of taking on as many as 20 extra units from Avanti. It is not a certainty. It will put extra costs on the operation. It requires different maintenance patterns, more paths from depots to first stations, more overnight servicing to be bought in. It requires more staff, more fuel. There is probably some work to do to bring them into line with the existing 221s. It is a whole project to work through.

Yes
Apart from the weird Stansted service, XC are then only operating (& maintaining!) the 220s & 221s.


They wouldn't be taking them on as 'units', because they aren't fixed units. There would be 60 passenger carriages which could be put into the existing 220 or 221 sets/units.
You only need 4 carriages to make the existing 4car 221 sets into 5car. There are 5 HSTs of 7 carriages, so that's 10x5car 221s, which uses 30 carriages.
That leaves 26 carriages + 10 driving pairs. From that you can put together some extra 5car sets, which then enables you to make the 220s 5car sets.

All services then see a capacity increase.


There's a lot of "it"s there without anything to back them up...

 

[JonathanH]

They wouldn't be taking them on as 'units', because they aren't fixed units. There would be 60 passenger carriages which could be put into the existing 220 or 221 sets/units.
You only need 4 carriages to make the existing 4car 221 sets into 5car. There are 5 HSTs of 7 carriages, so that's 10x5car 221s, which uses 30 carriages.
That leaves 26 carriages + 10 driving pairs. From that you can put together some extra 5car sets, which then enables you to make the 220s 5car sets.

All services then see a capacity increase.

I think we have to wait and see. There is still a cost to what you are suggesting, potentially an internal refit as part of the reconfiguration. I dont think we can assume that 7-car HSTs will be replaced by 10-car 221 formations either.

 

[Wolfie]

I think we have to wait and see. There is still a cost to what you are suggesting, potentially an internal refit as part of the reconfiguration. I dont think we can assume that 7-car HSTs will be replaced by 10-car 221 formations either.

Are 220 and 221 coaches fully compatible. The suggestion that you are commenting on assumes so.

 

[irish_rail]

Re HST replacement , I do wonder which is more environmentally friendly, a 7 car meridian / voyager or a HST......because if its the latter, I'm not convinced we should be looking at binning the popular HST sets when more voyagers become available.....

 

[Bletchleyite]

Re HST replacement , I do wonder which is more environmentally friendly, a 7 car meridian / voyager or a HST......because if its the latter, I'm not convinced we should be looking at binning the popular HST sets when more voyagers become available.....

Neither is particularly good - bi-modes are needed.

 

[irish_rail]

Neither is particularly good - bi-modes are needed.

Agreed. But in the interim binning HSTs is a retrograde step in my view

 

[Mike Machin]

Interesting to see that travelling with XC is still just as horrible as I remember. I used to travel frequently between Southampton Airport Parkway and Birmingham International, but the overcrowding became steadily worse and more frequent until eventually almost every journey involved possibly getting a seat going northbound, but wedged in by standing passengers, and spending virtually every return journey squashed into standing in the vestibule on the way back down.

I now prefer the comfort and convenience of my electric car, climate-controlled to perfection and about an hour quicker than the train in each direction, using approximately 60p worth of electricity for the journey both ways from my Octopus Go tariff for the 240 mile round trip.

Tinkering around the edges with talk of ancient 40-year old HSTs and the possibility of cascading stock from the midland main line just doesn’t cut it in today’s market. Rail used to be able to play the ‘green’ card, but standing around on draughty platforms waiting to be squashed into ancient, dirt-encrusted decrepit, noisy, rattling and smoky, crowded short-formed diesel trains no longer cuts the mustard.

The UK rail service needs to really sharpen-up its act if it wants to remain even a vaguely and remotely viable option for cross-country travel. We need much, much longer, super clean state-of-the-art electric trains, better frequencies, dramatically faster schedules and drastically reduced fares. I know this would involve substantially higher taxes to pay for this, but I think we are reaching a crunch point where we as a nation either pay ‘the going rate’ in our taxes for a somewhat closer approximation to a proper passenger rail service, or we just forget the whole thing and call it a day on this type of service and concentrate on developing a few key high volume high-speed inter-city routes.

