There used to be a combined London-Stoke + bus + park ticket, and this is far closer. I am sure it wouldn't hurt demand if marketed well, same with the racetrack (23-25 races per year) - admittedly mostly day trips but might be spread across 1-2 days.
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Grand central apply for new routes
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anthony263
Established Member
Just seen a few screenshot of their application for the Bristol Tm to Waterloo service basically a 2 hourly frequency which was better than what south West trains ran. It was a popular service especially if you wanted cheaper fares to london and didn't fancy national express.
Megabus even offered some cheap rail fares on it under the megatrain brand. It was also handy for south London etc.
Ive attached a screenshot of the Proposed timetable
Megabus even offered some cheap rail fares on it under the megatrain brand. It was also handy for south London etc.
Ive attached a screenshot of the Proposed timetable
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danielhogg2005
Member
Is there one for the Manchester Piccadilly - London St Pancras route?
Those turnaround times at Waterloo are awfully tight, especially 1O01 to 1V02. Doubly so when a 180 is involved.
anthony263
Established Member
Ive not seen it yet im afraid
ExRes
Established Member
Anyone remember Project Rio? some of the trains were busy but the majority could have been operated under the Marie Celeste branding, the paths were at the expense of the normal stopping service not additional in any way, if this a serious proposal they must be looking for a tax write off
TastyMaltesers
Member
I'm not sure that I see either of these being particularly workable. Stoke-on-Trent is already a bottleneck and as such NR have defined a capacity limit in the TPR which is already very close to being or has been reached, and I struggle to see the Waterloo trains as being anything other than purely abstractive.
The Planner
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Those limits on NW5009 have been there for years and years, they have just been rewritten for clarity. We are a long way from hitting 13tph in each direction there.
Farigiraf
Member
Should note that Bristol-London via Salisbury low-cost fares do still exist, with both flexible and advance options.
GC's proposed service is only about 15-20 mins faster than the hourly 1-change option off the xx:22 GWR from Bristol and serves a lot fewer stations.
So any new growth would be obtained through either bargain basement fares or attracting travellers who refuse to ever change trains (noting that neither CLJ or WAT are in the City or West End, so you'd still have to change for the tube there). Though I expect passengers who are fine with journey times over an hour slower than GWR Intercity are also fine with changing trains.
Neither of these will reach the 30% new growth threshold.
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I do.... and I don't believe it has any bearing on whether an alternative London-Manchester routing would work today. Many things succeed now that didn't, in what is a completely different time, in terms of how we all live, work and communicate. No relevance.
Population growth has been massive since that short term, badly advertised service out of a then-backwater terminus. Manchester's economy, city centre population, jobs growth - all of these things would see higher usage than a moment 20+ years ago.
If Chiltern can maintain Moor St through much smaller intermediate points (Birmingham also has LNR) - why can't a second option to as large a market not work?
also - People maintain that e.g. Doncaster or Middlesbrough or random places like Cleethorpes or Barrow need a direct service to Manchester, but Leicester and Derby (bigger places, Derby much closer) don't?
The Planner
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They don't, they happen to go through places that Cleethorpes and Barrow customers need to get to and then pick up those who need Manchester such as Preston and Sheffield.
Had a bit of a poke around Network Rail's site and have found a few bits and bobs, some posted, some I think not. Main thing (to me anyway) is the proposed St Pancras - Manchester timetable that I've not see before. Intrigued at the 0735 departure from Piccadilly, Avanti might have a few issues considering they also have an 0735 departure...
But there's also the Form P for Waterloo - Bristol (doesn't seem to be one for St Pancras - Manchester) and also the F3s (the proposed working timetable) for both proposed services.
The Form P for Waterloo - Bristol summarises the application as follows:
But there's also the Form P for Waterloo - Bristol (doesn't seem to be one for St Pancras - Manchester) and also the F3s (the proposed working timetable) for both proposed services.
