What should be considered 'Inter-City' under GBR?

[Transilien]

This was a question raised in the GBR livery thread. In the UK right now there is very little distinction between what is inter-city and not. Should some services that weren't under the inter-city sector during the BR days like London to Weymouth be considered inter-city? Also what should be the requirements for a service to be labeled this way?

 

[A0]

This was a question raised in the GBR livery thread. In the UK right now there is very little distinction between what is inter-city and not. Should some services that weren't under the inter-city sector during the BR days like London to Weymouth be considered inter-city? Also what should be the requirements for a service to be labeled this way?

Nothing.

The Inter City brand is dead (and has been for 25 years) and GBR shouldn't be resurrecting legacy things "just cos that's what BR did".

There will need to be some differentiation between long distance express, long distance stopper and commuter services, but that shouldn't mean using long dead brands which mean nothing to non enthusiasts.

 

[Transilien]

The Inter City brand is dead

It isn't dead in most continental countries. I think inter-city is a useful differentiation from other services that at least still exists in timetables even today with many fast non-stop services still running.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Nothing.

The Inter City brand is dead (and has been for 25 years) and GBR shouldn't be resurrecting legacy things "just cos that's what BR did".

This!

 

[Djgr]

I think Inter City is and was a powerful brand, which does was it says on the tin (unlike for example c2c, First...anything. (what an arrogant brand name by the way) and often TPE)

My starting position would be to adopt the finishing position of British Rail, as that had been tried, tested and adapted over many years.

 

[JonathanH]

My starting position would be to adopt the finishing position of British Rail, as that had been tried, tested and adapted over many years.

Was the finishing position of British Rail a panacea?

Arguably the optimism of the first few years of privatisation and the service enhancements it brought were perhaps better.

 

[HSTEd]

I think there are precious few "InterCity" services left.
Perhaps Scotland to London, but even then I am skeptical.

 

[Djgr]

Was the finishing position of British Rail a panacea?

Arguably the optimism of the first few years of privatisation and the service enhancements it brought were perhaps better.

Certainly want to look at network pre Operation Princess

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Sep 2024 ==

I think there are precious few "InterCity" services left.
Perhaps Scotland to London, but even then I am skeptical.

I think this thread is about rethinking the railway in the post-privatisation era.

 

[HSTEd]

I think this thread is about rethinking the railway in the post-privatisation era.

Yes, but Inter-City services as a concept are increasingly rare in the UK.
Higher operational speeds (thus shorter journeys), higher performance units and more station stops are diluting the traidtional "inter city" concept.

I don't think there are many services that could truly be so characterised left today.

 

[Transilien]

This thread isn’t really about if inter-city should exist in the first place. It’s more about what would be put under a hypothetical inter-city brand under GBR and what that inter-city service would look like. Inter-city doesn’t need to mean what it did under BR.

 

[gingerheid]

What message would we be wanting to convey to someone by telling them that X (as opposed to Y) was InterCity?

Our network is so congested that most of what's on it has to be a lot of things to a lot of people, and I think that reduces the value of InterCity as a brand or as a descriptor.

I think we would be left with that InterCity is a service with seat reservations, with doors in a vestibule at the end of the carriage, and with some kind of away from seat catering service?

 

[Dr Hoo]

I suppose that trains connecting cities, such as Manchester to Salford, would be one possibility.

 

[gingerheid]

Would the passenger be aided or informed by being told that the 1628 from Manchester Victoria to Salford Crescent was an intercity train?

 

[Djgr]

Would the passenger be aided or informed by being told that the 1628 from Manchester Victoria to Salford Crescent was an intercity train?

No. And I would not imagine inter-city services would often have this as calling points.

Seriously, have a look at what British Rail called Inter City before the privatisation virus hit them. That gives you 95% of your answer and then tweak it around the edges.

 

[HSTEd]

Seriously, have a look at what British Rail called Inter City before the privatisation virus hit them. That gives you 95% of your answer and then tweak it around the edges.

I think huge parts of the ex BR intercity system no longer qualify in the high intensity EMU operated world.

GatEx is certainly gone, along with trains to East Anglia and arguably most ECML and WCML operations.

Precious little left that really resembles an "InterCity" train as opposed to simply Transpennine Express type work.
There is so little left that I'm not sure any kind of "InterCity" business unit is relevant in the modern railway

 

[Djgr]

I think huge parts of the ex BR intercity system no longer qualify in the high intensity EMU operated world.

GatEx is certainly gone, along with trains to East Anglia and arguably most ECML and WCML operations.

Precious little left that really resembles an "InterCity" train as opposed to simply Transpennine Express type work.
There is so little left that I'm not sure any kind of "InterCity" business unit is relevant in the modern railway

The thread is what we think Inter City SHOULD look like as we move forward not what it looks like now.

