60 minute journeys from New Street?

[VItraveller]

there are a number of large towns and cities that are just over 60 minutes away by rail from Birmingham New Street, Milton Keynes and Leicester are just under, Bristol can be done in 75 minutes though usually it’s closer to 80, Nottingham is 74 minutes and sheffield AndOxford as well.
Should it be a goal of network rail to reduce these journey times to fit within the 60 minute mark, would that encourage more people to shift from road to rail, it would be good from a marketing perspective anyway.

 

[The exile]

there are a number of large towns and cities that are just over 60 minutes away by rail from Birmingham New Street, Milton Keynes and Leicester are just under, Bristol can be done in 75 minutes though usually it’s closer to 80, Nottingham is 74 minutes and sheffield AndOxford as well.
Should it be a goal of network rail to reduce these journey times to fit within the 60 minute mark, would that encourage more people to shift from road to rail, it would be good from a marketing perspective anyway.

I doubt. I am unique in thinking that as a traveller I would rather resources were devoted to increasing the likelihood of trains departing on time and taking the advertised time to run the journey than shaving nominal minutes off a schedule that becomes even harder to maintain.

 

[SynthD]

It should be highlighted whenever a project would achieve that, but it shouldn’t be the motivation for the project. Some of those could only happen by reducing the service to minor stations on the way, which is no real improvement.

 

[Magdalia]

There is nothing significant about 60 minutes, except that we conventionally measure time by dividing the day into 24 hours each 60 minutes long.

The analysis done as part of route selection for East West Rail suggested that the key journey time for travel to work is about 45 minutes. Reducing journey time to below 45 minutes brings journeys within commuting range.

From the perspective of growing the economy in Birmingham, the journeys to give priority to for faster journey times are those that are currently a bit longer than 45 minutes, but could be speeded up to faster than 45 minutes.

 

[NCT]

*cough* HS2 *cough*

 

[The exile]

There is nothing significant about 60 minutes, except that we conventionally measure time by dividing the day into 24 hours each 60 minutes long.

The analysis done as part of route selection for East West Rail suggested that the key journey time for travel to work is about 45 minutes. Reducing journey time to below 45 minutes brings journeys within commuting range.

From the perspective of growing the economy in Birmingham, the journeys to give priority to for faster journey times are those that are currently a bit longer than 45 minutes, but could be speeded up to faster than 45 minutes.

As with all “journey time” discussions, concentrating on the station to station journey time is missing half the point as what is significant is the passenger’s door-to-door time.

 

[The Planner]

there are a number of large towns and cities that are just over 60 minutes away by rail from Birmingham New Street, Milton Keynes and Leicester are just under, Bristol can be done in 75 minutes though usually it’s closer to 80, Nottingham is 74 minutes and sheffield AndOxford as well.
Should it be a goal of network rail to reduce these journey times to fit within the 60 minute mark, would that encourage more people to shift from road to rail, it would be good from a marketing perspective anyway.

Getting the journey time down from Nottingham has long been an aspiration, you could do it now if you wanted to avoid Derby. Sheffield is nigh on 60 minutes on the Reading Newcastle XC services. Oxford around 65 minutes on the same services. I don't see how you can get close to 60 for Bristol without running non stop and with some significant infrastructure interventions.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Northampton, if it counts, should be do-able. Just need to shave a minute (or two) off typical journey times from B'ham New Street.

 

[Magdalia]

As with all “journey time” discussions, concentrating on the station to station journey time is missing half the point as what is significant is the passenger’s door-to-door time.

Yes and no. For each individual journey you are right, but, in aggregate the station to station journey time is what matters, because the door to station and station to door times average out across all journeys.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I would prefer to improve the turn up and go mentality. Improve the frequency rather than shave a few minutes off the journey time. That is just me!

 

[duffield]

Getting the journey time down from Nottingham has long been an aspiration, you could do it now if you wanted to avoid Derby. Sheffield is nigh on 60 minutes on the Reading Newcastle XC services. Oxford around 65 minutes on the same services. I don't see how you can get close to 60 for Bristol without running non stop and with some significant infrastructure interventions.

Yes, Nottingham is a prime candidate since it has another significant advantage beyond just the journey time. Missing out Derby on an existing service would be wrong since the Derby to Birmingham capacity is clearly needed - but I believe there's an aspiration to add a third hourly service between Nottingham and Birmingham, possibly running into Moor Street, and if this ran fast end to end, avoiding Derby (via Sheet Stores to Stenson junction which is already used as a passenger diversion route) you could get the journey down noticeably below 1 hour (I think I worked out a possible time around 50-55 minutes non-stop without infrastructure upgrades - obviously subject to finding a path!).

