Idea for non-stop Scotland to London

[route:oxford]

With 600,000 passengers flying direct from Scotland to a London airport versus 170,000 rail passengers making the journey to London - there is clearly significant opportunity for growth on the rail route*

Is there the opportunity for a non-stop service between Glasgow or Edinburgh & London?

If so, what would be the quickest potential journey time (assuming the unlikely event that a completely clear path could be obtained) and what would be the quickest practical journey time?

I recall, in the olden days, the fastest timetabled service was 3h59 minutes between Kings Cross & Edinburgh. Not that I recall it often arriving on time though.





*Thanks to Chrism20 and Tony_mac for the data.

 

[najaB]

I recall, in the olden days, the fastest timetabled service was 3h59 minutes between Kings Cross & Edinburgh. Not that I recall it often arriving on time though.

The current Flying Scotsman takes 4 hours including a stop at Newcastle - take out the stop and you'd probably be 3 hours 50 or so. As you said, good luck getting additional paths.

 

[Mag_seven]

In September 2006, the Railway Magazine ran a charity special non stop from Glasgow to Euston in 3h55 - however certain trains had to be moved out of the way e.g. onto the slow lines south of Rugby.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport...races-non-stop-for-special-charity-run-1.9719

 

[Bald Rick]

On the assumption this is just Glasgow and Edinburgh airport traffic, that's 600,000 a month, conveniently 300,000 each way, so call it 10,000 each way per day. Just over 60 full A319s, or 20 Pendolini each way per day.

As it stands there are already 34 trains a day (excluding sleepers and the Virgin services via Brum) between London and the Central belt. Some of these are full, some are not, north of Carlisle or Newcastle, save for the handful that go to Aberdeen and Inverness. This suggests that in the price / speed equation that most people use to assess travel choices the train is either too expensive, or too slow, or both.

Knocking out stops saves 5min for a train otherwise doing 125mph, less at lower linespeeds. Knocking out Newcastle or York would save only 3 mins each. Ditto Carlisle or Preston.

So would knocking out stops bring the journey time down sufficiently to significantly alter the price / speed equation? Personally I doubt it.

Also don't forget that a good proportion of those flying LHR / LGW / STN / LTN - Scotland are going nowhere near Central London. Something like a third of Heathrow passengers are interlining to long haul, and another good percentage are coming from the near Home Counties where it is quicker to get to the airport than the Euston Road.

 

[Murph]

In recent years, I personally question whether it's actually much quicker to fly Edinburgh to London, vs IC125. If you're looking at city centre to city centre time, there's really not much in it, if King's Cross is a convenient location for you.

It's really quite close overall, once you factor in the time travelling to/from the airports, the time for the needless security BS (I want security, but think that what we have is counterproductive nonsense designed to make people feel secure rather than actually providing real security), minimum checkin time nonsense, baggage claim time, etc. It used to be that you could turn up for the EDI-LHR about 15-20 mins before departure, briskly trot to the gate, hop on and go —*back then there was no question which was quicker (the plane), but that has long been lost.

These days, I'd much rather take the train and try to find a nicely priced advance first ticket. It's just so much more pleasant than flying, and you're mostly treated as a valued customer, rather than constantly scrutinised as a potential security threat and inconvenience.

Hopefully the ECML will finally see 140mph not too long after ERTMS is a reality. That should shave the time down a bit more.

 

[Chrism20]

The 600k includes Aberdeen & Inverness traffic as well (I posted a link to the CAA stats on the thread about Flybe yesterday). At a quick guess probably about 500k are going to the central belt.

BA and Virgin transfer pax will be included in that though so not sure how many that will be. The figures also include Luton and Stansted so will include numbers not exclusively from London.

 

[Bald Rick]

Hopefully the ECML will finally see 140mph not too long after ERTMS is a reality. That should shave the time down a bit more.

Approx 6 mins south of Darlington.

 

[muddythefish]

HS2 is the real game changer with regards to this idea and could kill off the internal London - Scotland air market.

 

[Starmill]

Speeding the trains up is a more sensible proposition than cutting the stops I think. Virgin have this service that does just one stop at Preston. 4 hours and 8 minutes.

HS2 would start to solve this problem.

 

[Bald Rick]

Speeding the trains up is a more sensible proposition than cutting the stops I think. Virgin have this service that does just one stop at Preston. 4 hours and 8 minutes.

HS2 would start to solve this problem.

But - and this is a the point the Norwich in Ninety lot have struggled to process - if it costs several hundred million to speed up an hourly service by 5 mins, then it is a much better use of resources to simply not stop the train at Manningtree (or Wigan, or Darlington, or wherever).

And that train rarely runs more than half full, even on Fridays.

 

[jopsuk]

Skyscanner gives me 44 flights each way between London (Heathrow, Gatwick, City, Stansed, Luton) and Edinburgh. There's 29 for Glasgow.

 

[Starmill]

And that train rarely runs more than half full, even on Fridays.

This Friday, it's currently on sale for £150 Standard Advance and and £190 First Advance. An Off-Peak single is valid on that train, and costs £132.80. A First Class Anytime Single is £239.50, or if you restrict yourself to Virgin Trains only... £239.00. So it is perhaps not hard to see why.

