Cross-country overcrowding: what could be done?

[cle]

I think the solution is an extra tph or two Birmingham-Leeds, only stopping at Derby, Sheffield and Wakefield. In my experience this is the most crowded section.
With the possibility of Chiltern bringing in the Moor Street - Oxford service which would alleviate pressure from that corridor, and LNWR's Manchester extensions adding capacity to that stretch, it looks like the future is bright(er) for XC.

I posted upthread, but there is a new Leeds-Wakefield-Sheffield only service. I'm not sure if you could get that down to Birmingham, and it's run by Northern - but even extending it to Derby or Nottingham (with a Chesterfield call) is adding frequency between many of the XC pairs. Nottingham being not one, but probably also a good addition (and still adds Chesterfield).

 

[FGWHST43009]

I posted upthread, but there is a new Leeds-Wakefield-Sheffield only service. I'm not sure if you could get that down to Birmingham, and it's run by Northern - but even extending it to Derby or Nottingham (with a Chesterfield call) is adding frequency between many of the XC pairs. Nottingham being not one, but probably also a good addition (and still adds Chesterfield).

I would concur, Plymouth-Edinburgh can lose Chesterfield, Trent Valley (aka Tamworth and Burton) and Wakefield stops. New St-Leeds could be around 1:45. Reading-Newcastle could be routed via Leeds while Trent Valley, Wakefield and Chesterfield would be moved to that train. Would need to be longer as it would fill up at those stops and would probably bring in more revenue than running via Doncaster

 

[NCT]

We should really resist the temptation of running additional short trains, or randomly taking out / adding in stops that mess with timetable structural integrity.

Given that there are 30-odd single unit diagrams and only (max) 8 spare units available, switching Birmingham - Manchester over to electric operation seems a neat way of allowing more double sets to operate on remaining routes.

There should not be any splitting / joining inside of Plymouth, Edinburgh and Southampton. The network is too busy to accommodate shunting moves / ECSs / hour-to-hour timetable variations. Ensure detaching portion arrives in time for attaching to the next service en route and not getting in the way of anything while hanging around is far too much risk.

 

[Bletchleyite]

With regard to terminating things at New St, if they need to lay over there for a while could they be shunted into the centre siding, or does that only fit one Voyager and nothing else?

 

[Tetchytyke]

Birmingham justifies a half hourly service on the fully electrified line to Northampton.
Birmingham justifies a half hourly service on the fully electrified line to Manchester. Don't overthink it.

Birmingham-Northampton and Northampton-London used to be separate services operated by separate TOCs. There is a reason why the two services were merged into what we have now.

On paper it makes some sense to turn everything around at Northampton, but that would just add inconvenience to passengers making a lot of intermediate journeys on the WCML. I know its a bit better now that Avanti (at least in theory) have the third London-Birmingham train which acts as a semi-fast, but there's still a lot of intermediate traffic (e.g. Hemel to Rugby) on WMR/LNR.

The existing Cross Country pattern works poorly at Birmingham. Despite all arms running 2tph (assuming the pre-Covid timetable gets restored somehow), most cross-Birmingham directions only have a 1tph opportunity to travel as the overlapping dwells are below the minimum interchange time of New Street.

The connection time at New Street is 12 minutes and on the base timetable the interchange works (e.g. the Newcastle-Reading arrives at xx28 and the Manchester-Bristol leaves at xx42; the Manchester-Bournemouth arrives at xx56 and the Edinburgh-Plymouth leaves at xx12).

Are XC embarking on a big recruitment drive to fix the issue of double sets having one unit locked out due to lack of a guard?

I have no idea what Arriva are doing, tbh. I'm not sure they do either.

The current issues have only arisen because XC's new Managing Director, Shiona Rolfe (appointed in March 2025), decided to stop paying the Retail Services Managers the extra responsibility payment. Voyagers have been operating in multiple without issue for 20 years with the RSM getting a small payment for being responsible. It's only since this change that we've started having the issues with them carting fresh air about.