This would be very attractive to end-to-end travellers and so reduce the pressure on the existing Nottingham to Birmingham via Derby services and also on the long distance North East to South West cross country services between Derby and Nottingham, all of which suffer from various degrees of overcrowding, extreme overcrowding at times. So it would benefit many people (including those from the skipped Derby) beyond those who actually used the new service since they would be more likely to get seats on the existing services.

If the new service didn't turn out to be sufficiently used to fill the trains reasonably even at peak times, a stop or two could be added for which ever of Wilnecote, Tamworth and Burton currently creates the most pressure on the existing services due to people commuting into Birmingham.

 

[A S Leib]

I think that the biggest benefit in (reliable) minor time reductions would be if it enables connections to be timed better. Somebody from Nottingham will likely think that a 65- or 57-minute journey to Birmingham will last around an hour, but that could be a big difference to a Mansfield to Birmingham passenger if the only way to make the connection work is by having the Birmingham train leave five minutes later.

 

[The exile]

I would prefer to improve the turn up and go mentality. Improve the frequency rather than shave a few minutes off the journey time. That is just me!

That was basically my point about the door to door journey time. Not much good shaving five minutes off my train journey if I have to spend those 5 minutes in the rain at a shelter less bus stop.

 

[Acathater]

XC services out of Birmingham are already saturated with people using them for commuting e.g. from Oxford, Stafford. Bring places like Reading and Bristol within one hour commuting of Birmingham and the overload will increase from what is already extremely unsatisfactory to something untenable.
Commuter traffic to Birmingham needs taking off the XC network and transferring to its own dedicated network

 

[Topological]

XC services out of Birmingham are already saturated with people using them for commuting e.g. from Oxford, Stafford. Bring places like Reading and Bristol within one hour commuting of Birmingham and the overload will increase from what is already extremely unsatisfactory to something untenable.
Commuter traffic to Birmingham needs taking off the XC network and transferring to its own dedicated network

Reading is likely to be HS2

The problem becomes that if you take commuter traffic off XC then what are you left with?

I do believe that post HS2 Manchester to Birmingham should be an EMU service like Liverpool, I would say do it now but there are problems at the moment.

Birmingham - Bristol is exactly what CrossCountry does imho.

 

[Shrop]

I've previously advocated on this forum that Oxford could and should be under an hour from Birmingham, if only XC didn't insist on stopping all trains as often as they do.
If trains ran as they do in many foreign countries, then of course there would be trains that stop at International, Coventry, Leamington and Banbury, but there would be a service at least once every two hours, running non stop to Oxford.
There are many other examples throughout the UK where services with less frequent stops could and should operate. When XC services are so often overcrowded, with blatant passenger demand, there is no excuse for not running an improved service.

 

[The Planner]

I've previously advocated on this forum that Oxford could and should be under an hour from Birmingham, if only XC didn't insist on stopping all trains as often as they do.
If trains ran as they do in many foreign countries, then of course there would be trains that stop at International, Coventry, Leamington and Banbury, but there would be a service at least once every two hours, running non stop to Oxford.
There are many other examples throughout the UK where services with less frequent stops could and should operate. When XC services are so often overcrowded, with blatant passenger demand, there is no excuse for not running an improved service.

Is there that much proven latent demand currently? Currently there are around 130000 journeys in both directions from Oxford to Birmingham per annum. Divide that by 363 and its averaging around 350 in total a day. Divide that by the 48 services in both directions a day its 8 per train. Even if the third train per hour materialises post HS2, its still going to stop at Banbury, Leamington and probably Warwick Parkway and Solihull.

 

[Shrop]

Is there that much proven latent demand currently? Currently there are around 130000 journeys in both directions from Oxford to Birmingham per annum. Divide that by 363 and its averaging around 350 in total a day. Divide that by the 48 services in both directions a day its 8 per train. Even if the third train per hour materialises post HS2, its still going to stop at Banbury, Leamington and probably Warwick Parkway and Solihull.

How do you prove latent demand? Many new road schemes are built with the claim that they'll address future demand for years to come, only to become overused very quickly. It's a very inexact science, which transport modellers often get hopelessly wrong.
One thing is for sure though, XC services are often uncomfortably crowded, so improvements are very likely to be beneficial and it's well worth an attempt.

 

[The Planner]

How do you prove latent demand? Many new road schemes are built with the claim that they'll address future demand for years to come, only to become overused very quickly. It's a very inexact science, which transport modellers often get hopelessly wrong.
One thing is for sure though, XC services are often uncomfortably crowded, so improvements are very likely to be beneficial and it's well worth an attempt.

Disagree, it will just mean any residual services that stop at stations start carting about fresh air.

 

[Russel]

Not sure I see the point here.

Loads of extra work, cost and opportunities for things to go wrong for little to no real world benefit.

