Is there a case to be made for XC to no longer cater for station pairs which are already well covered by other operators?

[VItraveller]

I’m thinking specifically about flows like Newport and Cardiff, Birmingham New Street and Birmingham International, or Stockport and Manchester.

Could they save time by cutting stations like Newport, Birmingham International and Stockport out of the timetable? If so, would this lead to less overcrowding, or are these stations significant traffic generators and would this be detrimental?

 

[Mgameing123]

I’m thinking specifically about flows like Newport and Cardiff, Birmingham New Street and Birmingham International, or Stockport and Manchester.

Why would you want to cut Birmingham International. By stopping there your giving towns like Reading, Oxford and Leamington Spa a direct rail service to Birmingham Airport.

 

[jfollows]

They started out with an hourly service missing Stockport, other services missing Macclesfield and Stafford, and have had reason over the years to put these stops in, so that just about nothing of their services passes through any of these stations without stopping.

 

[Topological]

A case, yes.

However, those places (Newport, Stockport, Birmingham International etc) all benefit from the connections that CrossCountry provide. Removing those connections would feel counter-intuitive.

If you have a set of stations in a row that could be cut (and arguably Manchester Piccadilly - Stockport - Macclesfield - Stoke provides such a set), then maybe you could cut one or two of the stations to get people to use the other operator (in the example, Avanti has plenty of capacity).

They already did cut the duplication on the WCML. I strongly argue for cutting XC at York to save units. But that is a direct journey argument that is not needed here. I think the intention here is simply removing some passengers who are only making short journeys.

 

[stevieinselby]

The problem is that XC aren't just providing a service from Cardiff to Newport, or from Manchester to Stockport – they're providing services from Birmingham to Newport and from Birmingham to Stockport. Cut those stops out, and you're hurting long-distance passengers from those towns who now have to make an extra change ... and in some cases, it would mean either travelling the wrong way and doubling back (not allowed on a normal ticket so would be more expensive as well as a longer journey) or catching a local stopping service. Forcing all passengers from Newport to Gloucester, Cheltenham and beyond onto the TfW stopper and then making them change at Cheltenham for onward connections would not be a good move.

Where the station pair is at the end of the route, as in Newport or Stockport, you could potentially make it a pick-up/set-down stop so as to disallow local journeys on that section while maintaining full connectivity for other passengers, but that's hard to police and enforce. That wouldn't work for a section like Birmingham to International where it's in the middle of the route, though.

 

[Djgr]

I’m thinking specifically about flows like Newport and Cardiff, Birmingham New Street and Birmingham International, or Stockport and Manchester.

I'm not saying that there are no stations that could be dropped but I don't think these would be any of the above.

The solution to longstanding problems at XC lies elsewhere but they should serve the passenger flows that exist rather than what is operationally convenient for them.

 

[The Planner]

Cutting stations out in most cases isn't going to save any overall journey time. You'll just end up adding it back as pathing.

 

[Harpo]

The answer needs to be more capacity, provided by XC, or other local operators. The DfT solution would of course be to price-off demand.

 

[Manutd1999]

I wouldn't advocate for dropping any stops but how about removing XC services from the apps and departure screens for specific city pairs where there are local train alternatives? I'm thinking Leeds-Wakefield, Birmingham Int - New St - Wolverhampton, Manchester-Stockport etc.

The stops would still exist but wouldn't be advertised, essentially a pick-up/set-down restriction but not strictly enforced. So departure boards at Leeds would show the first stop as Sheffield, whereas in fact it would still call at Wakefield.

It's not going to be transformational, but every little helps where XC capacity is concerned....

 

[30907]

I wouldn't advocate for dropping any stops but how about removing XC services from the apps and departure screens for specific city pairs where there are local train alternatives? I'm thinking Leeds-Wakefield, Birmingham Int - New St - Wolverhampton, Manchester-Stockport etc.

An alternative is to run a high capacity service immediately in front. This was the case for many years, and resumed in December.

 

[A S Leib]

I know it's an example which hasn't yet been brought up in this thread, but I don't think discouraging Durham to Newcastle passengers from CrossCountry services would work. The LNER and TPE services are ××:07 and ××:20 northbound (a much better ××:02 and ××:27 southbound); CrossCountry services, understandably, can't be timed as ideally as possible for this case to begin with, but removing Durham stops would make the bunching problem worse.

That's a problem which I don't think exists, at least to the same extent, for Newport (2 tph from Paddington, 2 from Bristol, 1-2 from Shrewsbury, 1 from Cheltenham), Stockport (3 tph from London, 1 from Cardiff, 2 from Sheffield on top of Northern) or Coventry or Wolverhampton.

