Alternative options for the 'via West Mids' Avanti service

[Philip]

Could it potentially work better if both London-WCML-Scotland services went direct through the Trent Valley, with the Manchester via Crewe going via Birmingham? There are sizeable markets of different towns and cities north of Crewe which would welcome two fast London services per hour instead of effectively only one, since going via Birmingham adds so much time to the journey. The big drawback would be the loss of direct Preston/Scotland to Birmingham services, but this would be cushioned with good connection opportunities at Crewe and Stafford (if one called here).

Sending the Manchester via Crewe through Birmingham would be cushioned by the addition of an extra Manchester to Birmingham service, which would be well appreciated. This could also be done in conjunction with LNR sending their London-Crewe service onwards to Manchester, possibly with much cheaper fares than using Avanti; so Manchester to London would be made up of 2 x fast services, 1 x semi-fast with cheaper tickets and 1 x slow but with a new Birmingham connection within it.

How do you think the opportunities of this proposal weigh against the drawbacks?

 

[JonathanH]

Could it potentially work better if both London-WCML-Scotland services went direct through the Trent Valley, with the Manchester via Crewe going via Birmingham?

You are essentially asking whether London to Glasgow should be two equally fast trains each hour. That only concerns Birmingham's link with Glasgow inasmuch as how many trains can run each hour over the Northern part of the WCML.

One train per hour from each of London, Birmingham and Manchester makes sense if there is only room for three trains each hour, plus the occasional Liverpool to Glasgow service.

There are sizeable markets of different towns and cities north of Crewe which would welcome two fast London services per hour instead of effectively only one, since going via Birmingham adds so much time to the journey.

The needs of Warrington, Wigan and Preston can be served in part by additional Trent Valley trains from London to Blackpool or Lancaster.

Sending the Manchester via Crewe through Birmingham would be cushioned by the addition of an extra Manchester to Birmingham service, which would be well appreciated.

So journeys from Wilmslow to London are slowed down? Do these passengers change at one of Crewe or Stafford for London? Also Birmingham (and further south) to Scotland passengers change at Crewe?

Isn't it CrossCountry's role to try to justify improving the Manchester to Birmingham service?

How do you think the opportunities of this proposal weigh against the drawbacks?

The drawbacks are more than the opportunities.

 

[Bletchleyite]

No, because it would mean the loss of Birmingham's main service to Scotland.

 

[Nottingham59]

How do you think the opportunities of this proposal weigh against the drawbacks?

Having a Glasgow-London service via Birmingham is an excellent way for Avanti to segment their customers into a premium segment who are prepared to pay through the nose (usually on expenses) for the fastest service, and a price-sensitive segment who would never pay business prices but still provide valuable revenue with Advance fares.

By fill existing capacity on Glasgow-Birmingham and Birmingham-London trains, the cost to Avanti of enabling through running via New St is relatively low, so even the price-sensitive flows can make an economic return.

Running two fasts down the Trent Valley would add to Avanti's cost base, and would compromise their ability to extract extortionate fare revenue from the business traveller.

 

[jfollows]

I wouldn’t welcome this, that’s for sure.
Wilmslow is something of a railhead, I guess, and adding 1 hour to the time of the London trains would drive people away. Slower than 1966! Quicker to drive to Macclesfield instead, which’d be silly.

 

[Philip]

There's a much bigger market for rail travel to London from Glasgow, Edinburgh and all of the WCML stations north of Crewe, than there is to Birmingham. Wilmslow losing its fast London service would be a compromise, but there would be a good connection available at Crewe and Macclesfield is an alternative option not too far away with good parking facilities, for direct fast services. There's a big demand for a 3rd Manchester to Birmingham service and I think this market is stronger than the Scotland to Birmingham market.

 

[Stossgebet]

Would something like this be better viewed through a prism of 'intercity' or whatever the goverments GBR plan will be. Rather than thinking along the existing structure of a separate wcml/cross country operation?

