It's certainly the route that holds most water as its the option that is likely to further grow the service as you say, frequency grows it not longer trains that may always be delayed.
Apart from Parkway, Winsford and Smethwick Galton Bridge, sure!
It simply has to be right? 2tph 5 car 730 should be great for the Liverpool's, but I can't see anything less than 10x 730, or 8x 350 for any Trent service going forward. It's just too popular now.
I haven't noticed any problems on those trains either north or south of Crewe.
I fairness, I normally only pick up a delay of a minute or so. So I'd imagine most passengers not in coach 5 would have little idea.
Yes, it only plays in the rear part (the auto announcement). The manual one can be for just the rear or all of the train
I meant just Crewe - Northampton. 4 coaches instead if 8 but gives a half hourly service between Crewe and Rugby given the size of the towns along the Trent Valley, surely sufficient demand?
Surely the local nature of the service is not what is being defended, & it's not what I see (or have done.) Lots of people here have explained that access from the N to Tamworth and Nuneaton for NE/SW or East-bound journeys is a major traffic generator. (e.g Crewe and north thereof to Peterborough and points east.)
I'm saying that I can quite see that traffic from one Trent Valley station to another is almost irrelevant. I have seen loads of people joining all down the Trent valley, I assume en route to Euston. However a better service going south from Crewe would be well worthwhile as it would make better connections onto all the lines it crosses. Another post upthread has already pointed out that lots of journeys are offered/made on one train in 1 direction but changing on the other because the timetable is so assymetric. 2 trains an hour, maybe only as far as Rugby or even MK would be a great improvement.
This isn't even taking into account the fact it's doubtful WMT would get the access rights for a second service per hour. Performance on the west coast south of Hanslope is very poor as it is. Even if you could thread a TPR compliant path in one adverse signal and it's out of path with no recovery time.
I don't think people are complaining about increasing capacity per set, it's whether the option chosen by DfT is the correct one for growing what is clearly a successful route.
The Nottingham to Birmingham service returns to every half hour in December.
as (apparently) does Liverpool to Crewe... we shall soon see whether it is yet more jam tomorrow!
Is it indeed
I used to get the 0746 ex EUS and 1931 ex CRE every fortnight in 2019, and was always 4 cars. Usually a /2. Must have just been very unlucky.
The Liverpool - Crewe - Birmingham service is only going to be half hourly in the morning and evening peak periods, according to National Rail app.
There are some hours without the additional train, but I haven't seen the diagrams to be able to confirm which ones are skipped.
I believe it's more to do with keeping some spare units where possible. Drivers are being detached already for 730 training as it is.
I agree with almost all of this. There are many useful connections on the Trent and they are very well used as has been stated before.
There are unlikely any paths into London - which is why I suggested Northampton - Rugby could be a terminus point too. The point I am making of an extra service (even if just a 4 coach service) is to enhance connectivity onto all the lines they bypass to reduce the need to go into Birmingham and to speed overall journey times between different towns and cities.
Rugby would be awful as a terminus, it doesn't have any bays and P5 and 6 get used all the time. Northampton does have bays.
