Eureka - East Coast t/t Consultation

[gordonthemoron]

I've checked the journey opportunity differences between the current and proposed timetables and discovered the following:

Newark-Leeds Northbound
Current services: 22 direct, 4 requiring a connection
Eureka: 5 direct, 14 requiring a connection

so a net reduction of 7 services

I'm sure that other posters can investigate their own routes

 

[Lee_Again]

Guess what time the first train from London now arrives at Edinburgh?

11.20 you're saying. The 07.00 from Kings Cross arrives at 11.20.

Well, you'd be wrong. Try the 05.39 from Euston. A number of changing points but arriving Edinburgh at 11.03.

So the new 'improved' ECML timetable has the WCML as the first London arrival.

Where is my 05.45 dep, 09.45 arr. And if I was running EC I'd make it a 09.44 just to get a sub 4hr timing in. Kings Cross > Stevenage (north London, Luton Airport, Stanstead Airport markets)> Newcastle > Edinburgh.

 

[tbtc]

Kings Cross > Stevenage (north London, Luton Airport, Stanstead Airport market)> Newcastle > Edinburgh.

Non stop Stevenage to Newcastle?

 

[Lee_Again]

Non stop Stevenage to Newcastle?

Why not? It would help keep the journey time down. I think Newcastle is the driver/crew change over point so there is no need to include a York stop.

I would have suggested Kings Cross > Newcastle but there is a huge number of people flying from the airports at Luton/Stanstead each day, plus the normal North of London flow, that it would be mad not to stop (I will admit that I live in Stevenage - and some of the reason for that was the good transport links).

-->Just spotted the smiley. sorry.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Most of the responses on here are completely valid, and many of them should be sent back during this "consultation period", but lets not get so tangeld up in the detail that we miss the bigger picture!
This is a political announcement, not aimed at improving services in any informed manner.

Consider: there are Headline statements of reduced journey times. Great.
there is silence over the inconvenienced intermediate journeys, connecting journeys or otherwise affected or conflicting journeys.
Well, there wouldn't be - its a political statement.

Consider: there will be several passengers each day who benefit from end-to-end reductions in journey times. Maybe a couple of hundred passengers every day (I'm guessing).
there will also be passengers who loose time, have more connections, whose services are held to allow the "headline service" though. Particularly local and suburban passengers whose lines are shared with ECML. Probably several thousand passengers every day, perhaps tens of thousands.

So my question is: why introduce a change which benefits a few and inconveniences many many more?
And to help you answer that question, here's another: who owns the service that's proposing the changes?

 

[Aictos]

Well one idea that I've heard off was to have the first stop being Peterborough with anyone wanting Stevenage to use FCCs from Peterborough or Kings Cross which obviously would need a lot of work with regards to connections.

But saying that though, keeping the Leeds/Lincoln/York services as all stations and having the Scottish services run as booked to York then Doncaster, Peterborough then Kings Cross might help with the reliability considering the distance covered.

Only thing is people might get upset about connections but if they want to try and better the journey time between London and Scotland then it's one idea to consider.

I mean taking the Virgin timetable as a example, the Scottish timetable may look like:

Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Newcastle and Edinburgh,

 

[Greenback]

Well one idea that I've heard off was to have the first stop being Peterborough with anyone wanting Stevenage to use FCCs from Peterborough or Kings Cross which obviously would need a lot of work with regards to connections.

But saying that though, keeping the Leeds/Lincoln/York services as all stations and having the Scottish services run as booked to York then Doncaster, Peterborough then Kings Cross might help with the reliability considering the distance covered.

Only thing is people might get upset about connections but if they want to try and better the journey time between London and Scotland then it's one idea to consider.

I mean taking the Virgin timetable as a example, the Scottish timetable may look like:

Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Newcastle and Edinburgh,

Clearly those five intermediate stations are the most important on the route, not least as they provide interchange opportunities for large areas of the country to connect with the ECML. Surely it must be possible to devise a timetable that allows two calls out of the five stations every hour whilst maintianing a regular fast service between London and Edinburgh?

 

[A60K]

I mean taking the Virgin timetable as a example, the Scottish timetable may look like:

Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Newcastle and Edinburgh,

Actually, with the pattern of the VHF timetable the equivalent on the East Coast might be most trains running:
King's Cross (= Euston)
Darlington (= Warrington BQ)
Durham (= Wigan NW)
Newcastle (=Preston)
then with varying stops to Edinburgh!

Missed from most London to Edinburgh services would be:
Stevenage (= Watford Jct)
Peterborough (= Milton Keynes)
Grantham, Newark, Retford (= Trent Valley)
Doncaster (= Stafford)
York (= Crewe)

OK, York is a more important destination than Crewe, but Crewe has better connections and it is still missed by most London to Glasgow services.

 

[MCR247]

OK, York is a more important destination than Crewe, but Crewe has better connections and it is still missed by most London to Glasgow services.

Why does it need to stop there? Crewe already has trains going to exactly the same places and London - Glasgow, so it isn't like you can't get there anymore