Alternative options for the 'via West Mids' Avanti service

[The Planner]

The concept is great, the execution is poor. There are up to 20 minutes or so of excessive dwells, pathing and slow line running in each and every 'via Birmingham' service.

Cumulatively over the whole day, those hours of trainset downtime could be used to run several extra revenue services. Over a whole week, that 'downtime' probably adds an entire traincrew to staff costs too.

That is what I meant by poor resource utilisation.

Short of retiming most of the West Mids, it was the best thing to do.

Is that genuinely a problem? If so, why?

It isn't the time penalty is small.

 

[Krokodil]

For example. Can we imagine using todays Avanti 805's to potentially operate a Manchester (or even Glasgow) to Bristol service in future?

Would be nice to have them working reliably on their existing route.

Birmingham – Manchester's 133,000 passengers per year; to Edinburgh's 34,000 and to Glasgow's below 19,000 (Glasgow Central isn't in the hundred most common destinations from Birmingham New Street and Birmingham isn't in the hundred most common from Glasgow).

Looking at today's allocations, the 32 trains from Manchester to Birmingham were formed:
10 x 4 car
18 x 5 car
2 x 8 car
2 x 11 car

So all bar four departures had fewer than 250 seats. Extend the XC departures to at least 400 seats (for example seven coach 807s have 453 seats, a bimode equivalent would be revolutionary for XC) and once those are full then you might justify increasing the frequency.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Nov 2024 ==

Short of retiming most of the West Mids, it was the best thing to do.

Presumably eventually HS2 will force a recast anyway. If, of course the service doesn‘t get broken back up so that Curzon St can be used.

 

[Bletchleyite]

So all bar four departures had fewer than 250 seats. Extend the XC departures to at least 400 seats (for example seven coach 807s have 453 seats, a bimode equivalent would be revolutionary for XC) and once those are full then you might justify increasing the frequency.

Much as I'd love to see the stinking DEMUs in the bin, XC is an incredibly easy problem to solve - give them all the 22x as soon as they become available, which would mean all their trains could be at least 8 cars*, including the present Class 170 services.

* May require some platform extensions or changes of pattern so the short 170 services are just stoppers for the short platform stations.

 

[Krokodil]

Much as I'd love to see the stinking DEMUs in the bin, XC is an incredibly easy problem to solve - give them all the 22x as soon as they become available, which would mean all their trains could be at least 8 cars*, including the present Class 170 services.

The thing is that an eight car Voyager will consume a considerable amount of fuel and requires extra crew, all for only 400 seats. Even when that is enough seats for demand you still get crowding because there's no gangway through which you can balance the load between the units.

By comparison a seven coach bimode unit will run on electric while under the wires, run more efficiently than Voyagers when away from the wires, and you get an extra 53 seats. The stumbling block is that Hitachi seems to have decided that it doesn't want any more work and has priced itself out of the market.

XC is a loss-making franchise and leasing more Voyagers won't improve that because the costs will outpace any increase in revenue. Ordering units which are actually fit for purpose may allow revenue growth without as much escalation of cost.

 

[Bletchleyite]

By comparison a seven coach bimode unit will run on electric while under the wires, run more efficiently than Voyagers when away from the wires, and you get an extra 53 seats. The stumbling block is that Hitachi seems to have decided that it doesn't want any more work and has priced itself out of the market.

Hitachi may have done but it seems CAF might be bidding the same thing to LNER, so a follow on order could be made. However, 22x are probably cheaper for now.

 

[6Gman]

It isn't the time penalty is small.

On the Pendolinos using the Slows between Crewe & Stafford I suspect any extra time for running on the Slow is largely offset by not having to cross at Doxey.

Certainly on the Up some of my fastest Crewe-Stafford times have been on the Slow!

 

[Nottingham59]

On the Pendolinos using the Slows between Crewe & Stafford I suspect any extra time for running on the Slow is largely offset by not having to cross at Doxey.

Certainly on the Up some of my fastest Crewe-Stafford times have been on the Slow!

Part of the Norton Bridge project work was to speed up the slows so that passenger services could use them without too great a time penalty.

EDIT
Specifiically Phase 1 of the Stafford Area Improvement Programme

Passengers benefiting from £250m railway upgrade between Stafford and Crewe

Passengers are today (29 March) benefiting from a better railway through the Stafford area and can look forward to improved services in future after a new section of track and a key flyover opened to trains at Norton Bridge.

www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk

"Phase 1 – Linespeed improvements between Crewe and Norton Bridge, increasing the line speed on the ‘slow’ lines from 75mph to 100mph. Completed in March 2014, these works included modifications to the overhead line equipment and installation of four new signals."

 

[Bevan Price]

Harpo said:


Many northbound 'via Birminghams' have to run slow line Stafford to Crewe
Is that genuinely a problem? If so, why?

Not really. Now that the slow lines are permitted for 100 mph running, there is very little difference in the Stafford/Crewe running times - because crossing from Slow to Fast Lines North of Stafford station is slow, and adds about a minute to journey times.

Edit - posted before I saw the post from 6Gman.
BP