West Coast franchise timetable - what would you do?

[DarloRich]

This bit confuses me as when I looked on NRE, Northallerton - Kings Cross seems to have a 2 hourly EC service interspersed with GC trains. Yet inbetween it suggests you get a TPE service to York for onward EC to KGX so why would you go backwards to Darlington which would appear to be a longer journey (or is there something obvious I am missing?)

It didnt always get such a good service. Perhaps i should have worded that better. I meant before the Boro-Yarm- Northallerton -York-Manchester TPE trains started to run. I think it was something like 2hrs plus between TPE services (Newcastle-Liverpool only) and very few EC services. Today, Northallerton actually has a very good service.

 

[Safety365]

I don't think the residents of those towns would agree with you. Nuneaton and Tamworth are not exactly small places as both have populations over 70000. It's all very well saying that an intercity service to London is not needed but you could use the same argument for Stafford.

I regularly use the 1h15m VT service between Euston/Stafford. Don't touch it unless you can make it faster...

 

[Dreadnought]

It didnt always get such a good service. Perhaps i should have worded that better. I meant before the Boro-Yarm- Northallerton -York-Manchester TPE trains started to run. I think it was something like 2hrs plus between TPE services (Newcastle-Liverpool only) and very few EC services. Today, Northallerton actually has a very good service.

Makes sense to me now!

 

[DarloRich]

So are you just talking peak or off peak as well?

1) If it is just peak I still do not understand why you think that people from Rugby should have to go to Coventry to get to London as I have said you obviously have no idea how many people commute from Rugby.

As for going to Coventry what is the point of quoting a best VT to VT connection when you think all VT's should not stop at Rugby.

2) You have said previously that all VT should stop at MK so what part of Virgin want to run faster to London from the north do you not understand. Outside of the peak if you exclude the Brums only one train stops south of Crewe (excludes MK stops) which is the Liverpool at Stafford and from Brum there is one that stops at Rugby and one that stops at Watford. So if everything stops at MK most of these services will be slower - anyway I thought only one Manchester stopped at MK!

3) There are sufficient passengers from Rugby and stations down the Trent Valley to justify a VT stop so not sure why you keep wanting to take it out.

4) As for you comment about more LM services stopping at MK which ones don't now?

5)You also mention that the peak VT trains are full leaving MK in the morning well that is because they are full before they reach there, after all MK passengers should not be joining them so all passengers must have joined before MK.

6) Not sure what you are on about with the dedicated commuter service as it is just a Virgin train that starts from Rugby, probably a fill in turn before going onto a standard diagram. Why do you think that Virgin have this train if it is not justified.

I have added in some numbers to your post to make it easier as i cant do multi quotes:

1)Reading back i mean PEAK only but missed thta out of my original post. MK council dont really care how many people come from Rugby. It wont be as many as MK (in thier opinion). They have lobbied, and will continue to lobby, hard, for extra stops. Other places will loose out ( the usage figures suggest they are right - Rugby 1.293m - a good sum, Milton Keynes 4.646m somewhat bigger!) The council will stop at nothing to attact business and people to the town. A better rail service is one way of doing so.
An LM to VT comparison is even better at 1 minute ( clearly not feasible!) so taking an LM from Rugby to Coventry isnt great but you could recast the timetable. It would be worth doing if the numbers were so good!

2)Apologies i mean PEAK . From MKC to Euston there are VT trains at (taking 11am - 12pm as a guide) 02 ( Chester/ North Wales service) 19 (Birmingham) and 47 (Manchester) That seems a good service. The peak service is not so good.

3) I will bow to your information. My opinion from travelling quite regualry, but by no means daily, is different. The LM trains seem to gather up much more passengers.

4) You are quite right. I could have SWORN some of the Crewe ones didnt. Confusing myself with Bletchley :roll: ( Which BTW used to have a decent IC service to London)

5) I am talking about the 0623, 0638, 0652, 0659, 0714 all of which normal services (not set down only) and are full after MKC. They are not standing before MKC form my experiance. There is then a gap until 0919 which hands a good slice of the market to the slower LM trains. There is a case in this window for more VT services. The evening return is worse as there is a gap between 1543 and 1843 with no VT service ( other than pick up only)!