Ms Rolfe's previous corporate experience was at Amazon, where she managed the warehouses fulfilment centres with their famously high employee welfare standards, and at Royal Mail, where she was a Service Delivery Director before she was gently invited to go and work for someone else after their disastrous Christmas 2022.

Maybe I'm being unfair, but I can't help but think that a much quicker and simpler solution to XC's woes would be to hand Ms Rolfe a cheque and send her back to Amazon.

 

[321362]

On paper it makes some sense to turn everything around at Northampton, but that would just add inconvenience to passengers making a lot of intermediate journeys on the WCML. I know its a bit better now that Avanti (at least in theory) have the third London-Birmingham train which acts as a semi-fast, but there's still a lot of intermediate traffic (e.g. Hemel to Rugby) on WMR/LNR.

And it does help that LNR is significantly cheaper than Avanti, of course, so many people (myself included) gravitate more towards it for London-Birmingham journeys

 

[Bletchleyite]

And it does help that LNR is significantly cheaper than Avanti, of course, so many people (myself included) gravitate more towards it for London-Birmingham journeys

Even were it not, people prefer direct journeys. You can't of course have direct journeys from everywhere to everywhere, but these are such major flows that the direct services do make sense. And they're the precise tidy half hourly pattern (give or take one having a Watford stop and the other not) that the Takt people want.

 

[Magdalia]

there's still a lot of intermediate traffic (e.g. Hemel to Rugby) on WMR/LNR.

In the origin destination matrix data there were 436 one way journeys Hemel Hempstead-Rugby in 2024/25. That's 1 or 2 journeys per day.

 

[DDB]

Thanks.

Umm, wouldn't you need 30 units to eliminate them all? But if you could portion work, you could presumably strengthen services where needed rather than sending a double set all the way to Penzance in winter even if that specific service would have ten people on it between there and Exeter.

Last time they strengthend some new unit strengthened 2 diagrams.
Where you had a 5 car unit diagram and a 4 car unit diagram, adding an extra 4 car sets allowed the 5 car unit to be put on the old 4 car diagram and an 8 car set (4+4) to be put on the former 5 car diagram.
If you consider only the standard class coaches one diagram goes from 4to6 and the other goes from 3to4.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Last time they strengthend some new unit strengthened 2 diagrams.
Where you had a 5 car unit diagram and a 4 car unit diagram, adding an extra 4 car sets allowed the 5 car unit to be put on the old 4 car diagram and an 8 car set (4+4) to be put on the former 5 car diagram.
If you consider only the standard class coaches one diagram goes from 4to6 and the other goes from 3to4.

Are there any single 4 car diagrams left?

 

[JonathanH]

Are there any single 4 car diagrams left?

Looks to me that most of the Reading / Birmingham to Leeds / Newcastle services are still 4-car diagrams (about four) based on this week's workings. A few 4-car workings also operate as part of diagrams that couple up with another 4-car earlier / later on.

 

[Jimini]

Looks to me that most of the Reading / Birmingham to Leeds / Newcastle services are still 4-car diagrams (about four) based on this week's workings. A few 4-car workings also operate as part of diagrams that couple up with another 4-car earlier / later on.

Aye. Also, plenty kicking around these parts (Reading) on the Bournemouth <> Manchester route as well. You do have to actively avoid them wherever possible!

 

[Essex Express]

The only way to address the over crowding is start again. The present XC option is not fit for purpose since it was formed when parts of central trains was added and parts given to other operators. In simple terms all services operated by the class 170 need to handed over to a different operator.

So working with the class 220 and class 221 only The remaining services need to start will building a route by route plan. Edinburgh to West Country needs more than 5 coach trains either 8, 9 or 10 car services how many units does it need plus maintenance. The start route add a second route from Bournemouth to Birmingham again how many units does it need then with what left what else can be operated. Better to run something well than badly as present. Cutting services running to Aberdeen just wastes units that is what Scotrail are there to provide keep to a basic and simple plan.