The Form P for Waterloo - Bristol summarises the application as follows:
TastyMaltesers
Member
I notice from the F3s that the Waterloo-Bristol timings are based on a class 159 (90mph) rather than a 22x (125mph), which potentially increases the possible options for rolling stock.
Frees up the 180s to break down at St Pancras or Manchester...
The journey took approximately 3 hours and 20 minutes. It ran continuously from Leicester to Stockport without any stops. While it was often quiet, it occasionally became quite crowded.
I wonder if line upgrades implemented since 2003 would significantly reduce this travel time and at least offset the increased number of calls between Leicester and Manchester. Even with it not going via Hope.
InTheEastMids
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The Manchester timetable has 3 northbound departures at the same time as current EMR departures to Nottingham - e.g. 1005.
So, for instance, the 1005 EMR IC to Nottingham would need to leave earlier, in which case so does the 1002 Sheffield. And without tweaking Thameslink timetables, that would be even more prone to catching up a TL service around Harpenden. There's not really scope to go later as the 1005 IC has a TL service 3 minutes behind it at West Hampstead TL.
All this increases the chance that both EMR IC catch up with the 0945 EMR Connect around Wellingborough.
Others have mentioned platform capacity at St Pancras platform, but passenger-side, on busy days you get a lot of people milling around the P1-4 gateline because the Nottingham & Sheffield services are flighted together. Adding a potential additional 50% of people also feels like a recipe for chaos. I think we'd see more managed queuing.
Out of the detail, the main thing I like is improved East Mids to Manchester/Northwest connectivity. I'm sure EMR were at one point threatening to do something like this with an additional Nottingham-Crewe.
Snow1964
Established Member
Isn't any high speed on the route, from memory fastest is some 100mph Brookwood-Basingstoke and part of Bath-Bristol, but majority is 70-90mph, with few slower sections
A local (unsubstantiated) rumour in Trowbridge and Bradford on Avon areas is they are looking at 769s that GWR improved, but then didn't use.
Timetable requires 3 trains, with about 10-15 minute turnaround at Waterloo and about 45 at Bristol. 2 overnight Salisbury (suggested to run empty to Eastleigh for servicing) and third overnights in Bristol area
TastyMaltesers
Member
I thought this rumour related to Go-op?
anthony263
Established Member
I think k they also looked at them
Agreed, there are a few new things here other than London - Stockport and Manchester competition.
Leicester - Stockport/Manchester
Derby - Stockport/Manchester
Congleton and Uttoxeter to London direct
Wellingborough - Leciester/Derby/Manchester
Luton Airport Parkway - all points (aside from W'boro)
It's a good set of new direct journey opportunities. Might end up more like a XC service with rotating pairs and seat occupation than end to end.... much how the Marylebone-Birminghams can be - with hubs and demand into either end at peaks/offpeak.
The Planner
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Its a proxy to make the timetable aspect robust. No running times for 22x will exist for that route.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Unless this is a dirt cheap ticket, most of those destination pairs are quicker on other services.
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Depends on the part of the hour, and also it's old as time that direct services are more appealing for many. Saving 10 mins by going via Nuneaton or Sheffield isn't a draw. Or pootling on the Norwich-Liverpool. That competition is the car, frankly.
Provide a better service / fare / experience and it's differentiated IMO. I know you chaps don't agree in competition on the railways really. And may all become moot with GB.
But - iin many cases the above variables might stimulate new journeys - or take them from car / bus / plane as applicable. London-Manchester is pretty sewn up in rail - but I think fares are offputting (ie people don't drive, they prob cancel discretionary trips!) - so the price would be the stimulant.
So it's not just attrition / cannibalizing rail incumbents, it's competition against other modes (which has ethical gains - eg if Lumo displaces an EZ flight) - or instigating new travel entirely too.
But - iin many cases the above variables might stimulate new journeys - or take them from car / bus / plane as applicable. London-Manchester is pretty sewn up in rail - but I think fares are offputting (ie people don't drive, they prob cancel discretionary trips!) - so the price would be the stimulant.
