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A mixed fleet of 7 and 9 car standard 80x with a low floor coach would be better*. But aren't we being just a bit realistic in this thread?
* Actually if we were being completely pie in the sky a bi mode fleet based on the Class 730/0 - but...
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Such as the very large numbers doing so on the twice an hour WMT Euston-New St service you propose to destroy?
I'm not opposed to recasting XC to an hourly Manchester-Birmingham that splits to both southern legs with the other half hour getting a 12 car 350/2 formation, or indeed just having one proper XC an hour as a double length set going just to Bristol (more use than Reading for which going via London is easier). But a Manchester to Northampton service destroying established flows is absolute madness. Either find somewhere else for it to go (could it work the Wolves-Intl stopper, for instance?) or terminate it at New St.
Had a thought about this and looked at the paths. A potential solution could be for the Bournemouth to swap pairs with the Liverpool LNWR service at xx:04 taking out the stops at coseley, penkridge and Moseley hill. The return from Liverpool arrives currently at xx:48 so would be 15 min dwell into the departing Bournemouth path. The only issue here is the swap of stops however with 125 running the 220/221 should be able to make up 1-2 mins to Crewe in the path so could run behind to Stafford or have longer dwell or change the departure of the LNWR to be infront heading to Manchester. With the other departure you could extend the Avanti bham terminator leaving at xx:35 giving an 8 minute dwell with the LNWR Liverpool pathed infront of need be or via tame bridge. If needed this could omit Stafford.
This would leave a half hourly LNWR to Stafford, with one to Liverpool and one to Manchester. An intercity to both Liverpool and Manchester, where the XC to Liverpool doesn’t hog a platform and the Avanti could interwork with the existing London a if necessary. This would then enhance capacity on the west coast side but would also allow for doubling up on the three core routes of Edinburgh - Plymouth, Newcastle - Reading and Liverpool - Bournemouth.
The existing Bristol - Birmingham can dwell at new st in the midland side for 23 mins or could be paired with a Nottingham as a through service.
However if spare units are available I would suggest a Birmingham- Exeter stand alone using IETs from GWR, again this would enhance capacity on the rest of the network.
Lots of ideas (as opposed to solutions) but none of them costed, all for a TOC with cash constraints that underpin their issues.
Just the simple idea of half hourly 8 car 350s to Manchester needs new (wired!) stabling and maintenance capability for 64 EMU vehicles plus an enormous amount of crew training.
Sorry, but the XC problem isn’t going away anytime soon.
I know it's not CrossCountry but back in 2015 I remember reading a BBC News article which said the 04:22 Glasgow Central - Manchester Airport train was the most overcrowded train. Now of course the congestion was not from Glasgow that early in the morning but with the Farnworth tunnel being rebuilt and with this being the fastest morning commuter train and it being peak commuter time into Manchester from both Preston (07:42) and Wigan North Western (07:55) it was a congestion nightmare.
Looking at the times of the CrossCountry services, there are some locations where pick up/set down restrictions could work such as Stockport and Motherwell. The big issue I would see is with Birmingham New Street as in the morning peak I don't think any of the Intercity Cross Country services terminate at Birmingham New Street. In other words you could not put restrictions on people getting on at Tamworth, Wolverhampton, Leamington Spa e.c.t as they may not be joining the train to get to Birmingham New Street.
Depents if they have TASS installed I think. CrossCountry 221s of course had their TASS disabled in 2008 but I don't think Liverpool has been regularly served by Class 221s since Virgin Cross Country withdrew their services in 2003. I don't think Virgin trains or Avanti have ever used Class 221s on their Euston-Liverpool services, it's always been the Class 390s since they were introduced. I might be wrong, however.
Lots of ideas (as opposed to solutions) but none of them costed, all for a TOC with cash constraints that underpin their issues.
Just the simple idea of half hourly 8 car 350s to Manchester needs new (wired!) stabling and maintenance capability for 64 EMU vehicles plus an enormous amount of crew training.
Sorry, but the XC problem isn’t going away anytime soon.
This is a speculative discussion thread about what ought to happen. I think most commentors are starting from the premise that some amount of money should be spent. A range of different ideas have been expressed from things which could be achieved quickly at no net expense to the railway, to things which would take 10 years to achieve and likely be unaffordable (but which would be nice). This provides an opportunity for people to comment on and share specific ideas, and for people with some relevant experience to comment on the affordability of specific ideas.