To aid the discussion I have attached a map of what InterCity did look like.

 

[gingerheid]

Whether we consider what it can or should look like, I feel the world has changed too much (ie the railway is used too intensively).

If we were to change the railway to make it a better place for long distance travel, then I think it might be fair to say that the railway is like a road network that consists almost entirely of A roads, and that it needs some motorways to add capacity to the network and speed to long distance journeys. I think it is perhaps services that would operate on those lines that should be a modern InterCity network.

 

[JamesT]

The thread is what we think Inter City SHOULD look like as we move forward not what it looks like now.

To aid the discussion I have attached a map of what InterCity did look like.

But as noted before, BR didn’t really have a consistent plan for what would be an InterCity service or route. So, what would be your principles for choosing what would be InterCity?
I also note you hark back to a pre Operation Princess network. The reason that failed was because it was “too popular”. It wasn’t followed through by providing sufficiently long rolling stock. Reversing those higher frequencies would be extremely damaging to the attractiveness of the rail network.

 

[HSTEd]

The thread is what we think Inter City SHOULD look like as we move forward not what it looks like now.

Well I'm not sure there is much to gain in attempting to recreate a large "Inter City" style network.
The changes over the past 30 years are largely a result of the changing demands upon the railway.

The chief lesson of Operation Princess and Sprinterisation before it seems to be that frequency is key. Princess "failed" because it generated traffic that the rolling stock could not cope with, not because it was a bad idea.
The railway is also much more intensively operated than before, with trains with increasingly similar performance.

I'm simply not sure that the differentiation between long distance and shorter distance services is truly meaningful any more.

 

[43096]

I think we would be left with that InterCity is a service with seat reservations, with doors in a vestibule at the end of the carriage, and with some kind of away from seat catering service?

First class accommodation (2+1 seating), standard as 2+2. Catering facilities better than a trolley.

So that would include LNER, Avanti and (some) Liv St-Norwich, but exclude GWR, EMR and XC.

 

[danshrimp]

Perhaps there are not inter-city routes in the same way as their used to be, but in terms of ticketing and facilities, there are differences between the various services offered in this country. (Potential) passengers can generally tell them apart by the TOC if they are well informed, but this surely isn't the best way of organising the system, not least because service types can vary within TOCs (which indeed has led to the likes of EMR, GA, Scotrail etc bringing back the name 'Intercity' to differentiate within their network, and even causing WMR to split their brand in half, proving that there is at least some value in advertising the kind of service being offered).

It's certainly feasible to imagine a set of criteria that can be applied. The idea is to communicate that the trains in question are comfortable, reasonably fast, long distance and require booking in advance. Perhaps, these days, that would include quite a lot of the network. Or maybe a three-tier system (or four?) like many European countries would be more appropriate: IC, ICE, etc.

I'm reminded of, for example, the criteria for certification of EuroCity services (albeit no longer the pinnacle of European train travel):

• train through two or more countries
• all cars air-conditioned
• stop only at stations serving major cities
• stops scheduled to last no more than five minutes, in special cases up to 15 minutes
• food and beverages available onboard (preferably from a dining car)
• conductors speak at least two languages, one of which must be English, French, or German
• average speed (including stops) above 90 kilometres per hour (56 mph), exceptions for routes including mountainous terrain and train ferries

A domestic equivalent of this could specify, the requirement/possibility of seat reservations, first class facilities, catering, etc. Again perhaps with multiple tiers to differentiate your Avantis (Intercity or Intercity Express) from your TPEs (Regional Express or Intercity). Surely that would help the average less informed passenger looking to travel from, say, London-Birmingham to know what to expect from each of the option they are presented with? (And, frankly, to warn e.g. unsuspecting XC passengers what not to expect...)

 

[BayPaul]

I think it makes sense for a number of reasons to have a 'premier' long distance / limited stop brand :
- It allows price differentiation between faster and slower trains (where both exist on the same route)
- It makes it easier for a passenger to see they are getting on the train they want
- It helps unify a national network, by having a strong brand for similar services across the country.

Intercity is probably a decent brand for this, but others are available!

I don't particularly think that what BR did is the best basis for this, nor does the definition of a city or what other countries do really help!

I would include services that are long distance, connect relatively large towns and cities, are limited stop for most of their route, and are operated by a reasonably dedicated fleet of trains, but not if they're the semi-fast service on a route that also has an intercity service. Ideally I'd want them to have reservations available, 1st class and catering, but that could be a longer term ambition.

