An East Midlands Service pattern

[Bartsimho]

I was thinking about how to simplify and re-jig the services of the East Midlands to have something slightly more coherent and was focussed on the section around Trent Junction and the Erewash Valley.
Most of this being only double track does limit line capacity a bit so I have tried to keep sections under 15 trains per hour which would be a 4 minute gap between trains (This includes freight paths).

Looking at the area there are 1.3 million people in places stations already serve with some more expansion areas around to increase this.

London St Pancras - Nottingham 2tph
STP - Sheffield 2tph
Leicester - Lincoln Central 1tph
LEI - Grimsby Town 1tph

Derby - NOT 1tph
Matlock - LCN 1tph

DER-LCN via ILN 1tph
DER-SHF via ILN 1tph
Cardiff Central - NOT 2tph

Some Extra surrounding trains would be:
Crewe - DER 2tph
Edinburgh Waverley - Plymouth 2tph

 

[greatkingrat]

Running trains all the way from Matlock to Lincoln sounds like a punctuality disaster waiting to happen. Plus I'm not sure Lincoln has the platform capacity to terminate all those services (or indeed the demand).

 

[Bartsimho]

Running trains all the way from Matlock to Lincoln sounds like a punctuality disaster waiting to happen. Plus I'm not sure Lincoln has the platform capacity to terminate all those services (or indeed the demand).

It's a Combination of the Nottingham to Matlock and the Crewe to Newark Castle and Newark Northgate to Lincoln services currently with also a Crewe to Derby service instead of the Crewe to Newark service. There are 3 West in Platforms at Lincoln.
Also build in 5 minutes at Derby and 5 minutes at Nottingham to help with delays

 

[30907]

1. You are trying to have 3-4tph over the flat crossing at Newark, which will never work - even 2 would be a challenge.
2. Is Derby-Ilkeston-Alfreton really going to justify 2tph on top of the existing trains from Nottingham?
3. How are you getting from Ilkeston to Lincoln?

 

[Bartsimho]

1. You are trying to have 3-4tph over the flat crossing at Newark, which will never work - even 2 would be a challenge.
2. Is Derby-Ilkeston-Alfreton really going to justify 2tph on top of the existing trains from Nottingham?
3. How are you getting from Ilkeston to Lincoln?

1. I was think about maybe some upgrade works to remove the flat crossing due to the restrictive nature of it
2. I was thinking that train travel is a promote it and support it and more people will use it rather than the demand already having to justify increases (We have seen it with the opposite as well if a service is run down people stop using it rather ala CrossCountry)
3. Ilkeston to Lincoln is Ilkeston, Langley Mill, Kirkby-In-Ashfield, Mansfield, Worksop, Gainsborough Lea Road especially as the Robin Hood Line is underused due to the single track nature south of Kirkby

We also need more housing throughout the country so combining rail expansion plans with New Town projects and other Transport orientated developments as well.

 

[liamf656]

If we move aside the infrastructure and population growth you seem to include in these (and also staffing and rolling stock for now) and focus on timetabling only I’d look at a service similar to how it is now

2tph London to Nottingham,
Bedford (1tph)
Wellingborough (peaks)
Kettering (1tph)
Harborough (1tph)
Leicester
Loughborough (1tph)
East Mids Parkway (1tph)
Beeston (1tph)
Nottingham
2tph London to Sheffield,
Bedford (peaks)
Leicester
Loughborough (1tph)
Parkway (1tph)
Long Eaton (1tph)
Derby
Belper (peaks)
Chesterfield
Sheffield
1tph London to Corby, as it is now
1tph London to Leicester stopper, as the electrification progresses this may be possible in the future, the “other” tph of the Corby service diverted to Harborough and Leicester. If Corby still needs 2tph there could be a shuttle to Kettering to connect with this service
A few tpd Notts to Kettering via Melton

1tph Leicester to Lincoln, as before
1tph Derby to Cleethorpes, I am unsure if the second XC service between DBY-NOT is withdrawn permanently however if so then this would fill that gap
1tph Crewe to Nottingham, this would give the Notts end a bit of a layover for recovery time, using both 158s and 170s
1tph Matlock to Newark, as before covid, 1tp2h stopping at all stations between Notts and Newark

