I never understand why certain trains are regarded as performance risks, yet others which run far longer routes are not.
So... it's ok to run trains every hour from Plymouth to Edinburgh - journey time around 7-8 hours, but not Liverpool to Edinburgh - journey time 4 hours.
It's ok to run (pre-Covid) an hourly service from London Euston to either Edinburgh or Glasgow via Birmingham - journey time around 5.5 hours, but apparently not from London Euston to Liverpool via Birmingham - journey time around 3.5 hours.
It's ok to run an hourly service from Manchester to Carmarthen and in many cases onto Milford Haven - journey time around 4 to 5 hours, but not from Liverpool to Norwich - journey time around 5.5 hours.
Why do people throw their hands up in horror at the prospect of cutting some through trains because of all the apparent end-to-end demand, whereas other through services can be cut because they're a performance risk?
If the national timetable hadn't been swamped with too many "silly little trains" over the last 20 years, there'd be plenty of scope to run direct services between a lot more places, with fewer, but longer trains. You only have to see how much better train performance and punctuality levels have been during the last 12-18 months while there have been fewer trains on the network. Admittedly there have been fewer passengers too, but it's a known fact that all trains would run on time if it weren't for the passengers(!)
I fail to see why the newly introduced Newcastle to Edinburgh TPE services can't be extensions of Liverpool to Edinburgh services: or better still: run the hourly service that has never really had the chance to get properly established.
I fail to see why it doesn't make good sense to link up an hourly semi-fast London Euston to Birmingham LNWR service with a semi-fast Birmingham to Liverpool LNWR service, with a sensible and robust dwell time at Birmingham New Street. This re-establishes hourly connectivity between Rugby, Coventry and Birmingham International with Stafford, Crewe and Liverpool, which currently hasn't existed since Covid began.
The Norwich to Liverpool service is long-established and actually DOES carry a fair amount of cross-Nottingham traffic. This service needs to be recognised as an EMR InterCity route, not just a "local" route, with appropriate rolling stock, not 30 year old Class 158s.
Put an end to XC diesel services running north of Newcastle (or maybe just keep one or two), which would surely free up some Voyagers to allow more services to run with double sets, even if XC do return to their pre-Covid timetable.
Anyway, these are just my thoughts. I appreciate they're speculative, but they arise from my failure to understand just why some trains are considered to be such a performance risk, when other, far more poorly performing services, MUST be maintained, apparently at all cost.