Ie. How can a reintegrated train operation achieve improvements AND efficiencies?

For example. Can we imagine using todays Avanti 805's to potentially operate a Manchester (or even Glasgow) to Bristol service in future?

 

[SynthD]

Birmingham is the second city, what has it done to deserve losing access to Scotland here, and south of Banbury on the XC line in the other thread? Birmingham is better connected for certain directions than Crewe.

Could the TV area take the extra trains, especially north of Handsacre? There are more purposes to sending trains one way than just serving those stations, it relieves the other way.

 

[JonathanH]

Can we imagine using todays Avanti 805's to potentially operate a Manchester (or even Glasgow) to Bristol service in future?

No, they only have 13 of them and they need them to provide through services to North Wales.

However, there have been suggestions in other threads that CrossCountry as a separate entity may not survive GBR reorganisation - https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/cross-country-from-nuneaton-to-leicester.274555/#post-6957960

 

[Stossgebet]

No, they only have 13 of them and they need them to provide through services to North Wales.

However, there have been suggestions in other threads that CrossCountry as a separate entity may not survive GBR reorganisation.

In that case, and the possibilites are as big as the imagination. Could we see potentially GWR hitachis used for say a (Paddington)-Reading-Manchester-(Glasgow). And the same from Bristol. Using either additional builds or perhaps a fleet shuffle from TPE, with the TPE service getting addional builds of the Tri-mode CAF units that LNER have on order...

No, they only have 13 of them and they need them to provide through services to North Wales.

However, there have been suggestions in other threads that CrossCountry as a separate entity may not survive GBR reorganisation - https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/cross-country-from-nuneaton-to-leicester.274555/#post-6957960

Yeah. Whichever way i look at it. The answer seems to be an additional build of bi-mode Hitachis or the Tri-Mode CAF units LNER have on order. For the purpose of maintaining through services between the Midlands and Manchester/Glasgow, and keeping/improving through services to Bristol/Reading (even Paddington if we could extend an Oxford terminator north!) And reducing diesel ops under the wires.

 

[Bald Rick]

Could it potentially work better if both London-WCML-Scotland services went direct through the Trent Valley, with the Manchester via Crewe going via Birmingham? There are sizeable markets of different towns and cities north of Crewe which would welcome two fast London services per hour instead of effectively only one, since going via Birmingham adds so much time to the journey. The big drawback would be the loss of direct Preston/Scotland to Birmingham services, but this would be cushioned with good connection opportunities at Crewe and Stafford (if one called here).

Sending the Manchester via Crewe through Birmingham would be cushioned by the addition of an extra Manchester to Birmingham service, which would be well appreciated. This could also be done in conjunction with LNR sending their London-Crewe service onwards to Manchester, possibly with much cheaper fares than using Avanti; so Manchester to London would be made up of 2 x fast services, 1 x semi-fast with cheaper tickets and 1 x slow but with a new Birmingham connection within it.

How do you think the opportunities of this proposal weigh against the drawbacks?

Your capacity to devise service proposals that flaunt the laws of economics and are impossible to timetable never cease to amaze me.

In this case you seem to want to downgrade the most valuable long distance market in the country by effectively reducing the frequency by a third, and reduce the frequency between the country’s second largest conurbation and all WCML destinations north of Crewe by 100%, and the only gain would be faster journey times for a small number of people in what is by comparison a small market, and some extra seats between Birmingham and Manchester.

It’s possible this would cost the industry something in the region of £50m in net lost reveneue.

There's a much bigger market for rail travel to London from Glasgow, Edinburgh and all of the WCML stations north of Crewe, than there is to Birmingham.

That is debateable.

 

[Bevan Price]

I think the change to a more integrated railway gives scope for changing some existing service patterns and is a good idea, but ending Euston / Birmingham / Scotland services is not one of the good ideas.

