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And all of these trains are supposedly going to generate organic revenue, whilst only having 5 or 6 coaches. Which, in and of itself, should show to people it's a load of nonsense and they will then just start targeting the heavier-priced tickets on existing key flows. As you say, Preston and Crewe to London for just below the Avanti price, and then undercutting the other operators on other flows.
I still don't think Lumo has done much good. If they are that busy that 5 coaches isn't enough, then it shows that running 3tph from London to Edinburgh with 9 car Azumas should have been the priority from the start, which would also have allowed other stuff to happen, like not having to use TPE for Newcastle to Edinburgh (just put the Reston stop in to one of the 3tph).
I think having that service as TPE made sense in the December 2019 timetable where it gave Edinburgh a second hourly Leeds service and Berwick, Morpeth etc. a Manchester and Liverpool service; less so now that it's mostly Edinburgh – Newcastle only.
I doubt much about the benefits or otherwise of a Northumberland / Borders stopper hasn't already been said, with a few changes and infrastructure differences aside, in the post on Peterborough to Doncaster local services.
You don't necessarily need a 'Borders stopper', but if the TPE service effectively exists to serve Reston and East Linton, just put those two calls into an hourly / two-hourly LNER pattern.
I meant something to provide links between Morpeth, Alnmouth, Berwick, Reston, Dunbar and East Linton rather than just from them to Newcastle or Edinburgh and back. The draft timetable for this December has 1tph LNER alternating calls between Alnmouth and Berwick and the other fast from Newcastle and CrossCountry serving Morpeth or Alnmouth and Berwick, not leaving much of a service south from Dunbar or between Alnmouth and Morpeth without TPE.
Agreed, but well-worth separate discussion in the speculative thread. I know very little of the way people move about in that area and how important something like an all-stopper could be (but then again it has crossover with the WCML, as Avanti alternate their Oxenholme and Penrith stops, which I admittedly think is daft).
Is the current situation of having a few TransPennine Express services, increasing to a every two hours consistently from December, the best option to provide local journeys between Newcastle and Edinburgh?
From December, planned (subject to change) patterns are
1tph Northern Newcastle to Morpeth
1tph LNER nonstop Newcastle to Edinburgh
1tph LNER Alnmouth or Berwick
1tph CrossCountry Morpeth or Alnmouth, and Berwick (I think ~½tph Dunbar)
½tph TransPennine Express Morpeth, Alnmouth, Berwick, Reston, Dunbar, East Linton
5tpd Lumo Morpeth
½tph ScotRail Dunbar to Edinburgh
For reference's sake, Cramlington isn't above 1000 journeys to anywhere except Newcastle, Morpeth, MetroCentre, Manors and Durham, and the strongest flow south from Drem is Kings Cross (144 per year).
So one an hour needs to do Morpeth, Alnmouth and Berwick at least; and another one needs to do Berwick, (Reston), Dunbar, (East Linton). You can do Reston and East Linton alternately, as I doubt there is through traffic, but it would also keep the path of that train consistent between Drem and Berwick.
Doesn't matter which operator, and whether it's one that eventually goes to Glasgow, Aberdeen, or the other way to London, Manchester, Birmingham or Plymouth. You just need to make the Newcastle to Edinburgh bit consistent. And you can flight stuff accordingly.
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Looking at the Timetable for December, it looks like you get something like this, as your northbound departure times from the Toon.
xx:03 (ish) - ex-London, semi-fast up the ECML (e.g. Peterborough, Doncaster).
xx:14 (ish) - ex-London, fast up the ECML (York and Darlington only).
xx:40 (ish) - Cross Country.
So if the Cross Country is the one made to stop at Morpeth, Alnmouth and Berwick, then fast to Edinburgh, it won't be caught by the London semi-fast. In turn, the London semi-fast, if it chases it fast to Berwick, should make it with two extra stops (Reston and Dunbar or Dunbar and East Linton) to Edinburgh, before the fast London rolls in 3 minutes behind it at Waverley.
That would probably give a +10 at Berwick, going north, for people from Morpeth or Alnmouth to connect to the likes of Dunbar.