1tph Notts to Skegness, as it is now but using 158s
1tph Notts to Norwich, as it is now but using 158s
1tph Notts to Liverpool, using 5/6 coach 170s to take advantage of the SDO
2tph Notts to Mansfield, as it was before covid with 1tph to Worksop

1tph Doncaster to Peterborough via Lincoln
Barton to Cleethorpes, as it is now

This is just a rough idea without having looked at paths, counted the stock or taken into account the staffing but I think it seems reasonable with the demand, you wouldn’t want to be too drastic as it would become unworkable

 

[A0]

If we move aside the infrastructure and population growth you seem to include in these (and also staffing and rolling stock for now) and focus on timetabling only I’d look at a service similar to how it is now

2tph London to Nottingham,
Bedford (1tph)
Wellingborough (peaks)
Kettering (1tph)
Harborough (1tph)
Leicester
Loughborough (1tph)
East Mids Parkway (1tph)
Beeston (1tph)
Nottingham
2tph London to Sheffield,
Bedford (peaks)
Leicester
Loughborough (1tph)
Parkway (1tph)
Long Eaton (1tph)
Derby
Belper (peaks)
Chesterfield
Sheffield
1tph London to Corby, as it is now
1tph London to Leicester stopper, as the electrification progresses this may be possible in the future, the “other” tph of the Corby service diverted to Harborough and Leicester. If Corby still needs 2tph there could be a shuttle to Kettering to connect with this service
A few tpd Notts to Kettering via Melton

No - wrong on so many levels.

First up - why start putting Bedford stops on long distance services ? There isn't the demand to travel north from Bedford, nor is there the demand to travel to Bedford from further north than Kettering. Don't say "interchange with EWR" because that's a non-argument, because the journeys which that would unlock can be made more quickly by other changes, for example, Leicester to Milton Keynes: A Leicester - Bedford service will take about 45 mins and you're then looking at ~30 mins Bedford - MKC, so about 1h 15m, the same journey can already be made via Nuneaton in just over an hour (not including wait for connection), so a tidy up of connections at Nuneaton would offer a better journey. If/when the eastern section of EWR is built, because both Leicester and Nottingham already have direct connections to the ECML there will be no advantage in travelling via Bedford to get to the Cambridge area.

The only stop south of Kettering en route to London St Pancras which *might* be worth looking at would be Luton Airport Parkway - because you've got the airport and quite alot of businesses in its vicinity. The other Luton stations are lousily sited for any of the business areas in Luton.

Switching Corby to hourly will reduce demand, just as its starting to build - a "shuttle" to Kettering is a monumental waste of a unit and crew. And it looks like you've dropped Market Harborough to hourly as well, which has long had a half hourly service.

I'm not sure what you gain by running a "few tpd Notts to Kettering via Melton" - anything via Melton (either Leicester or Nottingham) takes a *huge* time penalty compared to running via Harborough. Example, it's far quicker to go Corby - Leicester via Kettering than the few trains which ran north via Harringworth. It didn't even offer anything to places like Oakham or Melton Mowbray, because the journey via Corby to London was so slow, they had quicker routes to London via Leicester or via Peterborough. The only reason EMT / EMR ran via Melton was to retain route knowledge as its the diversion route if there's a problem between Kettering and Leicester.

 

[Bartsimho]

First up - why start putting Bedford stops on long distance services ?

I'd immediately say with the arrival of HS2 that the Intercity service pattern needs to change or they will be competing too much. Having the East Midlands Cities with that faster London Connection means you can offer more capacity of London-Bedford at a faster speed through the Intercities.

