I would draw a different conclusion to most here: it clearly shows how Liverpool's relatively poor service (1 train per hour to London) suppresses demand compared with what happens when there are 3 an hour - which is almost turn up and go!
From Liverpool, the Birmingham trains normally leave from ungated platforms, and onboard ticket checks are as rare as hen's teeth. That can't help revenue.
Interestingly, they are suggesting exactly that in the document, saying that hs2 will provide the fast services and since Milton Keynes will get 2tph to each of Oxford, Aylesbury and Cambridge via EWR it should get a stop on all conventional services into Euston
I would say that the (historic) 1 train an hour [Liverpool] to London has suppressed demand for many years now, and reducing the [Liverpool to] Birminghams to the same (from 2-an-hour pre-Covid) has turned the screw on that traffic flow too.
might have something to do with it, but I think tickets generally do get checked at some stage coming south. My experience is that the guards check the rear unit after every station to make sure that people aren't in the wrong unit. I guess that a fare-evader would make sure that they are in the front unit!
Reversals at Bletchley, planning on building a spur, or just changing at MKC and Bletchley instead of in London or Birmingham?
Fares are cheaper, so revenue comparison to the hugely pricey CrossCountry doesn't work in this case. No doubt (and already seeing signs of this) the decent value LNWR tickets will be eroded, so that everyone gets ripped off instead!
They are for London BR to Manchester BR
It is suggesting two new platforms at MKC for East West Rail and a North to East chord for Cambridge trains and freight.
I certainly agree with you about the depressingly skewed economic geography (which got steadily worse through the C20), but do those revenue figures also reflect how relatively slow and unattractive the XC service between Birmingham and Manchester is compared with the London service (though Manchester's links to all the other great cities of England are poorer still)?
You're right IMHO, and although it's off-topic, think about the links between Manchester and Derby, chosen as GBR HQ, so doubtless a journey that some people will be needing to do!
There are several options listed, the best involve building a north to east spur to allow direct services with no reversal - with some of them suggesting services could continue via Northampton to Birmingham. In other proposals, there are no direct Cambridge to MKC trains, however - there are many different options listed, and if we keep a similar attitude to trains going, it'll probably be one of the cheaper options. This whole document is talking about the WCML post HS2, so I don't know if any of these services will come into place before HS2, as it would almost certainly need new tracks and platforms between Bletchley and MKC - there's certainly no space on the mainline
Difficult to understand why on board ticket checking should be an issue. Of course Birmingham New Street is (in theory) gated!!!
I must be very unlucky then, as every time I have travelled between Acton Bridge and Liverpool there's been a ticket check.
Don't see many full ticket checks going on myself, but have noticed those that get on at Acton Bridge etc made a beeline for. Perhaps could be because of the level of ASB and fares avoidance from those few stations, a tactic to remind those boarding of "authority".
Slow and horribly overcrowded. I used to travel between Birmingham and Manchester every couple of months a few years ago, after becoming thoroughly fed up of squeezing into crush loaded Voyagers I gave up on the train and switched to driving. The London Avanti services are vastly superior.
So a journey such as Birkenhead-London or Liverpool-Croydon wouldn't be included in the Liverpool-London figures? If so, then Manchester's Metrolink might be skewing the figures relative to Merseyrail, since a Metrolink+Avanti journey would have a split ticket at Piccadilly whereas a Merseyrail+Avanti would likely be on a single ticket. Similarly for other places like Glasgow with good suburban rail networks
Looks like some of the default zones in Moira have been used to generate those numbers, so it's actually a cluster of nearby stations included within the figures. They've also been rounded.
What is also interesting about that picture is the low level of abstraction that is expected for Liverpool services versus Manchester. What this indicates is that they still expect Manchester-level loadings on the remaining WCML 1tph to Liverpool, in addition to its two HS2 services.
While part of our city is located on coasts (plural), we are located on an estuary. There are 1.6m people in our metropolitan county area, and another 1 million located just outside it. To our west is the well populated North Wales strip.
Also the surprising figure on the table for me!