I reckon this would then include:
All Avanti
All LNER
All XC including the 170 routes
Scotrail Inter7cities and Edinburgh - Glasgow
TPE except for the stopper
A few Northern services such as Manchester - Cumbria
EMR 222/810 services
Great Northern Kings X-Kings Lynn
GA 745 services
Southeastern High Speed
Southern Victoria - Gatwick - Brighton
SWR 444 & 158/9 services
GWR 80x services + 158 Portsmouth - Cardiff
TfW Cardiff - Manchester & Holyhead
WMR Liverpool - Birmingham
Chiltern fastest services.

This would give a strong network across most of the country, without many initial changes to routes or stock, though I'd perhaps look at a new 100mph bimode to take over routes in Scotland, Manchester - Cumbria, XC 170s, GWR/SWR 158/9 etc.

 

[Transilien]

In my opinion inter-city means routes of national importance that cross regional boundaries and cover distances of over 100 miles. These services also link major population centres It doesn't really matter about the stopping pattern but it is preferable for these trains to skip minor stations where possible.

Here are some routes that I would place firmly into the inter-city category:

London Euston-Liverpool Lime St, 178 miles, travels between the South East and crosses the Midlands and terminates in Northern England. One service I looked at only had 5 stops in mainly large towns and skipped major centres like Birmingham on the way for speed.
London Paddington-Cardiff Central, 131 miles, travels between the South East and crosses the West of England and terminates in Wales. A service that I looked at only had 6 stops in large towns and one city on the way, Newport.

Compare this to a German ICE service (Which is basically inter-city)

Berlin Hauptbahnhof-Hamburg Hauptbahnhof, 159 miles, travels between the German states of: Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt and Lower Saxony. It ALSO only has 5 stops in mainly larger places.

They all have stock that can go at least up to 125 mph and First Class. If the UK doesn't have inter-city services then I clearly don't know what an Inter-city service is.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

The Inter City brand is dead (and has been for 25 years)

Apart from the small matter of GWR’s Intercity Express Trains…

 

[HamworthyGoods]

The thread is what we think Inter City SHOULD look like as we move forward not what it looks like now.

To aid the discussion I have attached a map of what InterCity did look like.

So you are proposing places like Middlesborough loose their direct Intercity services to London but just because they ran 30 years ago we have to re-instate Intercity services to Harwich…

That map belongs to remain in the past!

 

[Transilien]

So you are proposing places like Middlesborough loose their direct Intercity services to London but just because they ran 30 years ago we have to re-instate Intercity services to Harwich…

That map belongs to remain in the past!

Where were they suggesting that? It was just to begin a discussion! You are welcome not to join in if you want to.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

I'm reminded of, for example, the criteria for certification of EuroCity services (albeit no longer the pinnacle of European train travel):

• train through two or more countries
• all cars air-conditioned
• stop only at stations serving major cities
• stops scheduled to last no more than five minutes, in special cases up to 15 minutes
• food and beverages available onboard (preferably from a dining car)
• conductors speak at least two languages, one of which must be English, French, or German
• average speed (including stops) above 90 kilometres per hour (56 mph), exceptions for routes including mountainous terrain and train ferries

There have been ECs over the years which don’t run with catering.

Prime example being the now discontinued Brussels - Luxembourg - Strasbourg - Basel - Zurich - Chur trains (EC Iris etc.) which didn’t have catering.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Sep 2024 ==

Where were they suggesting that? It was just to begin a discussion! You are welcome not to join in if you want to.

It’s just why do we look backwards with such rose tinted spectacles, not forwards!

 

[43096]

Apart from the small matter of GWR’s Intercity Express Trains…

...which don't meet my (and many others', I suspect) definition of "InterCity". In reality it's Great Western metro.

 

[gingerheid]

It's right to look backwards to see if we can learn from the past; and even if we shouldn't want to recreate it there are things we can learn from it.

The rail industry of recent years must have got a lot right when it managed to grow so much; but I think the priority for the future is to find a way of managing that growth without Ryanairisation; and that means that the priority now should be what it does rather than what it calls it; more comfort, convenience and capacity rather than branding.

For example; should the Stansted to Birmingham service be "intercity"? I don't really care. But it should operate to at least the pre-covid timetable with longer trains. If it did operate and I was going to get a seat on it... I don't care what they call it; I'd be delighted. Better still... if there were ECML services from Peterborough to Glasgow and they were affordable then I'd use the above trains to get to those, rather than the opposite direction towards the airport! Any of those trains could be multiple units from Stadler that maybe aren't really "Intercity" and I'd be particularly delighted.

I think what the rail industry does need to learn from the past is not the branding, but the ticketing. There are too many operator only fares and advance fares only available for part journeys. I think they're preventing the network operating as one much more than any branding concerns.

 

[30907]

It isn't dead in most continental countries.

But it isn't a consistent brand.
In Switzerland it refers to the top category of train, almost everywhere else it refers to the next category down.