If we choose not to invest in our railways, most UK train travel will become as obsolete as the stage coach and the sedan chair.

Just the views of an extremely fed-up former XC customer!

 

[Wolfie]

Agreed. But in the interim binning HSTs is a retrograde step in my view

HSTs are rotting away and should have been binned years ago.

 

[option]

Are 220 and 221 coaches fully compatible. The suggestion that you are commenting on assumes so.

I haven't mixed carriage types. 220s & 221s can, & do, work in multiple. It's the 222s that can't work with them.
There is mention here of a 221 carriage being put into a 220 set https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_221#Fleet_details

I think we have to wait and see. There is still a cost to what you are suggesting, potentially an internal refit as part of the reconfiguration. I dont think we can assume that 7-car HSTs will be replaced by 10-car 221 formations either.

I haven't assumed anything, just laid out the numbers to show that it works.
The HSTs will be getting increasingly expensive to maintain, & the XC ones haven't been touched for over a decade.
Even if the lease costs for the 221s stayed as is, there wouldn't be an increase overall for GBR. They shouldn't cost any more to maintain than those in the current fleet.
The 220/221 engines can be adapted to run on biodiesel.

Internal refit cost... so what. All the stock, whether it's currently with XC or not, is in need of refurb. It's that or a whole fleet of new trains with increased capacity (which is years & years away)

 

[Bletchleyite]

I haven't mixed carriage types. 220s & 221s can, & do, work in multiple. It's the 222s that can't work with them.

I'm not clear why that matters. You just diagram them so they don't work together. You can't couple an HST to a 22x either.

 

[HowardGWR]

Interesting to see that travelling with XC is still just as horrible as I remember. I used to travel frequently between Southampton Airport Parkway and Birmingham International, but the overcrowding became steadily worse and more frequent until eventually almost every journey involved possibly getting a seat going northbound, but wedged in by standing passengers, and spending virtually every return journey squashed into standing in the vestibule on the way back down.

I now prefer the comfort and convenience of my electric car, climate-controlled to perfection and about an hour quicker than the train in each direction, using approximately 60p worth of electricity for the journey both ways from my Octopus Go tariff for the 240 mile round trip.

Tinkering around the edges with talk of ancient 40-year old HSTs and the possibility of cascading stock from the midland main line just doesn’t cut it in today’s market. Rail used to be able to play the ‘green’ card, but standing around on draughty platforms waiting to be squashed into ancient, dirt-encrusted decrepit, noisy, rattling and smoky, crowded short-formed diesel trains no longer cuts the mustard.

The UK rail service needs to really sharpen-up its act if it wants to remain even a vaguely and remotely viable option for cross-country travel. We need much, much longer, super clean state-of-the-art electric trains, better frequencies, dramatically faster schedules and drastically reduced fares. I know this would involve substantially higher taxes to pay for this, but I think we are reaching a crunch point where we as a nation either pay ‘the going rate’ in our taxes for a somewhat closer approximation to a proper passenger rail service, or we just forget the whole thing and call it a day on this type of service and concentrate on developing a few key high volume high-speed inter-city routes.

If we choose not to invest in our railways, most UK train travel will become as obsolete as the stage coach and the sedan chair.

Just the views of an extremely fed-up former XC customer!

I appreciate your points about XC but perhaps you are guilding the lily somewhat in respect of costs of your vehicle. Have you worked out what the cost is when taking into account mileage depreciation, tyre wear, extra maintenance, etc? These are costs extra to those that would be the case if you didn't use the car at all.

