Birmingham-Manchester standalone service?

[6Gman]

In the short-term, the WMR class 350 units not currently needed for the Birmingham-Liverpool service (which is now only hourly) could be used on an hourly Birmingham-Manchester service, almost immediately. In the longer term, West Midlands Trains has announced it will be replacing the Class 350/2 units with Class 730 Aventras; why not retain the class 350/2 units and refurbish them for further use?

But the Brum-Liverpool services are running as 8-car trains so there aren't units available.

And "almost immediately" is a bit optimistic given the need to reach agreements between the TOCs concerned and route learning etc.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Nov 2021 ==

In my opinion, I would get rid of XC from the Brum-Manc route and split it. If possible running the following patterns:

• Avanti West Coast London-Brum-Manc (with services calling at Wolverhampton, Stafford, Stoke, Macclesfield, Stockport)
• Extend the LNW Northampton-Birmingham to Manchester via Stoke (with services calling at stations such as Smethwick Galton Bridge, Wolverhampton, Stafford, Stone, Stoke, Congleton, Macclesfield, Cheadle Hulme, Stockport)

This provides far better capacity on what is really an ICWC corridor, with the LNW service enabling better use of commuter capacity.

What units would you use for the Avanti service?
Running LNW units through New Street was a disaster last time they tried. Why repeat it?

In the long term of course Manchester should have through services to Bristol and Oxford/Reading etc. (probably having to use bi-modes). In the short term, in order to reduce carbon and improve capacity elsewhere, I can see merit in splitting off Brum-Manchester. Whether New Street could cope is another matter . . .

 

[Purple Orange]

What units would you use for the Avanti service?
Running LNW units through New Street was a disaster last time they tried. Why repeat it?

In the long term of course Manchester should have through services to Bristol and Oxford/Reading etc. (probably having to use bi-modes). In the short term, in order to reduce carbon and improve capacity elsewhere, I can see merit in splitting off Brum-Manchester. Whether New Street could cope is another matter . . .

Id prefer to see Pendolinos (like it was back in the 2000s) on a London-Brum-Manc service, but I’m not sure if any units are available. It might require other services to be changed.

What was the issue with running 350s through New Street? How does it not work for a 350 to be a through service, but it does for XC?

 

[yorksrob]

Why? The LNR services on the WCML are a massive success and have no doubt moved many journeys from coaches and your mate's old banger onto rail.



It is if you join them together. You're running them anyway, so if you join them up any additional "budget" through tickets sold are marginal - basically all of it is additional revenue.



I have never heard such a ridiculous suggestion made against the concept of more affordable rail fares by differentiating the product, while still being able to sting people in a hurry for a higher fare on Avanti.



People on the south WCML do not find tickets only valid on the green trains confusing at all. This is nothing like the Northern/TPE "save 5 minutes or 10p" silliness, it's a superb piece of non-abstractive market differentiation as practiced in almost every country that has railways*, which I expect has made a quite reasonable dent in car journeys on the M1/M6.

* SNCF Corail services that parallel TGV, DB and the Quer-Durchs-Land-Ticket valid only on regional trains, ICE/IC in Germany, Frecciarossa vs Intercity in Italy...........

I'm inclined to agree with you, on the value of the true budget option.

Definitely need a half hourly service between brum and manc. Is there no prospect of XC going back to half hourly then ? If not, I quite like the idea of a long EMU crowd buster between the two cities.

 

[6Gman]

What was the issue with running 350s through New Street? How does it not work for a 350 to be a through service, but it does for XC?

No idea, but Brum-L'pool reliability fell off a cliff.

 

[jfollows]

What was the issue with running 350s through New Street? How does it not work for a 350 to be a through service, but it does for XC?

I think the difference was that the 350s also had to split/join at New Street, and this meant that there was no spare time to recover late running in the first place, and when joining one late train would delay the combined train's departure.

The Birmingham-Liverpool starting from platform 4C was a great service and I used it a lot. I would like to see a similar Birmingham-Manchester service, because the XC services tend to arrive late, are crowded, and have too few doors for quick exchange of passengers. Being able to get on the Liverpool services, calmly, select a seat and wait for departure was excellent. Of course, going to Wilmslow I was fortunate that I had the choice, but had I still lived in Manchester I think I'd have used them also. I no longer have a reason for visiting Birmingham frequently (I used to visit the computer centre at the university for a number of reasons, the person running the facility was a good friend and colleague, we've now both retired).

