And people take them to Birmingham, with far greater demand. If Crewe and Stoke are viable alternatives (I know Stoke is gone for now) - Manchester will be gangbusters. There was barely Trainline.com when Rio was up, I remember it vividly travelling from London to Manchester fortnightly at the time. Will be a massive disruption in a good way, hence all the exceptionalist hackles up.
A walk-up saver was 59ish in my heyday...and the hours of peak and off peak were not as scandalous and dishonest as today.
One thing to note here, Lumo cited air traffic as their main competition on the London-Edinburgh service, not LNER. Whilst there are flights between Manchester & London, these are less competitive with the train between the two time wise than with Edinburgh & London. The market for flights between Edinburgh & London is much higher than the market for flights between Manchester & London so provided Lumo a source of passengers to extract from rather than LNER.
There can't be much chance that Grand Central could match coach fares. Is there really a need for them to do so?
I doubt they could to keep the service viable. GC could be an attractive option for those looking for fares between the existing TOCs (Avanti, GWR) and coaches as a sort of middle ground.
Never heard it called Harecastle Jn in all my years. They are basically following right behind a fast path from what I can see.
Currently you can get a super off peak Bristol to London via Warminster and Salisbury for £33.50, or anytime is £55.20, which are flexible tickets but don't jump out as spectacular bargains, so perhaps there's something to be had there.
“Lol” etc…Well, it depends whose statistics you believe
dailybusinessgroup.co.uk
Perhaps and a proposed bi-hourly service isn't too limiting in terms of options.
Neither would GC, they'd be abstracting from Avanti, LNR splitting at Crewe and very unlikely coaches. It doesn't really make sense to fly Manchester - London with the intention of ending in London considering timings.
Well yes, they're not going to claim that they're abstracting from LNER.
Considering Lumo doesn't have a First Class offering, they'd primarily be abstracting leisure travellers from economy class. Any business travellers would likely go with LNER to make use of their First Class offering. These leisure travellers will be primarily focused on price rather than journey time.
There is also time added on for being at the airport much earlier than you would be at the train station so you can go through security and also bag drop (circumstances depending). Lumo would claim that they're providing new Newcastle - Glasgow journeys not competing with Avanti.
Could they reasonably claim that CrossCountry reinstating bihourly Glasgow services is a response to that?
Could CrossCountry claim that they're providing new Sheffield/Leeds - Glasgow journey options?
Depending on definition of new given that they're options they provided pre-Covid, yes.
I suspect the only news we'll hear about said routes is the ORR rejecting them for being downright bonkers.
They are pretty unreliable though, so not worth bothering with if you want a nice start to your holiday without an unexpected taxi journey to Heathrow at your own expense.
The ORR seems to be a bit to close to Network Rail sometimes, rather than act like an Independent regulator.
Saint Pancras could be a problem with there only being 4 platforms on the domestic terminal. I can forsee it passing revenue extraction testing though, with it calling at Wellingborough & Luton, where EMR services don't regularly call on the way to Derby. Uttoxeter is a sizeable town and the racecourse and nearby Alton Towers could bring in some custom.Moderator note: split from
Grand Central apply for Newcastle - Brighton direct
Application now made to ORR https://news.arriva.co.uk/news/arri...ect-newcastle-and-brighton-via-london-gatwick Arriva have posted the announcement on their website. Arriva Group has today announced it is submitting an open access application to the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) to introduce a...www.railforums.co.uk
If this is better off in a new thread, happy for this to be split, but went here as it's the same Open Access Operator.
According to the latest RAIL edition, GC have applied for two new OA routes, one from St Pancras-Manchester, and the other from Waterloo-Bristol Temple Meads.
The former is proposed to call at Luton Airport Pkwy (pickup/set down only), Wellingborough, Leicester, Loughborough, Derby, Uttoxeter, Stoke-on-Trent, Congleton, Macclesfield, Stockport and Manchester Picc.
The latter is Clapham Jct, Salisbury, Warminster, Westbury, Trowbridge, Bradford-on-Avon, Bath Spa, Bristol TM.
Both services have raised concerns about available paths (and platform space at St Pancras), as well as potential revenue abstraction.
If they were to be somehow approved, the 180s would transfer to the Manchester services when 820s are in service, while new stock would have to be procured for Waterloo-Bristol.
That assumes NR has the resource to fully evaluate the proposals. People aren't sat waiting for applications to arrive in their inbox.
Thats the point I intended to make (but I did it badly), if ORR are relying a bit on Network Rail then that is a close, rather than purely independent relationship, because an Independent person would ignore late submissions and treat it as no objection, and move to decision, not bias or delay their decision because one side (NR) has influence
If a decision isn't made by Christmas, my other point stands, not reasonable to take 5+ months to say yes or no.
You can't do that with critical national infrastructure, which I believe the railway qualifies as. It's not next doors planning application for a conservatory, it's generally something that will impact reliability on one of the country's trunk main lines.
