Shouldnt East midlands be operating these trains?

[dannypye9999]

Just travelled between Leicester and Birmingham New St on an XC which gave me this thought - shouldnt the Birmingham/Leicester/Stansted route be operated by East Midlands and not XC? This way the Stansted Airport services through Peterborough to Ely get to share with the Liverpool/Norwich trains which are operated by EM, perhaps this way we could see some Liverpool to Stansted or Birmingham to Norwich services? Just a random thought as Birmingham to Leicester isn't very Cross Country.

 

[ac6000cw]

You could argue it the other way too - Liverpool-Norwich is a longer route which does actually run almost coast-to-coast, so that should be an XC operation.

I think the main reason it went to XC (when the ex-Central Trains routes got re-allocated) was that Birmingham is the hub of the XC network, so transferring Birmingham-Stansted and Birmingham-Cardiff to XC made sense operationally. Also the 170's are maintained by their builder alongside the XC Voyagers at Central Rivers depot, which also works out nicely.

 

[Qwerty133]

This again, personally I'd rather it go to LM.
I can't remember what the justification was at the time (2007), but I imagine it being something to do with fitting the stock to the routes best. Problems with EMT getting the route would include; stock as EMT don't operate 170s, crew as most services are worked by New Street crews which is not currently on the EMT network, and Leicester XC crews working other services off the line, and with XC no longer serving Leicester they wouldn't want a depot there.
Having said the above I can definitely think of benefits of EMT taking over, such as communication benefits and EMT actually becoming bothered about the revenue on this line.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

You could argue it the other way too - Liverpool-Norwich is a longer route which does actually run almost coast-to-coast, so that should be an XC operation.

I think the main reason it went to XC (when the ex-Central Trains routes got re-allocated) was that Birmingham is the hub of the XC network, so transferring Birmingham-Stansted and Birmingham-Cardiff to XC made sense operationally. Also the 170's are maintained by their builder alongside the XC Voyagers at Central Rivers depot, which also works out nicely.

Thought the 170s were maintained by LM at Tyldesley, definitely a LM fitter at Leicester in the mornings.

 

[sprinterguy]

Also the 170's are maintained by their builder alongside the XC Voyagers at Central Rivers depot, which also works out nicely.

No they're not. The 170s are maintained at Tyseley, alongside the London Midland examples, just as they were when both fleets were operated by Central Trains.

 

[ac6000cw]

No they're not. The 170s are maintained at Tyseley, alongside the London Midland examples, just as they were when both fleets were operated by Central Trains.

OK, I stand corrected (although I was sure I'd read somewhere that it was Central Rivers). As an aside LNWR also does fuelling/overnight servicing on the XC 170's at the old Cambridge DMU depot.

 

[edwin_m]

Birmingham-Stansted is isolated from the rest of the XC network except at Birmingham. However it interworks closely with Nottingham-Birmingham and Nottingham-Cardiff, which between them provide half the XC trains between Derby and Birmingham and one-third between Birmingham and Cheltenham. By contrast these only share with other EMT trains between Nottingham and Derby, so these two routes on the whole fit better with XC.

There will always be places where franchise boundaries are a little awkward and it is easy to see reasons to change them. Like all organisational changes, it is sometimes more difficult to see the reasons to keep things as they are, as well as under-estimating the disruption caused by constant chopping and changing.

"When you reorganise you bleed" - G Fiennes.

 

[Tubeboy]

Central Rivers look after the voyagers.

 

[Qwerty133]

Birmingham-Stansted is isolated from the rest of the XC network except at Birmingham. However it interworks closely with Nottingham-Birmingham and Nottingham-Cardiff, which between them provide half the XC trains between Derby and Birmingham and one-third between Birmingham and Cheltenham. By contrast these only share with other EMT trains between Nottingham and Derby, so these two routes on the whole fit better with XC.

There will always be places where franchise boundaries are a little awkward and it is easy to see reasons to change them. Like all organisational changes, it is sometimes more difficult to see the reasons to keep things as they are, as well as under-estimating the disruption caused by constant chopping and changing.

"When you reorganise you bleed" - G Fiennes.

Unless it's changed recently, BHM-SSD do not inter work with BHM-NOT services. The only possible exception to this is the 17:09 BHM-LEI, as I do not know where this unit comes from, and possibly some services on Sundays.
However if you meant train crew work both services during a shift, I think this is the case.

