Grand Central apply for Newcastle - Brighton direct

[SuspectUsual]

Though where do people from that part of the world go if they want to see the sea? It's not close in any direction.

When I lived in the West Midlands as a child the UK seasides were went to were Weston and Aberdovey / Tywyn / Barmouth. My friends were the same. One lad on our street went to Tenby but I think there was a grandparent living down there

And that was before regular direct trains to the Cambrian, we just had the summer Saturday ones

 

[Bristol LHS]

Whist 5 trains a day is on average one every 3 hours and so quite a gap between services, it's not entirely unlikely that someone could be happy to turn up with more time at the airport booked on a train knowing that if the train doesn't turn up they can go and talk to someone and due to the conditions of carriage be likely put into a taxi at no extra charge to them.

That’s fine on your return journey but what about the outward? Given the likely reliability of this particular route, I suspect people aren’t going to risk an expensive flight/holiday on a 180 turning up on time (or they will do so once and never again!)

 

[Topological]

That’s fine on your return journey but what about the outward? Given the likely reliability of this particular route, I suspect people aren’t going to risk an expensive flight/holiday on a 180 turning up on time (or they will do so once and never again!)

And/or when booking a flight and knowing that flight might be late. Having to wait a long time for another of the 5tpd is going to be horrible.

It is bad enough trying to decide which of the hourly Paddington to Swansea trains to book on with landings at Heathrow.

 

[The Ham]

That’s fine on your return journey but what about the outward? Given the likely reliability of this particular route, I suspect people aren’t going to risk an expensive flight/holiday on a 180 turning up on time (or they will do so once and never again!)

And/or when booking a flight and knowing that flight might be late. Having to wait a long time for another of the 5tpd is going to be horrible.

It is bad enough trying to decide which of the hourly Paddington to Swansea trains to book on with landings at Heathrow.

Given that such a service would likely be slower than going via London, for the to the airport service you book the train before the one you need to get there on time. If that's cancelled you get the next train, if that's also cancelled then it's reasonable to request ticket acceptance on the faster trains via London (which should still get you there on time).

It all depends on pricing.

If you can get an off peak ticket on the direct service for the price of an advanced for the via London ticket (or at least a bit less than the off peak option) that's going to give you the flexibility for your return leg.

Of course, depending on the journey times, you may well be using the train to get to (or back from) an overnight hotel stay (especially if its an early morning departure or late night arrival for your flights) where a noticeably cheaper train ticket price might make the cost of the hotel stay a bit more palatable.

 

[Topological]

Given that such a service would likely be slower than going via London, for the to the airport service you book the train before the one you need to get there on time. If that's cancelled you get the next train, if that's also cancelled then it's reasonable to request ticket acceptance on the faster trains via London (which should still get you there on time).

It all depends on pricing.

If you can get an off peak ticket on the direct service for the price of an advanced for the via London ticket (or at least a bit less than the off peak option) that's going to give you the flexibility for your return leg.

Of course, depending on the journey times, you may well be using the train to get to (or back from) an overnight hotel stay (especially if its an early morning departure or late night arrival for your flights) where a noticeably cheaper train ticket price might make the cost of the hotel stay a bit more palatable.

The overnight hotel stay part is plausible, but it does extend the trip. In that case a lot would depend on the person who was travelling. I like the fact I can do most Heathrow flights with GWR. The cost of fixing an advance is usually only an hours extra wait at Reading/Paddington.

 

[XCTurbostar]

Re-reading this thread, I see that this article in the Rail Magazine hasnt been referenced:

Grand Central's Newcastle-Brighton service would "abstract £14m of CrossCountry revenue"

Network Rail has said that Grand Central’s proposed Newcastle – Gatwick Airport – Brighton service would “not be the best use of network capacity”.

www.railmagazine.com

Grand Central's Newcastle-Brighton service would "abstract £14m of CrossCountry revenue"​

CrossCountry (XC) has estimated that £14 million of revenue would be abstracted if Grand Central’s Newcastle-Brighton service was approved.
The operator has said the open access service – which would run via Doncaster, Sheffield, Birmingham New Street, Reading and Guildford – would “directly block the restoration” of its hourly Reading-Newcastle services which have been affected by driver training issues and industrial action.

 

[Minstral25]

Well we don't know what market Brighton has when getting to Brighton is a nightmare.

I would not expect there to be a market from anywhere north of Guildford/Reading for a direct Brighton train, but from Dorking, Reigate, Redhill and Horley there would be loads trying to avoid changing at Gatwick. It would need to be more regular than 5 times a day.

Living locally, I am aware of many who'd rather head to Brighton by car as changing trains at Gatwick is such a pain, especially in the evening.

Not reliably.

