Why are XC allowed to continue?

[JonathanH]

GWR, once upon a time, operated IETs to Banbury from London Paddington

GWR still run IETs to Banbury from London Paddington, but only in the weekday peak. At other times, it is just the local stopper running every two hours, and just three return journeys on a Sunday.

 

[DavidGrain]

The last two times I have travelled from Birmingham to Oxford by train I have gone via Worcester. It takes longer but it is a much better journey and often cheaper. I have also used Chiltern via Haddenham and Tame. The last time I used Cross Country, the 4 car unit started from Oxford because of engineering work in the Didcot area and left Oxford absolutely rammed.
I am looking forward to being able to travel via Milton Keynes next year.

 

[LittleRedTrain]

GWR still run IETs to Banbury from London Paddington, but only in the weekday peak. At other times, it is just the local stopper running every two hours, and just three return journeys on a Sunday.

Only one IET day each way to/from Paddington now, in the evening peak only, even that seems to get cancelled at the slightest hint of any disruption.
Pre-Covid I believe it was at least one each way in the morning, and two each way in the evening.

Bit of a shame as they were a much more civilised way of getting from Banbury to Oxford/Reading than having to fight onto an XC service!

 

[Mark J]

GWR still run IETs to Banbury from London Paddington, but only in the weekday peak. At other times, it is just the local stopper running every two hours, and just three return journeys on a Sunday.

GWR was not a viable option for my visit to Banbury on Sunday. There was a sizeable wait until the next GWR service when I arrived at Oxford. Then the last one back from Banbury was well before 7pm.

GWR should extend Oxford bound services onto Banbury, then customers have the choice of alighting for Chiltern services onwards. It would also help with some of the overcrowding that occurs between Reading and Oxford.

Having XC as practically the sole operator between Oxford and Banbury is somewhat stupid.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Jun 2024 ==

The last two times I have travelled from Birmingham to Oxford by train I have gone via Worcester. It takes longer but it is a much better journey and often cheaper. I have also used Chiltern via Haddenham and Tame. The last time I used Cross Country, the 4 car unit started from Oxford because of engineering work in the Didcot area and left Oxford absolutely rammed.
I am looking forward to being able to travel via Milton Keynes next year.

I've done the GWR stopping service between Banbury and Oxford before. It is not a very slow service and is rather pleasant compared to XC by having a seat and not being stuffed into a highly overcrowded carriage.

 

[nw1]

As this is a speculative thread: I do wonder whether any future more "joined up" railway could save a path by operating an hourly Paddington-Reading-Oxford-Birmingham. This could provide both one of the 2tph from Paddington to Oxford, and one of the 2tph from Reading to Birmingham. Operated with 8-10 coaches, of course.

Of course, way back in the day this was the pattern. The Reading-Birmingham service in the early 80s consisted primarily of a mix of Pooles and Paddingtons with a small number of Brightons and Portsmouths.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with XC as a concept - it seemed to work fine in late BR and even early Virgin days - but there simply isn't enough stock.

 

[The Planner]

As this is a speculative thread: I do wonder whether any future more "joined up" railway could save a path by operating an hourly Paddington-Reading-Oxford-Birmingham. This could provide both one of the 2tph from Paddington to Oxford, and one of the 2tph from Reading to Birmingham. Operated with 8-10 coaches, of course.

Of course, way back in the day this was the pattern. The Reading-Birmingham service in the early 80s consisted primarily of a mix of Pooles and Paddingtons with a small number of Brightons and Portsmouths.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with XC as a concept - it seemed to work fine in late BR and even early Virgin days - but there simply isn't enough stock.

What are you doing with the Newcastle part?

 

[sprinterguy]

Deleted

 

[nw1]

What are you doing with the Newcastle part?

A continuation of the same service, as now. I was focusing on the section south of Birmingham because it was the most relevant to this discussion.

In the 80s also, the Paddington-Birmingham XCs mostly continued north of there, though usually Manchester or Liverpool at that time.

