No, it's not the state being run like a private corporation. It is quite simply "the man in Whitehall" deciding that he knows better, and the financial regime for the railways meaning that he has veto power because no operator can afford to take the risk of funding a long term investment without guarantees.
Blackpool v Lancaster is a bit like two bald men fighting over a comb, the objective would surely be to provide an additional service south of Preston to pick up some of the calls so that the Glasgow service could skip them. If by some chance paths, stock and staff could be found then I imagine it would come down to operational convenience as to whether they went to Blackpool or Lancaster. You could probably also make a case for going further north to Carlisle or Edinburgh (subject to all the constraints listed above).
It's not unreasonable for the government to hold that power of veto - the franchise is ultimately their asset, and it is for them to determine what it should consist of. That leaves two major questions - one in detail, and one in principle. The detailed question is whether the specific decision was or wasn't a good one for the WCML intercity franchise. The question of principle is whether it was ever right to have key decisions like this being made not by the business responsible for the service, but an arms length body.
The current 197 via Wrexham services do not run to Crewe so you’d then turn a direct trip into a two stop via Chester and Crewe or the slog at Birmingham.
What?
Except that Lancaster is a also call on those busy Scotland services, and so additional ones starting there (vs Blackpool) adds seats to that pool of demand, and thus relieves Preston/Wigan/Warrington, to a degree.
What I mean is that TFW have an hourly service that covers the Holyhead - Chester section. I can’t see them doing any more.
Does Crewe have the room for such an arrangement? I don’t think 5 coaches is ideal for north wales but it isn’t terrible
Why wouldn't they?
You can use Platform 12 I believe.
It might be easier to join the southbound services at Stafford?
Because I can’t see a more than hourly frequency needed for Holyhead > Chester and the Chester > Crewe shuttle tends to be rather empty so you’d be running a whole train for those wanting a Holyhead > Crewe only.
Are you saying that there is no need for the Avanti at all?
The need for the Avanti is to get to London directly as opposed to Chester.
But presumably those passengers won't all stop travelling because they need to change in Crewe.
www.railforums.co.uk
They used to have a 16:30 (or then abouts?) calling at Preston only in addition to the hourly. I believe this reduced some of the peak capacity constraints on south WCML?
1630 Glasgow and 1633 Preston - the second was a 5-car and the first loaded poorly, so they were combined.
Class 158s are prohibited from platform 2. Can't recall the length but you can't really fit much in platform 1. Without having platform 5 for Northern as flexibility you probably have to mess around with the timetable a lot. Platform 5 itself is only 171m so I think a 807 is overlength. Would be curious whether it's feasible to lengthen any of those.
Platform 12 is soon to be flooded with WMT 10-car 730 turning round. I presume any wider solution would need then extended elsewhere but power supply then likely scuppers that for now.
Thank you, I had not realised that WMT would have to switch across from their current use of 7.
Please don't forget that the WCML is definitely not just "London to (some) other places as fast as possible" - or "from the provinces up to town" ditto.
Doubling the EUS - GLA service might provide enough capacity for N Midlands passengers to be allowed on these trains, but in reality doubling up Liverpool and Manchester to Glasgow capacity/frequencies would probably benefit more people.
Or platform 11, slightly better. But yeah, it’s not ideal for the up Lancs service, especially.
This point of adding long distance connectivity to places that isn't London is important. The west coast lumo adds well to this mix.
That I think would help at least with Warrington, but Wigan and Preston do get quite a bit of traffic as well. This is one of the reasons why I hoped the Lumo service or the LNWR Destination Manchester would happen, though.
