When will someone do something about CrossCountry

[404250]

If there's anything that would put people off medium or long distance train travel it's a ride on a XC voyager. Too many points to mention that have been said already, but maybe one that hasn't - the ugly thick plastic backs to the seats. They remind me of nappy changing tables.

 

[Mogz]

What is going to serve Manchester in the gap? How many traincrew are going to have to learn the route from Crewe to Liverpool to service one train a day?

It just isn't practical (or necessary) given the option to change at Stafford, Wolverhampton or Birmingham New Street on a half hourly basis.

Perhaps Manchester could have one of the LNWR services to New Street and Euston to compensate.

 

[yorksrob]

Perhaps with doubled up Voyagers, you could have trains splitting at Crewe to serve Manchester and Liverpool.

But that would involve them getting a grip on the overall capacity problem, which no one seems prepared to do.

 

[JonathanH]

Perhaps Manchester could have one of the LNWR services to New Street and Euston to compensate.

Then you have to train even more traincrew for one train a day.

 

[Mitchell Hurd]

Well, we have a break through - it's a start either way...

https://www.shropshirestar.com/news...ns-in-west-midlands-after-carriage-cast-offs/

 

[Aictos]

Well, we have a break through - it's a start either way...

https://www.shropshirestar.com/news...ns-in-west-midlands-after-carriage-cast-offs/

Didn’t know that the 170s with WMT were going to XC, hopefully this means a end to stupid 2 car operations with the minimum being a 3 car up to 6 car operations.

And who is Chris Heaton-Harris?

 

[Mitchell Hurd]

Didn’t know that the 170s with WMT were going to XC, hopefully this means a end to stupid 2 car operations with the minimum being a 3 car up to 6 car operations.

And who is Chris Heaton-Harris?

I'm not sure who Chris Heaton-Harris is.

I believe the XC Class 170 fleet will consist of 22 x 3-car and 7 x 2-car sets.

I'm pleased that, for once, a train type I've become rather keen to stay is staying by the sounds of it !

 

[Aictos]

I'm not sure who Chris Heaton-Harris is.

I believe the XC Class 170 fleet will consist of 22 x 3-car and 7 x 2-car sets.

I'm pleased that, for once, a train type I've become rather keen to stay is staying by the sounds of it !

I agree, nothing wrong with XC 170s apart from the fact that they run 2 cars on routes that should be 4 car minimum... Birmingham to Stansted and Cardiff to Nottingham as a example with the Birmingham to Leicester should go to WMT in any case.

 

[greatvoyager]

Didn’t know that the 170s with WMT were going to XC, hopefully this means a end to stupid 2 car operations with the minimum being a 3 car up to 6 car operations.

And who is Chris Heaton-Harris?

I'm not sure who Chris Heaton-Harris is.

I believe the XC Class 170 fleet will consist of 22 x 3-car and 7 x 2-car sets.

I'm pleased that, for once, a train type I've become rather keen to stay is staying by the sounds of it !

Interestingly clicking on the link resulted in an error and this story does not appear under transport news when I searched the site.
What did the article say? I was aware of the plan for the centre cars from WMT 170/6s to move to XC but has this now changed?

 

[swt_passenger]

I'm not sure who Chris Heaton-Harris is.

A Minister of State at DfT since last July. I can’t get to your linked news article, but it would be quite surprising if it didn’t explain his role?

But is it possible the article has been deleted as irrelevant to the area the newspaper actually covers?

 

[Kite159]

I agree, nothing wrong with XC 170s apart from the fact that they run 2 cars on routes that should be 4 car minimum... Birmingham to Stansted and Cardiff to Nottingham as a example with the Birmingham to Leicester should go to WMT in any case.

Or in the case of Stansted 4 car maximum due to the length of platform 2 at the airport. So unless you start dividing/joining on route that is the limit.

 

[Aictos]

Or in the case of Stansted 4 car maximum due to the length of platform 2 at the airport. So unless you start dividing/joining on route that is the limit.

I know but you shouldn't be running a 2 car on a major inter regional route, it's not like a remote branch line in the middle of nowhere.

