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Thus regarding stock I think I'd go with reforming Voyagers as suggested, into 7 or 8-car single sets, and where this would cause capacity problems overlay a local service on the top using cheap unwanted EMUs e.g. 350/2s changed to 2+2 seating or Voyagers where there are no wires. The proposed Birmingham Moor St-Oxford service is one such overlay though not likely to be operated by XC. Another would be a second Manchester to Birmingham with an EMU.
Why not just remove Manchester from the XC network and get LNWR to run an 8 coach hourly 350/2 train from Piccadilly to Birmingham International or Coventry in the path of the existing XC Voyager service. This would reduce diesel running "under the wires" and is considered a good enough arrangement for the West Midlands service from the other major city in NW England (Liverpool).
Why not just remove Manchester from the XC network and get LNWR to run an 8 coach hourly 350/2 train from Piccadilly to Birmingham International or Coventry in the path of the existing XC Voyager service. This would reduce diesel running "under the wires" and is considered a good enough arrangement for the West Midlands service for the other major city in NW England (Liverpool).
Why not just remove Manchester from the XC network and get LNWR to run an 8 coach hourly 350/2 train from Piccadilly to Birmingham International or Coventry in the path of the existing XC Voyager service. This would reduce diesel running "under the wires" and is considered a good enough arrangement for the West Midlands service from the other major city in NW England (Liverpool).
Maybe when the cross-country route is electrified, or is served by bimodes, then consider reinstating Bristol or Reading service to Manchester. But not now, when DMUs are needed on unelectrified lines.
If I were the managing Director for XC, I'd extend the existing Class 220 units (as well as 4-car 221s) to 5-car.
Fifteen Class 220 units (say 220001 to 015) receives an additional coach taken from other units. Those units (220016 to 220034) that have their trailers taken becomes 3-car and then be taken off lease. Alternatively, 220001 to 220015 could become 6-car units, and surplus driving coaches would then be sold for scrap. In both cases, 220016 to 220034 would be filled in by cascaded 221s or 222s.
For the four-car Class 221s, I'd have to reform the Class 221 formations back to when they were first delivered. Units 221142 and 143 would be reverted back to 4-car, reform units 221136, 140 and 144 reformed, and 221136 and 140 would have their centre cars back, becoming 5-cars once again. Then 221141 to 144 receives the former Class 220 trailers. From this point all Class 221 units would be 5-cars units.
Avanti West Coast Class 221s (once the Class 805 and 807 sets arrive) would be transferred to XC (there are 20 of them). Another proposal is XC receiving all 27 Class 222 units from EMR, but that's not until the new Class 810 units enters service.
Shame the rest of it isn’t still Virgin red! I know, it was all a long time ago
To be fair, although they have their flaws, and they get loads of bashing on here, the voyagers give an incredibly smooth ride in a reasonably comfy seat with large windows. I’ve grown to quite like them, but they could do with a tidy up and those extra carriages from Avanti
Shame the rest of it isn’t still Virgin red! I know, it was all a long time ago
To be fair, although they have their flaws, and they get loads of bashing on here, the voyagers give an incredibly smooth ride in a reasonably comfy seat with large windows. I’ve grown to quite like them, but they could do with a tidy up and those extra carriages from Avanti
Class 221 tends to operate in pairs (10-car), I only see 5-car units on the NWC Line as far as I know.
Four-car Class 220 on Intercity long-distance services was a big mistake by Virgin.
Why not just remove Manchester from the XC network and get LNWR to run an 8 coach hourly 350/2 train from Piccadilly to Birmingham International or Coventry in the path of the existing XC Voyager service. This would reduce diesel running "under the wires" and is considered a good enough arrangement for the West Midlands service from the other major city in NW England (Liverpool).
Involves a reversal (unless a time-wasting diversion via Aston is scheduled) and an 8-car formation is longer than the trains that currently run there.
Involves a reversal (unless a time-wasting diversion via Aston is scheduled) and an 8-car formation is longer than the trains that currently run there.
It'd be easier to terminate the train at Bromsgrove than at New Street and it could just run in the path of the old Manchester-Bristol service, with a few tweaks. Also, stopping at University might be useful for people travelling there from north of Wolverhampton. I think hourly 8-coach 350/2 to Manchester-Coventry and hourly 4-coach to New Street/Bromsgrove would be enough capacity for this route.
Question for those who might have done this before. While we're re-forming all of the 220s and 221s into longer units... what are we running in service? Are we assuming we get the sets of Avanti and start with them? What happens if we don't get them?
Question for those who might have done this before. While we're re-forming all of the 220s and 221s into longer units... what are we running in service? Are we assuming we get the sets of Avanti and start with them? What happens if we don't get them?