Don't say "interchange with EWR" because that's a non-argument, because the journeys which that would unlock can be made more quickly by other changes, for example, Leicester to Milton Keynes: A Leicester - Bedford service will take about 45 mins and you're then looking at ~30 mins Bedford - MKC, so about 1h 15m, the same journey can already be made via Nuneaton in just over an hour (not including wait for connection), so a tidy up of connections at Nuneaton would offer a better journey. If/when the eastern section of EWR is built, because both Leicester and Nottingham already have direct connections to the ECML there will be no advantage in travelling via Bedford to get to the Cambridge area.

I had a post about this a while ago where I had worked out the fastest time from the East Midlands Cities to the destinations on East-West Rail. You look just at Leicester which is by far the one with the best existing connections to the EWR destinations due to being closer. While Sheffield, Nottingham and Derby (which have a combined population of around 1.2 million.

You state there is no advantage of travelling via EWR to Cambridge as they can already connect with the ECML. Well taking the current timetable today the fastest journey is actually taking EMR to Ely and then changing to Great Northern or Greater Anglia. This has a journey time of 2 hours and 5 minutes. If I set this for arrival at Cambridge station at 11am from Nottingham the fastest route is 1 hour and 56 minutes taking that exact route of EMR to Ely and Greater Anglia to Cambridge.
As the service pattern proposed is for the 2tph Intercity trains I will take the stopping service: https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:G15176/2023-03-08/detailed as the base for working out timings. There is the addition of Wellingborough which I would expect to add 5 minutes to the journey and then 2 and a half minutes for the stop at Bedford to alight. So the time to Bedford would be 1 hour 16 minutes and 30 seconds and EWR state they want it to be 30 minutes from Bedford to Cambridge so add the even longer connection of 30 minutes it comes to 2 hours 16 minutes. But the service from Nottingham to Ely is an hourly service so a desire to arrive at even slightly off give it to this route.
As for Derby and Sheffield (and by extension maybe somewhere like Barnsley as well). For Nottingham to Oxford arrive at 11am it is a 2 hour 37 minutes journey while the worst case EWR connection of 30 minutes would lead it to be 2 hours 46 minutes but the 2tph frequency rather than the 1tph from Nottingham to Birmingham changes this significantly.

 

[A0]

I'd immediately say with the arrival of HS2 that the Intercity service pattern needs to change or they will be competing too much. Having the East Midlands Cities with that faster London Connection means you can offer more capacity of London-Bedford at a faster speed through the Intercities.

HS2 isn't about the East Midlands - in fact in many respects it doesn't offer much in practical terms.

HS2 reckon London - Birmingham will be 49 minutes - currently the MML covers St Pancras to Leicester in 1h 03 mins. Nottingham - Leicester can be done in 20 mins currently, so you're looking at ~ 1h 20m London - Nottingham.

At best HS2 will match that - Nottingham - Birmingham is about 50 miles as the crow flies - you're still going to be looking at ~20/25 mins Birmingham - Nottingham HS2 plus reversal time at Birmingham.

Bedford is not a significant place - there isn't the demand to travel to it - there are no large employers based there. Similarly there is minimal northward commuting from Bedford, primarily because Wellingborough and Kettering don't have much in the way of large employers. Leicester does, but in the time you can get to Leicester, you can also get to London - and London salaries are *much better* than Leicester ones.

I had a post about this a while ago where I had worked out the fastest time from the East Midlands Cities to the destinations on East-West Rail. You look just at Leicester which is by far the one with the best existing connections to the EWR destinations due to being closer. While Sheffield, Nottingham and Derby (which have a combined population of around 1.2 million.

Even if you look at Nottingham or Derby to MK, there's no practical improvement going via Bedford and EWR.

Nottingham - Tamworth is 54 mins, Tamworth - MKC is 52 mins. Total of 1h 46m.

Nottingham - Bedford would be 1h 16m. MKC - Bedford via EWR will be circa 30 mins.

Derby's it's even more in favour of the WCML route.

Derby - Tamworth is ~ 20 mins, so you're looking at 1h 12m, compared to Derby - Bedford at ~ 1h 15m - basically by the time you get to Bedford from Derby, you could be at MK going via Tamworth.