However, the best value fare would be to somebody making the return journey within a month, an Off-Peak Return is £133.80. £66.90 for a flexible single journey (so long as you choose your outward date), any train after 0905 seems reasonable. Could you get two Air singles for less on the day?

 

[DaveNewcastle]

The 'headline' Flying Scotsman, running with just one stop between Edinburgh and London in 4 hours (and which is the only service to do this) already faces problems in integrating with the rest of the timetabled services.
It has to pass two other East Coast stopper services somewhere (both south of Doncaster if all are running to time) and although it often runs slow between Temple Hirst Jn and Doncaster to reach its time path, it does illustrate just how tricky it is to slot in a train running to slightly faster timings.

If the ECML that sensitive first thing in the morning, where the two services to be passed run shorter routes than the flyer (starting at Berwick and Hull), imagine how tricky it would become later in the day, when services starting further out and with their accumulated timing variations, were on the fasts and freights were in the loops?

 

[Stats]

The 'headline' Flying Scotsman, running with just one stop between Edinburgh and London in 4 hours (and which is the only service to do this) already faces problems in integrating with the rest of the timetabled services.
It has to pass two other East Coast stopper services somewhere (both south of Doncaster if all are running to time) and although it often runs slow between Temple Hirst Jn and Doncaster to reach its time path, it does illustrate just how tricky it is to slot in a train running to slightly faster timings.

If the ECML that sensitive first thing in the morning, where the two services to be passed run shorter routes than the flyer (starting at Berwick and Hull), imagine how tricky it would become later in the day, when services starting further out and with their accumulated timing variations, were on the fasts and freights were in the loops?

Well, we will see in May 2019 when it becomes a regular service throughout the day.

 

[anti-pacer]

Well, we will see in May 2019 when it becomes a regular service throughout the day.

What's happening then?

 

[Abpj17]

It would be interesting to see more of the breakdowns. For example, I can't imagine those flying into City will ever be persuaded to take the train. And for those returning on the same day, then the train is a bit of a challenge (whereas flight seems a bit more feasible).

 

[Chrism20]

It would be interesting to see more of the breakdowns. For example, I can't imagine those flying into City will ever be persuaded to take the train. And for those returning on the same day, then the train is a bit of a challenge (whereas flight seems a bit more feasible).

The stats for all of the domestic air routes for a few months back are here. Each airport/route is declared separately.

City accounted for around 65k of those passengers, more than half on the Edinburgh route although the BA schedule is pretty intensive and Flybe are ramping it up by dropping Inverness. Apparently RBS have a block for a certain number of seats on every BA service to/from City.

 

[TheWalrus]

For the sake of 3 mins, taking into account the amount of revenue you would gain by calling at Carlisle/Preston for example, it's likely more beneficial to stop there.

 

[fowler9]

I am only guessing here but there is a massive number of people flying to London who do not have London as their final destination, certainly the one time I flew to London it was for onward travel and getting the train from Liverpool to Heathrow would have been insane. The transfer to Heathrow was pretty much free on top of the onward journey. Actually thinking back it was free. This proves nothing of course. I think it would be interesting to see what percentage of internal flights to London are not being used to connect to onward flights.

 

[SkinnyDave]

Alliance Rail with their Pendolino plans are planned for sub 4 hours only stopping at Newcastle but I doubt ORR will allow it..

VEC are going to be increasing their services that only stop at Newcastle with 4 HR timings, I can only see this being done when ERTMS is introduced

 

[route:oxford]

The stats for all of the domestic air routes for a few months back are here. Each airport/route is declared separately.

City accounted for around 65k of those passengers, more than half on the Edinburgh route although the BA schedule is pretty intensive and Flybe are ramping it up by dropping Inverness. Apparently RBS have a block for a certain number of seats on every BA service to/from City.

HBOS used to have similar on flights to Heathrow and Leeds.

 

[Senex]

Knocking out stops saves 5min for a train otherwise doing 125mph, less at lower linespeeds. Knocking out Newcastle or York would save only 3 mins each. Ditto Carlisle or Preston.

I assume you're thinking in terms of 2-minute stations stops and start/stop allowances of 2 minutes / 1 minute at 125 mph passing-speed and ½ minutes for both start and stop for both Newcastle and York (PSR at York being 30 mph).

Is there a real case for missing the York stop from the planned 2019 timetable when the cost of the stop is so small? Unfortunately there seems to be know way of knowing how many London bookings each of the principal East Coast stations generates, but in terms of overall station usage the figures are interesting. King's Cross of course comes first (entries, exits, and interchanges). But then it's Edinburgh at 21.2M, York at 9.4M, Newcastle at 8.4M, then a big drop to Peterborough at 5.3M (when one is already into the "normal" London commuter area), and a further big drop to Darlington at 2.6M.