 

[dk1]

Inter-working the Liverpool/Birmingham with Norwich/Stansted would be hugely expensive traincrew wise. Even under BR Norwich crews never signed beyond Leicester. The route was split in the early 90s when it was decided to only train Cambridge depot Birmingham & Norwich depot to Nottingham. Before that most crew changes took place in Peterborough. Only the odd token working existed until the split to EMs/XC and that was whittled down.

 

[4SRKT]

Other services I've never really understood not being part of EMT are Barton > Cleethorpes, Sheffield > Lincoln and Manchester Airport > Cleethorpes. Three TOCs into Cleethorpes seems a bit OTT.

 

[LowLevel]

The other silly thing brought about privatisation is if you change the boundaries, harmonising terms and conditions appears to be extremely difficult. Thus as the XC drivers are harmonised and pushing £55k per year, that would give a comparatively small pool of drivers within EMT who were on significantly more than the rest which would cause all sorts of industrial relations issues.

 

[ac6000cw]

Other services I've never really understood not being part of EMT are Barton > Cleethorpes, Sheffield > Lincoln and Manchester Airport > Cleethorpes. Three TOCs into Cleethorpes seems a bit OTT.

Ely has four TOC's - FCC/AGA/EMT/XC (and a smaller population than Cleethorpes)

 

[Saltleyman]

Inter-working the Liverpool/Birmingham with Norwich/Stansted would be hugely expensive traincrew wise. Even under BR Norwich crews never signed beyond Leicester. The route was split in the early 90s when it was decided to only train Cambridge depot Birmingham & Norwich depot to Nottingham. Before that most crew changes took place in Peterborough. Only the odd token working existed until the split to EMs/XC and that was whittled down.

from 1990 till 1994(privatisation) the Birmingham to Stansted( as far as Cambridge),Birmingham to Norwich(as far as Peterborough) and Birmingham to Nottingham services,and Birmingham to Cardiff services were worked by Saltley Drivers not Birmingham New Street men.:roll:

 

[LowLevel]

I think you touched a Brummie inter depot rivalry nerve there dk1

 

[ac6000cw]

I think you touched a Brummie inter depot rivalry nerve there dk1

Has the MR versus LNWR rivalry ever died out ?

Were MR compounds better than LNWR ones ?

(Derby eventually won out over Crewe, but I suspect the 'Premier Line' still thinks it is.....)

 

[Minilad]

Unless it's changed recently, BHM-SSD do not inter work with BHM-NOT services. The only possible exception to this is the 17:09 BHM-LEI, as I do not know where this unit comes from, and possibly some services on Sundays.
However if you meant train crew work both services during a shift, I think this is the case.

The units do not overlap but the crews do. The 170 for the 1709 comes from ECS from TYS as 5K35

 

[Hyphen]

Just to confuse matters, there's also a weekly Cardiff Central to Leicester, the SuO 1M85 1945 CDF-LEI, arriving 2248!

 

[Minilad]

There is also a 0710 Gloucester to Stansted on Weekdays formed by one set detached off the 0537 Birmingham - Cardiff.
But as a general rule on arrival at Birmingham trains from Stansted go back to Leicester and trains from Leicester go back to Stansted. The Nottingham terminators go back to Nottingham. Obviously occasionally sets maybe swopped around but as a rule thats what happens

 

[dk1]

I think you touched a Brummie inter depot rivalry nerve there dk1

Ha ha yeah, think i did. Was thinking more of the easterly crews & privatisation didnt come til 1997 i think. We all went into pre-privatisation mode in 94.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Birmingham-Stansted with XC dates from the SRA's award of the 2nd set of franchises, and one of the mantras at the time was "one TOC per major route and London terminus".
That's why "Greater Western" and Greater Anglia" were invented so that only one operator went into Paddington and Liverpool Street.
Similarly the Midland axis through Birmingham went to XC, forcing the Leicester route as well as Derby into XC hands.
The split between EM and LM was very messy, and you could argue for several route swaps to simplify it.
EM running to Liverpool just seems crazy viewed from Warrington Central where 3 TOCs run very similar services between Liverpool and Manchester.
In SWT-land, or Scotland, there would just be one.

Anyway, the mantra died with the SRA (they would have merged LM and VT out of Euston but VT had a 15-year franchise so was kept separate).
However, there hasn't been much franchise remapping since (except for TSGN).
DfT seem to keep shying away from making big changes (like merging NT and TP).
The network is ossifying, which is probably a bad thing for some routes.