 

[amahy]

I’m thinking specifically about flows like Newport and Cardiff, Birmingham New Street and Birmingham International, or Stockport and Manchester.

There could be a case for making some of these stations pick-up/set-down only for Cross Country. For example, Stockport could become pick-up only on southbound services, and set-down only on northbound services.

 

[duffield]

Yes, you could use pickup/setdown restrictions to largely prevent local journeys where other adequate other services do exist, but the question I would ask is whether those restrictions would actually address overcrowding on the parts of the routes where that is the biggest problem, and I suspect the answer is "no".

As previously pointed out, restrictions in the core of the route may prevent some local journeys but also seriously disadvantage some of the long distance passengers we are (presumably) trying to prioritise, and restrictions at the periphery, where they could be effective, don't help with the worst overcrowding in the core. Once again, it all seems to come back to choosing between providing extra capacity (either via XC or extra local trains), tolerating overcrowding or pricing people off the railway.

I suppose that - for example - having Stockport pick up only travelling from Manchester might help since longer distance passengers could maybe get a seat straight away rather than waiting for the local passengers to leave at Stockport, but this sort of thing is a fairly marginal gain.

More and longer rolling stock (and the necessary train crew!) for XC plus changes like the new fast Sheffield to Leeds Northern service and (eventually) the third train per hour from Nottingham to Birmingham are the real solution.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

I’m thinking specifically about flows like Newport and Cardiff, Birmingham New Street and Birmingham International, or stockport and Manchester.
could they save time by cutting stations like Newport, Birmingham International and Stockport out of the timetable, would this lead to less overcrowding or are these stations significant traffic generators in And of themselves or as park and rideswhere losing the paths would be detrimental

That’s a bit like arguing XC doesn’t need to serve the Birmingham International to Birmingham New Street flow as other trains do that so you might as well cut out Birmingham New Street stops!

 

[thenorthern]

They have removed quite a few stops over the years, looking at the map from 2001 the services to Swindon, Blackpool, Swansea, Poole, Portsmouth, London Paddington and Liverpool Lime Street were all cut by Virgin Cross Country and the Brighton services were cut by CrossCountry in 2008. Services to Bath and Guildford were also cut but I am not sure when.

I know since 2001 as well that Cross Gates, Dawlish Warren, Chester-le-Street, Soilihul, Dronfield, Hartford, Manchester Oxford Road, Carstars, Didcot Parkway, Congleton, Bromsgrove, Droitwich Spa, Worcester Shrub Hill, Attleborough, Patchway, Peatree, Filton Abbey Wood, Wilmslow were previously served at some point by Virgin Cross Country, CrossCountry or Central CityLink but lost their services despite the fact that CrossCountry services still run/ran through or nearby these station.

A big problem as well is what do you class as part of a city. To many outsiders Wolverhampton is part of Birmingham, Stockport is part of Manchester, Motherwell is part of Glasgow, Morpeth is part of Newcastle, however saying that to locals will likely offend them.

 

[ChrisC]

It‘s good to see that an hourly stop by XC at Chesterfield has been restored in recent timetables. I understand the overcrowding issues with passengers on short journeys between Chesterfield and Sheffield, but omitting calls at Chesterfield is a big inconvenience for long distance passengers. Chesterfield station is used by people from a wide area of North Derbyshire and parts of Nottinghamshire. Passengers from Nottingham to and from the north find it a convenient station to change trains with same platform connections. Cutting the Chesterfield stop and forcing people to change trains at Sheffield, often resulting in having to cross the bridge with luggage, was a backward step. When travelling south it was also an inconvenience having to change trains at Derby, and somewhat pointless when the XC trains were having extended times waiting at Derby as a result of not calling at Chesterfield.

 

[kkong]

XC have been doing their best to run down their paltry service between Aberdeen and Edinburgh for quite some time.

It's pretty unreliable and their fares in general aren't competitive with ScotRail or LNER.

 

[duffield]

It‘s good to see that an hourly stop by XC at Chesterfield has been restored in recent timetables. I understand the overcrowding issues with passengers on short journeys between Chesterfield and Sheffield, but omitting calls at Chesterfield is a big inconvenience for long distance passengers. Chesterfield station is used by people from a wide area of North Derbyshire and parts of Nottinghamshire. Passengers from Nottingham to and from the north find it a convenient station to change trains with same platform connections. Cutting the Chesterfield stop and forcing people to change trains at Sheffield, often resulting in having to cross the bridge with luggage, was a backward step. When travelling south it was also an inconvenience having to change trains at Derby, and somewhat pointless when the XC trains were having extended times waiting at Derby as a result of not calling at Chesterfield.