6) It keeps the route knowledge up by Northampton and gives VT a good slice of the early comuter market from Northampton! I note there is no return service

 

[LE Greys]

Having had another look, it's a very London-centric timetable. There are trains from London to X, Y and Z all the way through, without much thought for the A, B and C that they pass through. The East Coast timetable is a bit like that now as well, with the loss of Peterborough and Doncaster stops on most Edinburgh trains, but at least there are York semi-fasts that can make up the difference. Really, Crewe should be an important calling point for all Glasgow trains, and MKC/Rugby should serve a similar function for anything else. As well as having one Birmingham service covering Watford, Milton Keynes and Rugby, I would have the Manchester via Crewe service covering Milton Keynes, Nuneaton, Tamworth and Lichfield (Rugeley seems to be missing), thus acting as a feeder for the Glasgow service and giving the Trent Valley an hourly express to London. The LM service could then start covering the smaller stations once again, provided access is restored to stations where it has been cut off. This makes better use of the four-track Trent Valley. Ideally, our second Glasgow service should more than make up for the lost minutes of the Crewe stop by missing out everywhere else except for Preston and Carlisle. It might be worth having the other service only run as far as Carlisle on quieter hours (which means abandoning the clockface timetable). I'd also like to see at least one of these trains diverted to Blackpool every day.

Question is, how do you fit in an extra Glasgow service every hour? Well, what runs at XX:50 from London?

 

[DarloRich]

there is a XX54 LM service from Euston to Birmingham stopping at almost all stations

 

[Whistler40145]

Two questions.

Why is it that hardly any Virgin WestCoast GLC-EUS services stop @ Crewe? If you want Crewe, you have to travel on the BNS service!

Also, should several Virgin WestCoast services per hour serve Northampton?

 

[The Planner]

No they shouldnt, one early and one late for route retention, otherwise no.

 

[Zoe]

I regularly use the 1h15m VT service between Euston/Stafford. Don't touch it unless you can make it faster...

People used to use fast services from Nuneaton and Tamworth also, didn't stop the service getting withdrawn. It could be that some time in the future it is decded that headline journey times to the major cities are more important than serving Stafford.

 

[Failed Unit]

People used to use fast services from Nuneaton and Tamworth also, didn't stop the service getting withdrawn. It could be that some time in the future it is decded that headline journey times to the major cities are more important than serving Stafford.

The other thing people forget about these stations are connections. Nuneaton for the Stansted airport route and Tamworth for Nottingham. In the evening when the Glasgow services stop there I know of people from Nottingham that change there, doubt anyone would from Cheltenham but you never know.

 

[Zoe]

doubt anyone would from Cheltenham but you never know.

It's possible that people not wanting to change at Birmingham and travel on a packed Voyager would change at Tamworth. I know of people that would prefer to change at a station other than Birmingham new Street.

 

[sulli_os]

Slightly in fantasy land (because it falls outside the franchise spec) but I'd look at the possibility of combining the Man Airport - Scotland services with the Birmingham - Scotland ones.

So Birmingham - ... - Manchester Airport - Manchester Picadilly - ... - Scotland.

I realise that this isn't completely feasible, but there could be some substantial savings in cost/rolling stock/capacity by doing so.

 

[DarloRich]

Two questions.

Why is it that hardly any Virgin WestCoast GLC-EUS services stop @ Crewe? If you want Crewe, you have to travel on the BNS service!

Also, should several Virgin WestCoast services per hour serve Northampton?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO - looses the benefit of the fast route by Weedon.

Northampton has a good LM service and you can easily get to MK/Rugby (until i take them out ) for VT connections if you want them . LM have a nice little (almost) monopoly on this route - i doubt they would want to give up a captive market

(oh The Planner got there first!)

 

[Failed Unit]

It's possible that people not wanting to change at Birmingham and travel on a packed Voyager would change at Tamworth. I know of people that would prefer to change at a station other than Birmingham new Street.

