Where could metro-style frequencies be run without building any new lines?

[A S Leib]

In relation to the thread on lines with metro-style services, is there anywhere where a turn-up-and-go service could be introduced which don't already have them, without building any new lines and where there's a realistic chance of filling a substantial number of trains (I know that some existing metro services - the outer ends of the Metropolitan line etc - don't approach full a lot of the time off-peak; I mean nothing like 4 tph from St. Ives to Penzance midday in January)? For the sake of this thread I'd consider a turn-up-and-go service to be a wait of no more than twenty minutes for a train at any station on the route barring those with very low passenger numbers.

Maybe Colchester - Ipswich; Stafford - Wolverhampton / Stoke-on-Trent / Crewe; Great Malvern - Worcester; or Taunton - Exeter?

 

[Irascible]

Exeter-Paignton would probably be a better candidate, but fairly sure St Davids is already creaking at the seams.

 

[HSTEd]

A lot of places, if you are willing to accept simplification of the timetable on the lines adjacent.

The main problem with metro intensity systems is you require services to be separated and not interact as heavily as many on the normal railway do.

Most self contained railways could run at quite high intensities.

 

[stuu]

Maybe Colchester - Ipswich; Stafford - Wolverhampton / Stoke-on-Trent / Crewe; Great Malvern - Worcester; or Taunton - Exeter?

Taunton to Exeter is 3-4tph now, and would be 4-5 if XC ever reintroduce the extras south of Bristol, which is about as much as it would ever need

 

[A0]

In relation to the thread on lines with metro-style services, is there anywhere where a turn-up-and-go service could be introduced which don't already have them, without building any new lines and where there's a realistic chance of filling a substantial number of trains (I know that some existing metro services - the outer ends of the Metropolitan line etc - don't approach full a lot of the time off-peak; I mean nothing like 4 tph from St. Ives to Penzance midday in January)? For the sake of this thread I'd consider a turn-up-and-go service to be a wait of no more than twenty minutes for a train at any station on the route barring those with very low passenger numbers.

Maybe Colchester - Ipswich; Stafford - Wolverhampton / Stoke-on-Trent / Crewe; Great Malvern - Worcester; or Taunton - Exeter?

Colchester - Ipswich is 3/4 tph already. And I don't believe there is anything like enough demand to travel between the two to justify more.

Bear in mind in the December timetable change Northampton - Milton Keynes (both of which are bigger than Ipswich or Colchester) is going to be 2tph - and there's more demand between those two.

 

[Purple Orange]

A few lines come to mind. Post HS2 (given it will be built), Crewe & Alderley Edge to Manchester and Stoke to Manchester could be a mini-metro. It could run as a 6 tph metro from Piccadilly to Cheadle Hulme, then split with 3 towards Stoke & Macclesfield and 3 towards Alderley Edge and Crewe. Maybe have the following:

• 2 x Piccadilly, Levenshulme, Heaton Chapel, Stockport, Cheadle Hulme, Handforth, Wilmslow, Alderley Edge.
• 1 x Piccadilly, Levenshulme, Heaton Chapel, Stockport, Cheadle Hulme, Handforth, Wilmslow, Alderley Edge, Chelford, Goostrey, Holmes Chapel, Sandbach, Crewe
• 2 x Piccadilly, Levenshulme, Heaton Chapel, Stockport, Cheadle Hulme, Bramhall, Poynton, Adlington, Prestbury, Macclesfield
• 1 x Piccadilly, Levenshulme, Heaton Chapel, Stockport, Cheadle Hulme, Bramhall, Poynton, Adlington, Prestbury, Macclesfield, Congleton, Kidsgrove, Longport, Stoke.

 

[cle]

Chester to Bangor/Holyhead I would think, could run 2tph stopping services. And speed up some of the regionals - flight two in front of each stopper. But depends on the faster services and the national schedule.

Cornwall a similar story.

The Coastways too - and used to be - although patterns were a mix and more platforms/passing points would be better.

 

[PTR 444]

Adding an additional tph on the SWML between Christchurch and Hamworthy would probably be the most cost-effective way to improve travel within the Bournemouth-Poole conurbation. Considering that the m1/m2 bus routes take over an hour end to end, a quicker turn-up-and-go service in the form of a train would be very much welcome.

