Grand Central - how are they doing? Future plans?

[DarloRich]

Interesting. Do they continue by train, or jump in a taxi?

I'm a bit surprised GC haven't also put at least one train e/w into Boro. Many people simply do not like changing. But I guess they see the run to Sunderland as more lucrative - and, from posters above, it seems to attract Durham coast - York traffic, which must be useful additional revenue from otherwise empty seats.

Train from Eaglescliffe and a walk down to the ground. Works well and is cheaper than VTEC. I THINK GC offer some kind of bulk discount to the Middlesbrough Supporters South group.

 

[70014IronDuke]

Train from Eaglescliffe and a walk down to the ground. Works well and is cheaper than VTEC.

WALK? Surely it is about 5 miles? Well, helps reduce the beer gut

I THINK GC offer some kind of bulk discount to the Middlesbrough Supporters South group.

For all five of them? Mind you, they will see ten heeds, I suppose.

(Only joking. I quite like Boro in secret.)

 

[DarloRich]

WALK? Surely it is about 5 miles? Well, helps reduce the beer gut



For all five of them? Mind you, they will see ten heeds, I suppose.

(Only joking. I quite like Boro in secret.)

it is only a short walk form Middlesbrough Station to the Riverside. 10 heads? God Boro must be getting cleaned up these days. When I was a lad etc.

 

[70014IronDuke]

it is only a short walk form Middlesbrough Station to the Riverside. 10 heads? God Boro must be getting cleaned up these days. When I was a lad etc.

Ah, sorry, should read more slowly. I thought you had written walk from Eaglescliffe! From Boro itself, it's v close of course.

 

[ainsworth74]

WALK? Surely it is about 5 miles? Well, helps reduce the beer gut

No train from Eaglescliffe to Middlesbrough and walk from there!

It's only about a mile then!

 

[Alan2603]

I recall filling in some onboard survey a few years ago when travelling with GC.

It was asking the usal how often do you use GC, what do you think of it etc etc. However it went on to ask if one would be more inclined to use GC if they had direct services between Kings Cross and if I recall rightly:

Cleethorpes
Scarborough
Middlesbrough
and somewhere else that I have fogotten.

I am surprised they haven't looked further at serving Scarborough, even if only once per day each way. VTEC seem to have kicked a Scarborough service into the extremely long grass I believe so for GC to serve Scarborough with a 180 could be viable, particularly in the holiday season.

Even more so as the Summer Saturday only Scarboorugh to St Pancreas service goes via a rather long and slow route.

Colin

 

[yorksrob]

Ah gotcha! Still not sure it'll be a problem though they're basically going to have access to all fourteen 180s before too long. They already have five and then the five GWR 180s are going to become available soon (and are already earmarked for GC) whilst the four HT 180s are going to be available by 2020 so fourteen units to cover Sunderland, Bradford and Blackpool I'd think would be more than sufficient. Though to be honest I'd expect to see Blackpool get something else (possibly HSTs as an interim until they can order and receive something electric) and for GC to apply for Cleethorpes and focus their 180s on the ECML (again I'd have though fourteen units to be more than sufficient to cover all of that).

2020 Seems quite a long time to wait for the full set, particularly if the Blackpool service starts!

 

[yorksrob]

Isn't the pretendolino in the process of being fitted out for TPE?

I think they might be using it for training, but whether it'll see a passenger remains to be seen. If they're not planning to use it for passengers, strengthening the HST's would be a better use for it.

 

[yorksrob]

If you can't fill most of the 287 seats on a 180 leaving London at rush hour then it feels like a wasted path.

It probably was filled from London (and I've been on plenty that have been).

On this occasion I was travelling from Doncaster to Wakefield, so the loadings observed were after lots of people had alighted.

 

[ainsworth74]

2020 Seems quite a long time to wait for the full set, particularly if the Blackpool service starts!

I suppose so but it's probably not long enough to think about faffing with converting Pretendolino vehicles to be compatible with HST vehicles when GC are going to be going to ten 180s by the end of this year. If they need more capacity then there's no reason they can't hang on to their remaining HSTs for quieter services or remarshall the sets into longer ones (which would still leave a net gain of units overall). All without fiddling with the Pretendolino (which isn't going to be available before the 180s arrive anyway).

 

[ainsworth74]

Even more so as the Summer Saturday only Scarboorugh to St Pancreas service goes via a rather long and slow route.

I think the telling thing about that service is where it starts and finishes on a Sunday which is Leicester. That service is far more about meeting demand in the East Midlands than it is providing a London service (surely Londoners would go to the South Coast rather than Scarborough?).

 

[Starmill]

I doubt very much if Cleethorpes (obviously including Scunthorpe and Grimsby) would pay by itself, but combining Cleethorpes with Bradford would probably work just about. The service from Cleethorpes and Grimsby to Doncaster is also quite thin at just 1tph so they will probably be able to whip up some extra traffic just for that.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

Scarborough generates a lot of london bound traffic. A daily London direct would be popular

 

[Steve050462]

I seem to recall at some stage that other applications included a service to/from Skegness via Spalding, Sleaford and Boston. Not sure that this would stack up financially every day, but certainly Summer weekends might be a goer.