I get the logic with that and would help keep the timetable more balanced and provide Birmingham with a more consistent 2tph run to Peterborough. That could arguably be better from purely a Birmingham-Peterborough frequency perspective, but not much else.
With a 1x stopper/1x semi-fast approach you still at least add both capacity and frequency but also a small journey time benefit for one hourly Birmingham-Peterborough. That would come close to an intercity service that could almost warrant a Voyager (though unlikely that would be). The stopper would then improve regional connectivity whereas if you spread the intermediate stops across two services there's no such benefit, which I think would be a lost opportunity.
Agree with later comments on current service reliability but this is obviously just speculative longer-term discussion besides current day-to-day issues. In the first instance they need to extend all hourly services from Cambridge to Stansted, but I understand now that's possibly coming from the May 2025 timetable. Whether or not that will include Audley End again I'm not sure.