 

[Wolfie]

I haven't mixed carriage types. 220s & 221s can, & do, work in multiple. It's the 222s that can't work with them.
There is mention here of a 221 carriage being put into a 220 set https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_221#Fleet_details




I haven't assumed anything, just laid out the numbers to show that it works.
The HSTs will be getting increasingly expensive to maintain, & the XC ones haven't been touched for over a decade.
Even if the lease costs for the 221s stayed as is, there wouldn't be an increase overall for GBR. They shouldn't cost any more to maintain than those in the current fleet.
The 220/221 engines can be adapted to run on biodiesel.

Internal refit cost... so what. All the stock, whether it's currently with XC or not, is in need of refurb. It's that or a whole fleet of new trains with increased capacity (which is years & years away)

The Avanti Voyagers have had a refurb

 

[Shernan]

We can have an entire carriage of XC with no seats and racks only standing places like you are on a metro. That can fit more passengers who are doing short trips. 30 to 45 minutes of standing is pretty acceptable. For longer trips on XC, you can book a seat well in advance (doesn't help when there is shortforming).

 

[Bletchleyite]

We can have an entire carriage of XC with no seats and racks only standing places like you are on a metro. That can fit more passengers who are doing short trips. 30 to 45 minutes of standing is pretty acceptable.

Says who? 20 minutes is the figure the railway tends to use.

 

[Mogz]

I’ve rather given up on hoping that the service will be improved in any way.

There’s just no money left for new rolling stock, continental style high quality super long distance service, the hope of serving Liverpool, Brighton etc again, better leg-room, better catering, more tables, better frequency etc.

But is a train long enough to get even a poor-legroom seat too much to ask?

 

[Shernan]

Says who? 20 minutes is the figure the railway tends to use.

If you just want a place to stand at first class, then why don't you have a stand carriage? I had plenty of experience standing from Bristol and Birmingham and on the TPE trains when there is simply no places left. There isn't a problem. If you really need a seat, book well in advance and you may grab a limited seat on offer or book first class.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If you just want a place to stand at first class, then why don't you have a stand carriage? I had plenty of experience standing from Bristol and Birmingham and on the TPEs when there is simply no places left. There isn't a problem.

There absolutely is.

Standee trains are only a valid solution to two problems. One is disruption, where it can be better to stand than not travel at all. The other is high density urban commuter services where it is physically non-viable to deal with the problem any other way, such as London Underground and Overground.

It is not acceptable to have large numbers of standees on InterCity or regional express services. Even less so if the only reason there are said standees is that the rolling stock is too short.

If you really need a seat, book well in advance and you may grab a limited seat on offer or book first class.

Unacceptable.

 

[Shernan]

There absolutely is.

Standee trains are only a valid solution to two problems. One is disruption, where it can be better to stand than not travel at all. The other is high density urban commuter services where it is physically non-viable to deal with the problem any other way, such as London Underground and Overground.

It is not acceptable to have large numbers of standees on InterCity or regional express services. Even less so if the only reason there are said standees is that the rolling stock is too short.



Unacceptable.

Maybe different standards for me. But I can see other countries doing that, e.g. Japan where their intercity services are metro like trains where you stand for around 3 hours maximum. Maybe that's not acceptable for everyone, but boarding a train is more important for me than being squeezed out by those uncomfortable seats and small racks. I am not proposing for all carts, just 1 out of 4-5 carts and I bet more than 1/5 passengers are short travellers.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Maybe different standards for me. But I can see other countries doing that, e.g. Japan where their intercity services are metro like trains where you stand for around 3 hours maximum

No, they aren't. Long distance services in Japan are mostly high speed trains (or things that look like them but aren't, e.g. similar to 80x), generally with compulsory reservation and standing not permitted at all.

The services you are talking about are urban commuter services, though due to the size of their cities they do tend to cover a longer distance than ours do.

Maybe that's not acceptable for everyone, but boarding a train is more important for me than being squeezed out by those uncomfortable seats and small racks. I am not proposing for all carts, just 1 out of 4-5 carts and I bet more than 1/5 passengers are short travellers.

