What happened to Virgin's VHF timetable?

[Sad Sprinter]

Seems there are fewer trains to Birmingham and Manchester these days from Euston, and the stopping patterns have changed.

Did they use to be 3tph to both cities all day every day before?

 

[zwk500]

COVID happened...

 

[Bletchleyite]

Seems there are less trains to Birmingham and Manchester these days from Euston, and the stopping patterns have changed. Didn't they use to be 3tph to both cities all day every day before?

There are 3tph of Avanti services from Euston to Birmingham, the pattern has just changed to 2 fast and 1 semifast rather than all three having an extra stop south of Coventry (though it did take a while to get back there). That is, the Rugby, Watford Jn and Milton Keynes Central stops are all in one train rather than split across three. The Manchester service has not been reduced significantly other than during engineering works when one of the three gets dropped (perhaps you're looking on such a day?) - for a while after COVID there were only two but these have almost all been reinstated now.

Additional stops have been put in a few others, this was because of the success of the WMT Trent Valley service I believe

 

[hexagon789]

Seems there are less trains to Birmingham and Manchester these days from Euston, and the stopping patterns have changed. Didn't they use to be 3tph to both cities all day every day before?

Asides from COVID changing the passenger demographic, the desire to improve connectivity and services at other stations is partly behind it.

VHF offered very London or other city-centric journeys, now the emphasis is as much on connecting the intermediate stops with each other as it is with connecting those places to London or to the other major city on the route.

 

[The Planner]

Seems there are less trains to Birmingham and Manchester these days from Euston, and the stopping patterns have changed. Didn't they use to be 3tph to both cities all day every day before?

VHF was Dec 2008, it got re-written for Dec 2022. The structure might be a bit different, but the quantum isn't

 

[Djgr]

I mean, the world has changed a lot since 2008.

There has been a massive change in the types of journeys made but also the relative importance of different destinations.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Pre-Covid, the biggest single change to the 2008 timetable was combining Birmingham-Scotland with Euston-Wolverhampton, which was very successful.
That put more capacity on the Scotland services (Pendolinos rather than Voyagers), with the Voyagers put on some Euston-Birmingham trains.
The Voyagers have all recently been replaced by 805/807, so there is a different mix of trains.
Liverpool now has 2tph (mostly), and there's a lot less "diesel under the wires" working with the 805 bi-modes.
The service still isn't quite back to 2019 levels, but not far off, and stopping patterns south of Crewe have been adjusted quite a bit.

 

[dk1]

Still 3tph on both routes albeit to a different stopping pattern on the EBW. Not that much different. Glasgow via the TV wasn't hourly either back in 2008 but it is now.

 

[hexagon789]

Still 3tph on both routes albeit to a different stopping pattern on the EBW. Not that much different. Glasgow via the TV wasn't hourly either back in 2008 but it is now.

Difficult to imagine those two hours gaps in the Glasgow service these days, but there were some limited stop services then as well which no longer exist (in both directions) and the half-hourly Glasgow Trent Valley service in the evening peak has also gone - 1630, 1657, 1730, 1757, 1830

 

[dk1]

Difficult to imagine those two hours gaps in the Glasgow service these days, but there were some limited stop services then as well which no longer exist (in both directions) and the half-hourly Glasgow Trent Valley service in the evening peak has also gone - 1630, 1657, 1730, 1757, 1830

Yes, these were gradually reduced with the 17:57 terminating short. The 16:30 was very poorly loaded most days of the week too with the 16:57 also a TV stopper.

 

[CW2]

The original December 2008 timetable was a spectacular improvement on what preceded it, and was a carefully-constructed masterpiece which wove together the competing/overlapping aims of Virgin and the DfT / Treasury. Much was made at the time of the importance of the 1Rxx limited stop fast trains from Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Holyhead (?) and Birmingham to Euston, giving arrival times at Euston before 09:00. You can judge for yourself whether that was a matter of commercial priorities or simply pride and prestige.

The general increase to 3 tph throughout the day from Euston to both Birmingham and Manchester was also a massive boost - which we now take for granted. Much of what was carved in tablets of stone back then has been quietly eroded over the past 17 years, through a combination of changed business priorities, different franchise ownership, upgraded rolling stock, COVID, and the perennial cost-cutting nibbling at the edges.

Nowadays there are some uncomfortable gaps in the timetable, especially in the evenings when the services are running down. For example, no train from Crewe to Warrington / Wigan / Preston between 20:09 and 22:19. Does there really need to be a 2-hour gap in services on the WCML at that time of the evening?

 

[Sorcerer]

Aside from a few changes to some service stopping patterns such as the Chester/North Wales and Liverpool services swapping Stafford and Milton Keynes Central as their first stop along with the Manchester services departing seven minutes earlier to accommodate extra calling points, I'd argue the Very High Frequency timetable is still very much here but has been updated to cater to modern demands.

It's still very much 3tph to Birmingham and Manchester, and while the peak time Glasgow services stopping at Tamworth and Lichfield Trent Valley have ended, the two stops have now been added to 1700 Holyhead and 1800 Wrexham services, and they are also now seeing a regular increase with the second Liverpool service, which come December will be most hours of the weekday and fully 2tph on Saturdays.

 

[voyagerdude220]

COVID happened...

... But in terms of the stopping patterns being changed, causing end to end journey times to increase, that's all down to the changes Avanti had to implement to accommodate for the introduction of their Everos, because of them not tilting and not helped by them not being able to run at 125mph for the time being.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Nov 2025 ==

Nowadays there are some uncomfortable gaps in the timetable, especially in the evenings when the services are running down. For example, no train from Crewe to Warrington / Wigan / Preston between 20:09 and 22:19. Does there really need to be a 2-hour gap in services on the WCML at that time of the evening?

Well said. Also I think it's extremely poor that the last direct train from Birmingham to Preston is 19:07. There used to be one at 21:07. This in turn has slowed down 1P07 20:30 Euston to Preston, which calls additionally at Stafford to compensate.

Also southbound I question why Avanti haven't reintroduced the 06:16 Preston to Birmingham New Street. This always seemed very busy when I used it. Yes I know you could get the 06:00 from Preston and change at Crewe, but still.

I don't know why they don't just run the empty stock for the 06:00 from Preston with 2x5-cars and leave one set behind at Preston on it's empty stock northbound working into Blackpool.

Also the 06:00 from Preston used to call at Poulton le Fylde and Kirkham and Wesham. These stops only got removed because it used to run as a 10-car Super Voyager. Now it's reverted back to a 5 car Evero.

 

[Bald Rick]

There are, of course, more trains now* than there were in VHF. Not least 2tph all day (almost) between Liverpool and London.

* from the forthcoming timetable change.