 

[jfollows]

1O74 07:44 Manchester-Brighton was my service to Oxford in 1980 (http://www.1s76.com/1S76 1979.htm) which ran non-stop New Street to Oxford 09:21-10:31. It ran until 1983, but I don’t think a similar service ran in either direction since then.

 

[Shrop]

Disagree, it will just mean any residual services that stop at stations start carting about fresh air.

My first job was in Worcestershire in the early 1980s, where the County Surveyor was presented on his retirement, with a copy of the letter he had sent to the Department of Transport some years earlier.
This letter was saying the M5 MUST be 3 lanes each way otherwise it simply wouldn't cope with the latent demand. The DoT over-ruled him and it was built with 2 lanes each way. As he left it was being widened at huge cost, but the DoT knew best and had to pay the consequences.
Okay, railways aren't quite the same, but neither are they vastly different. People want you travel and get to places quickly and efficiently, to which end Birmingham-Oxford isn't well satisfied when all trains stop four times en route, ie less than 15 miles per stop on average.
When so many XC trains along this route are overcrowded, your assertion of carting about fresh air is pretty pessimistic.
For the record I'm writing this on a Strasbourg-Paris train. No intermediate stops in over 270 miles and almost every seat occupied. UK planning has much to learn.

 

[jfollows]

I remember the early M5, my grandparents lived in Cheltenham and I lived through the M6-M5 construction period through Birmingham, a major improvement once finished, but even then the M5 seemed inadequate at 2 lanes. Late 1960s and early 1970s.

 

[SynthD]

For the record I'm writing this on a Strasbourg-Paris train. No intermediate stops in over 270 miles and almost every seat occupied. UK planning has much to learn.

Make Oxford the capital city at the centre of a star network? Otherwise, it's not a valid comparison, nothing on CrossCountry will be because of why that TOC exists. Some Birmingham to Oxford trains only stop twice. When Chiltern add trains to that route, they'll stop more.

 

[A S Leib]

For the record I'm writing this on a Strasbourg-Paris train. No intermediate stops in over 270 miles and almost every seat occupied. UK planning has much to learn.

That's not entirely a fair comparison when Reims, Metz and Nancy are the only major settlements in that distance (a straight line from London to Carlisle, a similar distance, would pass closer to Leicester, Nottingham, Sheffield and Huddersfield than LGV Est does to the latter two), and there's some gaps of over an hour between services.

 

[30907]

For the record I'm writing this on a Strasbourg-Paris train. No intermediate stops in over 270 miles and almost every seat occupied. UK planning has much to learn.

Strasbourg-Paris runs at random intervals because it is cobbled together from 3 or 4 different routes and relies on another 3 to serve the cities it bypasses.
It has an equally random collection of semi-fasts serving the parkway stations en route to the far end of the country.
Clearly designed to pack the punters into the minimum number of trains

To be fair, most TGV routes operate a less erratic pattern.

 

[Falcon1200]

Currently there are around 130000 journeys in both directions from Oxford to Birmingham per annum. Divide that by 363 and its averaging around 350 in total a day. Divide that by the 48 services in both directions a day its 8 per train.

I am very, very surprised by those figures; Whenever I join a northbound or alight from a southbound XC service at Oxford there are always considerably more than 7 other passengers doing the same! Not all travelling to or from Birmingham of course but a fair proportion must be, either heading to or from Birmingham itself or connecting there.

 

[A S Leib]

I am very, very surprised by those figures; Whenever I join a northbound or alight from a southbound XC service at Oxford there are always considerably more than 7 other passengers doing the same! Not all travelling to or from Birmingham of course but a fair proportion must be, either heading to or from Birmingham itself or connecting there.

Leamington Spa has more journeys from Oxford than Birmingham New Street (74,000 vs 64,000, but Leamington's up 54% in a year so split ticketing might be a large effect), and Banbury's 260,000.

 

[The Planner]

I am very, very surprised by those figures; Whenever I join a northbound or alight from a southbound XC service at Oxford there are always considerably more than 7 other passengers doing the same! Not all travelling to or from Birmingham of course but a fair proportion must be, either heading to or from Birmingham itself or connecting there.

Its just dividing the numbers by the stats available. Its not exactly scientific.

 

[LittleRedTrain]

As a Banbury resident whose journey to New St is currently just under 60 mins, I'd happily accept a few minutes longer on the journey time if there was a regular reliable 2tph service, of at least 8 coaches, and last trains late enough that I could go to an evening event in Birmingham any day of the week and still get home afterwards!

Unfortunately, in the other direction (to London), I've seen journey times increase (fastest train from Marylebone is now 10mins slower than pre-Covid) without any additional benefits to compensate.