There is no excuse whatsoever for XC to be operating trains that overcrowded. With the halved frequency, they have enough rolling stock to run everything, or nearly everything, as double sets plus the HSTs.

 

[Wolfie]

If you just want a place to stand at first class, then why don't you have a stand carriage? I had plenty of experience standing from Bristol and Birmingham and on the TPE trains when there is simply no places left. There isn't a problem. If you really need a seat, book well in advance and you may grab a limited seat on offer or book first class.

So what about those with disabilities who don't need a wheelchair? Talk about the railway, even the most useless incompetent money grabbing TOC, is always right! How about withdrawing taxpayers money and closing the whole lot down if that is the pathetic attitude.

 

[BrianW]

No, they aren't. Long distance services in Japan are mostly high speed trains (or things that look like them but aren't, e.g. similar to 80x), generally with compulsory reservation and standing not permitted at all.

The services you are talking about are urban commuter services, though due to the size of their cities they do tend to cover a longer distance than ours do.



There is no excuse whatsoever for XC to be operating trains that overcrowded. With the halved frequency, they have enough rolling stock to run everything, or nearly everything, as double sets plus the HSTs.

Absolutely re XC. I thought I must be missing something.
Half the services, however approximate, must surely mean half the stock (approx) available to 'double up'.
I can see that it might not be as simple as that- eg stock and/or staff in the wrong place.
Mind you I recall many a crowded XC pre-Covid. Unsatisfactory then, and now.
WHY is nothing done?
Mind you I also recall back in BR days many a trip Kings Cross >/< Newcastle visiting family and standing all the way or sitting on a bag in the vestibule.
Would never have dreamed of sitting in First Class.

 

[Oxfordblues]

On Christmas Eve 1943 my mother travelled home from Paddington to Rhiwbina Garden Village via Cardiff General. The train was seriously overcrowded and slow. She had to sit on her case in the corridor all the way. But she got there. Her parents were delighted she'd survived the Blitz and made it back for Christmas. In many ways a different world then, but in terms of overcrowding much the same today!

 

[Bletchleyite]

On Christmas Eve 1943 my mother travelled home from Paddington to Rhiwbina Garden Village via Cardiff General. The train was seriously overcrowded and slow. She had to sit on her case in the corridor all the way. But she got there. Her parents were delighted she'd survived the Blitz and made it back for Christmas. In many ways a different world then, but in terms of overcrowding much the same today!

Christmas Eve has always been an exception, but XC has a problem pretty much 24/7/363.

 

[Jimini]

Christmas Eve has always been an exception, but XC has a problem pretty much 24/7/363.

Have we started the “24/7/364” annual debate on here yet?

 

[Shernan]

The DfT has no money for XC to buy more new stocks. When there is no budget, then solutions are either having more seats by sacrificing comfort vs unable to board the train. As for the issue of half frequency, someone has mentioned somethung that is probably right that the stocks may not be at the right depot as the shortened trains.

 

[Pete_uk]

It's pie in the sky stuff, but a replacement fleet of 8 and 5 carriage 800s would be very nice. But with the treasury taking a grip of things that's not going to happen. The East Midlands Railway 222s can't come soon enough

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's pie in the sky stuff, but a replacement fleet of 8 and 5 carriage 800s would be very nice. But with the treasury taking a grip of things that's not going to happen. The East Midlands Railway 222s can't come soon enough

There is no other logical destination for the other 22x, so it's XC or scrap, and scrapping them would be nuts if there's nothing to replace them.

If the MML electrification progresses well, there might be an opportunity to redeploy their bimode Hitachis to XC and replace them with pure EMUs, I suppose.

 

[bramling]

There is no other logical destination for the other 22x, so it's XC or scrap, and scrapping them would be nuts if there's nothing to replace them.

Much as the 22xs have their issues, I'm not sure it's really possible to say there's nowhere else they *could* go. Anywhere that runs 158s or 170s could in theory take them, and likewise there's the GWR HSTs which for the most part work over routes where 22xs already do.