It doesn't mean that people on the thread believe that something actually will be done, or that they believe it is easy to do in the constraints of the current franchise, and it doesn't really benefit from negativity-dressed-as-realism pooh-poohing the whole idea that any can or will ever be done.
Some idea have actually been doable potentially for a small profit to the rail industry, for example using ticketing to force short journeys onto other operators. Other ideas have been doable relatively cheaply and quickly, for example enough trained staff to actually run the existing double voyagers. Getting the rest of the voyagers and doubling up more trains would be more expensive but doable if the political will was there.
Ideas around rearranging other services or ordering new stock are certainly mostly more complex and longer term aspirations. It's helpful to understand the complexity of them, without actually expecting anybody to open a chequebook tomorrow.
A mixed fleet of 7 and 9 car standard 80x with a low floor coach would be better*. But aren't we being just a bit realistic in this thread?
* Actually if we were being completely pie in the sky a bi mode fleet based on the Class 730/0 - but...
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Such as the very large numbers doing so on the twice an hour WMT Euston-New St service you propose to destroy?
I'm not opposed to recasting XC to an hourly Manchester-Birmingham that splits to both southern legs with the other half hour getting a 12 car 350/2 formation, or indeed just having one proper XC an hour as a double length set going just to Bristol (more use than Reading for which going via London is easier). But a Manchester to Northampton service destroying established flows is absolute madness. Either find somewhere else for it to go (could it work the Wolves-Intl stopper, for instance?) or terminate it at New St.
7 or 9 cars would be useless for the Reading side, and the 810s are deliberately designed to match the performance of 22x on diesel mode
5 cars have significantly more seats than a 5 car 22x.
Platform capacity at Reading and Birmingham would be a big issue with full length sets. Current services platform share on the A or B sides.
A bi-mode 730 would be awful in comparison and is not a product Alstom offers
You can't drop the Reading side as there would be a significant reduction in Oxford to Birmingham capacity, there is a lot of demand for Coventry and Birmingham international which would have to be served
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They are coming up to 30 years old, and are an inheritantly flawed design, very expensive to run and very capacity inefficient, overhead racks are useless because of the tilt profile and lots of unused dead space
They deserve to die.
810s would be a massive upgrade, significantly more seats and useable overhead racks etc
No point using them for the sake of it, would be a downgrade on 170 routes, 170s are much better, having more seats and lower operating costs for the 22x
Hypothetically speaking, I'm convinced if the original XC franchise hadn't gone to Virgin and their obsession with stupid tilting trains, if something like a 180 was ordered instead, XC wouldn't have been so problematic
Depents if they have TASS installed I think. CrossCountry 221s of course had their TASS disabled in 2008 but I don't think Liverpool has been regularly served by Class 221s since Virgin Cross Country withdrew their services in 2003. I don't think Virgin trains or Avanti have ever used Class 221s on their Euston-Liverpool services, it's always been the Class 390s since they were introduced. I might be wrong, however.
I think you're absolutely right that they could be, at the appropriate cost obviously. I don't think any currently have it in use though? Presumably they can use the MU speeds, are any of them EMU speeds that they couldn't use?
The fundamental problem with Cross Country is that since the 2007 franchise award to Arriva it has been starved of long-term project-based decision making - it has not had a proper franchise competition. Multiple posters seem to be pinning their hope on GBR for easier cascades from other routes, often with a rose tinted view on how things worked under BR, forgetting under BR Cross Country ran far fewer carriage km and it was a Cinderella operation with various random castoffs. It's living hand-to-mouth drifting from one day to the next. How that's considered a good way of running a railway just baffles me.
All other major inter-city TOCs have 'core fleet's - i.e. a (relatively) homogenous fleet of modern trains procured as projects. No TOC is forecast to have a rolling stock surplus, and no TOC has obvious reasons to release existing stock of the right type and sufficient volume that'd be suitable for Cross Country. Cross Country's finances aren't bad - it was premium paying before Covid and today it has one of the smallest subsidy %s. Cross Country does not depend on paying lower rolling stock depreciations.
There is a short term and there is a long term. In the short term we are still in NRCs. Options are fairly limited - the obvious one is the 6 stored 221s, a decision of a size that's executable even in the NRC world. Anything beyond that would involve ordering a micro-fleet which would not be economical, unless there is a piggy-back option that meets procurement rules (e.g. more 810s) - in any case that feels too big and complex decision under the NRC structure.