 

[FGWHST43009]

Looks to me that most of the Reading / Birmingham to Leeds / Newcastle services are still 4-car diagrams (about four) based on this week's workings. A few 4-car workings also operate as part of diagrams that couple up with another 4-car earlier / later on.

Are there specific services that are likely to be 4 car or is it just a lucky dip?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Aye. Also, plenty kicking around these parts (Reading) on the Bournemouth <> Manchester route as well. You do have to actively avoid them wherever possible!

I guess another 6-8 (9?) cascaded strengthenings (5->8 and 4->5) would be no bad thing then!

 

[NCT]

The connection time at New Street is 12 minutes and on the base timetable the interchange works (e.g. the Newcastle-Reading arrives at xx28 and the Manchester-Bristol leaves at xx42; the Manchester-Bournemouth arrives at xx56 and the Edinburgh-Plymouth leaves at xx12).

That's only in one direction. It doesn't work in the other direction:

Arr from Manchester: xx:33, dep to Reading: xx:33
Arr from Edinburgh: xx:06, dep to Bournemouth: xx:03

Arr from Bristol: xx:24, dep to Newcastle: xx27
Arr from Plymouth: xx:55, dep to Manchester: xx:01

Even were it not, people prefer direct journeys. You can't of course have direct journeys from everywhere to everywhere, but these are such major flows that the direct services do make sense. And they're the precise tidy half hourly pattern (give or take one having a Watford stop and the other not) that the Takt people want.

The Birmingham area timetable is not the precise tidy half hourly pattern despite almost all service groups running 2tph.

 

[321362]

Starting back from scratch, maximising efficiency:

Long distance:
- Cut back from Bournemouth to Southampton Central. SWR offer a perfectly reasonable service between the two. Run 2tph Southampton to Manchester, with a newbuild 7 car 8xx fleet.
- Cut back from Penzance to Plymouth. Again, there just isn't that much demand for XC services that GWR can't provide. 1tph Plymouth - Edinburgh via Leeds with 9 car variants of the newbuild 8xx fleet. Drop the occasional Burton and Chesterfield calls, as well as maybe Wakefield Westgate.
- Run 1tph Bristol - Newcastle via Doncaster, with 7 car 8xx. Calling at Chesterfield.
- Run an extra 1tph 7 car 8xx from Birmingham to Leeds calling at Tamworth, Burton, Derby, Chesterfield, Sheffield, Meadowhall, Wakefield Westgate and Leeds.
Nothing needs to go north of Edinburgh, that's what ScotRail is for.

Regional:
- Cut back from Stansted to Peterborough, and hand it over to GA who can run extra Stansted-Peterborough trains which I think should already exist. There isn't that much demand to go to Stansted from that direction anyway - people can change in London! 1tph Peterborough to Birmingham calling all stations.
- Cardiff to Cheltenham shouldn't be TfW in the first place, have it run as 2tph Cardiff to Nottingham (maybe 1tph terminating at Birmingham depending on capacity through Burton) calling at all stations except in the Worcester and Birmingham areas.

I'm sure people wiser than me can point out a thousand holes in this plan.

 

[Topological]

Starting back from scratch, maximising efficiency:

Long distance:
- Cut back from Bournemouth to Southampton Central. SWR offer a perfectly reasonable service between the two. Run 2tph Southampton to Manchester, with a newbuild 7 car 8xx fleet.
- Cut back from Penzance to Plymouth. Again, there just isn't that much demand for XC services that GWR can't provide. 1tph Plymouth - Edinburgh via Leeds with 9 car variants of the newbuild 8xx fleet. Drop the occasional Burton and Chesterfield calls, as well as maybe Wakefield Westgate.
- Run 1tph Bristol - Newcastle via Doncaster, with 7 car 8xx. Calling at Chesterfield.
- Run an extra 1tph 7 car 8xx from Birmingham to Leeds calling at Tamworth, Burton, Derby, Chesterfield, Sheffield, Meadowhall, Wakefield Westgate and Leeds.
Nothing needs to go north of Edinburgh, that's what ScotRail is for.

