May 2025 Timetable Change - What would you like to see?

[dk1]

Moderator note : split from

May 2025 Timetable Change - Confirmed Changes Only

Good evening all, We're just about to see the December 2024 change take effect so thought it'd be a good time to start up a thread for the next change in May 2025. Ideally keep this thread free for actual fact and gen as and when it is known rather than speculation and "I wish that this TOC...

www.railforums.co.uk

It’s gonna be a huge loss not sending the Blackpool services via Birmingham as the West Midlands is a huge leisure flow. This service will carry fresh air down the Trent valley

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That part makes 0 sense whatsoever not to call at Lancaster it surely must be a glitch

I’ve always thought it better to allow the Blackpool’s to directly follow the Glasgow doing the honours en-route allowing the Scottish Express to do just that non-stop south of Preston. Virgin used to do something similar in the first few years of VHF.

 

[Some guy]

I’ve always thought it better to allow the Blackpool’s to directly follow the Glasgow doing the honours en-route allowing the Scottish Express to do just that non-stop south of Preston. Virgin used to do something similar in the first few years of VHF.

It would be good to start running the odd non stop Preston to Euston service especially with lumo running soon. It’s been too long since there was an express service

 

[dk1]

It would be good to start running the odd non stop Preston to Euston service especially with lumo running soon. It’s been too long since there was an express service

its hard to believe now how forward thinking and adventurous Virgin were to the current set up.

 

[A S Leib]

It would be good to start running the odd non stop Preston to Euston service especially with lumo running soon. It’s been too long since there was an express service

Maybe a matter for other threads rather than on confirmed changes for this May, but I wonder what the odds of HS1 having at least 1 tph running nonstop between Old Oak Common and Preston are, even without new infrastructure north of Rugeley.

 

[The Planner]

It would be good to start running the odd non stop Preston to Euston service especially with lumo running soon. It’s been too long since there was an express service

There is no guarentee Lumo, or anyone else, will be given paths.

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Maybe a matter for other threads rather than on confirmed changes for this May, but I wonder what the odds of HS1 having at least 1 tph running nonstop between Old Oak Common and Preston are, even without new infrastructure north of Rugeley.

How are they doing that without Handsacre? There are no connections.

 

[AndrewE]

I’ve always thought it better to allow the Blackpool’s to directly follow the Glasgow doing the honours en-route allowing the Scottish Express to do just that non-stop south of Preston. Virgin used to do something similar in the first few years of VHF.

It would be good to start running the odd non stop Preston to Euston service especially with lumo running soon. It’s been too long since there was an express service

I am afraid you are both wrong. Forgive me for saying so again, but the WCML is about a lot more than just London to everywhere else as fast as possible. There are lots of people who travel (or would travel) north from across the area from Salop to Stoke - and beyond both - if there was more than just the one Birmingham to Scotland train they could use each hour.
The trains are heavily loaded anyway but also have uncomfortably tight connections for the Derby line in both directions. It must be one of the worst examples of suppressed demand in the country, although I recognise it is nowhere near as bad as the poxy XC offering north of Brum.

 

[A S Leib]

How are they doing that without Handsacre? There are no connections.

I didn't say that Handsacre wouldn't be built.

 

[Some guy]

There is no guarentee Lumo, or anyone else, will be given paths.

Lumo have been given access rights to serve Milton Keynes, Nuneaton, Crewe (isn’t a guarantee), Preston, Carlisle, Lockerbie, Motherwell on the WCML

 

[The Planner]

Lumo have been given access rights to serve Milton Keynes, Nuneaton, Crewe (isn’t a guarantee), Preston, Carlisle, Lockerbie, Motherwell on the WCML

That is the Stirling appiication that was originally Grand Union, I am on about the three other competing applications for paths.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

Being granted rights and actually obtaining paths that meet all the aspirations etc, are also not the same thing. One follows the other but is still subject to timetabling realities etc.

 

[Bald Rick]

Being granted rights and actually obtaining paths that meet all the aspirations etc, are also not the same thing. One follows the other but is still subject to timetabling realities etc.

Quite - there a number of services with access rights that won’t be in the May 25 (or Dec 25) timetable. If they don‘t fit they don’t run!

 

[infobleep]

Quite - there a number of services with access rights that won’t be in the May 25 (or Dec 25) timetable. If they don‘t fit they don’t run!

Why don't access rights take into account fitting them into the timetable?

 

[Bald Rick]

Why don't access rights take into account fitting them into the timetable?

They do, but there are so many access rights, and they change frequently.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

They do, but there are so many access rights, and they change frequently.

Plus the usual flexing and Decision Criteria rules apply. The timescales for access rights are to enable a new entrant into the timetable bidding process but nobody has fixed guarantees for any exact paths (even pre-existing operators get flexed regularly) and the ground often shifts.