In the longer term Cross Country's Voyager core fleet (ignoring the 170 operations for now) will come to their end of life around 2035. That's the opportunity for a new core fleet. Go to the market and order a fleet of trains suitable for Cross Country's traction characteristics based on battery capabilities of the time, my hunch is some form of diesel generation will still be required. I think a core fleet of new-build trains is the most likely. There is a possibility of MML electrification completion releasing 33 Class 810s - however this is now far from certain and 33 is a bit too small for Cross Country's future rolling stock requirement. In short this is neither a certain scenario nor an elegant outcome.
There are medium term options. Remapping Manchester - Birmingham from Cross Country to a (say) West Midlands Manchester - Northampton electric operations has a lot of advantages. There is more liquidity in the electric rolling stock market - the opportunities here are to run trains of more suitable lengths and to vastly reduce diesel under wires this side of the 2035. You'd then release Voyagers to strengthen the remaining Cross Country arms. This kind of remapping probably won't happen in the last years of the NRC era. Retimetabling services across Birmingham will be tricky. There's managing the politics of removing some existing direct journeys, and it needs to be systematic timetable recast considering 'taktfarhplan' timetable properties, and not just stitching together existing paths.
The very large numbers of passengers are nearly all travelling between Euston and stations to Northampton, and between Birmingham and stations to Northampton. Very few of them are travelling between stations either side of Northampton.
And at Northampton, far more people travel to and from Birmingham than Milton Keynes.
The very large numbers of passengers are nearly all travelling between Euston and stations to Northampton, and between Birmingham and stations to Northampton. Very few of them are travelling between stations either side of Northampton.
False. Have you ever used the south WCML? You do sometimes make statements about it that seem to show a complete lack of understanding of usage patterns thereon. You clearly know Cambridge very well, but not the WCML.
The amount of cross-Northampton travel on these services (of which there is a lot, principally Euston to Birmingham) is of course down to the low fares. As these aren't abstractive but rather market-broadening, I would expect GBR to retain them in some form.
7 or 9 cars would be useless for the Reading side, and the 810s are deliberately designed to match the performance of 22x on diesel mode
5 cars have significantly more seats than a 5 car 22x.
Platform capacity at Reading and Birmingham would be a big issue with full length sets. Current services platform share on the A or B sides.
This will need to be resolved as XC cannot carry on with short trains unless it starts doing something to turn custom away. 5 car 80x do have more capacity than the woefully designed 22x, but it isn't enough. The vast majority of XC services need to be at least double 4 car Voyagers which is somewhere between a 6 and 7 car 80x formation.
810s don't make sense anywhere. They should never have been built.
I more mean that due to the mixed and very heavy usage and high passenger turnover, doors at quarters or thirds would be best. And Hitachi do offer that in the AT200 range of course, in the form of the Javelin units.
They are coming up to 30 years old, and are an inheritantly flawed design, very expensive to run and very capacity inefficient, overhead racks are useless because of the tilt profile and lots of unused dead space
They deserve to die.
I would agree they are a poor design and are best scrapped, if only because more than incidental under wires diesel running needs to be banned, and diesel trains need to be banned from New St entirely, they are a serious health hazard to staff if nothing else. With the way you can taste the thick fumes in there when a Voyager is idling away I am amazed there have not been multiple legal cases for respiratory problems among staff and Union action on the matter. The station was designed for when diesels were all locomotives and were outside the covered area, and is not designed nor suitable for any kind of DMU.
810s would be better than nothing but are not optimal. A design in which sets do not run in pairs is needed, because the staffing cost of doubling up is unnecessary expense and inconvenience for passengers who do not receive the catering service. They certainly have better overheads but have a cramped layout compared to other 80x due to the desire to squash in a similar number of seats as in the vehicles two metres longer (which also means inferior luggage provision due to fewer seat back gaps). They are also proving technically troublesome. They should never have been built in my view and there should certainly be no more other than if there is a follow on order for EMR.
Hypothetically speaking, I'm convinced if the original XC franchise hadn't gone to Virgin and their obsession with stupid tilting trains, if something like a 180 was ordered instead, XC wouldn't have been so problematic
I don't agree, the 180 isn't a great train either, apart from being unreliable the capacity isn't hugely better than a Voyager and the overhead racks are similarly tiny. The seats may be nicer but that's where it ends. They would have overall been worse for XC than Voyagers, but the reality is that 5 car trains should not have been ordered, and certainly not 4 car, they should have been 7 car minimum to start with. Overall, if I recall, Princess reduced capacity on XC slightly - even a 5 year old could have known this wouldn't work. With a considerable upgrade in service, passenger numbers would always have grown, and the 7 car Mk2 sets were often very busy too.
