Should Norwich see more through trains?

[AndyMike]

Why should East Anglia continue to suffer from poor connections? Throwing your passengers out halfway to their actual destination just sounds like a terrible idea.

I agree. Yes, Liverpool-Norwich is a rather unusual route, but - using it regularly, travelling southbound from Sheffield and back - I am always quite surprised by the number of passengers who clearly use it to travel from the north to points beyond Peterborough, so there seems to be a market there (not least among university students). The biggest problem isn’t that it’s slow, but the dreadful rolling stock, which makes the lack of speed less tolerable.

 

[dk1]

If you have treked to the Waitrose, after the staff and customers have finished glaring down their noses at you and you've paid for expensive food you then have to walk all the way back to the station.

Not if you have a Waitrose card

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Feb 2022 ==

dont get me wrong, i get it is not a priority, but it is a route where my sense is franchise maps and entrenched service patterns have led to a service that is sub-optimal from a passenger user-friendliness and overall aggregate revenue generation perspective. There is after all, other than historic accident, no reason why Stansted and Cambridge should have services to Birmingham but not Notts/Sheffield/Manchester/Liverpool, and Norwich the reverse, while Ipswich and Bury (together have almost as much footfall as Norwich) dont have any services beyond Peterborough at all

That all happened in the early 1990s when Norwich crews where required to sign beyond Peterborough. As some Cambridge crews signed to Leicester/Birmingham Provincial later Regional Railways simply didn’t have the budget & hence Norwich only trained/signed Nottingham (both routes) while Cambridge continued to Birmingham & we ended up with the service pattern we have today.

 

[Starmill]

Why bother with splitting and joining when it is possible to just run Norwich to Peterborough and terminate there with a suitable connection into the XC service? Does Peterborough to Leicester need double length trains?

As you note, options to run 2tph Grantham to Nottingham exist without the trains running south of there.

I imagine something on these lines would also be practical, yes. It may be beneficial to have removed some of the train movements between Ely and Peterborough but keeping them as two separate services running fairly closely is unlikely to be an enormous issue, plus it could mean that the trains just running to Peterborough serve all stations between Ely and Peterborough while Birmingham trains run fast.

Dividing and combining services at a location without a traincrew depot is rarely a brilliant idea.

It isn't perfect, but Ely is hardly far from Cambridge.

 

[47421]

That all happened in the early 1990s when Norwich crews where required to sign beyond Peterborough. As some Cambridge crews signed to Leicester/Birmingham Provincial later Regional Railways simply didn’t have the budget & hence Norwich only trained/signed Nottingham (both routes) while Cambridge continued to Birmingham & we ended up with the service pattern we have today.

yep, that and historically i imagine Norwich was a more popular destination with holiday traffic to Yarmouth.

 

[dk1]

yep, that and historically i imagine Norwich was a more popular destination with holiday traffic to Yarmouth.

They used to bring in lots of March crews.

 

[ashkeba]

If anything, trains from Norwich should terminate at Peterborough and not go further, removing the slow trains from the ECML between Peterborough and Grantham and enabling transfer of the residual Norwich to Peterborough service to Greater Anglia.

If faster trains are needed, put more faster-accelerating faster Flirt bi-modes on it. That would probably make the obstruction of the 7 or so miles of double track south of Grantham negligible. Upgrade the rolling stock instead of axing the service.

Interchange at Doncaster or Nuneaton is no more pleasant an experience than interchange at Peterborough.

Doncaster far better but probably too much ECML unless Flirts are also upgraded to 125 mph or rooted on the slow Lincoln line which would make it unattractive. Nuneaton not.

If Norwich trains went to Birmingham instead of Nottingham all that happens is a different set of travellers have to change trains at a different station.

But would connections at Leicester, Nuneaton and Birmingham shorten more journey times than the loss of Nottingham and Stockport/Manchester connections lengthens? The attraction of barely using the ECML seems strong.

There is a way. Spending lots of millions £££ redoubling Ely North Junction and other track alterations in the Ely area, and a whole lot of level crossing mitigation or closures. From memory I think it was 126 crossings across the Lynn, Norwich, Peterbronx, Cambridge, and Ipswich lines.

Lynn line? I do not see that getting through services any time soon, so let us not add its cost to better Norwich services through to further west! The Ely-Ipswich line is also unlikely to see Norwich through services.

 

[TheBigD]

Lynn line? I do not see that getting through services any time soon, so let us not add its cost to better Norwich services through to further west! The Ely-Ipswich line is also unlikely to see Norwich through services.

Upgrading the Lynn line crossings are needed to extend the current Ely to Kings Cross services through to Lynn, a long term aspiration for various stakeholders. This then releases capacity at Ely itself for the extra freight paths and passenger services.

