West Coast Franchise

[LNW-GW Joint]

New wiring unlikely for a long time except the Lancs triangle/Blackpool.
DfT don't seem in the mood to rework the franchise map this time, pity.
WC should get Manchester-Scotland back.

WC needs to upgrade its Voyagers to bi-mode and get all the other 221s back from XC to be able to offer more services off the wires. It's criminal to have tilting stock disabled on XC (even on Birmingham-Manchester!) while 185s are used over Shap. Even 350s on Manchester-Scotland don't feel right.

Interestingly only DB could do a bid which offered this as synergy between the WC/XC franchises - by reinstating HSTs or ordering new non-tilting stock for XC to release the 221s to WC.
Then you could have any of the Euston-Salop/Wales/East Lancs/W Yorks/Cumbria options that worked, doubling up on the main line.

I also think the WC franchise should improve frequency to Scotland (Edinburgh in particular) and restore through trains to Stirling, Perth and beyond.
There's no real logic for EC to have all these now that WC is at least as fast if not faster.

Virgin offered MAN-LHR in their unsuccessful extension bid but I don't believe it would work - too messy south of Watford.

And the stations need improving (but please, like Sheffield not Chester!).

And they need to sort out congestion around Stafford, Preston, Carlisle and north of Carstairs, allow tilt/EPS between Acton Grange-Wigan etc etc.

 

[gordonthemoron]

how about Barrow-EUS?

 

[222007]

If a decent service was provided from Coventry to Leicester I'm sure you'd have quite a few more people using it.

As someone who works on XC you probably would be surprised by the number of people who already use it. However this week particually these people have been badly let down by LM.

Anyway the west coast. I'd like to see an improved offering for Nuneaton. Virgin seem to have decided not to serve the town (with the exception of 3 services a day?????? ). There are some ways services could be improved mayeb have the north wales services calling at Nuneaton. Removes the moderation of competition. I do agree with people saying having a uniformed fleet of 11car 390's. As for the shop - i dont know how well its used so cant reaLLY COMMENT

 

[cuccir]

how about Barrow-EUS?

Would be lovely but is not worth it; this flow may well be covered by an open access anyway of course. With regards to the WCML, Barrow just needs reliable connections at Lancaster and/or Preston, particularly whilst it still has a fairly good Manchester service; if Barrow's service is to be improved to anywhere then it should be to Liverpool or to Yorkshire.

 

[Ivo]

As liverpool length (and according to some forecasts possibly demand) would be an issue how about running Liverpool services with a splitting service with 1tph continuing to Liverpool while the other half alternated between Blackpool and Lancaster? the benefits of high frequency without wasted capacity.

A decent idea but a logistical nightmare. Not to mention that current criticisms of running Voyagers under the wires for their entire route (unless you are proposing 350s or 444s ). Honestly though, I don't see how Liverpool can be short on demand. If they're that worried, just make them a bit slower; say, introduce calls at Tamworth EDIT: Or Nuneaton and South Parkway.

 

[NXEA!]

t I would like to see: well, first of all a second train an hour for Liverpool, calling at Nuneaton, Crewe, Runcorn and Liverpool. I would like to see Glasgow go hourly, with the first stop being Preston, then Lancaster, Oxenholme/Penrith, Carlisle and Glasgow. Then I would like to see the rest of the Pendolinos lengthened, its silly only 31 sets are being lengthened. I would like to see a 'mini-Pendolino' order for around 32-35 sets being 5 cars in length to displace all Voyagers to XC, with the extra 12-15 sets (there's only 20 Voyagers at the moment) being used to run a new Lancaster stopping service possibly using the slow lines between Euston-Milton Keynes calling at Watford Junction, Milton Keynes Central, Rugby, Nuneaton, Stafford, Crewe, Wigan North Western, Preston and Lancaster. This would give Nuneaton a fast service to London and another fast-ish one linking in various towns and cities. If there were enough sets from this (I've worked out that this hourly Lancaster service would need around 6 sets, and with current Voyager diagrams standing at 18 this would utilise 24 sets out of 32-35) I would give Manchester-Scotland to Virgin. Use the 57's on the diesel sections for the Chester/Holyhead services, and also extend one Wolverhampton working to Shrewsbury with a 57 hauling the set on. This could form a morning service the next day, with the same for one of the peak-hour Preston terminating Pendolino's being extended to/from Blackpool with a 57. A lot I know, but it doesn't actually require hardly any of infrastructure work, just around 30 mini-Pendolino's and the extension of the others, however I am aware there may be pathing issues. With XC receiving these 221's, 11 could double up single Voyager services to increase capacity, with the other 10 displacing 220's onto Nottingham-Cardiff services, with these 3 car 170's working the 2 car 170 diagrams to Stansted (platform lengths permitting or using SD0) with 9 of these 10 170's being displaced to NXEA, which could then in turn displace the 156's to Northern/EMT, with 5 going to Northern and 4 going to EMT. So with a new order of Pendolino's, your helping out two regional operators who need capacity!