So it's not just attrition / cannibalizing rail incumbents, it's competition against other modes (which has ethical gains - eg if Lumo displaces an EZ flight) - or instigating new travel entirely too.
I suppose it'd be interesting to see how it stack up without the abstraction or any Manchester / London custom - Only advertise the trains in London as going to Stockport, and pretend to terminate at Luton from Manchester.
Farigiraf
Member
Have there been any open access applications before with a 50/50 abstraction/new growth split or better? As in theory, such routes would provide value to passengers both through the tax bill and the train fare.
For example an OAO running a Marchwood-Southampton shuttle (random example) would likely primarily bring new users onto the railway. Though the model of open access competition sort of is that OAOs make use of already developed corridors that don't need more investment in them, and then up the service offering, which is where you get the abstraction issues. If an OAO had to take it upon themselves to upgrade the infrastructure on an underused line and then attempt to grow that line, then they can no longer offer bargain basement fares, and the operating model fails.
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But isn’t there also a sense of: if a market genuinely has two routes, which can be differentiated in many ways and it is not a finite market - why would you need to hide it?
Birmingham has three operators, and Chiltern is a different London terminus and mainline entirely, like this. Some ECML places have multiple operators. Why is this different? It’s the golden goose monopoly but no other reason.
Farigiraf
Member
While in theory trying to price the GC London-Manchester service to incentivise e.g. Luton Airport-Derby, Loughborough-Manchester or Congleton-London passengers would bring more growth, chances are that they'll instead release a trainload of fares that undercut Avanti (An anytime single london-Manchester on avanti, even half-price, is still expensive) and fill their services with more profitable London-Manchester travellers. It's certainly worth looking at how many advances e.g. Grand Central release for London-York compared to London-Durham Coast.
One thing to consider is how did the fare income compare between a TOC with open access competition vs one without.
For example Avanti saw growth of 6.8% for 2023/24 to 2024/25, and it has limited longer distance competition (yes to Birmingham there's a lot, but beyond there it's not got a lot of competition.
Conversely LNER has several OAO's who compete with it for long distance travel, it saw revenue growth of 8.7% for the same period.
Likewise if we compare pre covid (2018/19) Avanti is at 75.0% whilst LNER is at 86.6% of fare income (it's also worth noting that LNER fell to a low of 12.7% of pre covid fares whilst Avanti fell to 11.5%).
That includes the time when Lumo introduced their services in October 2021.
Likewise, the year 2021/22 to 2022/23 Avanti saw growth of 27.9% whilst LNER saw growth of 30.5%, which covers the specific year which Lumo started services.
Therefore, if OAO they are abstractive rather than growing the market fare income should be negatively impacted and yet it appears that LNER appears to be out performing Avanti.
Whilst there's multiple other factors which can impact these numbers (and to be fair there's a range of growth across TOC's, so each will preform differently) it does appear that OAO's aren't overly negatively impacting LNER.
For example Avanti saw growth of 6.8% for 2023/24 to 2024/25, and it has limited longer distance competition (yes to Birmingham there's a lot, but beyond there it's not got a lot of competition.
Conversely LNER has several OAO's who compete with it for long distance travel, it saw revenue growth of 8.7% for the same period.
Likewise if we compare pre covid (2018/19) Avanti is at 75.0% whilst LNER is at 86.6% of fare income (it's also worth noting that LNER fell to a low of 12.7% of pre covid fares whilst Avanti fell to 11.5%).
That includes the time when Lumo introduced their services in October 2021.
Likewise, the year 2021/22 to 2022/23 Avanti saw growth of 27.9% whilst LNER saw growth of 30.5%, which covers the specific year which Lumo started services.
Therefore, if OAO they are abstractive rather than growing the market fare income should be negatively impacted and yet it appears that LNER appears to be out performing Avanti.
Whilst there's multiple other factors which can impact these numbers (and to be fair there's a range of growth across TOC's, so each will preform differently) it does appear that OAO's aren't overly negatively impacting LNER.