I also don't care about 3+2 seating. It made sense in the evening rush hour between New Street and Wolverhampton, after which it cleared out anyway, I didn't find it especially uncomfortable although I had already got myself a window seat and wasn't in the middle of three.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Id prefer to see Pendolinos (like it was back in the 2000s) on a London-Brum-Manc service

I seem to recall this existing but it was a one off, I think at an odd time of the day, could well have been for diversionary route knowledge. There was never a frequent Euston-Brum-Manchester service; before the Scotland extensions those terminated at Wolverhampton, with a separate single Voyager Birmingham-Scotland (with a serious overcrowding problem).

 

[Ianno87]

I seem to recall this existing but it was a one off, I think at an odd time of the day, could well have been for diversionary route knowledge. There was never a frequent Euston-Brum-Manchester service; before the Scotland extensions those terminated at Wolverhampton, with a separate single Voyager Birmingham-Scotland (with a serious overcrowding problem).

Manc/Liverpool/Glasgow-Brum-Euston was done at weekends 2005-2008 during the Trent Valley 4 tracking works.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Manc/Liverpool/Glasgow-Brum-Euston was done at weekends 2005-2008 during the Trent Valley 4 tracking works.

Interesting. I did go on a lot of diversions via the West Midlands at that time, but almost all of them were run via Bescot not calling at New St. I'm fairly sure I went on one that did but only once.

 

[mmh]

Do we have confirmation that the power supply has capacity for 350s to run Birmingham-Manchester?

What makes you think it wouldn't have?

 

[Ianno87]

Interesting. I did go on a lot of diversions via the West Midlands at that time, but almost all of them were run via Bescot not calling at New St. I'm fairly sure I went on one that did but only once.

Off memory...the Glasgows went via Bescot** and avoided New Street, the Liverpools ran via New Street but then via Perry Barr (avoiding Wolves), and the Manchesters were a mix of New Street and Bescot.


**And called Coventry on Sundays, giving a very unusual Coventry-Crewe non-stop run.

 

[mmh]

What units would you use for the Avanti service?
Running LNW units through New Street was a disaster last time they tried. Why repeat it?

Umm, it would be impossible for them not to run through New Street. I guess you mean terminating or splitting there?

 

[Ianno87]

What makes you think it wouldn't have?

Usually Power Supply isn't renowned for having lots of surplus capacity - it's designed to a specification.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Umm, it would be impossible for them not to run through New Street. I guess you mean terminating or splitting there?

Yes, it was an utter, utter disaster - it totally destroyed the punctuality and reliability of the south WCML due to knock-on delays and cancellations. One of the few benefits of COVID was to allow it to quietly go away, which it has.

 

[mmh]

Usually Power Supply isn't renowned for having lots of surplus capacity - it's designed to a specification.

Of course. So I'll ask you the same question. Why (where) do you think this would be a problem?

 

[Ianno87]

Of course. So I'll ask you the same question. Why (where) do you think this would be a problem?

We don't know it's not a problem.

 

[Esker-pades]

Of course. So I'll ask you the same question. Why (where) do you think this would be a problem?

There isn't enough power to run the proposed Dec '22 timetable at the moment, so sticking another EMU in won't help.

 

[Elecman]

There isn't enough power to run the proposed Dec '22 timetable at the moment, so sticking another EMU in won't help.

Where is are the areas that are short of power?

 

[Purple Orange]

Manc/Liverpool/Glasgow-Brum-Euston was done at weekends 2005-2008 during the Trent Valley 4 tracking works.

Ah that makes sense. During that period I travelled between Brum & Manc on weekends a lot.

 

[mmh]

We don't know it's not a problem.

We don't know it's not a problem.

Thank you for confirming there's no known issue you know of.

"You might not be able to do that, I don't why" really is quite tiresome in the speculative ideas section of the forum.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Nov 2021 ==

There isn't enough power to run the proposed Dec '22 timetable at the moment, so sticking another EMU in won't help.

Really? Do you have any source to back this up please?

 

[The Planner]

Thank you for confirming there's no known issue you know of.

"You might not be able to do that, I don't why" really is quite tiresome in the speculative ideas section of the forum.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Nov 2021 ==


Really? Do you have any source to back this up please?

You won't get a source, but he is right. Feeders in the West Mids and at the London end are very close to capacity and do cause trips.

 

[6Gman]

Umm, it would be impossible for them not to run through New Street. I guess you mean terminating or splitting there?