 

[MCR247]

220s would be rubbish for replacing 170s as I have said to numerous people numerous times....

 

[tbtc]

220s would be rubbish for replacing 170s as I have said to numerous people numerous times....

Agreed - a four car 220 is never going to get anywhere near top speed on a Leicester XC duty and will have fewer seats than a three car 170
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Ooh, I have to disagree on point 4, you are removing the third biggest city off the XC route, and you will then need to find platform space for an extra 4 terminating tph in New St

No need to terminate the Manchester services there, they could run as extensions of the Euston - New Street service (enhancing Manchester - Coventry or London - Wolves), or run onto something else.

Taking Manchester off the XC map isn't ideal, but if the choice for Manchester is "longer EMUs to New Street" or "Voyagers that extend to Bristol/Bournemouth" then I'd go for the former (I'm trying to couch this in fair terms, trying not to be biased)
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

How do you work out Manchester Bristol, that will never be a part of the WCML franchise

The way they used to go via Shrewsbury - give the Wales & Borders the onus of providing a through train (and run the Manchester - Stoke - Wolverhampton - Birmingham service as an EMU)

 

[Ivo]

Being someone who does use Bristol to (or in this case of last night, from) north of Birmingham on Voyagers sometimes, I have to say that it wouldn't be that much of an issue provided the capacity was there. Large numbers of people disembark at Brum anyway, so it wouldn't really be that different to how it is now beyond the surface. Also, consider that Brum effectively serves as the hub of IC services in this country; it's not as though losing the direct route would rob us completely. Finally, at the end of the day, more people go between Manc and Brum than go between Brizzle and Brum, so...

As an alternate idea for the WCML, how about a limited service to Southport, running fast between it and Wigan NW? It would give a reason to extend the wires beyond any Manchester to Wigan ideas that may crop up to accompany the Preston one, and in turn give the opportunity for an improved link betwene Southport and Manchester.

 

[MCR247]

tbtc

Manchester gets Bournemouth and Bristol services, where would they go?

Maybe you could give Manchester 2tph direct, 1 via Stoke and 1 via Crewe, then 1tph extra via Birmingham? Then you could modify LM's revised Liverpool, Preston etc plans and have a train every 20 minutes to Crewe or Stafford like this

1tph Birmingham - Liverpool
1tph Birmingham - Manchester
1tph Birmingham - Preston

 

[tbtc]

tbtc

Manchester gets Bournemouth and Bristol services, where would they go?

Maybe you could give Manchester 2tph direct, 1 via Stoke and 1 via Crewe, then 1tph extra via Birmingham? Then you could modify LM's revised Liverpool, Preston etc plans and have a train every 20 minutes to Crewe or Stafford like this

1tph Birmingham - Liverpool
1tph Birmingham - Manchester
1tph Birmingham - Preston

At the moment Liverpool - Birmingham is a half hourly EMU. However, Manchester - Birmingham is a half hourly Voyager. This means passengers get fewer seats and the diesels are used for around 100 miles under the wires.

Move it to EMUs and you now have half a dozen Voyagers spare (which could provide capacity attached to existing services from Newcastle to Birmingham or from Leeds to Bristol)

Ideally you could run a half hourly EMU from New Street to Stafford with portions to PReston, Liverpool and Manchester, but that's probably too complicated

 

[Aictos]

At the moment Liverpool - Birmingham is a half hourly EMU. However, Manchester - Birmingham is a half hourly Voyager. This means passengers get fewer seats and the diesels are used for around 100 miles under the wires.

Move it to EMUs and you now have half a dozen Voyagers spare (which could provide capacity attached to existing services from Newcastle to Birmingham or from Leeds to Bristol)

Ideally you could run a half hourly EMU from New Street to Stafford with portions to PReston, Liverpool and Manchester, but that's probably too complicated

Only thing is though although you can run electric trains to and from London to Liverpool and Manchester for example, there is no electrified route between Liverpool and Manchester itself which if there was then it would have made sense to run a new service with EMUs which would be Liverpool Lime Street to Birmingham New Street via Manchester Piccadilly running 3 times a hours instead of two separate half hourly services, this in return would as tbtc has said would free up about 6 Voyagers which Cross Country could use to provide much needed capacity on the central core of their services.

As to which TOC would operate them, I think London Midland would be a suitable TOC using yes you've guess it 350s

 

[ukrob]

Is there any evidence that states Lime Street can not accommodate an 11 car Pendolino, or are people making educated guesses?