Regional:
- Cut back from Stansted to Peterborough, and hand it over to GA who can run extra Stansted-Peterborough trains which I think should already exist. There isn't that much demand to go to Stansted from that direction anyway - people can change in London! 1tph Peterborough to Birmingham calling all stations.
- Cardiff to Cheltenham shouldn't be TfW in the first place, have it run as 2tph Cardiff to Nottingham (maybe 1tph terminating at Birmingham depending on capacity through Burton) calling at all stations except in the Worcester and Birmingham areas.

I'm sure people wiser than me can point out a thousand holes in this plan.

For the regional, you could look to extend the present Nottingham to Birmingham onwards to Cardiff IF that was your goal. No need for anything additional at Burton. However, you are adding additional between Cheltenham and Birmingham, so that may be a challenge with the Midlands Hub path to add there too.

You would need GWR to have more capacity in Cornwall, but they do have an order coming soon so could tack a few more units on.

 

[BrianW]

Starting back from scratch, maximising efficiency:

Long distance:
- Cut back from Bournemouth to Southampton Central. SWR offer a perfectly reasonable service between the two. Run 2tph Southampton to Manchester, with a newbuild 7 car 8xx fleet.
- Cut back from Penzance to Plymouth. Again, there just isn't that much demand for XC services that GWR can't provide. 1tph Plymouth - Edinburgh via Leeds with 9 car variants of the newbuild 8xx fleet. Drop the occasional Burton and Chesterfield calls, as well as maybe Wakefield Westgate.
- Run 1tph Bristol - Newcastle via Doncaster, with 7 car 8xx. Calling at Chesterfield.
- Run an extra 1tph 7 car 8xx from Birmingham to Leeds calling at Tamworth, Burton, Derby, Chesterfield, Sheffield, Meadowhall, Wakefield Westgate and Leeds.
Nothing needs to go north of Edinburgh, that's what ScotRail is for.

Regional:
- Cut back from Stansted to Peterborough, and hand it over to GA who can run extra Stansted-Peterborough trains which I think should already exist. There isn't that much demand to go to Stansted from that direction anyway - people can change in London! 1tph Peterborough to Birmingham calling all stations.
- Cardiff to Cheltenham shouldn't be TfW in the first place, have it run as 2tph Cardiff to Nottingham (maybe 1tph terminating at Birmingham depending on capacity through Burton) calling at all stations except in the Worcester and Birmingham areas.

I'm sure people wiser than me can point out a thousand holes in this plan.

I do not claim any wisdom on this matter. However I could lay claim to such wisdom as may be attributed to years of life and associated experience
I have (no doubt slective) memory of BR days, well before its 'Balkanisation' as seen in this posting: XC, SWR, GWR, GA, Scotrail and TfW (and the rest); these matters were immaterial, tho 'Regions' and their basis in the 'Big 4' pre-1948. There always will be need to consider best use of stock, track, crew etc in relation to user (and potential user) needs. It's complicated.

GBR however offers opportunity to rethink provision without TOCs. Although change is unsettling and difficult to bring to fruition this is an opportunity on a scale that has not been possible to even contemplate for a long time. I appreciate that means a lot of opportunity for things to not go well. HS2, GW electrification, Castlefield, ECML 'new' timetable, give 'pause for thought' and loss of confidence. New Year is a time for renewed resolution, and boldness.

I think that proposals such as this, crayonistic as some may label them, are worthy of serious consideration at 'HQ'.