No, I mean combining the two services so they ran through New Street, rather than terminating "at each end" (so to speak).

 

[Mogz]

It has always surprised me that Manchester doesn’t have a corresponding frequent electric service to Birmingham akin to Liverpool’s LNwR service.

I wonder whether alternating some of these Liverpool-Birmingham services with Manchester as the final destination whilst doing the same with a few of the Manchester-South Coast XC services would keep both markets happy, especially if frequency increases back to pre-covid levels.

 

[The Fox 4846]

I think in all honesty there does need to be some sort of recast within the north WCML and XC. I would like to see the Birmingham terminator pendolino extended to Manchester, wether this could replace one of the 3tph or work as an extension I’m not so sure. I would keep Glasgow 1tp4h with Blackpool 1tp4h saving one diagram. There is the question of the North Wales and wether that will ever return same as the Blackpool London directs and wether the units saved off of these diagrams can be used on the Manchester Brum extension.

Although XC is on many other threads I would look at a serious recast perhaps running a Manchester - Bristol, Liverpool - Southampton, Cardiff - Edinburgh, Newcastle - Plymouth with GWR to extend the Oxford terminator to moor st via Banbury and Solihull.


This would include binning off the Bournemouth, Penzance, Scotland extensions unless in marginal time.

Liverpool would have a fast XC and a LNWR whilst Manchester would have one XC and one Avanti per hour to Birmingham. The north west Avanti I would have 1p2h Edinburgh, 1p4h Glasgow and 1p4h Blackpool.
The only remaining issue would be with the Nottingham’s and the Avanti North Wales corridor and Blackpool directs of which I imagine a 2pd service would be sufficient to Blackpool and Holyhead and possibly an extra 2pd to Chester?

 

[The Planner]

It would be very unlikely that a Manchester extension replaces one of the 3tph from Euston. The existing quantum of Avanti services, plus the non rights holding extra Liverpool, is in the proposed Dec 22 change.

 

[Purple Orange]

I’d prefer a Euston-Birmingham pendolino to be extended to Manchester in favour of reinstating the second XC service to Manchester.

 

[The Planner]

I’d prefer a Euston-Birmingham pendolino to be extended to Manchester in favour of reinstating the second XC service to Manchester.

How many extra diagrams would that be? It would be a 3½ hour circuit from Brum to Manchester and back. Not sure they could resource it.

 

[cle]

I’d prefer a Euston-Birmingham pendolino to be extended to Manchester in favour of reinstating the second XC service to Manchester.

Me too. It's a good length, even if used regionally (doors slow though) - and would give either Watford Junction or Rugby a direct, if indirect, service to Manchester hourly.

And covers off XC from Coventry and Birmingham Int at least (and twice as long). Unfortunately if XC switched from Bournemouth/Soton/Reading to Birmingham Moor St, as has been mentioned - it wouldn't allow a transfer and would be firmly a Birmingham service. The likes of Banbury and Leamington would have connectivity drop. Reading at least would become a HS2 node, Oxford on the cusp.

 

[The Planner]

Me too. It's a good length, even if used regionally (doors slow though) - and would give either Watford Junction or Rugby a direct, if indirect, service to Manchester hourly.

And covers off XC from Coventry and Birmingham Int at least (and twice as long). Unfortunately if XC switched from Bournemouth/Soton/Reading to Birmingham Moor St, as has been mentioned - it wouldn't allow a transfer and would be firmly a Birmingham service. The likes of Banbury and Leamington would have connectivity drop. Reading at least would become a HS2 node, Oxford on the cusp.

I doubt it would be anything but the SW-NE going into Moor St.

 

[daodao]

I’d prefer a Euston-Birmingham pendolino to be extended to Manchester in favour of reinstating the second XC service to Manchester.

Where is the spare rolling stock for this?

A standalone class 350/2 service would be adequate for the regional Manchester-Birmingham service, extended to Birmingham International/beyond in lieu of one of the existing services on the LNW line SE of Birmingham New St, if terminating it there would cause problems.

 

[JonathanH]

Where is the spare rolling stock for this?

* Cutting the London - Birmingham - Glasgow service back to Blackpool in alternate two hours
* Not running peak extras on any route
* Not running any trains to Blackpool via the Trent Valley
* Keeping London to Birmingham at 2tph.
* Not running the proposed second train each hour to Liverpool

Hopefully this gives enough to take over the LNR Trent Valley service as well.