I think they should get their act together everywhere else before stretching themselves to breaking point adding more Glasgows to an already overloaded service through the core of Englands. Leave Scotland to Scotrail.
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December 2026 Timetable Change
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waverley47
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What an odd thing to propose. If they were an OA operation I'd assume it was an orcats raid, but asking the UK government to sign off on funding to send a unit, a driver, and onboard staff to shuttle to Glasgow and back with a stop at Shotts, on a Sunday, is certifiably bizarre.
The only reason I can think of is that they'd like to be able to use Shotts for diversions if necessary. LNER don't need to run services through Gainsborough and Hexham on a weekly basis for that.
waverley47
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They use the Shotts line daily at least once.
5C49 shuttles a unit back from Central daily, as and when the inbound service actually makes it to Central and isn't capped early at Waverley.
There are also one outbound diagram from Craigentinny in the morning, and a second return at night.* Crosscounty runs one more service terminating at Central daily than departing there, and 5C49 gets the spare unit back to Craigentinny.
* There has however been an effort on XC's part recently to stable the unit at Polmadie instead, and send the driver back on pass, and therefore it's more often than not that either or both of these other workings run instead to Polmadie.
It's very likely therefore that there would be a high proportion of XC drivers who would already sign Shotts, and definitely doesn't begin to explain why they want to send a unit from Craigentinny on a three hour jaunt to Central via Shotts and back, and back to the depot, every Sunday from the middle of December. And it definitely doesn't explain why they want the Government to subside it....
These are the paths that are already in the timetable from February, it's just the access rights for them that are currently out for consultation.
The paths via Shotts are really just there because there's no viable way of getting them a path though Motherwell. Odd considering these are only really putting paths that used to exist back, but there seems to have been a lot moved into the paths they used to use since they went.
The paths via Shotts are really just there because there's no viable way of getting them a path though Motherwell. Odd considering these are only really putting paths that used to exist back, but there seems to have been a lot moved into the paths they used to use since they went.
tom1649
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- 5 Jul 2010
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- 990
Yep, absolutely crazy that this is being allowed when capacity problems haven't been fully addressed elsewhere. It's not like there's a shortage of services between Glasgow and Edinburgh operated by Scotrail.
318266
Member
I don't think we should be so quick to dismiss the possibility of the English Government wanting to ORCATS raid the Scottish Government...
Though it depends on whether use ;or not) of a “spare” unit between Glasgow and Edinburgh has any bearing on the capacity problems elsewhere. If the set is in Edinburgh at the time it can’t alleviate capacity problems between Reading and Birmingham - whether it’s going to Glasgow and back or not.
The two hourly XC Glasgow extensions were put in becuase the LNER Glasgow extensions were taken out.
I think the LNER Glasgow service was just once per day, leaving Lumo as the only Newcastle to Glasgow service.
Latterly yes but when LNER took off the 2 hourly throughout the day service we were told that XC would fill that gap (in regular through services from Glasgow to York, Newcastle etc).
Yes, the genius of removing electric trains and replacing them with diesels under the wires.
There’s a brilliant environmental metric available for government right there but it would make UK transport strategies look terrible.
hexagon789
Veteran Member
The two-hourly Glasgow Central-Edinburgh-KX went when it was East Coast not LNER, under EC's 2011 'Eureka' timetable.
LNER and VTEC before them never offered more than one train per day to/from Glasgow.
Maybe I should have stated the "East Coast Franchise" instead of LNER. It's not my fault that they change the TOC name every 5 mins.
TT-ONR-NRN
Veteran Member
It was either National Express East Coast, or East Coast, I think. Before Virgin Trains East Coast, and sooner than GNER, anywayMaybe I should have stated the "East Coast Franchise" instead of LNER. It's not my fault that they change the TOC name every 5 mins.
Avenger20
Member
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It was East Coast. It changed in 2011 if memory serves.
hexagon789
Veteran Member
Maybe I should have stated the "East Coast Franchise" instead of LNER. It's not my fault that they change the TOC name every 5 mins.
It was either National Express East Coast, or East Coast, I think. Before Virgin Trains East Coast, and sooner than GNER, anyway
EC.
It was needed to free up 225s to increase the frequency of the King's Cross-Newcastle(-Edinburgh) semi-fast, which was a franchise commitment as I recall.
The Glasgows never loaded especially well after Virgin greatly improved the West Coast service in December 2008.
I rarely recall seeing loadings that even a 4-car Voyager would've struggled with in the latter days of the two-hourly 225 Glasgow service in about 2009 and 2010.
dk1
Veteran Member
Yes the much improved VWC Pendolino service to Euston was an hour faster than any ECML offering to London even if it wasn’t quite hourly initially. Peterborough & Doncaster and their connections however lost out on regular direct Glasgow services.