 

[The Ham]

If you are allowed to build a small amount of extra infrastructure (in this case a grade separated junction) 3tph could be the minimum service between Basingstoke/Farnborough and Frimley/Ascot (even if you were to remove 1tph from existing services for use elsewhere, for example remove one of the Basingstoke stoppers and divert it to Alton). By running 2tph between Basingstoke and Ascot.

It's unlikely to happen, as post Crossrail 2 most of the SWML services beyond Woking could go to 3tph rather than 2tph.

However it could, especially if more stations were built, provide a great metro for the Aldershot Urban Area (population of 252,000 in 2011). For example extra stations at Basingstoke Leisure Park, Old Basing, Fleet West, Southwood, Frimley Green and Watchmore Park. Many of which would generate decent rail use (from having sizable populations and/or employment centres within walking distance).

 

[tbtc]

Based on the pre-Covid timetable, Sheffield had four/ hour to Barnsley, a reasonable split of departure times, a mixture of two “fast” (stopping at Meadowhall only) and two “slow” - it worked really well, pretty much turn up and go for the bigger stations

There were generally five/ hour from Sheffield to both Doncaster and Chesterfield (four/ hour to Derby made up of three of the trains that stopped at Chesterfield plus one non-stop XC), but the long distance trains had paths determined by bottle necks elsewhere and so were very badly spaced (whilst you might hope that the Doncaster services had a good split between the two “semi fast” trains - Hull/ Cleethorpes - and the two stoppers, I think that four of the Donny services were in the first half of the hour, with just one train expected to mop up demand in the other thirty minutes)

Same with the MML to the south, the half hourly EMT/EMR to London and half hourly XC towards Birmingham both departed around xx:25/ xx:55 each hour, so the four/ hour to Derby was pretty lop sided, the Chesterfield services were a little better (they included the hourly EMT/EMR service to Norwich and the hourly Northern stopper to Nottingham) but still two of the five were around xx:55

So, being selfish, you could have used the same number of trains/paths to provide a much better split of departures to/ from Sheffield. However the services are relatively long distance and involve a lot of carefully pathed sections (New Street, the two single track sections between Hazel Grove and Heeley, lack of grade separation at intermediate junctions especially at both ends of the Rotherham “loop”, various conflicts with slow moving/ randomly timed freight), so I don’t think you’ll ever be able to provide a well balanced timetable on these busy lines. Maybe it’d be Possible to run an extra local shuttle to fill certain gaps, but I don’t think that Sheffield’s cramped Station could cope with many more.

Frustrating!

 

[zwk500]

Adding an additional tph on the SWML between Christchurch and Hamworthy would probably be the most cost-effective way to improve travel within the Bournemouth-Poole conurbation. Considering that the m1/m2 bus routes take over an hour end to end, a quicker turn-up-and-go service in the form of a train would be very much welcome.

The issue with doing this is interworking with the longer-distance stuff. Get rid of the London trains and XC and you'd be able to run 4tph Brockenhurst-Hamworthy without too many problems.

@HSTEd has hit the nail on the head - there's lots of places where you could run higher frequencies if you got rid of all other trains and only ran metro operation. Long-distance time-sensitive expresses are the worst thing for metro capacity.

 

[leytongabriel]

Could the Tooting loop be brought up to 4 an hour if two continued to Sutton as now and two terminated elsewhere on the SWR suburban?

Lea Valley if they changed the skip-stop patterns

Enfield Town branch?

 

[30907]

Could the Tooting loop be brought up to 4 an hour

Yes, if there is demand (the Northern Line is a big competitor which is why the Wimbledon and Sutton has never really flourished.

if two continued to Sutton as now and two terminated elsewhere on the SWR suburban?

No, because you can't get Up trains across the layout at Wimbledon without bringing the whole SW Main Line to a stand.