Or a not so packed Turbo

Certainly from Nottingham, Tamworth is good for connections. Even in the pre-pendo days passengers would change at Tamworth and Preston for Glasgow and that was when Nottingham - Crewe was direct as well!

 

[Mr Spock]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO - looses the benefit of the fast route by Weedon.

Northampton has a good LM service and you can easily get to MK/Rugby (until i take them out ) for VT connections if you want them . LM have a nice little (almost) monopoly on this route - i doubt they would want to give up a captive market
QUOTE]

Very good but thats the difference between us - I want to retain the VT service at Rugby (although I would prefer one that went to Crewe and Scotland) which will not impact on MK whereas you want Rugby to lose the service just so you can have an extra train to London. I see nothing wrong in Mk wanting more trains, although I am not convinced they actually need them, just not at the expense of other places.

Bletchley did use to get a good Inter City service to London but of course along came Milton Keynes.

Just because you used to make a personal decision to sometimes go from Northallerton to London via Darlington I do not see why the residents of Rugby should be made to do something similar all the time.

If they allowed MK passengers on the Virgin trains leaving London in the evening peak there is a chance that passengers going further north will have difficulty getting on some of them. I sometimes travel to MK from London in the peak and have never found th LM services to be that crowded so there seems to be enough space already.
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Question is, how do you fit in an extra Glasgow service every hour? Well, what runs at XX:50 from London?

The xx.50 path cannot be used by Virgin at the moment as the xx.46 LM service to Crewe runs fast line, with a stop at Watford, usually as far as Milton Keynes and is I think the only service that regularly uses P5 there.

 

[DarloRich]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO - looses the benefit of the fast route by Weedon.

Northampton has a good LM service and you can easily get to MK/Rugby (until i take them out ) for VT connections if you want them . LM have a nice little (almost) monopoly on this route - i doubt they would want to give up a captive market
QUOTE]

Very good but thats the difference between us - I want to retain the VT service at Rugby (although I would prefer one that went to Crewe and Scotland) which will not impact on MK whereas you want Rugby to lose the service just so you can have an extra train to London. I see nothing wrong in Mk wanting more trains, although I am not convinced they actually need them, just not at the expense of other places.

Bletchley did use to get a good Inter City service to London but of course along came Milton Keynes.

Just because you used to make a personal decision to sometimes go from Northallerton to London via Darlington I do not see why the residents of Rugby should be made to do something similar all the time.

If they allowed MK passengers on the Virgin trains leaving London in the evening peak there is a chance that passengers going further north will have difficulty getting on some of them. I sometimes travel to MK from London in the peak and have never found th LM services to be that crowded so there seems to be enough space already.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


The xx.50 path cannot be used by Virgin at the moment as the xx.46 LM service to Crewe runs fast line, with a stop at Watford, usually as far as Milton Keynes and is I think the only service that regularly uses P5 there.

I don’t want Rugby, particularly, to loose services. I just think that with MK growing there will be a demand for more services. If there is AND virgin want to keep journey times down somewhere will loose out. I chose Rugby simply because it is quite close to MK and has good LM links. It could of course be Stafford or Warrington or Penrith or Lockerbie or Motherwell that lost services .

The lack of capacity argument could be solved in Virgin were allowed to run the 11 car trains. You could put them on the existing pick up only services out of Euston in the peak and not impact on the timetable or services to other towns.

The LM services are quite crowded around the peak into and out of London. The fast Northampton services are the worst.

 

[LE Greys]

Two questions.

Why is it that hardly any Virgin WestCoast GLC-EUS services stop @ Crewe? If you want Crewe, you have to travel on the BNS service!

I take it you mean BHM. I've always thought that the decision to omit Crewe was hideously London-centric. Crewe would allow much easier connections, and it would be even better if the Manchester via Crewe services stopped along the Trent Valley. Sure, the BHM-GLQ could run as an advertised relief if they adjusted it so that it was ten minutes in front of the EUS-GLQ, but it already gets more than enough people coming up from Birmingham, especially if worked by a Voyager, and splitting that in two might help there, so no change would be better. Calling at Crewe would add considerably to the Crewe-London passenger load, which might be why they do not stop there, but it would make connections far easier.

