Transfering lines for regional consistency

[David Goddard]

If ever there was a thread to get the creative juices of us who love these speculative ideas (and those with OCD) its this one!
Loads of ideas, many of which are very unlikely, but there may just be a couple which have real merit.

So, as we are in Speculative ideas, so no fear of being shouted down for daft suggestions, its time to get the crayons out with my few.
Naturally a few will have caveats but here goes.

Great Western Railway
North Downs - electrify the missing gaps (widely discussed elsewhere) then transfer to South Western Railway.
Cardiff to Portsmouth - transfer to South Western Railway to be operated from Salisbury depot.

Northern
Sheffield to Lincoln & Cleethorpes move to East Midlands Railway

East Midlands Railway
Liverpool to Sheffield move to Transpennine Express

West Midlands Railway
Birmingham to Hereford move to Cross Country

 

[JonathanH]

Cardiff to Portsmouth - transfer to South Western Railway to be operated from Salisbury depot.

I fail to see what benefit that has - Cardiff is miles out of the area covered by the operator. By all means split it at Salisbury and pass the section south of there to South Western Railway but the northern part is about the Bristol commuter area which is best served by GWR on its own.

Perhaps you can counter this with the opposing view.

 

[johnnychips]

Why not call each railway operator by a daft name - Mambo, Spearfish, Tablelamp and Virgin spring to mind - and operate the services according to where is operationally convenient and not be hidebound by geographic names or historical precedent.

 

[Failed Unit]

With EMR now confirmed on Liverpool - Nottingham and the Manchester consultation suggesting Cleethorpes - Manchester Airport should go to Liverpool instead a case could be made for that route to go to EMR and not remain with TPE. 2 x 185s to be used on both these routes - although current peak loads may need more than a single 185 a double would be generous for the rest of the day and week. 2 x 158 is a reasonable provision.

the transfer of Cleethorpes- Manchester has being suggested before. Single operator for Sheffield- Manchester and now Cleethorpes depot back to EMR (removing a lot of empty stock workings.)

I can also see some logic to
Scunthorpe - Doncaster
Lincoln - Sheffield
Sheffield - Manchester (local)

then making it lincoln - Manchester.

Alternatively let’s just reform regional railways.

 

[JonathanH]

Alternatively let’s just reform regional railways.

There were very few true shared operations under Regional Railways by the early 1990s though - Regional Railways Central didn't share the Lincoln to Sheffield route with Regional Railways North East for example.

It does seem that people want some sort of joint working on many routes so, for example, Cardiff to Portsmouth would be run using units from (what are currently) three different operators working jointly.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Great Western Railway
North Downs - electrify the missing gaps (widely discussed elsewhere) then transfer to South Western Railway.
Cardiff to Portsmouth - transfer to South Western Railway to be operated from Salisbury depot.

Salisbury Depot is currently at capacity with no land for expansion so how would that work?

 

[Failed Unit]

There were very few true shared operations under Regional Railways by the early 1990s though - Regional Railways Central didn't share the Lincoln to Sheffield route with Regional Railways North East for example.

It does seem that people want some sort of joint working on many routes so, for example, Cardiff to Portsmouth would be run using units from (what are currently) three different operators working jointly.

It was split and separated in 1993 iirc (but if you said 9I wouldn’t argue)

before then you had a couple of Sheffield- Cleethorpes via Gainsborough services. The Peterborough- Lincoln service used to go to Sheffield one hour and Doncaster the other. Early Morning Cleethorpes- Newark trains were RRNE (cleethorpes) train crew. The sets used to intermingle.

It also bought different units on the routes. Pacers used to appear on Cleethorpes- Newark for example. I don’t know if Lincoln crew could operate them or just the Cleethorpes ones. (A pacer was seen as an upgrade on a 153 back then as passengers at Market Rasen could all get on)

Other quirks was the 1716 Manchester Piccadilly departure went to Nottingham via Derby rather than Cleethorpes as per normal pattern. We also had the sole IC125 service. Prior to 1992 most of Lincolnshire was operated our of Derby depot. Peterborough was Norwich (101 DMUs) and the Barton line NL (pacer). Some of the joint line were NL and Doncaster- Sleaford often saw pacers. NL - 156s were rare but welcome visitors.
But the regional railways certainly have some flexibility to the area. I am sure other boarder areas saw the same thing. If they reformed it I am sure Norwich and Liverpool would share EMR work with Greater Anglia and North West respectively.

 

[Bigman]

My suggestions:

Leeds - Carlisle, Newcastle - Carlisle, York - Blackpool - all go to TPE
Manchester Airport - Glasgow/Edinburgh - go a Avanti West Coast