Idiotically the self same thing happened to TPE a few years later - the 185s should have been five car from day one, and the problem existed until new five car sets were procured. TPE however has slightly lower demand than XC - for XC that sweet spot is around seven.
The amount of cross-Northampton travel on these services (of which there is a lot, principally Euston to Birmingham) is of course down to the low fares.
25kV suburban layout EMUs are anything but scarce. There's a fleet 20 years old that might well end up scrapped, so much so that this nonsensical proposal for a Manchester to Northampton service has appeared above...
And a nationalised railway shouldn't be purely about money, rather about reducing road traffic. And as this budget market is more likely to drive a polluting older diesel car than a brand new EV...
For that matter why not barnt green to Kings Norton and round the Camp Hill?
The solution in my lifetime is probably to just sort out the staffing situation and start reliably running paired voyagers where both halves definitely always stay in service. You probably also need better local services combined with XC not stopping at Taunton, Wakefield or Worcestershire parkway
Electrifying the fast lines from Kings Norton to Barnt Green is part of the West Midlands upgrade.
When partial electrification is complete between Edinburgh and Aberdeen BEMUs can operate from Aberdeen to Wakefield/Doncaster on battery/electric. Battery power to Sheffield where cancelled MML electrification would have filled in Sheffield to Derby. Batteries would have taken BEMUs on to Birmingham, electricity would take them to Bromsgrove.
Electrifying Swindon to Cheltenham would help Paddington-Gloucester-Cheltenham trains run entirely on electric as well as allowing BEMUs to recharge from Cheltenham to Standish Junction then batteries to Winterbourne Junction, electric to Bristol Parkway and Bristol TM when GW electrification is filled in. Manchester to Bristol trains could also be BEMUs. Present Voyagers could operate Cardiff-Bristol-Penzance trains instead of 175s.
I know that would stop through trains to Devon/Cornwall but will save diesel train running under the wires.
Think how many gallons of diesel that will save considering 2 million gallons of diesel have been used under the wires on Manchester Airport-Windermere services since electrification to Windermere was cancelled in 2017. We are still waiting for bimodes Grayling promised us.
25kV suburban layout EMUs are anything but scarce. There's a fleet 20 years old that might well end up scrapped, so much so that this nonsensical proposal for a Manchester to Northampton service has appeared above...
And a nationalised railway shouldn't be purely about money, rather about reducing road traffic. And as this budget market is more likely to drive a polluting older diesel car than a brand new EV...
However inter-city DMUs are scarce and running diesels under wires is wasteful.
When a Labour government states clearly rail subsidy needs to reduce, you know what the rules of the game are.
A nationalised railway should be about minimising carbon emissions and efficient deployment of existing resources.
The bargain-basement WMR London - Birmingham fares are a current market inefficiency, where those passengers can be efficiently and inexpensively carried on Avanti and Chiltern. The WMR through passengers should not drive network design.
25kV suburban layout EMUs are anything but scarce. There's a fleet 20 years old that might well end up scrapped, so much so that this nonsensical proposal for a Manchester to Northampton service has appeared above...
No - the suggestion was put forward in order to deploy more of the diesel Voyagers on non-electrified parts of the XC network, and substituting them by emus not currently in use on the electrified section of the XC network between Manchester and Coventry, in order to relieve overcrowding on this network.
Extending these trains to Northampton by subsuming the Birmingham to Northampton section of the semi-fast LNWR Birmingham to London Euston service, was proposed in order to reduce the number of trains terminating at congested West Midlands stations and to take account of the limited capacity of the Birmingham to Coventry line.
As @Magdalia has suggested, Northampton is a logical place to split the slow LNWR Birmingham to Euston service, as relatively few passengers will be travelling through it, given that these services will be overtaken by faster direct Avanti trains that bypass Northampton.
However inter-city DMUs are scarce and running diesels under wires is wasteful.
When a Labour government states clearly rail subsidy needs to reduce, you know what the rules of the game are.
A nationalised railway should be about minimising carbon emissions and efficient deployment of existing resources.
The bargain-basement WMR London - Birmingham fares are a current market inefficiency, where those passengers can be efficiently and inexpensively carried on Avanti and Chiltern. The WMR through passengers should not drive network design.