Grand Central was a good illustrator of this, they were granted access rights for running on the ECML and their aspirational plans were for competitive journey times but for years had to put up with slow paths being looped in some cases for GNER I think?

 

[A S Leib]

It won't happen this timetable change, but I'd like to see LNR times, at least northbound, changed by a minute at Milton Keynes Central. The stopper via Hemel Hempstead currently gets to Milton Keynes Central four minutes before the Trent Valley stopper leaves, so it isn't a connection, but my experience has almost always been getting to Milton Keynes Central a minute early and the Crewe service leaving three or four minutes late. Moving the advertised times of one or the other by a minute would save a half hour's wait.

 

[yorksrob]

For me, it would be better evening connections from the Whitby line to West Yorkshire and Wakefield in particular. The route is blighted by poor/non existent connections and gaps in service.

 

[The Planner]

It won't happen this timetable change, but I'd like to see LNR times, at least northbound, changed by a minute at Milton Keynes Central. The stopper via Hemel Hempstead currently gets to Milton Keynes Central four minutes before the Trent Valley stopper leaves, so it isn't a connection, but my experience has almost always been getting to Milton Keynes Central a minute early and the Crewe service leaving three or four minutes late. Moving the advertised times of one or the other by a minute would save a half hour's wait.

It can't at Euston due to a platform end clash, you would have to nick some of the dwell time at a couple of the stations.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

London Bridge via Forest Hill trains to be quarter hourly all day

 

[NorthKent1989]

2tph Charing Cross to Dartford/Gravesend via Blackheath and Woolwich instead of this device being from Cannon Street, plus an additional 1tph on the Bexleyheath line, and an additional 2tph on the Greenwich line.

 

[Galvanize]

London Bridge via Forest Hill trains to be quarter hourly all day

Yes please. Direct link to East Croydon is sorely missed from places like Brockley, Forest Hill, Sydenham etc!

 

[NorthKent1989]

London Bridge via Forest Hill trains to be quarter hourly all day

Yes to this as well.

 

[Zomboid]

The only timetable change that I'm hoping for soon is the opening of Oxford to MK.

 

[AndrewE]

I'm waiting for a second train per hour from Brum to Preston, but I'm not holding my breath. It is sorely needed. The second Brum-Liverpool is good (when it runs) but there is still only the one train an hour from Crewe to Warrington and destinations/interchanges further north...

 

[Falcon1200]

For Scotrail, restore the pre-Covid timetable! This would include;

Reinstating the missing peak hour Neilston trains,(eg the 0841 from Neilston to fill the ridiculous gap between the 0824 and 0905)
Bring back the half-hourly Glasgow/Barrhead stopping trains, allowing all the Kilmarnock services to run non-stop between Glasgow Central and Barrhead (and, assuming sufficient EMUs are available, make better use of the recent electrification)
Restore the Ayrshire 6 trains per hour timetable, allowing the Largs and Ardrossan services to make fewer stops and thereby be accelerated.

 

[The Planner]

I'm waiting for a second train per hour from Brum to Preston, but I'm not holding my breath. It is sorely needed. The second Brum-Liverpool is good (when it runs) but there is still only the one train an hour from Crewe to Warrington and destinations/interchanges further north...

You'll be waiting for a good while.

 

[gingerheid]

One of the long-forgotten Greater Anglia franchise committments was an earlier Cambridge - Ispwich service. I'd love to see it!

 

[yorksrob]

It would be useful to have a last service from Leeds to Wakefield at around midnight.

 

[Brubulus]

One of the long-forgotten Greater Anglia franchise committments was an earlier Cambridge - Ispwich service. I'd love to see it!

A later last service would be much more important as it's 21.20 from Ipswich and there's already a 22.21 to Bury St Edmunds. I believe the reason is so trains can get back to Ipswich by midnight but it's still ridiculous.

 

[Farnborough]

All Basingstoke stoppers stopping at Clapham Junction, and ideally Wimbledon (for Thameslink) as well - the latter will be necessary when (if?) CrossRail2 becomes a reality anyway.

Happy for Weybridge and the Byfleets to be sacrifice for time, if necessary - the Woking stoppers seem adequate (off peak, anyway).

 

[Baji]

Cheam and Epsom to have 4 trains per hour to/from London Victoria.

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London Bridge via Forest Hill trains to be quarter hourly all day

they could introduce a new hourly service between London Bridge and Sutton via Forest Hill calling at New Cross Gate, Brockley, Honour Oak Park, Forest Hill, Sydenham, Penge West, Anerley, Norwood Junction, West Croydon and Sutton.

They could make the London Bridge to Beckenham Junction hourly (half hourly during peak)

Services between London Bridge and Tulse Hill would be 3tph during off peak increasing to 4 during peak

Services between London Bridge and Forest Hill would have 3tph and 4 during peak. 4 services would be desirable but 3 would be a start.