Do all trains call at Darlington?

[Searle]

I sometimes wonder whether it'd be better to terminate one of the hourly XC trains at Leeds, leaving the other (usually via Doncaster and quicker as a result) to pick up the through traffic. That'd ease the pressure on XC between Leeds and Sheffield, and free up two or three units for strengthening elsewhere - and there's no shortage of trains going north from Leeds and especially York.

I can't imagine people from York up to Newcastle would be too pleased about going from 2tph to 1tph from Birmingham, and it would definitely make the Doncaster services a lot busier, when they're already packed on Voyagers!

 

[dannypye9999]

I sometimes wonder whether it'd be better to terminate one of the hourly XC trains at Leeds, leaving the other (usually via Doncaster and quicker as a result) to pick up the through traffic. That'd ease the pressure on XC between Leeds and Sheffield, and free up two or three units for strengthening elsewhere - and there's no shortage of trains going north from Leeds and especially York.

Didn't they try this a few years ago by terminating one at York?

 

[leyscjd]

From memory, pre XC Voyagers, the Monday to Friday 1550 Newcastle-Plymouth HST used to run non-stop between Newcastle and York in an impressive 49 minutes.

 

[Stats]

You'd have to see what effect that has on services to points north of Newcastle - for example, East Coast reduced through services to Glasgow based on the fact that they duplicated Cross Country's services.

Wasn't it that DfT reduced East Coast services to Glasgow to free up rolling stock for the Eureka timetable, with Glasgow services being transferred to XC?

and there's no shortage of trains going north from Leeds and especially York.

No shortage of trains going north from Leeds? Cut the XC service and it leaves 1tph from Leeds to Darlington, Durham and Newcastle taking 15 minutes longer than XC service.

 

[flymo]

Not 100% on this one, but I think there was also one CrossCountry non-stop each way per day pre-December 2008.

Well certainly in 2005 there was one Virgin CrossCountry service each way non-stop through Darlo, the 0825 Penzance - Dundee (pass about 1655) and 1505 Edinburgh - Southampton (pass about 1720).

(Mon - Fri times)

 

[43167]

From memory, pre XC Voyagers, the Monday to Friday 1550 Newcastle-Plymouth HST used to run non-stop between Newcastle and York in an impressive 49 minutes.

Your right.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Well certainly in 2005 there was one Virgin CrossCountry service each way non-stop through Darlo, the 0825 Penzance - Dundee (pass about 1655) and 1505 Edinburgh - Southampton (pass about 1720).

I can't remember which one it was, but there was one in the afternoon which stopped at Durham but skipped Darlington. The 0825 Penzance-Dundee skipped Durham too.

There was one northbound Voyager which terminated at Darlington, and started at Darlington for the return southbound journey. It used one of the bays.

But is it necessary to have both hourly XC services to call at Darlington? Travelling from Birmingham you've got a fair half hourly service, but both arrive nearly at the same time.

But which one would you drop? The faster train from Birmingham is via Doncaster and (usually) terminates at Newcastle, so dropping the stop from that one wouldn't make sense. But the slower train from Birmingham is via Leeds and goes to Edinburgh or Glasgow, so if you dropped the stop from that one you'd be cutting direct trains from Leeds to Darlington and from Darlington to Glasgow. Certainly Leeds to Darlington is a busy flow and dropping the stop would inconvenience a lot of people.

 

[trainplan1]

Sort of on topic for those wondering about trains skipping Darlington, I've done a very rough "time lost" by calling at certain station stops on the ECML. The time shown is the total time lost compared to a typical non-stop train with no allowances built in. The normal station stop time is also included.
This was based on the performance of a standard Class 91 set.

Stevenage - 8.5 minutes
Peterborough - 7 minutes
Grantham - 4 minutes
Newark North Gate - 3.5 minutes
Retford - 6 minutes
Doncaster - 10 minutes
York - 3 minutes
Northallerton - 4.5 minutes
Darlington - 7.5 minutes
Durham - 4 minutes
Newcastle -N/A (as every East Coast train stops here)
Morpeth - 4.5 minutes
Alnmouth - 4 minutes
Berwick - 3 minutes
Dunbar - 5 minutes (Down), 4 minutes (Up)

Again this is a very rough calculation and no doubt not perfectly accurate but may give a sense of perspective what stops cause slower overall journey times.