 

[tbtc]

I take it you mean BHM. I've always thought that the decision to omit Crewe was hideously London-centric. Crewe would allow much easier connections, and it would be even better if the Manchester via Crewe services stopped along the Trent Valley. Sure, the BHM-GLQ could run as an advertised relief if they adjusted it so that it was ten minutes in front of the EUS-GLQ, but it already gets more than enough people coming up from Birmingham, especially if worked by a Voyager, and splitting that in two might help there, so no change would be better. Calling at Crewe would add considerably to the Crewe-London passenger load, which might be why they do not stop there, but it would make connections far easier.

Crewe would be a much better stop for the London - Glasgow train that Carnforth...

Seriously though, I think that the reason for omitting Crewe (rather than any other stop) may have partly been to push demand onto the hourly London - Chester service and the hourly London - Crewe - Manchester service.

Its a common trick on new bus routes to give them part of an existing service to ensure that there's some "base" demand there. Just my take on it.

 

[LE Greys]

Crewe would be a much better stop for the London - Glasgow train that Carnforth...

Seriously though, I think that the reason for omitting Crewe (rather than any other stop) may have partly been to push demand onto the hourly London - Chester service and the hourly London - Crewe - Manchester service.

Its a common trick on new bus routes to give them part of an existing service to ensure that there's some "base" demand there. Just my take on it.

I thought it might be something like that, but surely they could do the same without this. Just make London-Crewe advance-fare tickets on the Glasgow train more expensive than any of the others. I wouldn't mark it pick-up/set-down only, because many people just ignore that, but that would be the general idea. In the usual London-centric way, they ignore the fact that there might be people doing Chester-Oxenholme or Stafford-Carlisle.

Of course, Pendys on the BHM-GLQ would make things a lot easier. Electrification to Chester would make it even easier.

 

[tbtc]

I thought it might be something like that, but surely they could do the same without this. Just make London-Crewe advance-fare tickets on the Glasgow train more expensive than any of the others. I wouldn't mark it pick-up/set-down only, because many people just ignore that, but that would be the general idea. In the usual London-centric way, they ignore the fact that there might be people doing Chester-Oxenholme or Stafford-Carlisle.

Of course, Pendys on the BHM-GLQ would make things a lot easier. Electrification to Chester would make it even easier.

Yup, electrify to Chester (cutting 99% of Holyhead - London services), give Virgin (or their replacement) a common fleet of 390s and give all those needed Voyagers to XC. Sorted.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Yup, electrify to Chester (cutting 99% of Holyhead - London services), give Virgin (or their replacement) a common fleet of 390s and give all those needed Voyagers to XC. Sorted.

For the Anglo-Scottish trains, how about:
xx30 - Crewe, Preston, Lancaster, Oxenholme/Penrith, Carlisle and Glasgow Ctl
Free path - Milton Keynes Ctl, Crewe, Warrington BQ, Wigan NW and Preston?

I am not too sure about cutting Holyhead off altogether, but we'll see what happens when/if Crewe-Chester ever gets OHLE. I still think that there could be a market for a summer weekend only service as follows:
Euston, Watford Jn, Milton Keynes Ctl, Rhyl, Colwyn Bay, Llandudno Jn and Llandudno.

I do fully agree about the WC franchise having uniform 390s, and the XC franchise having all the 220s/221s...

 

[AlterEgo]

I do fully agree about the WC franchise having uniform 390s, and the XC franchise having all the 220s/221s...

It is going to take some time for Crewe to Chester to be electrified - if it does happen!

Who knows - the new ICWC franchise might serve other destinations; I for one would like to see the return of a direct service to Blackpool, although asking for a HST to run it is a bit much!

221s also come in handy for the odd rescue duty, or for when servies need to be diverted - for example the Blockade Busters via High Wycombe, London to Brum via Nuneaton, or diversions on the Settle and Carlisle.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

221s also come in handy for the odd rescue duty, or for when servies need to be diverted - for example the Blockade Busters via High Wycombe, London to Brum via Nuneaton, or diversions on the Settle and Carlisle.