Should the fastest trains be London-York-Newcastle-Edinburgh, with the Darlington and Berwick stops picked up by the second-rank service? Or if connectivity is to be tgaken into account rather than the absolutely fastest journey-time, should Peterborough be included (not that the up-direction stop does not carry such a huge time-penalty) because of its very large interchange traffic (nearly 900,000 in 2014)?

As for the present "Flying Scotsman", its introduction took away York's principal fast morning business train and provided a successor more than 10 minutes slower (and still with a poor path). When I have seen it passing through York station at its stately 30 mph it has hardly ever appeared crowded.

 

[Hardcastle]

Don't forget trains have to stop somewhere mid journey for a crew change so non stop is not possible in the real scheme of things.

 

[Holly]

... This proves nothing of course. I think it would be interesting to see what percentage of internal flights to London are not being used to connect to onward flights.

That is the crucial figure to know. How many of those 600,000 are connecting with other flights? Or travelling to business meetings that are held near an airport as a convenience to other travellers from further away.

I think the biggest thing that would attract people would be trains that leave London shortly before midnight, to attract both theatre-goers and businessfolk at the end of a long day trip.
Non-stop (or pick-up only), maximum speed and comfort including breakfast "up" trains in the morning and a choice of "down" return times late into the evening is where the need is. Whether it is a profitable market to serve is a different matter.

The sleeper does not meet the return need because workers often can't plan ahead and have no idea what time their working day will end (even though they know exactly when it will start).

 

[starrymarkb]

Heathrow is probably more convenient for a lot of HQs in the M4 belt (often the site was chosen because of Heathrow)

Even with HS2 expect BA to keep flying London to Scotland for connecting passengers into the Long Haul network (Though with smaller aircraft then the 767s or A321s used on the Shuttle at present) The only way you'd stop that would be for HS2 to have a stop at Heathrow (maybe underneath T5B and C with travelators/transits to T5 and T2&3 - T1 will be demolished with T2 expanding over it's site by then)

 

[najaB]

Don't forget trains have to stop somewhere mid journey for a crew change so non stop is not possible in the real scheme of things.

If they really want to do non-stop then they can have two drivers and one catering crew. Four hours down, lunch and then four hours back up isn't much longer than the days the catering crews currently work.

 

[Abpj17]

The stats for all of the domestic air routes for a few months back are here. Each airport/route is declared separately.

City accounted for around 65k of those passengers, more than half on the Edinburgh route although the BA schedule is pretty intensive and Flybe are ramping it up by dropping Inverness. Apparently RBS have a block for a certain number of seats on every BA service to/from City.

Thanks And yes, it's the banks in particular I'm thinking of! I suspect one or two of the bigger irish banks have similar arrangements for dublin to city given the lower number of flights.

From the figures, am surprised to see how relatively small the gap is between gatwick and city for traffic from edinburgh and glasgow!

 

[JonathanH]

That is the crucial figure to know. How many of those 600,000 are connecting with other flights? Or travelling to business meetings that are held near an airport as a convenience to other travellers from further away.

I think the biggest thing that would attract people would be trains that leave London shortly before midnight, to attract both theatre-goers and businessfolk at the end of a long day trip.
Non-stop (or pick-up only), maximum speed and comfort including breakfast "up" trains in the morning and a choice of "down" return times late into the evening is where the need is. Whether it is a profitable market to serve is a different matter.

The sleeper does not meet the return need because workers often can't plan ahead and have no idea what time their working day will end (even though they know exactly when it will start).

Is a service that leaves London at midnight and arrives in Edinburgh at 4am really desirable? Day trains tend not to run with subdued internal lighting, four hours is too short a journey for an undisturbed night, too late for checking into hotels and probably too late for people who can go home and get up for work later in the day.

The plans for the Caledonian Sleeper appear to introduce an improvement in seated accomodation which may attract the market you refer to. However, this will presumably run in timings fairly close to the existing timetable - ie leave just before midnight and arrive at 7am. Just a shame the capacity of the sleeper is so small that it isn't as easy to get a space at short notice as it is on day trains.

It is equally effective to simply put those people on coaches which take eight hours and let them arrive at a reasonable time in the morning when public transport connections are running again. I think there might be a place for something between the existing overnight coaches and the megabus sleeper where passengers have a bit more individual space but don't have the lie-flat bunk type accommodation that applies on the megabus sleeper.

 

[Chrism20]

That is the crucial figure to know. How many of those 600,000 are connecting with other flights? Or travelling to business meetings that are held near an airport as a convenience to other travellers from further away.

There are shed loads of stats for airports etc on the CAA website which are produced every month and available to view free. If you good CAA route stats it will opoints you in the right direction.

I think there is something there which tells you the number of transfer pax but I don't think it breaks it down into domestic/int'l transfers unfortunately. The number of transfers will be quite high on certain BA flights. The first and last flights of the day to/from both Edinburgh and Glasgow are usually 767s with Edinburgh frequently seeing two which will give you an idea of the numbers

 

[cjt0131]

HS2 is the real game changer with regards to this idea and could kill off the internal London - Scotland air market.

we are all entitled to our opinions

I do not believe HS2 will have any effect whatsoever on the Scotland-London air market----even if it does actually get to Scotland which I doubt it ever will