Could the Norwich - Liverpool service be sped up?

[RailWonderer]

With an end to end journey time of 5 hours, are there certain areas, where given investment in upgrading the infrastructure, the journey time could be shortened? I am not sure of the speed limits in many areas besides 125mph between P'boro and Grantham (but a 158 can only do 90mph). This route is heavily used for Norwich passengers to connect to the the North as well as local connections for Liverpool - Manchester - Sheffield and it provides a key link when other local services are not reliable so surely a strong case could be made to invest in certain parts of this route.

To the mods: If this is speculative don't hesitate to move it.

 

[LowLevel]

It had it's investment in the 80s/90s when SP/MU (sprinter/multiple unit) speed differentials were introduced in various places to cut journey times. The Hope Valley and Ely - Norwich are key examples.

Some sections like Nottingham to Grantham have been slated for possible speed increases following resignalling but they've not yet happened.

Speed is never going to be a big consideration for using this route really.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

I am not sure of the speed limits in many areas

https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ is my main source for speed limits, it doesn't cover everywhere and isn't official but it's really easy to use.

Doing a quick scroll reveals Grantham <-> Peterborough as the only area above 90

 

[JonathanH]

Timetabling of such a service needs to be considered as well. Given it has run in pretty much the same path for 30 years, a lot of other services fit around it.

Speeding it up in one place doesn't work of it is still constrained in another.

 

[midland1]

A simple way to speed it up would be to skip the Ely and Sheffield stops but that would not be on the cards

 

[childwallblues]

With an end to end journey time of 5 hours, are there certain areas, where given investment in upgrading the infrastructure, the journey time could be shortened? I am not sure of the speed limits in many areas besides 125mph between P'boro and Grantham (but a 158 can only do 90mph). This route is heavily used for Norwich passengers to connect to the the North as well as local connections for Liverpool - Manchester - Sheffield and it provides a key link when other local services are not reliable so surely a strong case could be made to invest in certain parts of this route.

To the mods: If this is speculative don't hesitate to move it.

I have only travelled end to end on this service once and that was for a railway holiday but I canno really comment on the section east of Nottingham. Certainly on the west side it takes approx 108 minutes to do the 77 miles from Liverpool to Sheffield with six intermediate stops. Neither the CLC or the Hope Valley have modern signalling and the Stockport to Chesterfield section has four of the longest tunnels in the UK.

 

[Brubulus]

Is it still planned to split the route in 2? I also believe the occasional use of 156s can slow down the route hugely.

 

[Parjon]

Liverpool - Crewe - Stoke - Nottingham - Leicester - Peterborough - Norwich.

Speeds up end to end, provides new connections, takes it out of the castlefield corridor equation.

 

[LowLevel]

Is it still planned to split the route in 2? I also believe the occasional use of 156s can slow down the route hugely.

156s make no difference to the running time on the west section, they just mean you lose a bit of recovery time.

They can lose you time on the east side where there's more prolonged running at 75 mph+

Liverpool - Crewe - Stoke - Nottingham - Leicester - Peterborough - Norwich.

Speeds up end to end, provides new connections, takes it out of the castlefield corridor equation.

Except for crossing the layout at Crewe, reversing at Nottingham and Leicester and missing out various important popular centres. Not the best idea I've seen.

 

[Brubulus]

156s make no difference to the running time on the west section, they just mean you lose a bit of recovery time.

They can lose you time on the east side where there's more prolonged running at 75 mph+


Except for crossing the layout at Crewe, reversing at Nottingham and Leicester and missing out various important popular centres. Not the best idea I've seen.

Given the CLC is 85, I'd at least think it would make losing your slot at Castlefield a lot easier.

 

[LowLevel]

Given the CLC is 85, I'd at least think it would make losing your slot at Castlefield a lot easier.

10 mph difference isn't huge. You have to slow down to stop at Widnes anyway and you're often following the stopper into Manchester once you get to Chassen Road or so. Winding through Warrington is much slower, varying chunks of 40, 50, 65 and 75.

It just means you lose your standing time at Widnes and Warrington.

 

[Parjon]

reversing at Nottingham and Leicester and missing out various important popular centres.

Does the current service not already go from Nottingham to Peterborough via Leicester?

"Major population centres" meaning Manchester via Sheffield, which would still have services just ending in the Piccadilly shed.

Manchester and Liverpool sharing so many east-west services has been a problem for some time. There is a point where economies of scale tip over to logistical nightmare, and that point was reached years ago. Liverpool's connectivity has been strangled as a result.

 

[Bald Rick]

Does the current service not already go from Nottingham to Peterborough via Leicester?

no, it goes via Grantham, as it’s at least half an hour quicker that way.