I doubt anyone has thought what the process actually entails. I guess you would first have to rewrite the on-board software to recognise a longer unit, then take two units out of service in the correct formations, shunt off the driving cars and put them together.
I assume they would remove one first class driving car (604xx vehicle) and one standard class driving car (603xx vehicle) from the formation, so that if 220001 and 220002 formed 222601, it would be formed 60401-60201-60701-60202-60702-60302. The down time for each pair of units might only be a week so it might just be units due maintenance attention anyway.
An assessment of the fleet might identify the coaches in the worst condition to discard, rather than necessarily .asking the reformations 'tidy'.
Why not just remove Manchester from the XC network and get LNWR to run an 8 coach hourly 350/2 train from Piccadilly to Birmingham International or Coventry in the path of the existing XC Voyager service. This would reduce diesel running "under the wires" and is considered a good enough arrangement for the West Midlands service from the other major city in NW England (Liverpool).
I don't know to what extent distortion of travel patterns is caused by split ticketing as a result of XC's high fares and whether that affects the economics of XC's network
The first and third statics where the ones I quoted.
Whilst there's some truth that people may well have switched from other TOC (such as TPE and Avanti), however there's also going to be those who haven't travelled because XC and others are running below average number of trains.
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I depends on the pairing, if it's the lower end of the capacity of the 350's (I assume all 2+2 seats in standard) that's 460 seats, a pair of Voyagers are as follows:
4+4 - 400 seats
4+5 - 460 seats
5+5 - 520 seats
As such, unless every pair is 5+5 (or at least all the very busiest) then swapping to 350's would (at least some of the time) be either be no better or worse (4+5) or worse (4+4).
I doubt anyone has thought what the process actually entails. I guess you would first have to rewrite the on-board software to recognise a longer unit, then take two units out of service in the correct formations, shunt off the driving cars and put them together.
I assume they would remove one first class driving car (604xx vehicle) and one standard class driving car (603xx vehicle) from the formation, so that if 220001 and 220002 formed 222601, it would be formed 60401-60201-60701-60202-60702-60302. The down time for each pair of units might only be a week so it might just be units due maintenance attention anyway.
An assessment of the fleet might identify the coaches in the worst condition to discard, rather than necessarily .asking the reformations 'tidy'.
Ta. It's just the way we sometime glibly throw these ideas into the mix - and I would vote for lengthening, hopefully also a refurb - I imagine some people think that this can be done overnight in the depot Whereas you have to do them *and* maintain the existing service.
Ta. It's just the way we sometime glibly throw these ideas into the mix - and I would vote for lengthening, hopefully also a refurb - I imagine some people think that this can be done overnight in the depot Whereas you have to do them *and* maintain the existing service.
Depends how many you can spare from service and capacity at the relevant works.
345 lengthening was done at the maintenance depot and done one at a time. Similarly Pendolino lengthening and indeed the recent changes to Southern's 171 fleet.
Well, your lowest level is two! Surely that is possible, I think suggesting it isn't possible for XC to gain the Avanti units yet not be able to spare two sets at a time is a bit far fetched.
Ta. It's just the way we sometime glibly throw these ideas into the mix - and I would vote for lengthening, hopefully also a refurb - I imagine some people think that this can be done overnight in the depot Whereas you have to do them *and* maintain the existing service.
2 TPH??!! Thats something those of us on the south west of the route can dream of! Might benefit Bristol , but majority of folk would be crush loaded into a 4 car from Plymouth Exeter etc whilst the 4 car starting at Bristol would no doubt be fairly quiet. How is that a good thing? At least with 1TPH which is 7 car HST, everyone has a chance of getting a seat, especially those on the longer journeys..
1. The point of the 7-car Voyager idea is to save money by only requiring one guard (and one steward, if at all).
2. A more frequent service = more attractive = more demand = more overcrowding (the problem with Operation Pumpkin).
I would reconfigure XC into just 3 core hourly services:
Plymouth-Birmingham-Doncaster-Edinburgh
Bournemouth-Birmingham-Leeds
Cardiff-Birmingham-Nottingham
I would pass the Birmingham-Leicester-Cambridge services and associated trains to the East Midlands "franchise", in addition to passing the Birmingham-Manchester services to LNWR to run with class 350/2 trains.
I would reconfigure XC into just 3 core hourly services:
Plymouth-Birmingham-Doncaster-Edinburgh
Bournemouth-Birmingham-Leeds
Cardiff-Birmingham-Nottingham
I would pass the Birmingham-Leicester-Cambridge services and associated trains to the East Midlands "franchise", in addition to passing the Birmingham-Manchester services to LNWR to run with class 350/2 trains.