With 3 car DMU's definitely not, but what about when new Battery Electric units with decent and improved performance on the Third Rail are introduced - pretty sure there could be some reliable slots. Even GTR said they were looking at creating capacity from Coulsdon/Redhill/Horley slow lines to Brighton or Haywards Heath a few years back.

 

[Snow1964]

Re-reading this thread, I see that this article in the Rail Magazine hasnt been referenced:

Grand Central's Newcastle-Brighton service would "abstract £14m of CrossCountry revenue"

Network Rail has said that Grand Central’s proposed Newcastle – Gatwick Airport – Brighton service would “not be the best use of network capacity”.

www.railmagazine.com

Bit of a circular argument, not making best use of network capacity (you could say that about any train with less carriages), and there are shorter ones in Sheffield, and via Redhill etc. That argument should be fix capacity by eliminating shortest trains, not the open access one If it carries more.

As for revenue abstraction, basing a figure on XC inability (for 5 years) of restoring hourly Reading-Newcastle is rather cheeky. Not doing something then saying if you did would cost X is clutching at straws. If they restored the service then the reason might be justifiable, but as they haven't it isn't.

 

[Bald Rick]

With 3 car DMU's definitely not, but what about when new Battery Electric units with decent and improved performance on the Third Rail are introduced - pretty sure there could be some reliable slots. Even GTR said they were looking at creating capacity from Coulsdon/Redhill/Horley slow lines to Brighton or Haywards Heath a few years back.

Nope.

 

[cle]

I think Oxford-Gatwick would be better served as an hourly extension of the North Downs service - regular, all week guaranteed service - vs a sporadic service on an OA provider - or indeed how XC used to be. Oxford-Guildford might be a reasonably well-used new direct pair too.

If that service ever got to the desired 3tph (I know the more even 2tph to Gatwick is well regarded - but a fast pattern would be too) - that one would be a good candidate for Oxford. I wonder if a 5 car 800 could interwork with the Oxford-Bristol - the speed wouldn't be great on the NDL but historically that hasn't bothered other set allocations either.

 

[The Ham]

Bit of a circular argument, not making best use of network capacity (you could say that about any train with less carriages), and there are shorter ones in Sheffield, and via Redhill etc. That argument should be fix capacity by eliminating shortest trains, not the open access one If it carries more.

As for revenue abstraction, basing a figure on XC inability (for 5 years) of restoring hourly Reading-Newcastle is rather cheeky. Not doing something then saying if you did would cost X is clutching at straws. If they restored the service then the reason might be justifiable, but as they haven't it isn't.

Given that not all 5 coach trains are created equally:
Class 180 - 287 seats
Class 221 - 246 seats

That's an uplift of 16.6% andd that's assuming that XC don't run them as 4 coach trains with 200 seats, which would be an extra 43.5%.

However, if XC lose those paths to an OAO, then they would have extra units to strengthen other services. Does that abstraction figure take that on board?

As it could be that by not being able to run those services XC (or GBR when XC becomes part of that rather than run by the save parent company who are wanting this OAO route) actually could be financially better off.

For example to run 5 services a day it would appear that would require 2 diagrams.

Now, by having two extra units that could allow the following (assuming they are 4 coach units and we aren't going to use them to strengthen parts of a route):
1 Unit is paired with a 4 coach unit
The service run previously with that second unit is now run by a 5 coach unit
The 4+4 train is used to "cover" for the 5 coach unit with a cost saving of 1 fewer drivers
Repeat for the other released unit

That means:
Diagram A (was 4 coach now 5) +46 seats
Diagram B (was 5 coach now 4+4) +154 seats, but only requires 1 driver to run both units
Diagram C (OAO) +41 seats (even if was 5 coaches)
DiagramE (was 4 coach now 5) +46 seats
Diagram F (was 5 coach now 4+4) +154 seats, but only requires 1 driver to run both units
Diagram G (OAO) +41 seats (even if was 5 coaches)

That's 6 services with a minimum of an extra 482 seats for each direction each diagram runs. Chances are that's only 2 services per direction per day, however, that's still 1,928 extra seats (of which 1,600 are with XC).

However, the reducing in the number of drivers required to have those units in service means that it's actually more likely that XC could make a profit.

Let's say that the cost of per seat on a 4 coach train for having a driver is D100 (just a nominal number, so the D is Driver pay), that's D20,000 for the whole train for 4 coaches of 200 seats.

Now that same driver driving a 5 coach unit the cost for each seat drops to D81.30. Which means that even though the tickets they sell haven't reduced XC have seen the cost per seat of having a train driver reduce.

Now if that same driver is then driving a 4+4 train that reduces further and now the cost is D50.