 

[Peter0124]

How about the Birmingham terminator is extended to Manchester alongside? As I don't think its good to lose the Scotland link.

 

[Mgameing123]

Could it potentially work better if both London-WCML-Scotland services went direct through the Trent Valley, with the Manchester via Crewe going via Birmingham? There are sizeable markets of different towns and cities north of Crewe which would welcome two fast London services per hour instead of effectively only one, since going via Birmingham adds so much time to the journey. The big drawback would be the loss of direct Preston/Scotland to Birmingham services, but this would be cushioned with good connection opportunities at Crewe and Stafford (if one called here).

Sending the Manchester via Crewe through Birmingham would be cushioned by the addition of an extra Manchester to Birmingham service, which would be well appreciated. This could also be done in conjunction with LNR sending their London-Crewe service onwards to Manchester, possibly with much cheaper fares than using Avanti; so Manchester to London would be made up of 2 x fast services, 1 x semi-fast with cheaper tickets and 1 x slow but with a new Birmingham connection within it.

How do you think the opportunities of this proposal weigh against the drawbacks?

Well I’m not entirely keen on this idea. The current day London to Glasgow/Edinburgh via Birmingham train is a replacement of the former Cross Country service between Birmingham and Glasgow/Edinburgh. New Street also is a major transport hub in the West Midlands.

 

[A S Leib]

I don't think it makes sense to change the existing WCML pattern pre-HS2 (beyond adding in the second Liverpool service when possible). Post-HS2, it depends on if anything past Handsacre's built and what the service pattern is if not, but under the original plans there would have been 2 tph between Manchester and Curzon Street nonstop south of Manchester Interchange. I'd suspect that what are currently the CrossCountry services would have enough capacity for cross-Stoke journeys (and I'd guess that a lot of passengers currently using Stockport drive there and could use Manchester Interchange instead once / if opened?).

 

[The Planner]

There's a much bigger market for rail travel to London from Glasgow, Edinburgh and all of the WCML stations north of Crewe, than there is to Birmingham. Wilmslow losing its fast London service would be a compromise, but there would be a good connection available at Crewe and Macclesfield is an alternative option not too far away with good parking facilities, for direct fast services. There's a big demand for a 3rd Manchester to Birmingham service and I think this market is stronger than the Scotland to Birmingham market.

Is this just your opinion again, or have you got some evidence? The VHF timetable has had 3 Birminghams vs 1 Glasgow since the start. The second was a merging of a Birmingham Glasgow to a Euston Birmingham. You cannot fit a third Birmingham Manchester service in, it needs its existing services lengthened before you ever did that.

 

[A S Leib]

Birmingham – Manchester's 133,000 passengers per year; to Edinburgh's 34,000 and to Glasgow's below 19,000 (Glasgow Central isn't in the hundred most common destinations from Birmingham New Street and Birmingham isn't in the hundred most common from Glasgow).

 

[Harpo]

Change/improvement is needed , but not this one. In particular:

- Manchester to Birmingham, 100% electrified all routes, 100% diesel operation
- The forced marriage of Euston-Brum with Brum-Scotland creates slow inefficient paths burning up resource utilisation too.
- Many northbound 'via Birminghams' have to run slow line Stafford to Crewe
- Wolverhampton to London direct trains are the staggeringly slow 'via Birminghams'. NRES itineraries invariably offer 'via Stafford'. Because it's faster!
- Shropshire-London connectivity hampered by the Wolverhampton problem, hence many drive to Stafford.
- Finally, as it sort of relates, the Telford line gained an extra train per hour to Birmingham recently but it dribbles around via Bescot so can be overtaken with a change at Wolves!

There's much to fix on that corridor. But this ain't the answer.

 

[Bletchleyite]

- The forced marriage of Euston-Brum with Brum-Scotland creates slow inefficient paths burning up resource utilisation too.

This isn't true. Resource utilisation is much better, as is usage, than before the services were joined, and it also provided "for free" extension from 5 to 9/11 cars. It was Virgin Trains' masterstroke.