I would reconfigure XC into just 3 core hourly services:
Plymouth-Birmingham-Doncaster-Edinburgh
Bournemouth-Birmingham-Leeds
Cardiff-Birmingham-Nottingham
I would pass the Birmingham-Leicester-Cambridge services and associated trains to the East Midlands "franchise", in addition to passing the Birmingham-Manchester services to LNWR to run with class 350/2 trains.
So you'd have direct links from the North East to the South Coast and South West, but nothing from the North West which has a higher population. That makes no sense whatsoever.
Quarter on quarter rail growth is on an upwards tend (although there's been one month where there was a drop in the last 6, the following month was quite a bit higher than the one before).
Also whilst XC is at 68% of pre Covid levels this against the backdrop that they are operating 64% of the service km's of pre Covid. As such there's more passengers per service km than there was.
The big question which needs to be answered; would rubbiyng more services increase the passenger numbers by enough to justify the extra service?
Whilst a reduced service from XC (also applies TPE and Avanti) could mean that other TOC are benefitting from transfered passengers, those reduced services also make it harder to use rail and so probably overall it leads to a suppression of overall passenger numbers (which harms the rail industry and could potentially require more support from the government).
I think the time for "experimentation" has passed. What the government sees is that recovery has not happened. Time has run out and the economy cannot afford the experiment anymore.
Dare I say it the current industrial relations problems undermine the railways case. But they could well be a symptom of the looming decline rather than a cause.
Not strictly true, the airlines do this, launch new routes and higher frequencies and fill them from day 1, so railways could.
But the railways have got sloppy at marketing, then there is failing to offer full range of tickets at least 12 weeks out (due to poor staffing and late changes). Not doing basics to increase volume of ticket sales by offering customer sufficient stability to plan longer trips.
However it does seem to be the case that some are misinterpreting a 10% cut as just a cut in costs, rather than net 10% cut in the cost. Thus excluding quick revenue growth if it exceeds costs.
The problem is that CrossCountry is government-run, and the airlines aren't. The airline can accept a reasonable degree of commercial risk in order to grow the railway. The Treasury will not permit anything that meaningfully exposes them to commercial risk, thus creating the current spiral of decline.
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It probably is because usually the management fee is in proportion with the long term cost base. Yet another reason for heavy focus on cost control and little or no focus on revenue growth.
Anecdotally this is certainly true north of Leeds where we are frequently picking up passengers for cancelled TPE services. I understand that blanket ticket acceptance has been withdrawn on certain days due to capacity constraints but that often doesn't filter through to station staff and TPE TM's. It's difficult though - if their train has been cancelled yet again then why shouldn't they be able to travel on the next available service? I can certainly understand passengers frustrations right now.
Why not just remove Manchester from the XC network and get LNWR to run an 8 coach hourly 350/2 train from Piccadilly to Birmingham International or Coventry in the path of the existing XC Voyager service. This would reduce diesel running "under the wires" and is considered a good enough arrangement for the West Midlands service from the other major city in NW England (Liverpool).
Given the surplus of EMUs I would be very tempted to get rid of DMUs where possible. But there will be the relative leasing costs of the DMUs and EMUs to consider (I seem to recall 379s and 350/2s have high leasing costs).
If I were the managing Director for XC, I'd extend the existing Class 220 units (as well as 4-car 221s) to 5-car.
Fifteen Class 220 units (say 220001 to 015) receives an additional coach taken from other units. Those units (220016 to 220034) that have their trailers taken becomes 3-car and then be taken off lease. Alternatively, 220001 to 220015 could become 6-car units, and surplus driving coaches would then be sold for scrap. In both cases, 220016 to 220034 would be filled in by cascaded 221s or 222s.
For the four-car Class 221s, I'd have to reform the Class 221 formations back to when they were first delivered. Units 221142 and 143 would be reverted back to 4-car, reform units 221136, 140 and 144 reformed, and 221136 and 140 would have their centre cars back, becoming 5-cars once again. Then 221141 to 144 receives the former Class 220 trailers. From this point all Class 221 units would be 5-cars units.
Avanti West Coast Class 221s (once the Class 805 and 807 sets arrive) would be transferred to XC (there are 20 of them). Another proposal is XC receiving all 27 Class 222 units from EMR, but that's not until the new Class 810 units enters service.
It is very obvious that the HSTs will be gone (inevitable - micro-fleet sad to say).
The best we can hope for would be gaining Avanti's cast off 221s. If larger units can be made by getting rid of driving coaches it would make running costs lower. But we would still need to be able to run 9 or 10 car services to get economy of scale so it is probably a case of only converting all 4 car Voyagers to 5-car. Nice to have would be any remaining stock being formed into extra 5-car Voyagers - but I think that is very optimistic.
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