Personal perspective is I think the service at Darlington is a bit overkill for the station but clearly the TOC's disagree and think it must be worth the time stopping.

 

[cle]

Wasn't it that DfT reduced East Coast services to Glasgow to free up rolling stock for the Eureka timetable, with Glasgow services being transferred to XC?

No shortage of trains going north from Leeds? Cut the XC service and it leaves 1tph from Leeds to Darlington, Durham and Newcastle taking 15 minutes longer than XC service.

I believe that at some point soon, the TPE services between Liverpool and Newcastle are going to double in frequency.

 

[transmanche]

I believe that at some point soon, the TPE services between Liverpool and Newcastle are going to double in frequency.

The plan is for the current Manchester Airport-Newcastle service to terminate short (at York?) and a new Liverpool-Newcastle (via Manchester Victoria) service will commence. So there'll still only be one TPE service an hour to Newcastle.

This all happens from the May timetable change.

 

[SeanG]

Many people forget that in addition to the town of Darlington, Darlington station also caters for much traffic of people driving to Darlo from Teesside for KGX trains

 

[najaB]

Wasn't it that DfT reduced East Coast services to Glasgow to free up rolling stock for the Eureka timetable, with Glasgow services being transferred to XC?

Your memory is better than mine. It does mean that reducing the number of XC services that call at Darlington could mean changing at Edinburgh to get to Glasgow, where it's a straight through service today.

 

[transmanche]

Many people forget that in addition to the town of Darlington, Darlington station also caters for much traffic of people driving to Darlo from Teesside for KGX trains

It does; although passenger usage levels are pretty much the same as at Durham (in fact Darlington gets 95k fewer passengers per year than Durham).

Yet it's Darlington which gets 2 tph EC services to London (including the fast one which only calls at York), whilst Durham only gets 1 tph (the slower service).

(Maybe more people from Teesside use GC or use TPE and change to EC at Northallerton/York.)

 

[jopsuk]

Sort of on topic for those wondering about trains skipping Darlington, I've done a very rough "time lost" by calling at certain station stops on the ECML. The time shown is the total time lost compared to a typical non-stop train with no allowances built in. The normal station stop time is also included.
This was based on the performance of a standard Class 91 set.

Stevenage - 8.5 minutes

blimey, that seems rather high- they stop on the fast lines so no negotiating slow turnouts or extra distance. Is this purely down to acceleration versus high linespeed?

 

[trainplan1]

Must admit I was a bit suprised to see why Stevenage was much higher than say Northallerton when they are under similar circumstances. (Full linespeed and same dwell time etc).
I can only guess that the agreed sectional running times are more generous at Stevenage.

 

[greatkingrat]

I think the Stevenage figure is a bit high. The actual difference seems to be about 6 minutes

for example
1D13 1205 Kings Cross - Leeds, 44.5 min from dep KGX to arr PBO (non-stop)
1B84 1208 Kings Cross - Newark, 50.5 min from dep KGX to arr PBO (calling at SVG)

 

[Class 170101]

If I was going to reduce Darlington calls it would be in the fast East Coast service, not that the East Coast service pattern is all that great.

 

[trainplan1]

I think the Stevenage figure is a bit high. The actual difference seems to be about 6 minutes

for example
1D13 1205 Kings Cross - Leeds, 44.5 min from dep KGX to arr PBO (non-stop)
1B84 1208 Kings Cross - Newark, 50.5 min from dep KGX to arr PBO (calling at SVG)

Rexamining the "data" (OK it was a bit suspect...) it is indeed nearer 6 minutes. (5.5 to be pedantic).
1B84 is timed as an HST though. Doesn't make a huge difference but in places it accelerates quicker and some places it falls back to a 91.