The Ely Area Capacity Upgrade (think I've got the name right) lists the future capacity of Ely North Junction as...

2 x Lynn paths
2 x Norwich paths
3 x Peterborough paths
1 x Path to be decided
3 x Peterborough freight paths
(Some 75mph class 4 and some slower 60/40mph class 6 paths)

 

[cle]

This 1tph terminator (plus the odd peak to Liverpool St, could they also extend to KL?) - would it really unlock that more capacity? It's not cropped up too much in the broader Ely North discussions.

That's the second Lynn path for sure. I wonder if the TBD could be the much-touted Cambridge-ECML aspiration (Leeds typically), one day? Another to Norwich could well be useful too - Cambridge-Norwich at 2tph has been mentioned often too.

 

[TheBigD]

This 1tph terminator (plus the odd peak to Liverpool St, could they also extend to KL?) - would it really unlock that more capacity? It's not cropped up too much in the broader Ely North discussions.

My understanding (I'm probably wrong) is that platform 3 at Ely, where they currently sit for around 30 minutes, gets shortened to allow for higher entry and exit speeds for the freight loops*. This means that there isn't room to have both a 12 car 387 and an EMR service in platform 3 at the same time.

* Linespeeds are also increased accross both the bridges over the river Ouse north of Ely, thus allowing the freight to clear the area a lot quicker and release capacity for the extra paths. I seem to recall 50mph for all traffic being mentioned.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Feb 2022 ==

I wonder if the TBD could be the much-touted Cambridge-ECML aspiration (Leeds typically), one day? Another to Norwich could well be useful too - Cambridge-Norwich at 2tph has been mentioned often too.

My money would be on extending the current Birmingham to Leicester terminator through to Cambridge, giving a half hourly Birmingham-Leicester-Peterborough-Cambridge service.
XC proposed extending every other one back in 2008/9.

 

[ashkeba]

This 1tph terminator (plus the odd peak to Liverpool St, could they also extend to KL?) - would it really unlock that more capacity? It's not cropped up too much in the broader Ely North discussions.

While good to have, it seems strange to attribute the cost to Norwich through services.

That's the second Lynn path for sure. I wonder if the TBD could be the much-touted Cambridge-ECML aspiration (Leeds typically), one day? Another to Norwich could well be useful too - Cambridge-Norwich at 2tph has been mentioned often too.

Bring back the North Country Continental!

 

[tbtc]

In a post franchises world there ought to be scope for mixing and matching destinations between East Anglia and cross country destinations, so Ipswich Stansted Cambridge and Norwich all had direct services to all of stations to Birmingham and Liverpool, which would provide a hugely increased number of direct station pairs

Given that we have one fixed path per hour from Peterborough to Birmingham and one fixed path per hour from Peterborough to Nottingham (and beyond), but demand east of Peterborough is split between Norwich, Ipswich and Stansted via Cambridge, how do you run services?

Would you end up with two Peterborough to Norwich trains within half an hour of each other (i.e. one from Nottingham and one from Birmingham) and then nothing from Peterborough to Norwich for a couple of hours? Same with Cambridge having no trains to Peterborough for a couple of hours, then two within half an hour of each other?

How would this leave the Norwich - Cambridge service? Would that also be "two trains within half an hour of each other then a long gap"?

I say this because, if you want to give everywhere a link to everywhere, you can't have an hourly train from Peterborough to both Nottingham/ Birmingham and also hourly trains from Peterborough to Norwich/ Cambridge

Then you've got the problem that the journey times don't quite match up - Ely to Stansted is ten minutes faster than Ely to Norwich

So any Stansted service would require a layover of twenty minutes longer than the layover at Norwich, if the plan was that they fitted into the same clock face path west of Ely (e.g. at the moment the hourly Nottingham service has twenty minutes to lay over at Norwich, so any Nottingham - Stansted service would occupy one of the Airport's platforms for around forty minutes so that it fitted into the same hourly path west of Ely)

It seems the answer is "yes - because through Cross-Country routes are interesting from an enthusiasts perspective" and "no, because it's not practical"

Yup, same as usual - we keep bumping up against the problems of trying to link various far flung places whilst also providing simple reliable services for the larger number of people who do shorter distance journeys

yes more expensive, but revenue would be enhanced as direct journeys more attractive than changing

How do you know that revenue would go up by much though?

