-
Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Cross-country overcrowding: what could be done?
- Thread starter absolutelymilk
- Start date
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
And they would have a point. But that doesn't answer "and what is your plan to fix this?"
Challenging short-haul flights doesn’t stop what they’re doing being cherry-picking. At the level it’s happening on the ECML (where demand is also growing) it is currently probably of little significance but ultimately it’s the only way the business model will work.
There's around 30 passenger services with 8 or more coaches which are run by XC as they call at Birmingham today.
Taken from here:
Those which are 9 coaches or Longer (times are at Birmingha)
0603 to Edinburgh, 9 coaches - full length throughout
0703 to Edinburgh, 9 coaches - full length throughout
1706 Edinburgh to Plymouth, 9 coaches Edinburgh to Bristol where it splits
1807 Edinburgh to Plymouth and Cardiff, 9 coaches Edinburgh to Gloucester where it splits
2200 from Plymouth, 9 coaches throughout
Although it's worth highlighting that whilst a 7 coach 80x would be an uplift in capacity only by 13% (less than the 18% GWR had for the change from the HST's)
To split some services, the mixed 5/9 fleet can do that more easily than the proposal for the mixed 5/7 fleet as there would only be 11 sets with 5 coaches and 4 of those would be needed to run the above and 2 would be needed for maintenance/spares.
For the 5/9 fleet it's less of an issue as there's more 5 coach sets and if needed the proposal could order 6 extra coaches (still be 4 coaches below the 5/7 fleet) and gain 2 extra units to allow those two services to run as is (it would reduce the number of 9 coaches to 18).
Of course, the other issue with the 5/7 fleet is that what is to be done if there's a need for more capacity?
It's unlikely that the number of 5 coach sets could be reduced. Extending to 9 coach sets have been argued against, having done so why would that now be fine?
Also, it creates a messy fleet to have a mix of 5, 7 and 9.
If the option is to get more 5 coach sets to run on pairs, that's a larger order (as each 5+5 running rather than 9 coaches is an extra coach and ideally the order would need to give a reasonable number of units so the order isn't just thing to aid 5 diagrams) and you end up with 5, 7 and 9 (equivalent) capacity services, which gets messy.
With the 5/9 coach sets there's still plenty of 5 coach sets which could be lengthened to add capacity and every so often (say every 6 or 7 sets) an extra 5 coach train could be added to give more options to run services which split along the route.
Just in Long Rock the cost to resolve the issues there was £20 million - that's quite a limited amount over a 27 year train life (not much more than the operating cost of 1 coach per year - £745,000 vs £600,000). Whilst not a small cost a reasonably insignificant one in the grand scheme of things (342 coaches would broadly have a £200 million per year cost to operate for a TOC).
Trainbike46
Established Member
A 7-coach 80x is a 13% uplift compared to what? As the 80x has more seats per coach, it can't be in comparison to a 4/5-coach 22x, so is this relative to an 8, 9, or 10 coach 22x?
LLivery
Established Member
He would, but that would at least put pressure on the answer being given pronto. And the odds of that answer being 'no' feels to be almost zero, just like sense prevailed last time.
Well tbf, I never said profitable. We all know that the railway isn't profitable overall, but I don't believe for a second that we couldn't the fill the majority of Intercity trains at 8-9 cars if we really wanted to. It wasn't long ago, the MML had 8 car HSTs every hour at very good fares to Nottingham, now we've got short MUs and mad fares. I cant seriously believe that the cost wouldn't be worth the expenditure of a few extra units already built.
BA basically run an hourly flight between LHR and Edinburgh. Around 2m people fly that annually. 1m take train, no idea how many drive. While Lumo are cherry picking, Lumo don't need to cherry pick to fill. Many many people would take the train over flying if the fare is right. It wasn't long ago it was agreed that the max train time people willingly put up with was 4 hours, and that night trains were dead across [Western] Europe because of flights and HSR. Now look, they're filling 7+ hour, 250+ meter day trains, let alone night. Italo are planning a massive high frequency expansion in Germany, too. If we had the capacity, open access would be far more frequent here.
Exactly.
Trainman40083
Established Member
I was shocked recently when data came out (can't remember where from)..It was about Sheffield to London travel...so mostly EMR. Rail had about 5% market share. Car usage was the vast majority, with coaches picking up some. So much potential, with the right offering/price. But so little capacity to do anything. I could imagine it is the same with Cross Country flows.