 

[jfollows]

A few lines come to mind. Post HS2 (given it will be built), Crewe & Alderley Edge to Manchester and Stoke to Manchester could be a mini-metro. It could run as a 6 tph metro from Piccadilly to Cheadle Hulme, then split with 3 towards Stoke & Macclesfield and 3 towards Alderley Edge and Crewe. Maybe have the following:

• 2 x Piccadilly, Levenshulme, Heaton Chapel, Stockport, Cheadle Hulme, Handforth, Wilmslow, Alderley Edge.
• 1 x Piccadilly, Levenshulme, Heaton Chapel, Stockport, Cheadle Hulme, Handforth, Wilmslow, Alderley Edge, Chelford, Goostrey, Holmes Chapel, Sandbach, Crewe
• 2 x Piccadilly, Levenshulme, Heaton Chapel, Stockport, Cheadle Hulme, Bramhall, Poynton, Adlington, Prestbury, Macclesfield
• 1 x Piccadilly, Levenshulme, Heaton Chapel, Stockport, Cheadle Hulme, Bramhall, Poynton, Adlington, Prestbury, Macclesfield, Congleton, Kidsgrove, Longport, Stoke.

Yes, and in 1970 we had 5 trains per hour Manchester-Macclesfield/Alderley Edge, all stations except that the hourly Macclesfield train omitted Levenshulme and Heaton Chapel. So 50 years later it's not much of an improvement!

 

[MisterSheeps]

I used to commute Marple - Manchester (Piccadilly), was 2 tph normally, could support 3 tph due to the peculiar geography of direct railways & very indirect roads.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Manchester Piccadilly to Manchester Airport, just have everything call all stations instead of trying to cram in all manner of odd stopping patterns.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Nov 2022 ==

I used to commute Marple - Manchester (Piccadilly), was 2 tph normally, could support 3 tph due to the peculiar geography of direct railways & very indirect roads.

It used to be 3tph at Marple (a New Mills, a Sheffield and a terminator) and 1 at Rose Hill, this was evened out to 2 and 2 a while back, which sort of makes sense as Rose Hill is more central to the town.

 

[Trainbike46]

Great Victoria Street - Lanyon place (currently) or Yorkgate (if the Derry line goes halfhourly)

 

[Thebaz]

Yes, if there is demand (the Northern Line is a big competitor which is why the Wimbledon and Sutton has never really flourished.

No, because you can't get Up trains across the layout at Wimbledon without bringing the whole SW Main Line to a stand.

To run 4tph each way would mean 8tph each way from Streatham northwards without factoring in other services sharing some of routes. I'm sure there would be plenty of conflict at both ends of Sutton station too.

 

[30907]

To run 4tph each way would mean 8tph each way from Streatham northwards without factoring in other services sharing some of routes. I'm sure there would be plenty of conflict at both ends of Sutton station too.

Don't think either of us were suggesting 4tph the whole way round the loop - though ISTR the W and S section had more than 2tph a few years back (London Br-Wimbledon-Sutton-??).

 

[EllieAquitrain]

Don't think either of us were suggesting 4tph the whole way round the loop - though ISTR the W and S section had more than 2tph a few years back (London Br-Wimbledon-Sutton-??).

Unless those reversed at Sutton I think they'd have to head all the way back into London (Victoria or London Bridge)??

 

[Shimbleshanks]

The idea of connecting Purley to Croydon Tramlink with a new dedicated route along the road network came up quite a few years ago. I said at the time that evening out some of the gaps in the existing Purley to East Croydon train service would serve just as well; it gives a direct connection into the tram system at East Croydon.

 

[miklcct]

Anywhere in the network where the line passes a large conurbation, by slowing down express trains as needed.

Examples include:
Southampton - Portsmouth (truncate the GWR to Southampton and replace it with additional electric trains)
Brockenhurst - Wareham (Holton Heath can be 1tph, Sway and Hinton Admiral can be 2tph, all other stations should be every train stopping)

 

[zwk500]

Anywhere in the network where the line passes a large conurbation, by slowing down express trains as needed.

Examples include:
Southampton - Portsmouth (truncate the GWR to Southampton and replace it with additional electric trains)

This has some merit, but having the GWR through to portsmouth is important for the ferry connections, and Southampton-Brighton fasts are also well used.

Brockenhurst - Wareham (Holton Heath can be 1tph, Sway and Hinton Admiral can be 2tph, all other stations should be every train stopping)

Every other train would include XC to Bournemouth and SWR to Weymouth, which would then have far longer journey times just as they're trying to get faster journey times...