You state there is no advantage of travelling via EWR to Cambridge as they can already connect with the ECML. Well taking the current timetable today the fastest journey is actually taking EMR to Ely and then changing to Great Northern or Greater Anglia. This has a journey time of 2 hours and 5 minutes. If I set this for arrival at Cambridge station at 11am from Nottingham the fastest route is 1 hour and 56 minutes taking that exact route of EMR to Ely and Greater Anglia to Cambridge.

As the service pattern proposed is for the 2tph Intercity trains I will take the stopping service: https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:G15176/2023-03-08/detailed as the base for working out timings. There is the addition of Wellingborough which I would expect to add 5 minutes to the journey and then 2 and a half minutes for the stop at Bedford to alight. So the time to Bedford would be 1 hour 16 minutes and 30 seconds and EWR state they want it to be 30 minutes from Bedford to Cambridge so add the even longer connection of 30 minutes it comes to 2 hours 16 minutes.

But the service from Nottingham to Ely is an hourly service so a desire to arrive at even slightly off give it to this route.

First up, the Eastern section of EWR is many years away - and I think their "30 minute Bedford Cambridge" aspiration is optimistic. The line's going to be in the region of 30 miles in length and will have at least 2 stops - Cambourne's a given because the Cambridgeshire authorities won't support it if it doesn't, and I suspect something in the vicinity of where it crosses the ECML will also happen, supported by a load of housebuilding in the area. Allow 5 minutes to cover those stops and they're looking for an *average* speed of 72 mph. For comparison, Stevenage - Cambridge with 4 stops is taking almost 40 minutes using 100 mph EMUs and using part of the route EWR's likely to need.

Given the ECML is likely to see improvements in speed and capacity, particularly given that HS2 isn't going to Leeds now, there are doubtless going to be opportunities to speed up the Nottingham - Ely service.

Currently Nottingham - Grantham takes 31 minutes (22 miles), so averaging about 40mph, Grantham - Peterborough takes 27 minutes (29 miles), so averaging just over 60mph and Peterborough - Ely takes 33 mins (30 miles) so averaging just under 60 miles. That journey is 81 miles and taking just over 90 minutes an average of 53 mph - if that could be improved to an average of 70 mph, that journey time would drop to 1h 10m - basically getting you to Ely in the same time as you would to Bedford from Nottingham. And improving those linespeeds between Nottingham and Grantham and Peterborough and Ely would offer far more benefits than slowing down long distance EMR services to stop at Bedford for the one or two people who want to change to EWR eastwards (assuming it ever gets built).

As ever when there is the suggestion of putting Bedford back into the long distance EMR services it's always a case of a solution looking for a problem - this is no different.

Putting the Luton Airport Parkway stop in, I might, just about, agree with. I think there may be some benefit to that. But not Bedford.

 

[liamf656]

No - wrong on so many levels.

First up - why start putting Bedford stops on long distance services ?

A lot of the trains from Nottingham I have travelled on have had passengers trying to get to/from Bedford or Luton. It’s widely discussed both on this forum and onboard said trains that the direct link between Bedford/Luton and Leicester/Nottingham is greatly missed, especially when there’s disruption and it’s cold and dark. Maybe your idea of making a few services call at Luton Airport Parkway would work better?

And it looks like you've dropped Market Harborough to hourly as well, which has long had a half hourly service.

Market Harborough would still have two trains an hour, one would be the one that runs from London to Nottingham and the other one would be the London to Leicester slow which I’ve come up with (depending on how electrification progresses), that would replace the second Corby an hour. I didn’t think Corby was as busy as you say, with the busier stations being further down the line

I'm not sure what you gain by running a "few tpd Notts to Kettering via Melton" - anything via Melton (either Leicester or Nottingham) takes a *huge* time penalty compared to running via Harborough.

There are a fair few passengers that travel between Melton and Kettering/Bedford that would benefit from this and running it in service would be better than running it as ECS…

The only reason EMT / EMR ran via Melton was to retain route knowledge as its the diversion route if there's a problem between Kettering and Leicester.