LLivery
Established Member
Ha, I had just edited to mention Nottingham. Yup. The market share rail has for Intercity travel is tiny - far too small. The idea there's not enough Intercity demand between major cities in most cases isn't true. We're a country of 68m, with very busy roads between lots of urban areas, of course there's demand.
Iskra
Established Member
To save time and money by avoiding re-training crews on a new traction type, therefore easing the crowding situation sooner.
Trainman40083
Established Member
Demand at the right price. I mentioned Sheffield. The same will apply to every main station.. Okay nowhere near enough capacity if a percentage turned to rail. I guess there are two markets. One where cost is the key driver. Hence coach, car, Lumo Trains etc. Another where journey experience is also key.
That stat looks sus.
My recollection from HS2 literature is that on major city - London intercity flows (like Manchester to London) rail already had a dominant mode share against other modes.
If rail already has a commanding share on Manchester - London at 3tph, it’d be extremely odd that 2tph Sheffield - London only carried only 5% of the market.
Trainman40083
Established Member
I am trying to remember where it came up.. Possibly when First Group wanted to run open access trains Sheffield to Kings Cross. If that data had been wrong, their whole business case would have collapsed. I can well believe that Manchester to London, rail has a dominant share, certainly since Branson put the Pendolinos on. But they have 11 coach trains, Sheffield 5 coaches serving maybe more Cities.I wish I'd kept the First group report at the time
Killingworth
Established Member
I've lived in Sheffield for, a very long time. I've never taken the train to London from Sheffield station - but I've taken it very many times from Chesterfield. London is a massive conurbation and many decades ago I'd happily drive through to places like Croydon. More recently I'd use the M25. Most of my journeys were for business within fairly easy reach by tube, taxi or walking from St Pancras/Kings Cross. I still prefer to walk round Central London and wouldn't know where to go or to park if I took the car today.
5% of market share maybe, but that must be to all places, say, within the M25 and from the wider city of Sheffield. I confess I might have used the train to get to family in Essex once, all other journeys by car.
No, that answer would be a long distance punt into some very long grass. So many MPs raise questions about local matters, get a bland answer, and the story goes nowhere. There is no reason to believe that this would be any different.
Trainman40083
Established Member
I am about 30 miles South. People talk of how they park at certain Underground stations and catch the tube from there. Trying to think what Sheffield to London is by train. 2 hours? But how could rail become the dominant mode?
The 8 car sets are irrelevant because a seven car Avanti-spec 80x has 26% more seats than an eight car Voyager in a far greater level of comfort, without the risk that the passengers all cram in to one unit and are unable to spread out into the other because there's no gangway. These 8 car sets roughly make up 10 unique diagrams today.
So two diagrams. To which my proposal would add a handful of seats on those two diagrams, 10 diagrams increase by 26% in capacity and 23 diagrams double in capacity because a seven car 80x replaces a single Voyager. The remaining 9 diagrams (which will be five car 80x replacing four car 220 on the likes of the Reading-Newcastles) increase in capacity by 50%. It spreads the extra capacity around the network, which is important because XC serves a complicated range of busy flows.
Your proposal increases the two already better-equipped diagrams by 33% and eight of the still reasonably-equipped diagrams by 50%. Great news if you happen to be on those particular services. However XC isn't the sort of compact network where it's easy to target longer trains at peak flows like the NSE operators do, it's a complex operation that sprawls across the country, with a mixture of commuter traffic (to multiple hubs), leisure and business travel. So for those not on those 10 trains, you have shortened two eight car 220s into a five car 80x, which if even if you use TPE's high density seating plan on offer represents a 16% cut in capacity on those two trains, or if you want your long distance passengers to actually enjoy their journey it's a 25% cut. Meanwhile the other 32 diagrams get either a 63% increase (for the handful which are replacing a solo 220) or 33% (for the majority replacing a 221).
If you've got a budget for 40-odd 9 coach sets plus a dozen fives then by all means I've no objections. What I'm objecting to is having a very unbalanced fleet where the capacity will often not be in the right place at the right time. However if - for the purposes of this discussion - you want to restrict vehicle numbers to the present fleet size then your proposal targets the capacity increase unevenly, generally adding further strengthening to services which were already doing OK, while not doing so much for the many services which are struggling. My proposal on the other hand spreads capacity evenly across the services which are struggling.