There's a lot of costs that would go up, in terms of staffing/ maintenance/ route knowledge etc

There is after all, other than historic accident, no reason why Stansted and Cambridge should have services to Birmingham but not Notts/Sheffield/Manchester/Liverpool, and Norwich the reverse, while Ipswich and Bury (together have almost as much footfall as Norwich) dont have any services beyond Peterborough at all

True, but there are lots of examples of this on the railway - there's no particular reason why TPE's hourly service from Middlesbrough goes to Manchester Airport rather than Liverpool, there's no particular reason why Barry Island's trains go through to Merthyr rather than the many other northern termini on the "Valley Lines" network, there's no particular reason why Stratford's cross-Birmingham service terminates at Kidderminster rather than extending to Worcester... our busy railway means simple hourly services are a better use of capacity than trying to link everywhere with everywhere

I'm sure that all of those service patterns I've mentioned have some examples where people would want a through train (e.g. the finite number of paths means there's no service from Hull to beyond Manchester), but it's Opportunity Cost

Why should East Anglia continue to suffer from poor connections? Throwing your passengers out halfway to their actual destination just sounds like a terrible idea.

How many people are wanting to travel from the three routes east of Ely to the various places west of Ely though?

It's a bit like the line west of Cardiff - I'm sure there are some people who'd like to do through journeys like Milford Haven to Birmingham or Pembroke to Bristol, but those through trains no longer exist

 

[47421]

Yup, same as usual - we keep bumping up against the problems of trying to link various far flung places whilst also providing simple reliable services for the larger number of people who do shorter distance journeys

How do you know that revenue would go up by much though?

There's a lot of costs that would go up, in terms of staffing/ maintenance/ route knowledge etc

Sure, get this is not easy, but just as lots of complaints about lost through journey opportunities if Norwich Liverpool is split at Notts, flipside is there are many lost through journey opportunities by not offering them at all. Clearly it is speculative how much more revenue would be generated, but seems obvious that Birmingham to Norwich or Ipswich is a non-trivial market. Ditto Notts/Sheff to Stansted.

East of Peterborough all the cross country Anglia routes are dominated by leisure traffic - very little commuting and almost no business traffic considering it is so slow compared to the nicely improved A14. Lesiure passengers, esp those going on to airports, are sensitive about chainging, why not try to offer them direct services? In the post covid and post franchising world railway is going to need to focus on lesiure travellers more than ever.

 

[JonathanH]

In the post covid and post franchising world railway is going to need to focus on lesiure travellers more than ever.

No, the Railway will be focusing on standardising routes and removing duplication as we have already seen elsewhere.

Lesiure passengers, esp those going on to airports, are sensitive about chainging, why not try to offer them direct services?

The revenue they generate does not justify the costs of complex service patterns.

 

[dosxuk]

Considering how the DfT has been wanting to scrap the Norwich to Liverpool service for years now, I think the chances of them adding more options to the eastern end of the route are pretty much zero.

 

[HST43257]

I’ve wondered sometimes whether it’s worth mixing up the Anglia destinations a bit

e.g

1tp2h Nottingham to Norwich
1tp2h Nottingham to Cambridge/Stansted
1tp2h Birmingham to Norwich
1tp2h Birmingham to Cambridge/Stansted

rather than

1tph Nottingham to Norwich
1tph Birmingham to Cambridge/Stansted

 

[JonathanH]

I’ve wondered sometimes whether it’s worth mixing up the Anglia destinations a bit

e.g

1tp2h Nottingham to Norwich
1tp2h Nottingham to Cambridge/Stansted
1tp2h Birmingham to Norwich
1tp2h Birmingham to Cambridge/Stansted

rather than

1tph Nottingham to Norwich
1tph Birmingham to Cambridge/Stansted

No, it isn't worth it for reasons already set out in this thread five posts up. Somewhere or other, you end up with uneven frequency of services as a result of the interworking and more traincrew need to be trained on more routes.

https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...ore-through-trains.228486/page-2#post-5548901

 

[TheBigD]

I’ve wondered sometimes whether it’s worth mixing up the Anglia destinations a bit

e.g

1tp2h Nottingham to Norwich
1tp2h Nottingham to Cambridge/Stansted
1tp2h Birmingham to Norwich
1tp2h Birmingham to Cambridge/Stansted

rather than

1tph Nottingham to Norwich
1tph Birmingham to Cambridge/Stansted

Had that pattern in the early 1990s.
Gave a roughly 40m/1hr20m frequency on both routes, though there was a 2 hourly Leicester-Birmingham in the mix as well.

 

[dk1]

I’ve wondered sometimes whether it’s worth mixing up the Anglia destinations a bit

e.g

1tp2h Nottingham to Norwich
1tp2h Nottingham to Cambridge/Stansted
1tp2h Birmingham to Norwich
1tp2h Birmingham to Cambridge/Stansted

rather than

1tph Nottingham to Norwich
1tph Birmingham to Cambridge/Stansted

I am already having nightmares at the thought of such complex crew rostering, the cost of training or the sheer amount of issues involved if the former option was taken forward.