 

[RT4038]

This isn't true. Resource utilisation is much better, as is usage, than before the services were joined, and it also provided "for free" extension from 5 to 9/11 cars. It was Virgin Trains' masterstroke.

It also provide a (albeit limited) amount of regular extra through facilities (Milton Keynes and Coventry to the North West and Scotland)

 

[Falcon1200]

Could it potentially work better if both London-WCML-Scotland services went direct through the Trent Valley

I don't think so, no!

The WCML/Scotland trains provide direct links between Edinburgh (every two hours) and Glasgow (not even every two hours as some of the pre-Covid trains now go to Blackpool instead), and hourly or two hourly for Carlisle, Oxenholme and Preston, plus the locations served by connecting trains at those places, and Wolverhampton, Birmingham and Coventry. Those links are too important, and useful, to lose. Plus what would be the point of routing the Edinburgh trains via the Trent Valley, Edinburgh already has two faster trains an hour to London from LNER, and competition from Lumo?

 

[Bletchleyite]

It also provide a (albeit limited) amount of regular extra through facilities (Milton Keynes and Coventry to the North West and Scotland)

The MKC stop will be lost when the extra service is added, but yes that's true for Cov and International (Parkway, it's not just an airport). The key is that it provides massively more capacity than separate services at the expense of removing a fast service between Wolves and New St which was barely used for most of the day.

Birmingham to Scotland in XC days when it ran as 5 car made the rest of XC look like a country branch line early on a Sunday morning. The overcrowding was severe at pretty much all times of day.

 

[Harpo]

This isn't true. Resource utilisation is much better, as is usage, than before the services were joined, and it also provided "for free" extension from 5 to 9/11 cars. It was Virgin Trains' masterstroke.

The concept is great, the execution is poor. There are up to 20 minutes or so of excessive dwells, pathing and slow line running in each and every 'via Birmingham' service.

Cumulatively over the whole day, those hours of trainset downtime could be used to run several extra revenue services. Over a whole week, that 'downtime' probably adds an entire traincrew to staff costs too.

That is what I meant by poor resource utilisation.

 

[JonathanH]

Many northbound 'via Birminghams' have to run slow line Stafford to Crewe

Is that genuinely a problem? If so, why?

 

[Bletchleyite]

The concept is great, the execution is poor. There are up to 20 minutes or so of excessive dwells, pathing and slow line running in each and every 'via Birmingham' service.

That's because it's presently joined to the slow path south of Birmingham. When the 807s are all here and the third service is added every hour, that will fix itself, it will go into the half hourly fast (first stop Cov) and the dwells it presently has to drop into and out of that slow path will go away.

 

[Harpo]

Is that genuinely a problem? If so, why?

Its part of the slowness of the service adding to the minutes currently being wasted.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Its part of the slowness of the service adding to the minutes currently being wasted.

I'm not clear why decoupling the services (and bringing back the severe overcrowding) would necessarily allow a different path north of Birmingham. I'm inclined to believe it would not.

 

[Harpo]

I'm not clear why decoupling the services (and bringing back the severe overcrowding) would necessarily allow a different path north of Birmingham. I'm inclined to believe it would not.

I’m not advocating splitting the service. But I’d be delighted to see better journey times.

 

[Bald Rick]

Manchester to Birmingham, 100% electrified all routes, 100% diesel operation

Not quite. Avanti run 2 a day off Piccadilly to Euston bia Brum with 390s.

The concept is great, the execution is poor. There are up to 20 minutes or so of excessive dwells, pathing and slow line running in each and every 'via Birmingham' service.

It helps considerably with reliability.

 

[Harpo]

Not quite. Avanti run 2 a day off Piccadilly to Euston bia Brum with 390s.




It helps considerably with reliability.

Forgot those 2!

19 minute dwells (!) undoubtedly help reliability but only in presentation from that locality.