Southbound, the arrival times at Toon are...
xx:33 (ish) - Cross Country.
xx:55 (ish) - London semi-fast.
xx:21 (ish) - London fast.
So applying in reverse, this would create a bit of a rubbish timetable as people would have a longer connection at Berwick, when coming from Dunbar to Alnmouth or Morpeth. That said, it's probably a very small market. It would, at least, probably mean the XC leaves 3 minutes behind the LNER London fast, so it would protect overall seating capacity on the XC between Edinburgh and Newcastle. It would, of course, at least mean the connection to London coming south at Newcastle is quite good, as it would only be 20 minutes.
And if there is high demand at key times (e.g. mornings up, evenings down), you can slot calls into the London fast services at somewhere like Morpeth or Alnmouth to give the opportunity for the leisure journeys up to London and continuing on to other places.
What you do with Lumo, who knows (or cares, they should slot in wherever they can, not be given a premium path!). And one assumes, then, that if there is a demand to have a fourth train per hour in alternating hours, it need only be something that calls at major stations (e.g. Morpeth, Alnmouth and Berwick). That might be a 5 car LNER 801 shuttle, or the XC from Reading just extended through to Edinburgh to give the extra capacity between Brum / East Mids and Scotland.
How does the "modern fad" of split ticketing (or even no ticketing) affect these figures? You'd be amazed how many passengers I catch sans billet on North Berwick services who have arrived behind the barrier from another train. Presumably, they will be classified as two separate journeys?
Which brings me to the absolute dogs dinner that is the pricing regime in place for local journeys between intermediate stations on the Edinburgh to Newcastle section. Also, many journeys in these "northern climes" will be weather dependent. The current walk up fares preclude these discretionary journeys and will encourage car use instead.
I'm assuming that they're equal enough in each direction not to make much of a difference. For East Linton I wouldn't have highlighted Edinburgh if not for the absence of many passengers to almost anywhere else on the ECML.
Which is hardly surprising for two (linked) reasons. It’s a long way south before you reach anywhere comparable in size with Edinburgh - and it’s across a border which may not be an international frontier but isn’t without significance. If you need to travel regularly south you’re probably not going to choose to live in East Linton unless there are extremely pressing reasons, so while there’s a market for travel to Edinburgh for a new station to tap into from Day 1 any other flows are going to need time to establish themselves (if they ever do).
Slightly off-topic, but I think it will be interesting to see how much demand there is from the open Northumberland line stations to Alnmouth and further north (I'd guess Ashington to Morpeth by train would be done for the novelty, if at all).
Slightly off-topic, but I think it will be interesting to see how much demand there is from the open Northumberland line stations to Alnmouth and further north (I'd guess Ashington to Morpeth by train would be done for the novelty, if at all).
It's more likely that the Northumberland line will be taking traffic away from Morpeth to Newcastle in fairly significant numbers, given the fare difference.
One thing that does seem obvious, albeit of course off topic, is to simply extend the half-hourly Ashington services, at least hourly, through some sort of 'Lynemouth Parkway' at Linton, and round to Pegswood. At least that way Pegswood, which is horrifically underserved, could have an hourly service into Newcastle. You would end up with a 'rounder' service Newcastle - Morpeth - Ashington - Newcastle and vice versa each hour, and and an additional hourly Ashington 'terminator'.
It would also have a small benefit of not needing to occupy Morpeth for a bit longer to 'tip people out', and then shunt over for the reversal onto the Blyth line anyway.
Slightly off-topic, but I think it will be interesting to see how much demand there is from the open Northumberland line stations to Alnmouth and further north.........
At the northern end of the line I suspect that there are more passengers than recorded travelling north (yes I know it's really west/east by that point) to Edinburgh before heading south. Again, probably, largely to do with split ticketing.
At the northern end of the line I suspect that there are more passengers than recorded travelling north (yes I know it's really west/east by that point) to Edinburgh before heading south. Again, probably, largely to do with split ticketing.