…for this reason. Train crew still need to retain knowledge of the route so it may as well run as a service if the additional cost isn’t much

 

[A0]

A lot of the trains from Nottingham I have travelled on have had passengers trying to get to/from Bedford or Luton. It’s widely discussed both on this forum and onboard said trains that the direct link between Bedford/Luton and Leicester/Nottingham is greatly missed, especially when there’s disruption and it’s cold and dark. Maybe your idea of making a few services call at Luton Airport Parkway would work better?

It isn't "greatly missed" at all. It's missed by the relatively few who used them. I often used to get an evening peak service from St Pancras back to Wellingborough (in the days before the electrics), firstly those trains would be full and standing on leaving St P, they would be full on leaving Luton and then be less than half full leaving Bedford. And the number of people boarding at Bedford to head north could usually be counted on your fingers.

Luton Airport Parkway does, to my mind, have a valid case - the airport is a destination in its own right and there are some large businesses in the vicinity. Bedford doesn't have any large employers and the employers it does have aren't in close proximity to the station.

Market Harborough would still have two trains an hour, one would be the one that runs from London to Nottingham and the other one would be the London to Leicester slow which I’ve come up with (depending on how electrification progresses), that would replace the second Corby an hour. I didn’t think Corby was as busy as you say, with the busier stations being further down the line

Until electrification Corby was an hourly service - and if there were problems it was the first thing to be lopped. Despite that, in 10 years, it had gone from zero use to 0.3m a year. Not the same level as Kettering or Wellingborough, but with 50% of the service and a standing start, not bad going. And it has returned to 300k in 2021/22 figures where, Wellingborough, by comparison is at 50% of its pre Covid use.

The electrification allowed for an uplift to a regular 30 minute service along with extra seats for the intermediate stations - it needs time to develop, not to be chopped about on a whim.

There are a fair few passengers that travel between Melton and Kettering/Bedford that would benefit from this and running it in service would be better than running it as ECS…

Bit in bold - no there *aren't*. Melton and Oakham both have lower usage than Corby - and I don't believe the services were particularly busy beyond Corby. If they were, then there would be demand to retain them - there hasn't been.

…for this reason. Train crew still need to retain knowledge of the route so it may as well run as a service if the additional cost isn’t much

Avanti retain their route knowledge on the Northampton loop by running the last train from Birmingham to London via Northampton - it really doesn't need a load of other services to achieve such route knowledge.

 

[TheBigD]

Given the ECML is likely to see improvements in speed and capacity, particularly given that HS2 isn't going to Leeds now, there are doubtless going to be opportunities to speed up the Nottingham - Ely service.

Currently Nottingham - Grantham takes 31 minutes (22 miles), so averaging about 40mph, Grantham - Peterborough takes 27 minutes (29 miles), so averaging just over 60mph and Peterborough - Ely takes 33 mins (30 miles) so averaging just under 60 miles. That journey is 81 miles and taking just over 90 minutes an average of 53 mph - if that could be improved to an average of 70 mph, that journey time would drop to 1h 10m - basically getting you to Ely in the same time as you would to Bedford from Nottingham. And improving those linespeeds between Nottingham and Grantham and Peterborough and Ely would offer far more benefits than slowing down long distance EMR services to stop at Bedford for the one or two people who want to change to EWR eastwards (assuming it ever gets built).

With regard to the Nottingham to Ely speed up...

Nottingham to Grantham. Central Trains/Network Rail looked in to raising speeds, along with improvements Nottingham Branch Junction to Grantham when the new Allington curve was being proposed and then constructed. Both required significant embankment works, especially at the Grantham end. It wasn't considered cost effective early on in the scheme.

Grantham South Junction. 15 mph crossover from Platform 4 southbound so some scope to raise speeds when or if the Junction is relaid or remodelled, though whether you could path the EMR service on the fast lines all the way to Peterborough is another question.

Peterborough to Ely. Forget it! It's hard enough to keep the current linespeeds with the crap fenland that the line sits on. There's currently a number of TSRs on the route, and there has been 2 reports of rough ride this week alone.