If the Reading-Newcastles are busy enough then you would start by extending those to seven coaches to match the rest of the fleet. If not then you can leave them alone and extend the sevens to nines. Yes, you might (if the purse strings are tight) decide to only do half of the remaining fleet for the Manchesters and leave the NE/SW half alone (or vice versa). When Avanti has a mixed fleet of 5/7/9/11 car units (with variations in who signs what, which units can work where, and which units have to obey what speed restrictions) then I can't get too worked up about it in respect of a fleet that all drivers would sign and which can go anywhere on XC's network.
Snow1964
Established Member
Let's put some real numbers on XC Trains, taking most recent accounts at Companies House
TRANSPORT UK EAST MIDLANDS LIMITED filing history - Find and update company information - GOV.UK
TRANSPORT UK EAST MIDLANDS LIMITED - Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, officers, charges, business activity
find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk
Accounts are year to 31 March 2025, but more recent ORR quarterly data to 31/3/26 shows 10% growth in passenger km in a year (5% further distance, 5% growth in passenger numbers), so likely year to Mar 2026 will be about 10% extra
Year to Mar2025 Turnover £521.8m
Per note 5 franchise subsidy £-28.2m (paid back, not received)
and £-4m subsidy adjustment (ie appears refunded £32m subsidy to Govt)
They also received £2.9m fixed fee income and £6.7m for performance
After paying out subsidy, the net loss was £0.37m
Interest & financing received and paid was £5.1m gain
So with interest, had profit before tax of £4.5m
After paying £1.3m Corporation Tax, profit was £3.2m
So common myth, that XC are a heavily subsidised basket case, appears not to reflect in numbers, it actually appears they pay Government
What about current finances?
even if assume fares didn't change, the 10% growth suggests revenue now closer to £575m, but as fares went up Spring 2025, income probably nearer £600m
That suggests probably making a surplus of £35-40m before having to pay subsidy (which because it is paid out rather than received, might be easier thought of as a levy, rather than negative subsidy)
So could XC afford to lease more trains ?
Handily note 18 in accounts tells us how much was paid in lease liabilities £43.9m. They have around 400 carriages, so around £110k per vehicle per year. Leasing costs appear to be only about 8% of the costs
If were to take on say 30 extra vehicles (perhaps 6 x 5car 221s for example) then would not be needing extra subsidy based on extra income.
Of course if have bigger fleet, need more staff, and staff costs of £146m are about 28% of their costs, so maybe the real problem is the failing to sort the crew in both sets, and regularly leaving one locked out.
Let's put some real numbers on XC Trains, taking most recent accounts at Companies House
TRANSPORT UK EAST MIDLANDS LIMITED filing history - Find and update company information - GOV.UK
TRANSPORT UK EAST MIDLANDS LIMITED - Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, officers, charges, business activity
Accounts are year to 31 March 2025, but more recent ORR quarterly data to 31/3/26 shows 10% growth in passenger km in a year (5% further distance, 5% growth in passenger numbers), so likely year to Mar 2026 will be about 10% extra
Year to Mar2025 Turnover £521.8m
Per note 5 franchise subsidy £-28.2m (paid back, not received)
and £-4m subsidy adjustment (ie appears refunded £32m subsidy to Govt)
They also received £2.9m fixed fee income and £6.7m for performance
After paying out subsidy, the net loss was £0.37m
Interest & financing received and paid was £5.1m gain
So with interest, had profit before tax of £4.5m
After paying £1.3m Corporation Tax, profit was £3.2m
So common myth, that XC are a heavily subsidised basket case, appears not to reflect in numbers, it actually appears they pay Government
What about current finances?
even if assume fares didn't change, the 10% growth suggests revenue now closer to £575m, but as fares went up Spring 2025, income probably nearer £600m
That suggests probably making a surplus of £35-40m before having to pay subsidy (which because it is paid out rather than received, might be easier thought of as a levy, rather than negative subsidy)
So could XC afford to lease more trains ?
Handily note 18 in accounts tells us how much was paid in lease liabilities £43.9m. They have around 400 carriages, so around £110k per vehicle per year. Leasing costs appear to be only about 8% of the costs
If were to take on say 30 extra vehicles (perhaps 6 x 5car 221s for example) then would not be needing extra subsidy based on extra income.