Fair point, but:
1) Hopefully, if NR get their act together, engineering work will be done on schedule, on a strictly overnight basis.
2) 390s being hauled by 57s always seemed to work fine, I'm sure they could manage it again (they did for about seven years on daily Holyhead workings!).

 

[Arriva 175]

How about giving Liverpool a half hourly service but routing the other via Warrington and St Helens Junction following electrification in 2014.
This gives East Merseyside a direct London service for the first time and would also allow Scottish Pendolinos to become first stop Wigan or Preston.

 

[AlterEgo]

2) 390s being hauled by 57s always seemed to work fine, I'm sure they could manage it again (they did for about seven years on daily Holyhead workings!).

Yes - but VT has 16 (?) Class 57s, there would be no reduncancy in the system if say, ten of them are working diversion trains.

Unless of course, more 57s (or similarly converted locos) were resourced.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

How about giving Liverpool a half hourly service but routing the other via Warrington and St Helens Junction following electrification in 2014.
This gives East Merseyside a direct London service for the first time and would also allow Scottish Pendolinos to become first stop Wigan or Preston.

That is an idea, but I would be uncomfortable (and I don't know why) about Warrington losing direct trains (on a half-hourly basis) to Wigan, Preston, the Lakes, Carlisle and Scotland. It is a pain trying to decide which is more important - relieving Anglo-Scottish overcrowding, or giving Liverpool a second service. As with many things of this nature, there is no easy answer.

 

[Zoe]

relieving Anglo-Scottish overcrowding, or giving Liverpool a second service. As with many things of this nature, there is no easy answer.

I'd run two services to Glasgow, one slow and another fast.

Slow service calls: Milton Keynes, Tamworth, Crewe, Warrington, Wigan, Preston, Lancaster, Oxenholme, Penrith, Carlisle, Lockerbie, Motherwell, Glasgow.

Fast service calls: Milton Keynes, Preston, Carlisle, Glasgow.

Liverpool passengers can either travel on the direct Liverpool service or use the slow Glasgow service and change at Crewe.

 

[87015]

Yes - but VT has 16 (?) Class 57s, there would be no reduncancy in the system if say, ten of them are working diversion trains.

Unless of course, more 57s (or similarly converted locos) were resourced.

How many do they actually use for thunderbirds these days? They chopped the provision right back a year or so back.

 

[Zoe]

Would it be possible to fit an IEP style emergency underfloor diesel engine to the Pendolini? If so then it would remove the need for thunderbird locomotives.

 

[LE Greys]

For the Anglo-Scottish trains, how about:
xx30 - Crewe, Preston, Lancaster, Oxenholme/Penrith, Carlisle and Glasgow Ctl
Free path - Milton Keynes Ctl, Crewe, Warrington BQ, Wigan NW and Preston?

I am not too sure about cutting Holyhead off altogether, but we'll see what happens when/if Crewe-Chester ever gets OHLE. I still think that there could be a market for a summer weekend only service as follows:
Euston, Watford Jn, Milton Keynes Ctl, Rhyl, Colwyn Bay, Llandudno Jn and Llandudno.

I do fully agree about the WC franchise having uniform 390s, and the XC franchise having all the 220s/221s...

Perhaps a one-a-day Blackpool extension to the Prestons, and maybe have them call at Nuneaton, Tamworth and Lichfield instead of the Manchesters as I originally planned. Oh, and I would certainly have 57s taking the Pendys onwards to Holyhead, just as they would run them to Blackpool.
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I'd run two services to Glasgow, one slow and another fast.

Slow service calls: Milton Keynes, Tamworth, Crewe, Warrington, Wigan, Preston, Lancaster, Oxenholme, Penrith, Carlisle, Lockerbie, Motherwell, Glasgow.

Fast service calls: Milton Keynes, Preston, Carlisle, Glasgow.

Liverpool passengers can either travel on the direct Liverpool service or use the slow Glasgow service and change at Crewe.

That's a good alternative.