Cutting the Chesterfield stops was worse than just inconvenient, it made the connections nearly impossible for anyone who couldn't whip across the bridge at Sheffield in a couple of minutes if the local service only got into Sheffield immediately before the XC service. I've been on the incoming local service and the doors have barely opened at Sheffield as the XC service arrived over the other side of the station. At Chesterfield, either the local was in front or not (alright, very occasionally the local might use P3 but that's pretty unusual), so the same platform change was guaranteed and totally non-stressful if it was in front.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

Changing the Stockport stop to pick up/set down only I don't see being a big help.
Quite a lot of people use Stockport as a kind of Parkway station for South/East Manchester to go further South, a few people taking their seats for the 10 minutes they're not needed is of no disadvantage (although I more often end up standing/crouching somewhere to get a view out the door or wheelchair space's window).

Also it would be annoying for me since most of the Voyagers I've ridden were between Piccadilly and Stockport.

 

[Djgr]

They have removed quite a few stops over the years, looking at the map from 2001 the services to Swindon, Blackpool, Swansea, Poole, Portsmouth, London Paddington and Liverpool Lime Street were all cut by Virgin Cross Country and the Brighton services were cut by CrossCountry in 2008. Services to Bath and Guildford were also cut but I am not sure when.

And it is difficult to see how doing this has led to XC providing an exemplary service.

Once the franchise ends, the entire "inter city avoiding London offering" needs to looked at afresh from first principles.

 

[A S Leib]

Once the franchise ends, the entire "inter city avoiding London offering" needs to looked at afresh from first principles.

What will be the last (vaguely) non-London intercity service outside public control? I think it's just CrossCountry and Cardiff – Exeter (Taunton? I can't remember where they're being split) services to go, given that TPE, ScotRail and TfW are already renationalised.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

What will be the last (vaguely) non-London intercity service outside public control? I think it's just CrossCountry and Cardiff – Exeter (Taunton? I can't remember where they're being split) services to go, given that TPE, ScotRail and TfW are already renationalised.

It depends if any of the current non-London open access proposals get approved or not.

 

[Russel]

This will do little to nothing to solve XC's problems, it'll just remove connectivity.

 

[thenorthern]

Looking at the timetable I do question the stopping pattern of some of the CrossCountry services. For example all the Cardiff Central to Nottingham trains stop at Long Eaton and Beeston however most the Birmingham New Street to Nottingham services do not. The Birmingham to Stansted Airport trains all call at Coleshill Parkway however most do not call at Hinckley.

 

[Miles Bown]

What effect has the introduction of PAYG in South-East Wales had on Newport-Cardiff XC loadings? PAYG is valid on XC and TfW but not on GWR, despite the latter providing the most frequent service between them. The PAYG fare undercuts the normal fare, as I understand it, so there may be an incentive for people to use the XC when they otherwise wouldn't. The obvious remedy to this would be to allow PAYG on GWR rather than remove Newport calls on XC, if we're talking about a passenger-friendly solution, although pick up/set down restrictions are also an option if deemed necessary.

 

[Topological]

I would be interested to know how many people use PAYG on GWR between Newport and Cardiff though. There are never ticket checks to my knowledge.

I don't think CrossCountry suffer too badly on that flow, but then I tended to use the early morning Saturday service on the line rather than anything when the trains were busier.

CrossCountry has much bigger problems where it mirrors flows around Birmingham and in Yorkshire. Manchester southwards is bad, but as I noted earlier Avanti do have a decent offering on Manchester to Stoke as well and people would be more inclined to take the Avanti if possible.

 

[VT 390]

Looking at the timetable I do question the stopping pattern of some of the CrossCountry services. For example all the Cardiff Central to Nottingham trains stop at Long Eaton and Beeston however most the Birmingham New Street to Nottingham services do not. The Birmingham to Stansted Airport trains all call at Coleshill Parkway however most do not call at Hinckley.

The Turbostar Cross Country routes are closer to West Midlands Railway/East Midlands Railway regional services, especially since first class and seat reservations were removed from these services. Although I could see a case for Cardiff to Nottingham moving to a proper intercity Cross Country service.
Ideally the stopping patterns on these routes should be reviewed and additional stopping services would operate Birmingham to Derby/Leicester to speed up the longer routes to Nottingham/Cambridge. Of course there is not the rolling stock for this currently and until the Bordesley chords get built there is not really the capacity into Birmingham for extra services.