 

[FGWHST43009]

Starting back from scratch, maximising efficiency:

Long distance:
- Cut back from Penzance to Plymouth. Again, there just isn't that much demand for XC services that GWR can't provide. 1tph Plymouth - Edinburgh via Leeds with 9 car variants of the newbuild 8xx fleet. Drop the occasional Burton and Chesterfield calls, as well as maybe Wakefield Westgate.
- Run 1tph Bristol - Newcastle via Doncaster, with 7 car 8xx. Calling at Chesterfield.
- Run an extra 1tph 7 car 8xx from Birmingham to Leeds calling at Tamworth, Burton, Derby, Chesterfield, Sheffield, Meadowhall, Wakefield Westgate and Leeds.
Nothing needs to go north of Edinburgh, that's what ScotRail is for.

I would go Cardiff-Central-Edinburgh via Bristol Parkway and Doncaster and Plymouth-Newcastle via Leeds. Provides the best compromise of journey times and connectivity. Include a second Birmingham-Leeds skip-stopping with the Plymouth-Newcastle between New St and Sheffield with the Edinburgh running express.

If capacity is limited route Plymouth-Edinburgh and Reading-Newcastle via Leeds. Remove the Reading service north of York and run an extra TPE service. Between New St and York the Edinburgh would be express stopping at Derby and Sheffield while the Newcastle/York will stop additionally at Tamworth/Burton and Wakefield. A more frequent Birmingham-Leeds service will probably lead to higher revenue than going via Doncaster. If the Reading continues to Newcastle then Durham could be dropped from Plymouth-Edinburgh but would lose the direct Durham-Edinburgh connection. Extend Liverpool-Newcastle to Edinburgh then Plymouth-Edinburgh could lose Durham, Morpeth, Alnmouth and Dunbar with TPE picking those up.

Cut back from Penzance to Plymouth if GWR regional is timed to connect with XC at Plymouth, Newton Abbot or Exeter. Lose Totnes and Tiverton Parkway and fill those in by extending Cardiff-Exeter or Manchester-Bristol

 

[JonathanH]

Cut back from Bournemouth to Southampton Central. SWR offer a perfectly reasonable service between the two. Run 2tph Southampton to Manchester, with a newbuild 7 car 8xx fleet.

Bournemouth has better reversing facilities for the CrossCountry service than Southampton, but it would save a unit if the reversal was at Southampton.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think if you're ordering new units, just order enough of them for the entire long distance operation - maybe even think towards reinstating expansions that were lost to save units. A few more to put on Manchester Airport to Glasgow/Edinburgh wouldn't be bad too, the 5-car units used on those are not adequate and they often show "sold out" (and if you board one anyway using a flexible ticket they are heaving).

The 1990s "His/her/their <thing> may change, but he/she/they won't change trains"* slogan summed up what XC used to be for - people who really do value directness and comfort - and it could be that again even in its more frequent form. And some people clearly do value that - the Highland Chieftain seems to load well, at least!

* There were a few of them aimed at different markets, I can't remember them specifically but it was stuff like a poster showing a teenager who clearly had a million different relationships every 5 minutes with the slogan "Her boyfriends may change, but she won't change trains" - stuff like that, that might not have been a real one though, my memory is a bit vague - but it was a key part of the shadow TOC's marketing strategy for a significant period.

 

[Killingworth]

I think if you're ordering new units, just order enough of them for the entire long distance operation - maybe even think towards reinstating expansions that were lost to save units. A few more to put on Manchester Airport to Glasgow/Edinburgh wouldn't be bad too, the 5-car units used on those are not adequate and they often show "sold out" (and if you board one anyway using a flexible ticket they are heaving).

The 1990s "His/her/their <thing> may change, but he/she/they won't change trains"* slogan summed up what XC used to be for - people who really do value directness and comfort - and it could be that again even in its more frequent form. And some people clearly do value that - the Highland Chieftain seems to load well, at least!

* There were a few of them aimed at different markets, I can't remember them specifically but it was stuff like a poster showing a teenager who clearly had a million different relationships every 5 minutes with the slogan "Her boyfriends may change, but she won't change trains" - stuff like that, that might not have been a real one though, my memory is a bit vague - but it was a key part of the shadow TOC's marketing strategy for a significant period.