 

[Carlisle]

Birmingham-Stansted with XC dates from the SRA's award of the 2nd set of franchises, and one of the mantras at the time was "one TOC per major route and London terminus".
That's why "Greater Western" and Greater Anglia" were invented so that only one operator went into Paddington and Liverpool Street.
Similarly the Midland axis through Birmingham went to XC, forcing the Leicester route as well as Derby into XC hands.
The split between EM and LM was very messy, and you could argue for several route swaps to simplify it.
EM running to Liverpool just seems crazy viewed from Warrington Central where 3 TOCs run very similar services between Liverpool and Manchester.
In SWT-land, or Scotland, there would just be one.

Anyway, the mantra died with the SRA (they would have merged LM and VT out of Euston but VT had a 15-year franchise so was kept separate).
However, there hasn't been much franchise remapping since (except for TSGN).
DfT seem to keep shying away from making big changes (like merging NT and TP).
The network is ossifying, which is probably a bad thing for some routes.

I thought the SRA was wound up around 2005/6 so those franchises (EMT,LM,XC) will have been awarded under the auspices of DFT rail around mid 2007 ish

 

[Starmill]

Other services I've never really understood not being part of EMT are Barton > Cleethorpes, Sheffield > Lincoln and Manchester Airport > Cleethorpes. Three TOCs into Cleethorpes seems a bit OTT.

It depends entirely on which way you look at it.

On the one hand Sheffield to Lincoln looks like a prime service that would be part of the EMT franchise; but on the other hand Nottingham to Lincoln/Worksop/Skegness and all the other bits that fill in (Peterborough, Matlock, Derby and Grimsby) are all local and rural infrequent services run by short BR DMUs... which is basically what charicterises Northern. All of the trains EMT use on these routes are also operated by Northern.

One thought though; you lucky EMT lot do get away with is not having any pacers... perhaps that can change and you can have Lincoln to Sheffield

 

[Tomnick]

The other potential obstacle is the (SYPTE?) requirement for Lincoln services to serve Meadowhall, inevitably leading to their interworking with Scunthorpe, Adwick and (until recently at least) the odd Hull service.

 

[Hyphen]

One thought though; you lucky EMT lot do get away with is not having any pacers... perhaps that can change and you can have Lincoln to Sheffield

Isn't most of EMT's local stock looked after at Nottingham Eastcroft? AIUI Pacers aren't cleared for routes around Nottingham, so we simply couldn't have them anyway

 

[Starmill]

Isn't most of EMT's local stock looked after at Nottingham Eastcroft? AIUI Pacers aren't cleared for routes around Nottingham, so we simply couldn't have them anyway

If they can do the Clitheroe line, they can do Nottingham station!

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I thought the SRA was wound up around 2005/6 so those franchises (EMT,LM,XC) will have been awarded under the auspices of DFT rail around mid 2007 ish

True, but the specification and franchise restructuring in the Midlands (VT, XC, Central, Silverlink, MML etc) was engineered by the SRA before it was folded into the DfT.

 

[edwin_m]

While Pacers aren't cleared for Nottingham, I'm sure this is because they have never needed to be rather than any intrinsic incompatibility with the local infrastructure. If someone wanted to do it they could almost certainly be cleared without difficulty.

You have been warned.

 

[Starmill]

While Pacers aren't cleared for Nottingham, I'm sure this is because they have never needed to be rather than any intrinsic incompatibility with the local infrastructure. If someone wanted to do it they could almost certainly be cleared without difficulty.

You have been warned.

Precisely.

 

[Techniquest]

Precisely.

No, not precisely! You lot can keep them up north, it's bad enough we got landed with 142s and 143s in Cardiff! Of course, we could always take those 150/2s back and you can take back the 142s us poor lot in the south got landed with...

And no, no-one wants a 142 on the Leeds to Nottingham services!

As for the topic itself, just so much easier to keep it as it is now. Changing it would be akin to getting an unwanted ad on YouTube blasting 'singing' in your ears that's unskippable (thanks Dana Lel Ray, or whatever you're called, come the apocalypse your CDs will be one of the first things destroyed! )

 

[Starmill]

No, not precisely! You lot can keep them up north, it's bad enough we got landed with 142s and 143s in Cardiff! Of course, we could always take those 150/2s back and you can take back the 142s us poor lot in the south got landed with...

And no, no-one wants a 142 on the Leeds to Nottingham services!

As for the topic itself, just so much easier to keep it as it is now. Changing it would be akin to getting an unwanted ad on YouTube blasting 'singing' in your ears that's unskippable (thanks Dana Lel Ray, or whatever you're called, come the apocalypse your CDs will be one of the first things destroyed! )

Getting closer all the time, as Matt Taylor
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