 

[Mitchell Hurd]

Sorry to those that can't get the link. Apparently when searching on Google (typing in crosscountry trains then 'NEWS' after pressing the search button) it doesn't work either.

Sorry folks again.

 

[Aictos]

Sorry to those that can't get the link. Apparently when searching on Google (typing in crosscountry trains then 'NEWS' after pressing the search button) it doesn't work either.

Sorry folks again.

No worries, least you've tried.

 

[The Ham]

Well, we have a break through - it's a start either way...

https://www.shropshirestar.com/news...ns-in-west-midlands-after-carriage-cast-offs/

Updated link:
https://www.expressandstar.com/news...-in-west-midlands-after-carriage-cast-offs-2/

Extra seats on CrossCountry trains in West Midlands after carriage cast-offs

Extra seats will be added to overcrowded CrossCountry train services passing through the West Midlands.

Chris Heaton-Harris said £2.5 million of Government funding will pay for CrossCountry to operate trains with more carriages.

Services running through Birmingham New Street station between Nottingham, Leicester and Cardiff will get more than 5,000 additional seats per week from May.

A further 15,000 weekly seats are planned for other routes such as Cambridge-Stansted Airport from mid-2021.

This should also including route serving Stafford and Wolverhampton station, between Manchester and Bournemouth.

The carriages will come from West Midlands Trains, which is receiving new carriages for West Midlands Railway services.

The funding follows the Department for Transport's decision last summer to extend the Arriva-owned operator's franchise to October 2020

.

Mr Heaton-Harris said: "Investing in transport is essential to levelling up the country, as we look to modernise our rail network and restructure the industry to put passengers at the heart of the railway.

"But we want to fund benefits to address pressing needs and improve journeys for passengers in the short-term, as well as in the future.

"More seats mean more people can travel, increasing access to opportunities and better connecting our regions."


"Most importantly, many of our trains have become increasingly busy as more and more people choose rail for their journeys.

"This delivers the biggest increase in seats for our services in more than 13 years, helping customers enjoy a relaxing and comfortable journey every day.

"These improvements will deliver an immediate boost for rail users in the Midlands, with the promise of even more to come on other routes in the near future."

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

where are the extra carriages coming from?

 

[greatvoyager]

Mr Heaton-Harris said: "Investing in transport is essential to levelling up the country, as we look to modernise our rail network and restructure the industry to put passengers at the heart of the railway.

"But we want to fund benefits to address pressing needs and improve journeys for passengers in the short-term, as well as in the future.

"More seats mean more people can travel, increasing access to opportunities and better connecting our regions."


"Most importantly, many of our trains have become increasingly busy as more and more people choose rail for their journeys.

"This delivers the biggest increase in seats for our services in more than 13 years, helping customers enjoy a relaxing and comfortable journey every day.

"These improvements will deliver an immediate boost for rail users in the Midlands, with the promise of even more to come on other routes in the near future."

Does this mean more additional stock for XC's intercity routes?

 

[squizzler]

It is a shame about additional HST's being rejected for the time being. With XC having been capacity constrained for so long it would be desirable to 'test the market' by offering more capacity prior to ordering new stock - and give whoever ends up buying the new trains greater confidence in buying an appropriate length to handle future growth. It would be also start growing patronage so that when the new fleet arrived it would 'hit the ground running' in terms of handling decent load factors from day one.

 

[swt_passenger]

Discussing this latest DFt announcement about the XC regional routes and extra 170 carriages is also taking place in the general discussion forum. It’s not speculation there...

 

[VT 390]

where are the extra carriages coming from?

They will be some of the centre carriages on the 3 carriage West Midlands Railway 170's that East Midlands Railway does not want.

 

[td97]

I'm surprised it's not been mentioned for LNER to (re-)take over the Edinburgh-Glasgow 1tp2h from XC, with their greatly expanded fleet using 2x801/1 from Kings Cross, splitting at Edinburgh.
This would release at least 1 Voyager to do more productive duties, it taking 3 hours to do Edinburgh-Glasgow (via Carstairs)-Edinburgh.
LNER already sign the route as they have 1tpd to/from Glasgow.