The lease costs for XC are unchanged, they don't have to pay for the OAO stock, the fuel costs are likely to reduce a little (due to lower drag as a 4+4 train over 2x4 services), there might be some minor changes to track access costs (if the change to the diagrams results in a sightly higher or lower number of miles run), otherwise as far as I can tell the big cost difference would be that driver cost, which means that as long as the strengthen services are nearly as busy as the services that they could have been running then XC aren't actually going to be out of pocket and may actually generate more profit (even if their income is slightly down).

Given that drivers are likely to be in the range of 5-8% of XC costs, that's likely to be an overall limited saving.

That would mean (5%) that the drivers cost of D100 for a 4 coach unit would mean a train cost of T200,000. Which is a cost per seat S1,000.

Now, that seat price falls to £981.30, so now that means that XC can be carrying 5 fewer passengers than the maximum seating capacity and still cover the same perpercentage of costs as when it was a 4 coach train.

That's not much, but it does help.

When you look at the 4+4 train that seat cost is now S950 and so compared to running them as separate trains each unit only has to have 190 seats in use rather than 200 seats to cover the same percentage of the costs.

The reality is that the 5% of costs for drivers at XC is more likely to be when the trains are longer units/diagrams and so the driver percentage cost for a 4 coach train is more likely to be closer to 7% than 5%, meaning even fewer passengers are needed to cover the same percentage of costs.

With more capacity and able to get to 100% of their costs covered by selling fewer tickets, there could be a case for allowing the OAO to run the paths as it would put GBR in a better position (especially as it's not unreasonable to assume that the paths to Newcastle already in the timetable are fairly reasonable paths - as why run extra paths, even if the ECML timetable allows them, if the services are not going to generate the returns needed by being unprofitable?).

 

[NCT]

Since Cross Country is restoring most of the Reading - York/Newcastle services in May 2026, isn't the Grand Central application moot?

 

[Failed Unit]

To me if space existed I think the GTR Brighton - Rugby service was better (as it could go further north if desired) Lots of connection options as you head north. I know the point of this is for direct trains. However as many have already said most of the places it is proposed to stop north of Birmingham already have good connections to Brighton (although Sheffield and Derby my argue the connection at St Pancras isn’t the best)

 

[NCT]

Trying to run low-frequency everywhere-to-everywhere direct trains in metro land is a fool's errand.

 

[Minstral25]

Nope.

Really - 10 tph in each direction the limit after all those major engineering works supposedly improving signals and operations or at least that is how NR sold them to users. Disappointing and not what I am hearing elsewhere where the only issue is finding space at Brighton Station which is full. However, considering where you work, I guess you'll know better than most.

 

[duffield]

...

As for revenue abstraction, basing a figure on XC inability (for 5 years) of restoring hourly Reading-Newcastle is rather cheeky. Not doing something then saying if you did would cost X is clutching at straws. If they restored the service then the reason might be justifiable, but as they haven't it isn't.

That would be a reasonable case if the XC franchise was ongoing, but as it terminates in October 2027, the revenue extraction will not be from XC but from GBR - in other words the taxpayer and GBR fare payers - to a private company. I don't find that acceptable.

The likely result of revenue extraction to a private company is not that the GBR subsidy would increase, it's more likely that subsidies would be cut elsewhere and fares would rise and/or services would be cut. If GBR failed to restore the Reading-Newcastle services it would be a different matter, but I think GBR on behalf of the taxpayer should be given the opportunity.

Basically XC's past and current failures should be given zero weight in future planning given their impending demise.

 

[Bald Rick]

That would be a reasonable case if the XC franchise was ongoing, but as it terminates in October 2027, the revenue extraction will not be from XC but from GBR - in other words the taxpayer and GBR fare payers - to a private company. I don't find that acceptable.

As all XC reveneu goes to Government anyway, it makes no difference whether it is XC running it or DfT.

 

[duffield]

As all XC reveneu goes to Government anyway, it makes no difference whether it is XC running it or DfT.

True. But it still stands that the poor performance and past failures of XC should not be visited on the taxpayer or GBR farepayer in the future through revenue extraction. It's just that that equally applies if that revenue extraction starts before next October or after.

 

[Snow1964]

True. But it still stands that the poor performance and past failures of XC should not be visited on the taxpayer or GBR farepayer in the future through revenue extraction. It's just that that equally applies if that revenue extraction starts before next October or after.

That's completely wrong from a basic economic viewpoint. The fact that current operator didn't deliver means they don't deserve to continue indefinitely.

I get the bit about being reincarnated as GBR but if say 99% of the staff are staying then it's like asking a leopard to change its spots, nothing will really change, so why should taxpayers continue to fund a sub-standard service.

Since Cross Country is restoring most of the Reading - York/Newcastle services in May 2026, isn't the Grand Central application moot?

They keyword you have used is most, not all. Saying the application should be rejected because someone else is going to do half a job (well part of a job, but not all) is not a sensible valid reason.