At the northern end of the line I suspect that there are more passengers than recorded travelling north (yes I know it's really west/east by that point) to Edinburgh before heading south. Again, probably, largely to do with split ticketing.
I suspect at least some of the demand will also be absorbed with railheading to either Morpeth or Alnmouth (both have reasonable though not great bus services from Ashington, both have decent car parks with good road access along the A196/A197 or Spine Road respectively). It would probably largely go to Edinburgh which does have reasonable flows to most Northumbrian stations already.
I'm assuming that they're equal enough in each direction not to make much of a difference. For East Linton I wouldn't have highlighted Edinburgh if not for the absence of many passengers to almost anywhere else on the ECML.
East Linton is mainly a dormitory settlement for Edinburgh although I think there were people who worked at Torness when I lived there as a child. It will be interesting to see if the station performs better now there is an improved morning peak service especially the new 0747 Scotrail service into Edinburgh.
From December, planned (subject to change) patterns are
1tph Northern Newcastle to Morpeth
1tph LNER nonstop Newcastle to Edinburgh
1tph LNER Alnmouth or Berwick
1tph CrossCountry Morpeth or Alnmouth, and Berwick (I think ~½tph Dunbar)
½tph TransPennine Express Morpeth, Alnmouth, Berwick, Reston, Dunbar, East Linton
5tpd Lumo Morpeth
½tph ScotRail Dunbar to Edinburgh
This seems about right to me. I would however increase the Scotrail Dunbar terminator to hourly, forming a consistent half-hourly service from Longniddry/Drem/Musselburgh to Edinburgh together with North Berwick. And if stops at Chathill and/or Widdrington could be squeezed into the TPE stoppers it would be great.
Logically the local service (electric) would have run from Newcastle (or Metro Centre) to Alnwick, with the odd Chathill stops on TPE, but the powers that be didn't want to find the money to bridge the new A1.
Logically the local service (electric) would have run from Newcastle (or Metro Centre) to Alnwick, with the odd Chathill stops on TPE, but the powers that be didn't want to find the money to bridge the new A1.
I'm quite tempted just to scrap all the Chathill flyer stations all together TBH even Cramlington so you wouldn't have to spend money resiting that one and making it accessible (given Seaton Delaval is arguably now more convenient for parts of Cramlington anyway and also has good bus links to Newcastle).
This is not remotely likely to happen of course and not necessarily serious regarding Cramlington at least but I think the main focus should be on beefing up/improving the service at Alnmouth and Morpeth where possible and maintaining the improved TPE northumberland service. Seems daft just having a northern diesel shuttle from Newcastle to Morpeth for the sake of serving Cramlington.
I'm quite tempted just to scrap all the Chathill flyer stations all together TBH even Cramlington so you wouldn't have to spend money resting that one and making it accessible (given Seaton Delaval is arguably now more convenient for parts of Cramlington anyway and also has good bus links to Newcastle).
This is not remotely likely to happen of course and not necessarily serious regarding Cramlington at least but I think the main focus should be on beefing up/improving the service at Alnmouth and Morpeth where possible and maintaining the improved TPE northumberland service. Seems daft just having a northern diesel shuttle from Newcastle to Morpeth for the sake of serving Cramlington.
Cramlington seems to be caught in a bit of a vicious cycle. Surprisingly, it's actually the biggest town on the ECML between Newcastle and Edinburgh, but having just the diesel shuttle means passenger numbers don't really reflect this. The station also feels peripheral to the town and much more out of the way than the frequent buses you mention; I often travel to Cramlington and while I've got the bus dozens of times, I have only ever used the train twice: once to say that I'd done it and once because it ran later on Christmas Eve than the bus.
To reach its full potential, you would probably need to have two or three times as many trains stopping there as compared to now, including at least an hourly longer distance service. The tiny numbers of journeys north don't really reflect actual levels of demand - people in Morpeth are not a hundred times more likely to want to travel to Edinburgh than their Cramlingtonian cousins! But then the question becomes whether it is worth serving Cramlington properly at all - there's not really scope in the timetable to massively increase calls there, which you'd probably have to do if you wanted to make the railway actually relevant to the town.
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