I use the station many times a week and platforms 7 and 8 would be long enough, with the signals moved a few meters further back.

http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&h...7322,-2.975205&spn=0.001158,0.002411&t=h&z=19

Above is a picture of a Pendolino in platform seven, with platform eight being the opposite face of the island. The cab is ever so slightly under the bridge (car park). Even if the train was right to the tip of the platform (and there are no passenger doors at the front anyway), it would not be fouling any pointwork

 

[Train Pilchard]

Glasgow - Liverpool?

 

[WatcherZero]

Is there any evidence that states Lime Street can not accommodate an 11 car Pendolino, or are people making educated guesses?

I use the station many times a week and platforms 7 and 8 would be long enough, with the signals moved a few meters further back.

http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&h...7322,-2.975205&spn=0.001158,0.002411&t=h&z=19

Above is a picture of a Pendolino in platform seven, with platform eight being the opposite face of the island. The cab is ever so slightly under the bridge (car park). Even if the train was right to the tip of the platform (and there are no passenger doors at the front anyway), it would not be fouling any pointwork

It apparantly physically cant be made capable of handling 12 car trains and 11 car is possible but expensive the cheaper option is just to use shorter stock on the service e.g. the unlengthened 9 cars or a different class.

 

[ukrob]

This is rather my point - where has this 'apparently' come from?

Virgin wouldn't have proposed extending ALL Pendolinos if they couldn't fit their terminal stations.

 

[Johnny Lewis]

I'm interested to see that many people favour a 2nd train per hour from London to Liverpool, which should be a Pendolino, rather than extending the existing LM Euston-Crewe service onto Liverpool, which would be a tortuously slow (albeit cheap) way to get between London and Liverpool.

However, the DfT, in their infinite wisdom, advocate FOUR trains per hour from London to Manchester (with the consequent re-b*ggering up of the local services in South Manchester) before giving Liverpool it's 2 trains per hour service.... it's funny to note that, prior to the introduction of VHF, Virgin wanted a second train per hour to Liverpool in priority to the THIRD train per hour to Manchester....

So my suggestions would certainly be:

2 tph London - Liverpool, with second train running via Warrington BQ and St. Helens Junction, via newly electrified Chat Moss route
4 tph London - Birmingham; the 4th running via Nuneaton and newly electrified route to Birmingham (calling at Coleshill) and onto Wolverhampton, to give 2 tph London - Wolverhampton
1 tph London - Glasgow with fewer calls en-route (Warrington is served by second Liverpool train)
1 tph London - alternately Blackpool / Carlisle, assuming Preston - Blackpool is electrified

Leave Euston - Manchester as 3 tph, but the Crewe stop in the hourly service via Wilmslow could be transferred into both the second Liverpool and the Blackpool / Carlisle service.

Leave Euston - Chester / Holyhead broadly as now, but with more 10 car workings as far as Chester; this could also increase the number of Euston - Wrexham services. We could even run Euston - Hooton (as a portion of a Holyhead service) would also open up South Wirral to a direct London service.

Shrewsbury is unlikely to be electrified, so I don't know how Telford and Shrewsbury could easily be served by a direct London service; it is a waste running a 221 on Euston - Wolverhampton.

Manchester - Scotland to be hourly EMU via newly electrified Chat Moss Route and Wigan NW. Liverpool - Scotland "is being considered" in West Coast RUS, and should be created at least 2 hourly, splitting and joining at Preston / Carstairs with Manchester trains.
New fleet of either 390s or 350s to run Birmingham - Scotland, to free up 221s for North Wales.

Euston - Crewe "local" to run non-stop Stafford - Crewe and extend to either Liverpool or Preston. Stafford - Stone - Stoke served by either XC or by 3rd tph Birmingham - Manchester (also mentioned in West Coast RUS).

Liverpool - Birmingham EMUs extended to at least Northampton (or even Euston), to finally restore a regular service from Liverpool / Runcorn / Crewe to Birmingham International / Coventry. Presumably people still DO want to go to the NEC???

Hopefully this does not duplicate too much of what has already been said.

 

[route:oxford]

Ok... My thoughts.

• Upgrade the Birmingham-Scotland service to Pendolino.
  
• Transfer the Manchester-Scotland services back to West Coast, using Voyager Stock released from the Pendolinofication.
  
• Extend the Manchester-Edinburgh* services to the home of Stagecoach (via Stirling).

*This could alternatively be done via Glasgow Queen Street using the Cowlairs Chord but might be confusing.

 

[WatcherZero]

This is rather my point - where has this 'apparently' come from?

Virgin wouldn't have proposed extending ALL Pendolinos if they couldn't fit their terminal stations.