If XC had 100% reacted to potential competition by concentrating its resources on doing its job fully, then there is a case for disallowing completion. But it couldn't be bothered / too poorly run / isn't up to the job (delete as appropriate), then there is no case to stop competition.

 

[duffield]

That's completely wrong from a basic economic viewpoint. The fact that current operator didn't deliver means they don't deserve to continue indefinitely.

I get the bit about being reincarnated as GBR but if say 99% of the staff are staying then it's like asking a leopard to change its spots, nothing will really change, so why should taxpayers continue to fund a sub-standard service.

...

The 1% who will likely go are the upper management who appear to be responsible for many of XC's problems. And the taxpayers will be landed with a bigger bill than ever if revenue extraction by a private company is allowed.

 

[Clarence Yard]

XC are Government controlled and have been since 2020. The private sector involvement is just being the DfT’s managing agents, however badly or well they do it. When XC is taken over fully next year, 100% of their staff will transfer, unless some of the directors bail out or get pushed out (usually for a very large fee).

The ORR cannot just take anybody else’s existing rights away so if XC get their extra rights authorised, that will drive a further nail into the coffin of this application. When you do an OAO application it is relatively easy to keep your projected abstraction (note - abstraction, not extraction) at reasonable levels because you can easily get your revenue figures up to the 30% generation level. You don’t apply unless you have done this.

Where OAO applications sometimes come unstuck on abstraction is the absolute effect on key flows. That is a determining factor for the ORR. Too much and you will get bounced.

 

[The Ham]

That would be a reasonable case if the XC franchise was ongoing, but as it terminates in October 2027, the revenue extraction will not be from XC but from GBR - in other words the taxpayer and GBR fare payers - to a private company. I don't find that acceptable.

The likely result of revenue extraction to a private company is not that the GBR subsidy would increase, it's more likely that subsidies would be cut elsewhere and fares would rise and/or services would be cut. If GBR failed to restore the Reading-Newcastle services it would be a different matter, but I think GBR on behalf of the taxpayer should be given the opportunity.

Basically XC's past and current failures should be given zero weight in future planning given their impending demise.

As I pointed out earlier today, XC (or GBR) may actuality be financially better off by losing some of their paths to an OAO if it allows them to run longer trains (requiring a slightly reduced number of drivers) whist the corridor (even if XC only strengthened services away from that route) would still see extra seating capacity.

As such it's not as simple as should XC only restore the full timetable, but rather, is it actually better to look at enhancing the timetable (as per the OAO proposal)?

If XC aren't able to do that enhancement, but can benefit (actually be financially better off) from others doing so by stepping aside from 5 services a day then surely that's better?

Or put it another way, whilst XC may miss out on £15 million of income over 5 years, is that better to have than giving that up and getting £15.5 million of income but also saving £0.5 million in costs?

Obviously I don't know the actual values, but I think that it's worth considering that abstraction (whilst important) may not be the only thing which should be considered.

 

[Llandudno]

Since Cross Country is restoring most of the Reading - York/Newcastle services in May 2026, isn't the Grand Central application moot?

But how many of them will actually operate…?

 

[MontyP]

Since Cross Country is restoring most of the Reading - York/Newcastle services in May 2026, isn't the Grand Central application moot?

Still only 10 per day northbound with gaps in the hourly pattern at 0745, 1345 and 1645. Last service at 1845. What was the last one when it was the full hourly service pre-Covid?
And only 9 per day southbound.

 

[Solent_Desiro]

Since Cross Country is restoring most of the Reading - York/Newcastle services in May 2026, isn't the Grand Central application moot?

No because they're not going to Brighton which is what this proposal aims to do

 

[NCT]

No because they're not going to Brighton which is what this proposal aims to do

The Brighton bit is a gimmick. The core of the proposal was to back fill the core paths (York - Reading) that were at one point seemingly being abandoned by Cross Country / DfT.

 

[The Planner]

No because they're not going to Brighton which is what this proposal aims to do

Yes if they are expecting to use the paths north of Reading.

 

[Snow1964]

This thread has now been running for over a year.

Is it reasonable for a regulator not to make a decision within a year, not rejected, not accepted either. If this was something like a planning application would be able to appeal for non-determinism after 3-4 months.

Why is the rail regular allowed to ignore applications and not determine within a reasonable timescale.

 

[The exile]

This thread has now been running for over a year.

Is it reasonable for a regulator not to make a decision within a year, not rejected, not accepted either. If this was something like a planning application would be able to appeal for non-determinism after 3-4 months.

Why is the rail regular allowed to ignore applications and not determine within a reasonable timescale.

There are two words in there doing a lot of lifting:’”ignore” and “reasonable”.

 

[Snow1964]

There are two words in there doing a lot of lifting:’”ignore” and “reasonable”.

I accept Ignore is not really right word, but couldn't think of a single word that effectively means treat with very low priority, anything but expedite