It takes years to gain regular travellers as word gets round. Jobs are taken based on times of trains. Homes are bought and sold similarly. (It was in about June 2020 that the Sunday Times recommended commuting from the Hope Valley, Dore and Sheffield into Manchester, clearly written prior to Covid when many were doing that - and are slowly returning.)

I recall a fellow Sheffield resident was regularly commuting by train to Birmingham 30 years ago. Removing stops at Chesterfield makes a south Sheffield resident like me question making trips to anywhere to the south-west. Going into Sheffield first or changing at Derby, Birmingham, Bristol or going via London may swing the balance against such a trip.

A previous favourite journey was from Sheffield to Newcastle, 20 minutes quicker via Doncaster. Sadly the benefit of that journey was/is largely negated by poor connectivity with trains from Dore at Sheffield so I usually go by car.

You can't please all the people all of the time!!

 

[The Planner]

Starting back from scratch, maximising efficiency:

Long distance:
- Cut back from Bournemouth to Southampton Central. SWR offer a perfectly reasonable service between the two. Run 2tph Southampton to Manchester, with a newbuild 7 car 8xx fleet.
- Cut back from Penzance to Plymouth. Again, there just isn't that much demand for XC services that GWR can't provide. 1tph Plymouth - Edinburgh via Leeds with 9 car variants of the newbuild 8xx fleet. Drop the occasional Burton and Chesterfield calls, as well as maybe Wakefield Westgate.
- Run 1tph Bristol - Newcastle via Doncaster, with 7 car 8xx. Calling at Chesterfield.
- Run an extra 1tph 7 car 8xx from Birmingham to Leeds calling at Tamworth, Burton, Derby, Chesterfield, Sheffield, Meadowhall, Wakefield Westgate and Leeds.
Nothing needs to go north of Edinburgh, that's what ScotRail is for.

Regional:
- Cut back from Stansted to Peterborough, and hand it over to GA who can run extra Stansted-Peterborough trains which I think should already exist. There isn't that much demand to go to Stansted from that direction anyway - people can change in London! 1tph Peterborough to Birmingham calling all stations.
- Cardiff to Cheltenham shouldn't be TfW in the first place, have it run as 2tph Cardiff to Nottingham (maybe 1tph terminating at Birmingham depending on capacity through Burton) calling at all stations except in the Worcester and Birmingham areas.

I'm sure people wiser than me can point out a thousand holes in this plan.

Basically anyone that wants to make a journey on one side of the "X" at New St is now forced to change?

 

[The exile]

That's a very narrow way to interpret takt. Taktfahrplan at the most basic means a timetable easy to understand and navigate.

Ie the German non-IC network (or at least its goal). The IC(E) offering is on top.

 

[NCT]

Ie the German non-IC network (or at least its goal). The IC(E) offering is on top.

That's such a cop out. When a corridor is (for sake of argument) 2 REs per hour and 2 ICEs per hour at similar journey times and good intervals, not giving passengers on ordinary tickets the full frequency benefit is lazy transport planning.

If you said 'only half the services are part of takt' to a Swiss or Dutch you'd be laughed out of court.

Why should Bielefeld - Dortmund suffer more restrictive travel than Groningen - Zwolle?

In a Cross Country context, excluding Cross Country services from turn-up-and-go travel for flows like Birmingham - Derby and Birmingham - Stafford would be a complete retrograde step.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That's such a cop out. When a corridor is (for sake of argument) 2 REs per hour and 2 ICEs per hour at similar journey times and good intervals, not giving passengers on ordinary tickets the full frequency benefit is lazy transport planning.

Quite the opposite. It's good planning in areas of high demand to avoid your long distance trains crowding out with local passengers, because you can save the cost of making those long distance trains really long because they're busy for about half an hour in a six hour run. As long as you provide adequate frequency of local trains, which Germany generally does. A lot of the problem with XC relates to the core, and particularly Wolves-Cov - in Germany that'd be 4 tracked and have a 6tph minimum S-Bahn service so the local passengers wouldn't need to be worrying about cramming onto XC.

