Class 170 route ideas

[Mitchell Hurd]

Good evening all. Thinking about the next CrossCountry (XC) franchise, one idea I propose is linking West Midlands Railway (WMR)'s Birmingham - Malvern's and Hereford routes with XC's Birmingham - Leicester routes, creating another main XC route.

For instance when trains from the Hereford direction arrive at around xx:10, they could extend to Stansted Airport. Same with the present Stansted Airport - Birmingham trains: on arrival at / around xx:38, extend towards / to Hereford. It would obviously create new journey opportunities but it could work.

But it would probably have to mean the end of 15x stock - unless they could keep to 170 times temporarily. This would be handy for the surplus 170's due to leave WMR in what the next 2 years.

Or...

Transfer XC's Stansted Airport services to the next East Midlands franchise - would be better as all WMR routes don't have seat reservations whether as some of EMT's routes do. Also, East Midlands Trains run in Leicester and Peterborough and manage the stations between Leicester and Peterborough plus the stations served by XC that are virtually in Leicester.

Just an idea or 2 .

 

[Ianno87]

Problem is that the Stansteds currently interwork at New St with the Leicester local. Not sure there's any particularly strong potential for through demand really.

 

[Mitchell Hurd]

Oh I understand that - sounds like it would be a wee bit tricky I guess !

 

[dk1]

Chances of getting over Ely North Junction until it's upgraded are extremely slim as are paths south of Cambridge & into the Airport.

 

[Esker-pades]

Generally, services from Hereford arrive at New Street at XX:09, which would leave a 13 minute dwell in order to pick up the XX:22 Stansted Airport service. There are some XX:39 peak time arrivals, and also a 10:19 arrival vice 10:09.
Coming from the other direction, Stansted Airport services arrive at New Street at XX:38, which would give a 12 minute dwell to pick up the XX:50 Hereford services. It gets slightly weird after 18:00, with departures going to XX:20 and XX:00.
This all sounds reasonable, but the problems come with diagrams.

As far as I know, WMR still try to keep 153 strengthening to the Rugeley services, although it isn't always possible.
As said above, the Leicester and Stansted Airport services interwork at New Street, so there would be a 170 occupying a platform there from XX:14 to XX:52 every hour. That's the biggest problem. In future years, maybe it will be possible to interwork the Leicester stoppers with Nottingham/Cardiff diagrams, but in the mean time it is simply impossible.

 

[Ianno87]

Chances of getting over Ely North Junction until it's upgraded are extremely slim as are paths south of Cambridge & into the Airport.

No chance of any extra paths through the single track tunnel into Stansted.

 

[ac6000cw]

Central Trains tried this sort of thing in the past (by linking services on either side of Birmingham), but a lot of what they tried ended up being split again due to the problem of importing delays from one part of the country into another. Looks good in theory, but hard to make reliable in practice when the services run through many congested pinch-points on the network along the way.

 

[swt_passenger]

Back in the real world isn’t the DfT proposal that some of the existing minor routes will be removed from XC and transferred back to the West Midlands or East Midlands franchises?

 

[Aictos]

Problem is that the Stansteds currently interwork at New St with the Leicester local. Not sure there's any particularly strong potential for through demand really.

I don't know about through demand but simply extending the Leicester locals to Peterborough as a half hourly service would be better since the demand is there plus as and when Ely is remodelled extend the stopper to Cambridge.

Also do not the Cardiff to Nottingham services also interwork with the Birmingham to Leicester/Stansted Airport services?

As to having direct Nottingham to Hereford services for example yes it would be nice to have but not if it means blocking a already busy New Station for 40 minutes every hour.

 

[VT 390]

Good evening all. Thinking about the next CrossCountry (XC) franchise, one idea I propose is linking West Midlands Railway (WMR)'s Birmingham - Malvern's and Hereford routes with XC's Birmingham - Leicester routes, creating another main XC route.

For instance when trains from the Hereford direction arrive at around xx:10, they could extend to Stansted Airport. Same with the present Stansted Airport - Birmingham trains: on arrival at / around xx:38, extend towards / to Hereford. It would obviously create new journey opportunities but it could work.

But it would probably have to mean the end of 15x stock - unless they could keep to 170 times temporarily. This would be handy for the surplus 170's due to leave WMR in what the next 2 years.

Or...

Transfer XC's Stansted Airport services to the next East Midlands franchise - would be better as all WMR routes don't have seat reservations whether as some of EMT's routes do. Also, East Midlands Trains run in Leicester and Peterborough and manage the stations between Leicester and Peterborough plus the stations served by XC that are virtually in Leicester.

Just an idea or 2 .

I would much rather have longer trains on both routes especially the Hereford to New Street service as this service is often only 2 coaches and full by Great Malvern

 

[Failed Unit]

Central Trains tried this sort of thing in the past (by linking services on either side of Birmingham), but a lot of what they tried ended up being split again due to the problem of importing delays from one part of the country into another. Looks good in theory, but hard to make reliable in practice when the services run through many congested pinch-points on the network along the way.

I always found it was a pity they never fixed the problem. The services worked and a few of them frequently encountered delays. They encountered the same delays once it was split. I know people didn’t travel from Grimsby - Chester but some of the other cross Birmingham flows had demand such as Shrewsbury- Leicester, Lincoln - Birmingham.

The split was always politically based, so it was easier to break up CT into what we have now.

If importing delays was such a bad thing across Birmingham wonder why it is a good thing across London (Thameslink)

 

[Failed Unit]

As to having direct Nottingham to Hereford services for example yes it would be nice to have but not if it means blocking a already busy New Station for 40 minutes every hour.

Didn’t used to. It was about 5 minutes. A lot less demanding on the platforms than 2x terminating services. Which is why CT did it in the first place. More effective on stock.

 

[Bevan Price]

Another problem is that a few Birmingham/Hereford services are sometimes worked by Class 172 - I had one from Worcester to Birmingham a few weeks ago. Better to keep them separate from XC routes - punctuality would worsen, and that might cause problems on the single line sections between Malvern & Hereford.

 

[Failed Unit]

Another problem is that a few Birmingham/Hereford services are sometimes worked by Class 172 - I had one from Worcester to Birmingham a few weeks ago. Better to keep them separate from XC routes - punctuality would worsen, and that might cause problems on the single line sections between Malvern & Hereford.

Going back to the CT days (where they turned it too often at Great Malvern) the real issue was the lack of a hot spare. They rarely had options to restart the service. If you had a hot spare at Birmingham if stuff happens hopefully they could recover. I mean the restart Edinburgh- Plymouth services at various points.