Network Rail advising on the infrastructure and Dft penny pinching on the implementation as usual, though I think the specific quote I saw was from the Arup alternatives to HS2 study. Anyway the thinking in Whitehall is: 'So we could pay more to run a longer Liverpool service requiring X million spent on platform upgrades or we could just not subsidise the extra coachs and leave it at 9 car for no extra cost?'

 

[ainsworth74]

• Transfer the Manchester-Scotland services back to West Coast, using Voyager Stock released from the Pendolinofication.

I like that word, Pendolinofication

My thoughts:

• Extend all 390s to 11 car
• Order enough new 390s to convert all BHM to Scotland services.
• Return Manchester to Scotland to WC using Voyagers.
• 1tph London - Glasgow.
• 2tph London - Liverpool.

Pretty much what everyone else has said but still, I wanted to say it

 

[tbtc]

Transfer the Manchester-Scotland services back to West Coast, using Voyager Stock

Return Manchester to Scotland to WC using Voyagers

Why, when the line will be electrified in a few years? It just takes the "diesels under the wires" problem of the current Birmingham - Scotland service and replaces it with another...

 

[Ivo]

Extend the Manchester-Edinburgh services to the home of Stagecoach (via Stirling).

I know that this would go down well with management should VT/SC continue to hold the franchise, but do Manchester and the like really need a link with Perth? They would probably be better having a link with the Perth in Australia...

 

[ainsworth74]

Why, when the line will be electrified in a few years? It just takes the "diesels under the wires" problem of the current Birmingham - Scotland service and replaces it with another...

Fair point, forgot that

Well you could use voyagers until the wires go up and then make use of brand new EMUs perhaps. Well forgetting about the rolling stock issue either way I think the Manchester - Scotland needs to go back to WC (or possibly even someone like XC) certainly it shouldn't be with TPE.

 

[route:oxford]

Why, when the line will be electrified in a few years? It just takes the "diesels under the wires" problem of the current Birmingham - Scotland service and replaces it with another...

As I understand it, the Penolino would have to reverse at Stafford (or maybe Crewe) in order to get to Scotland without an upgrade of the knitting.

Also, with my plan diesel engines would be required to get to Perth.

 

[wildcard]

All I would ask for is a re-instatement of late night Saturday trains from B'ham to Euston - the last is now 9.30pm . LM's last is 9.53pm ( with a 30 minute wait at Northampton ) . Does Birmingham really shut up shop at 10pm ? . I want a night out after the football or a concert and to travel back south around 11pm thank you !

 

[swt_passenger]

I'm interested to see that many people favour a 2nd train per hour from London to Liverpool, which should be a Pendolino...

It's amazing that people keep on talking about it so much when every official publication over the last few years has explained that there are much better things to do with the stock...

 

[ainsworth74]

Deleted

 

[swt_passenger]

As I understand it, the Penolino would have to reverse at Stafford (or maybe Crewe) in order to get to Scotland without an upgrade of the knitting.

The 'NW electrification' re-confirmed before Christmas will sort out the direct route. They'd be pretty daft not to allow for the possibility of Pendolinos to use the route as well as EMUs.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Stations:
Investment in Warrington, Wigan and Preston: horrid 1960s stations at the two formers, and Preston needs loads of TLC. Get rid of the furniture on the platforms, sort out the subways, update the signs, standardise platform lengths, get rid of fences etc from BR days (many on the WCML still house BR station signs!).

Services:
Get Nuneaton back on the InterCity map;
Glasgow hourly;
Get Motherwell and Lockerbie back with proper services;
Similarly, widen the destination range of Rugby and Watford Jn;
You do not need a fourth train an hour to Piccadilly calling at Stockport only;
Half-hourly Liverpool trains;

New services/changes/extras:
Hourly Liverpool: Watford Jn, Northampton, Nuneaton, Hartford, Runcorn, Liverpool South Parkway (not possible ATM), Lime St;
Hourly Glasgow: Crewe, Preston, Lancaster, Oxenholme/Penrith (alternate with below), Carlisle, Lockerbie/Motherwell;
Hourly Carlisle: Rugby, Stafford, Crewe, Warrington, Wigan, Preston, Lancaster, Oxenholme/Penrith (alternate with above), Carlisle;
New destinations: Say Milton Keynes, Tamworth, Crewe and Preston, then either: Barrow (Lancaster and Ulveston), Blackpool North (Kirkham & Wesham), Blackburn, Windermere (Lancaster and Oxenholme) (Bracketed stations are calling points from Preston).

 

[me123]

My thoughts:

• Extend all 390s to 11 car
• Order enough new 390s to convert all BHM to Scotland services.
• Return Manchester to Scotland to WC using Voyagers.
• 1tph London - Glasgow.
• 2tph London - Liverpool.

I agree with the above. But let's see an additional Pendolino order to cover the Manchester-Scotland services once the wires go up. This releases even more Voyagers in a few years time.