All the services are part of Takt, there are only some overlays (stuff like the old Hamburg-Berchtesgaden through train which is a bit of an analogy of the Highland Chieftain (though of course that does sit in the Takt south of Edinburgh), and of course there are a few XC extensions.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

The issue with the Wakefield calls isn't that the trains call at Wakefield- it's that calling at Wakefield without any pick-up/set-down or other ticketing restrictions means they get swamped with Wakefield to Leeds passengers. Simply barring Leeds-Wakefield tickets (and PTE passes) from being valid would solve that problem as long as those restrictions were able to be enforced. Omitting the stop entirely hinders longer distance passengers who use Wakefield as a railhead.

 

[NCT]

Quite the opposite. It's good planning in areas of high demand to avoid your long distance trains crowding out with local passengers, because you can save the cost of making those long distance trains really long because they're busy for about half an hour in a six hour run. As long as you provide adequate frequency of local trains, which Germany generally does. A lot of the problem with XC relates to the core, and particularly Wolves-Cov - in Germany that'd be 4 tracked and have a 6tph minimum S-Bahn service so the local passengers wouldn't need to be worrying about cramming onto XC.

That's simply not true. Only a small handful of German cities have metro-like S-bahns on four-tracked infrastructure. Much of Germany and much of Rhine-Ruhr are like Cross Country - 2-track railway handling services of all speeds, and ICE's market is a hybrid of regional and long-distance. (Bielefeld - Hamm is 4-tracked but 2 tracks are exclusively freight, passenger services run mixed-speed on the other 2 tracks). Germany is not a good example to emulate.

For all its faults, British railways are an imitation of the Dutch system albeit a poor imitation in places. Frenchifying it is about the worst thing you could do.

The problem is that Wolverhampton only barely gets a 'metro' service only because every long-distance train calls there. The 2tph LNER and 1tph Cross Country are Wakefield's backbone service. The stopping services do not provide an adequate service level and there is no network capacity to run extra trains. Until HS2 is built, there aren't enough resources to segment passenger flows without massive social costs.

 

[AndrewE]

I do not claim any wisdom on this matter. However I could lay claim to such wisdom as may be attributed to years of life and associated experience
I have (no doubt slective) memory of BR days, well before its 'Balkanisation' as seen in this posting: XC, SWR, GWR, GA, Scotrail and TfW (and the rest); these matters were immaterial, tho 'Regions' and their basis in the 'Big 4' pre-1948. There always will be need to consider best use of stock, track, crew etc in relation to user (and potential user) needs. It's complicated.

GBR however offers opportunity to rethink provision without TOCs. Although change is unsettling and difficult to bring to fruition this is an opportunity on a scale that has not been possible to even contemplate for a long time. I appreciate that means a lot of opportunity for things to not go well. HS2, GW electrification, Castlefield, ECML 'new' timetable, give 'pause for thought' and loss of confidence. New Year is a time for renewed resolution, and boldness.

I think that proposals such as this, crayonistic as some may label them, are worthy of serious consideration at 'HQ'.

I think of this thread as "XC is grossly overcrowded and under-resourced... What can be done NOW?" so talk of new fleets, major reallocation of routes between TOCs etc is too far away, even if it could be the sensible outcome for us all in the longer term.

So obviously you put every Voyager you can find on to XC, upgrade the catering staff or just increase the staffing, whatever you need to do to make the maximum use of the stock and paths available,
Also transfer one of the Manchester Voyager paths to LNR / WMT to be run with currently-available EMUs and get the route learning done as quickly as possible. All of these have been dicussed upthread and are practicable

New rolling stock always seems to take a decade to arrive and even then there is a massive hit to output/efficiency for traction training.

I do hope that GBR sees this as a relatively easy win - if they have senior staff in Derby who are being affected peersonally then it might just happen!