 

[mangyiscute]

Issue with extending GWR to Banbury is that very little of the travel north of Oxford is only to Banbury (even if ticket data says otherwise, since Banbury is such a good splitting point it'll have way more tickets bought to it than people actually using it on the XC trains) so it wouldn't really make any difference

 

[The exile]

Issue with extending GWR to Banbury is that very little of the travel north of Oxford is only to Banbury (even if ticket data says otherwise, since Banbury is such a good splitting point it'll have way more tickets bought to it than people actually using it on the XC trains) so it wouldn't really make any difference

Except that once you get to Banbury, there’s Chiltern as well to take some of the strain. Anyone heading to Leamington or Birmingham would not need to touch XC.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Issue with extending GWR to Banbury is that very little of the travel north of Oxford is only to Banbury (even if ticket data says otherwise, since Banbury is such a good splitting point it'll have way more tickets bought to it than people actually using it on the XC trains) so it wouldn't really make any difference

Except at rush hour. Banbury is a big commuter flow into Oxford.

 

[The Planner]

A continuation of the same service, as now. I was focusing on the section south of Birmingham because it was the most relevant to this discussion.

In the 80s also, the Paddington-Birmingham XCs mostly continued north of there, though usually Manchester or Liverpool at that time.

So its a Paddington Newcastle?

 

[mangyiscute]

So essentially have the full reinstatement of the Reading to Newcastle's (although personally I'd cut them short at York to save a unit or 2) and then extend them to Paddington but I'm not sure why?
The paddington to Oxford trains are already super busy, we don't need to combine them with another busy long route which will make them totally heaving plus very unreliable.

 

[FGWHST43009]

How about a Paddington-Birmingham New Street via Reading and Oxford etc and run the New Street-Newcastle service through from somewhere like Cardiff Central or even Swansea? Could be useful in providing a Swansea-Birmingham connection as well as a more frequent Cardiff-New St service. That said, Swansea-New St could be provided by extending the Cardiff-Nottingham. Or run Reading-York via Leeds and run the New Street-Newcastle via Doncaster train from Plymouth and extend to Edinburgh? Essentially swapping the routing between Sheffield and York. Bristol-Newcastle could be cut to around 4h10. When I went from Newcastle to Reading last October I went through London which is what most people will do.

 

[nw1]

So its a Paddington Newcastle?

Yes.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 25 Jun 2024 ==

So essentially have the full reinstatement of the Reading to Newcastle's (although personally I'd cut them short at York to save a unit or 2) and then extend them to Paddington but I'm not sure why?
The paddington to Oxford trains are already super busy, we don't need to combine them with another busy long route which will make them totally heaving plus very unreliable.

Fair enough, though I was thinking of full-length, 8-10 car trains.

 

[The Planner]

How about a Paddington-Birmingham New Street via Reading and Oxford etc and run the New Street-Newcastle service through from somewhere like Cardiff Central or even Swansea? Could be useful in providing a Swansea-Birmingham connection as well as a more frequent Cardiff-New St service. That said, Swansea-New St could be provided by extending the Cardiff-Nottingham. Or run Reading-York via Leeds and run the New Street-Newcastle via Doncaster train from Plymouth and extend to Edinburgh? Essentially swapping the routing between Sheffield and York. Bristol-Newcastle could be cut to around 4h10. When I went from Newcastle to Reading last October I went through London which is what most people will do.

The aspiration for the Reading Newcastle is the oft mentioned via Coventry route, partly for a direct East Mids/Yorkshire to Birmingham Airport flow. XC would run the Reading Newcastle via Leeds now if they could.

 

[FGWHST43009]

The aspiration for the Reading Newcastle is the oft mentioned via Coventry route, partly for a direct East Mids/Yorkshire to Birmingham Airport flow. XC would run the Reading Newcastle via Leeds now if they could.

When they reinstate the service in May will it go via Coventry and Leeds or via Solihull and Doncaster? If there's 2 trains per hour between Birmingham and Leeds then maybe they could operate on a skip-stop basis. For example, one service could stop at Tamworth, Derby, Chesterfield, Sheffield and Leeds while the other stops at Burton, Derby, Sheffield, Wakefield and Leeds. As the Plymouth service continues to Edinburgh I'd lose the stop at Durham and only stop at Berwick north of Newcastle to make the journey quicker. The Reading service could be terminated at York and maybe another service could fill in for the stops at Durham

 

[Energy]

When they reinstate the service in May will it go via Coventry and Leeds or via Solihull and Doncaster?

No more XC's will go via Coventry until Leamington Spa/Milverton - Kenilworth Jcn is doubled.

The incumbent (and likely future) Conservative MP for Kenilworth has mentioned double-tracking the line in this handout (apologies, I can't find it online). However this isn't detailed and the suggestion is more destinations to Kenilworth, which is unlikely to happen through XC as only 4 cars will fit and the voyagers lack any form of SDO.