 

[HamworthyGoods]

A few lines come to mind. Post HS2 (given it will be built), Crewe & Alderley Edge to Manchester and Stoke to Manchester could be a mini-metro. It could run as a 6 tph metro from Piccadilly to Cheadle Hulme, then split with 3 towards Stoke & Macclesfield and 3 towards Alderley Edge and Crewe. Maybe have the following:

• 2 x Piccadilly, Levenshulme, Heaton Chapel, Stockport, Cheadle Hulme, Handforth, Wilmslow, Alderley Edge.
• 1 x Piccadilly, Levenshulme, Heaton Chapel, Stockport, Cheadle Hulme, Handforth, Wilmslow, Alderley Edge, Chelford, Goostrey, Holmes Chapel, Sandbach, Crewe
• 2 x Piccadilly, Levenshulme, Heaton Chapel, Stockport, Cheadle Hulme, Bramhall, Poynton, Adlington, Prestbury, Macclesfield
• 1 x Piccadilly, Levenshulme, Heaton Chapel, Stockport, Cheadle Hulme, Bramhall, Poynton, Adlington, Prestbury, Macclesfield, Congleton, Kidsgrove, Longport, Stoke.

This would surely need extra infrastructure. HS2 doesn’t deliver anything extra on the ground at Manchester.

 

[JamesT]

This would surely need extra infrastructure. HS2 doesn’t deliver anything extra on the ground at Manchester.

Surely HS2 adds the extra platforms and tunnelled access to them? Which takes the express traffic off the existing network allowing for extra local services?

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Surely HS2 adds the extra platforms and tunnelled access to them? Which takes the express traffic off the existing network allowing for extra local services?

But doesn’t do anything from the approach from Stockport which is at capacity.

 

[JamesT]

But doesn’t do anything from the approach from Stockport which is at capacity.

But it won't be at capacity when you take the pendolinos away from Stockport, as the replacement HS2 services will be in the tunnel from Manchester Airport m

 

[Bertie the bus]

A few lines come to mind. Post HS2 (given it will be built), Crewe & Alderley Edge to Manchester and Stoke to Manchester could be a mini-metro. It could run as a 6 tph metro from Piccadilly to Cheadle Hulme, then split with 3 towards Stoke & Macclesfield and 3 towards Alderley Edge and Crewe. Maybe have the following:

• 2 x Piccadilly, Levenshulme, Heaton Chapel, Stockport, Cheadle Hulme, Handforth, Wilmslow, Alderley Edge.
• 1 x Piccadilly, Levenshulme, Heaton Chapel, Stockport, Cheadle Hulme, Handforth, Wilmslow, Alderley Edge, Chelford, Goostrey, Holmes Chapel, Sandbach, Crewe
• 2 x Piccadilly, Levenshulme, Heaton Chapel, Stockport, Cheadle Hulme, Bramhall, Poynton, Adlington, Prestbury, Macclesfield
• 1 x Piccadilly, Levenshulme, Heaton Chapel, Stockport, Cheadle Hulme, Bramhall, Poynton, Adlington, Prestbury, Macclesfield, Congleton, Kidsgrove, Longport, Stoke.

Why would you run a metro frequency service in leafy Cheshire? The Manchester – Alderley Edge and Crewe are empty after Stockport during the day with the current frequency.

 

[Purple Orange]

Why would you run a metro frequency service in leafy Cheshire? The Manchester – Alderley Edge and Crewe are empty after Stockport during the day with the current frequency.

Those services are rammed - I can tell you that from experience - but 3 tph is not metro frequency. It would be a 6 tph service as far as Cheadle Hulme, providing a metro service for Greater Manchester, which is suitable for the urban area.

This would surely need extra infrastructure. HS2 doesn’t deliver anything extra on the ground at Manchester.

No, because it would not use additional paths. 9 tph run through Cheadle Hulme (3 Avanti, 2 Cross Country, 1 TfW, 3 Northern). Post HS2 there could be 1 Avanti, 1 Cross Country, 1 TfW and then could be 6 Northern, as per my suggestion.

 

[Bevan Price]

But it won't be at capacity when you take the pendolinos away from Stockport, as the replacement HS2 services will be in the tunnel from Manchester Airport m

There will still be at least one pendolino each way per hour at Stockport - they will still need to serve Stockport, Macclesfield & Stoke-on-Trent if/when HS2 opens.