Does the government really care that much about carbon emissions? I see any targets getting gradually put back further and although many care about the effects on the planet there are just as many who really don’t. Will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
As @Magdalia has suggested, Northampton is a logical place to split the relatively slow LNWR Birmingham to Euston service, as relatively few passengers will be travelling through it, given that these services will be overtaken by faster direct Avanti trains that bypass Northampton.
In practice, the market to ride trains through Northampton actually seems to be substantial, with passengers happy to take the cheaper option. However, I think that splitting the service would see some passengers 'trade up' to Avanti, and others content with the need to change.
Does the government really care that much about carbon emissions? I see any targets getting gradually put back further and although many care about the effects on the planet there are just as many who really don’t. Will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
If it does it needs to get them out of cars at the budget end of the market, thus the WMT Birmingham and Crewe services are some of the most valuable on the network.
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They aren't. There are 6 Voyagers unspoken for and 2 more with Grand Central only for a short time. These would be enough to resolve the issue, particularly if deployed intelligently i.e. portion worked so only the busy XC core has double units operating, while single 5 cars are usually enough at the peripheries (4s should only be used for strengthening, never alone). With these available the 350s are not needed.
If it does it needs to get them out of cars at the budget end of the market, thus the WMT Birmingham and Crewe services are some of the most valuable on the network.
If there is a 50-unit worth of total demand, running those 50 units would get more people out of cars than running 25 units. (Numbers are not intended to be taken literally)
In practice, the market to ride trains through Northampton actually seems to be substantial, with passengers happy to take the cheaper option. However, I think that splitting the service would see some passengers 'trade up' to Avanti, and others content with the need to change.
They aren't. There are 6 Voyagers unspoken for and 2 more with Grand Central only for a short time. These would be enough to resolve the issue, particularly if deployed intelligently i.e. portion worked so only the busy XC core has double units operating, while single 5 cars are usually enough at the peripheries (4s should only be used for strengthening, never alone). With these available the 350s are not needed.
Those 8 units will be a welcome respite (short term) but the crowding isn't likely to stop there (medium term).
As someone said upthread one Cross Country journey typically go through multiple local peaks. Having different portion workings at different locations would introduce timetable irregularities and poor performance - it'll be counterproductive.
If there is a 50-unit worth of total demand, running those 50 units would get more people out of cars than running 25 units. (Numbers are not intended to be taken literally)
That's why WMT are increasing a lot of Crewe and Birmingham services from 160m to 240m as more 730s come into use. The service is phenomenally popular as it gets the price point right for the leisure market. If paths are scarce around New St, binning off one of the two largely not very busy fast Avanti services would arguably be a better choice, as per what operated pre the 807s.
With 240m EMUs on hand, this is a much better budget people mover than Chiltern and their trains half the length if that.
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Those 8 units will be a welcome respite (short term) but the crowding isn't likely to stop there (medium term).
As someone said upthread one Cross Country journey typically go through multiple local peaks. Having different portion workings at different locations would introduce timetable irregularities and poor performance - it'll be counterproductive.
That's why WMT are increasing a lot of Crewe and Birmingham services from 160m to 240m as more 730s come into use. The service is phenomenally popular as it gets the price point right. If paths are scarce around New St, binning off one of the two not very busy fast Avanti services would arguably be a better choice.
That would make the timetable even more un-'takt than now and even French-like. That'd be a retrograde step. The starting point of any timetable change has to be clockface takt-like or at least takt-ready.
Actually, your assertion of 'not very busy' fast Avanti contradicts the idea that market segmentation has to be by WMR.
A nationalised railway should deploy resources in the most efficient manner. Cheap Advances on Avanti on fast services with spare capacity is more efficient than running a slow train.
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As @Magdalia has suggested, Northampton is a logical place to split the slow LNWR Birmingham to Euston service, as relatively few passengers will be travelling through it, given that these services will be overtaken by faster direct Avanti trains that bypass Northampton.
You appear to be another person unfamiliar with the south WCML. I'd suggest trying the service and rethinking that latter suggestion because it's completely false.
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That would make the timetable even more un-'takt than now and even French-like. That'd be a retrograde step. The starting point of any timetable change has to be clockface takt-like or at least takt-ready.
Not sure I follow. It was clockface - two trains per hour, one fast (terminating at New St) and one semifast (continuing to Scotland, providing better connectivity than now). Takt doesn't require everything to have the same stopping pattern - it's not Merseyrail. It just requires repeating patterns every hour or two hours.
Indeed the whole WCML is now pretty much "takt", some of it quite clever like the Marston Vale slotting in between useful connections to/from it.
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