 

[VT 390]

I'm surprised it's not been mentioned for LNER to (re-)take over the Edinburgh-Glasgow 1tp2h from XC, with their greatly expanded fleet using 2x801/1 from Kings Cross, splitting at Edinburgh.
This would release at least 1 Voyager to do more productive duties, it taking 3 hours to do Edinburgh-Glasgow (via Carstairs)-Edinburgh.
LNER already sign the route as they have 1tpd to/from Glasgow.

As long as the timings work I think this is a good idea as XC could do with any extra capacity they can get and to most places LNER don't serve it is quicker to go via the WCML from Glasgow anyway. One issue I do see is that Leeds may not be happy with loosing it's Glasgow service but I don't know how many people would make this journey and Leeds does now have 2tph to Edinburgh.

 

[klass43]

MML have on order 33x5 bi mode trains (class 810). Why not ask Grant Shapps (DfT) to add on to that order so that XC current rolling stock can be replaced.

 

[squizzler]

No need to ask anybody else if you want some new trains and you can find a leasing company that is game.

 

[squizzler]

I just said under another thread that the government had been about to waive domestic air passenger duty to save flybe. With that no longer possible, could the domestic air passenger duty no longer to be given away be put into Cross Country network?

 

[The Ham]

MML have on order 33x5 bi mode trains (class 810). Why not ask Grant Shapps (DfT) to add on to that order so that XC current rolling stock can be replaced.

There's two problems, firstly any XC units would be delivered after those for the MML.

Secondly, this would likely lead to a slower rate of improvement in that the 222's can be delivered to XC during delivery of the MML batch if trains. As well as requiring less staff training time to bring into service.

The 222's would bring significant improvements to XC, as with just the 17 x 5 coach units that more than enough to run all 4 coach services as at least 5 coach services and all the 5 coach services to be run with pairs of units.

I'd be inclined to use the 222's for the Manchester services. By maths I think that it would work.

Bournemouth to Manchester takes 5 hours and Exeter to Manchester takes 4 hours, as these services are inter-worked a unit is on an 11 hour cycle.

This means that to run all services in pairs (or equivalent) you'd need 22 units with 5 coaches. You'd then need 3 to act as spares/for maintenance. That would mean you'd need 25/27 units of they were all 5 coach units.

However the 222's aren't all 5 coach units. Yet we could get close to them mostly being so.

If we shortened 2 of the 7 coach units to 5 coaches that would give us 23.

If we then shortened 2 of the remaining 4 7 coach units to 5 coaches and lengthened those last 2 units to 9 coaches we'd get our 25 x 5 coach units which we need to run the Manchester services as a self contained fleet.

Now that doesn't show for the services to Paignton, but does extend every service to Exeter so there's scope to stop some services short at Bristol to allow those few services to Paignton. However this would still be a better service provision to Exeter than the was. Although if the services were to split there could be 5 coach services South of the split, which could allow a full hourly service to Paignton without needing any extra units. (By my maths I think the spilt could happen at Taunton, which would still be a better service provision and much higher capacity for the whole route).

That would still leave 2 x 9 coach trains to strengthen other services, in addition to the circa 18 trains released by the introduction of the 222's.

 

[VT 390]

I would not run just 5 carriage 222's on the Manchester services as they are usually some of the most busy so I think that route should have at least some 8 carriage workings on it (4+4).

 

[The Ham]

I would not run just 5 carriage 222's on the Manchester services as they are usually some of the most busy so I think that route should have at least some 8 carriage workings on it (4+4).

I think you missed that I said that I'd run all the services as pairs of units

 

[VT 390]

I think you missed that I said that I'd run all the services as pairs of units

Sorry, yes I did miss that. If they would be operating as doubles on as many services as possible it does make sense to try to keep the 222's on specific routes.

 

[Meerkat]

MML have on order 33x5 bi mode trains (class 810). Why not ask Grant Shapps (DfT) to add on to that order so that XC current rolling stock can be replaced.

Why 810s - do XC need the shorter trains or is this about power?
How does Bournemouth-Manchester compare to SW-NE - which would be a priority for bimode, which would be a struggle to maintain speed on the diesel bits?