 

[liamf656]

It isn't "greatly missed" at all. It's missed by the relatively few who used them. I often used to get an evening peak service from St Pancras back to Wellingborough (in the days before the electrics), firstly those trains would be full and standing on leaving St P, they would be full on leaving Luton and then be less than half full leaving Bedford. And the number of people boarding at Bedford to head north could usually be counted on your fingers.

I’m sorry but I disagree. Maybe your evening peak trains out of London were quiet after Bedford but I’m talking about the other way round. Late morning off peak there are hoards of people travelling from south of Kettering to Nottingham, to the point where a quiet train from London will be full and standing from Kettering, and quite a lot of them are from Bedford and Wellingborough. These trains are usually the ones getting into Nottingham between 11am and about 2pm. At weekends it’s much worse

Bit in bold - no there *aren't*. Melton and Oakham both have lower usage than Corby - and I don't believe the services were particularly busy beyond Corby. If they were, then there would be demand to retain them - there hasn't been.

I didn’t say the usage was higher than Corby, more that there would be a case to grow it a bit more as there *are* people that are willing to use it. You say it’s slower than going via Leicester however this isn’t true! Melton to Kettering via Corby is 45 mins however via Leicester it’s about an hour (that’s with a 5 minute change despite in reality it being almost half an hour). I’m not saying it should have a frequent service, just that if you’re going to run some ECS trains round there for route retention it may as well be a service with little extra cost.

Avanti retain their route knowledge on the Northampton loop by running the last train from Birmingham to London via Northampton - it really doesn't need a load of other services to achieve such route knowledge.

That depends on which train crew depot run those services. As far as I know Sheffield train crew don’t run any of the night services via Manton so a daytime one is needed

 

[dk1]

Grantham South Junction. 15 mph crossover from Platform 4 southbound so some scope to raise speeds when or if the Junction is relaid or remodelled, though whether you could path the EMR service on the fast lines all the way to Peterborough is another question.

Haven’t the crossovers at Grantham South Jcn just been renewed on a like for like basis?

 

[A0]

I’m sorry but I disagree. Maybe your evening peak trains out of London were quiet after Bedford but I’m talking about the other way round. Late morning off peak there are hoards of people travelling from south of Kettering to Nottingham, to the point where a quiet train from London will be full and standing from Kettering, and quite a lot of them are from Bedford and Wellingborough. These trains are usually the ones getting into Nottingham between 11am and about 2pm. At weekends it’s much worse

But your suggested changes would actually make matters worse.

You're suggesting slowing down the Nottingham services by stopping them south of Kettering - which means all you do is fill them up earlier, if as you claim, they're being filled at Kettering.

And by removing a Corby, you're taking away an 8/12 car EMU which can take *far more* people from Kettering, Wellingborough and Bedford than anything EMR have got on their fleet.

I didn’t say the usage was higher than Corby, more that there would be a case to grow it a bit more as there *are* people that are willing to use it. You say it’s slower than going via Leicester however this isn’t true! Melton to Kettering via Corby is 45 mins however via Leicester it’s about an hour (that’s with a 5 minute change despite in reality it being almost half an hour). I’m not saying it should have a frequent service, just that if you’re going to run some ECS trains round there for route retention it may as well be a service with little extra cost.

You said "There are a fair few passengers that travel between Melton and Kettering/Bedford that would benefit" - which given the relatively small number of people using Melton station and the fact the *vast majority* of its services are the hourly XCs heading to Leicester (and beyond) or Peterborough (and beyond) suggests there really aren't "a fair few passengers". One or two would probably be more accurate and a dozen is probably overstating it.

The point I made was those EMR services are heading to places like Leicester, Nottingham or Derby and they are *much* slower when routed via Corby than via Market Harborough - example, it takes 23 mins to go from Leicester to Kettering (with a stop at Mkt Harboro') - whereas it takes 42 mins to go from Melton to Kettering. When there were direct northbound services onto Leicester or Derby from Corby, they were *vastly* slower than doubling back via Kettering and Market Harboro. Melton to Kettering is probably the *only* flow which is quicker - and the number of people wanting to make such a journey is vanishingly small.