Of course if have bigger fleet, need more staff, and staff costs of £146m are about 28% of their costs, so maybe the real problem is the failing to sort the crew in both sets, and regularly leaving one locked out.
Thank you for this 'forensic' look into 'the figures'. Sadly experience tells me 'not to let the facts get in the way of the required (DFT/Treasury) answer'.
ScotRail's HST are not near life expiry. They ARE life expired. There's chronic corrosion and with no-one else left operating HSTs, the supply chain of parts has disappeared. Every day of ScotRail keeping the HSTs is a day ScotRail is unable to run the timetable.
In any case, this is all irrelevant to Cross Country's needs. The whole point is Scotland doesn't need to justify whether it's more or less worthy than Cross Country. You don't need every single need in society to be queued up in a central decision tree to be decided by a single central planning committee.
The best demand and supply signals are individual agents' willingness to enter into commercial transactions. The nice thing about this model, is that the Scottish government doesn't need to lobby a supreme arbiter that's ill informed.
It's not hyperbole - it's a real issue. The actual real-life operating framework is a pluralistic one where multiple competent agents can make independent procurement decisions. The 'if only the 222s could be diverted from Scotland' line ignores that independence - it suggests if were up to those posters they would take that independence away. This discussion point illustrates perfectly why TS, TfW and TfL's rail operations have refused to be folded into GBR.
The ironic thing is that, in such a 'supreme arbiter' world, the only body who can fulfil this role are the DfT / Treasury duo (or whichever three letters of the month the fully owned quango wants to be called), who have consistently not expanded Cross Country's capacity.
And what do you think Scotland is doing? They are exercising their legal and fiscal powers in making an active decision to procure the 222s. That IS taking accountability. What sort of accountability do you expect them to take? Go on TV to have a public wrist slapping from Westminster?
I’m well aware that the Scots have exercised their independence from DfT to do this. While I’ve some questions about the detail of their choice, I’ve no criticism of their making it. Ditto Lumo West Coast.
On the other hand, DafT have sat on their hands and failed to make a decision about the operation they do act as controller of.
Viewed as part of a national network, where government are taking a strong controlling position, I do criticise DfT for not managing priority.
I reiterate that my view is that the right answer would be replacement of all the fleets involved, addressing a number of major issues.
This is all well and good, but it's ignoring the elephant in the room, ScotRail are only taking the 222's because they chose to take almost life expired HST's that were being retired en masse south of the border for a reason, it was never a sensible, long term solution, as the old saying goes, buy cheap, buy twice...
And that's Scotland's decision to make and consequence to take. That's what devolution means. It doesn't not invalidate their right to make procurement decisions. What they choose to do in the open rolling stock market completely within their legal and fiscal rights and completely transparently has nothing whatsoever to do with Cross Country.
I'm not suggesting any of the above isn't true, I shared an opinion on where I personally think the 222s would be best suited and would offer the greatest overall benefit to the UK as a whole, in the speculative discussion area of the forum.
You disagree, that's fine, everyone is entitled to their opinion.
They remain parts of a single network. And my criticism is of DfT for not using their authority to act in a timely manner; a decision that a) was worse for the network as a whole and b) has locked in delay to long term replacement of three highly inefficient fleets
In appearance, not in legality.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
The opinion you and others has shared is also a desire for a logical sequence of events.
In the spirit of speculation, the logical follow-up question is then what needs to be true in order for that sequence of events to be possible. And the logical answer to that is rowing back of devolution.
That is a fundamental point, not one that can just be hand waved away. This point needs hammering home given the pervasiveness of that viewpoint on this forum.
Last edited:
Presumably the DfT would have been free to bid for the 222 fleet when the lease with EMR was ending had they so wished. They didn't, Lumo and ScotRail did, so here we are. The DfT can't even get the off lease 221s to XC in a sensible timeframe.
And then accepting that the HSTs are cooked, if not the 222s, what would ScotRail have had as an option? New builds, presumably. Notwithstanding what they've done, that would probably actually be the best option - they don't actually need 125mph on the internal services, do they?
And then accepting that the HSTs are cooked, if not the 222s, what would ScotRail have had as an option? New builds, presumably. Notwithstanding what they've done, that would probably actually be the best option - they don't actually need 125mph on the internal services, do they?
Exactly. I doubt the DfT ever considered the 222s for Cross Country.