 

[midland1]

Was there not a Liverpool, Birmingham, Leicester, Peterborough, etc. service back in about the 1990s. Ran about every 2 hours

 

[Parjon]

no, it goes via Grantham, as it’s at least half an hour quicker that way.

Then whichever way it goes now, but from Nottingham go to Liverpool via Stoke and Crewe

Was there not a Liverpool, Birmingham, Leicester, Peterborough, etc. service back in about the 1990s. Ran about every 2 hours

Maybe. That route wouldn't be quicker though, it would basically just join two existing services

 

[LowLevel]

Was there not a Liverpool, Birmingham, Leicester, Peterborough, etc. service back in about the 1990s. Ran about every 2 hours

There was basically an hourly Liverpool to Stansted Airport via Birmingham, Leicester and Peterborough with some random variations like a daily train to/from Norwich or via Derby.

That was to join the Birmingham Liverpool and Birmingham Stansted for operational reasons. It suffered from horrific timekeeping and overcrowding and once sufficient class 350s arrived it was chopped back up again with the Birmingham to Liverpool section going electric and the Birmingham - Stansted being in a strange interworking that saw a unit work Stansted - Birmingham - Shrewsbury - Birmingham - Leicester - Birmingham - Stansted.

Central Trains did a lot of odd things for unit utilisation.

 

[TheBigD]

Very unlikely to be speeded up in my humble opinion.

Obstacles on the eastern section...

Single track through Grantham platform 4, and a low 20mph linespeed (I think, its 15+ years since I signed it!). Eastbound services are times to follow the westbound service through that section. If you swap them around and reduce the dwell times at Nottingham you are then importing a risk to the ECML as the westbound service would have to wait on the ECML for the eastbound service.
Central Trains looked at this before as the idea was to swap the paths over, alternate a stop at Ely one way and via the west curve the other way and save 1 unit overall. Even Central Trains rejected that as it was unrealistic on a day to day basis.

Nearly all services are booked slow line from Stoke to Peterborough on the ECML (max 80mph). Given the desire to run 8 LDHS trains an hour on the ECML you would probably struggle to get a 90 mph service to fit in (100mph when all the 170s arrive).

Eastbound crosses over the ECML at 15 mph at bith Grantham and Peterborough so it has to fit in between much faster (115mph I think) ECML services there.

Peterborough to Ely generally sees the EMR service a few minutes behind a Felixstowe liner across Ely Junction, and westbound they are a few minutes in front of the Birmingham-Stansted at Ely North Junction, and a few minutes ahead of the Kings Cross-Kings Lynn departing from Ely, with the Ipswich-Peterborough stopper right behind the Lynn. Given the increase in liners to/from Felixstowe it is common for the the EMR services to get delayed following them across the fens. (1L10 today, 27th, lost 14 minutes following 4L85) for example.



I'm sure others can summarise similar issues on the western section...

 

[Bald Rick]

The point is that very few people use this service end to end, or even for half the trip. Speeding up the whole route will provide a small benefit to most people.

Then whichever way it goes now, but from Nottingham go to Liverpool via Stoke and Crewe

At best that might save 20 mins for the handful of people travelling from Nottingham and east thereof, at the cost of significant loss of direct services and frequency between Nottingham / Alfreton / Chesterfield / Sheffield / Stockport / Manchester / Warrington. (With resulting significant increases in journey times)

Doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.

 

[AY1975]

There was basically an hourly Liverpool to Stansted Airport via Birmingham, Leicester and Peterborough with some random variations like a daily train to/from Norwich or via Derby.

That was to join the Birmingham Liverpool and Birmingham Stansted for operational reasons. It suffered from horrific timekeeping and overcrowding and once sufficient class 350s arrived it was chopped back up again with the Birmingham to Liverpool section going electric and the Birmingham - Stansted being in a strange interworking that saw a unit work Stansted - Birmingham - Shrewsbury - Birmingham - Leicester - Birmingham - Stansted.

Central Trains did a lot of odd things for unit utilisation.

Yes, and for a time in the early to mid 1990s the Liverpool-Norwich service went via Loughborough, Stamford and Peterborough. As I recall when the regular through service was first introduced in 1988 it took its current route via Grantham, then it was rerouted via Stamford in about 1990. It never went via Leicester, though. Going via Stamford required a reversal at Nottingham but relieved congestion on the East Coast Main Line. Not sure whether it's quicker via Grantham or via Stamford: I would guess that there's not much in it. I'm also not sure when it reverted to running via Grantham.

Also, in its first few years of operation it usually went via Toton, as the shorter route from Trowell Junction to Nottingham was closed for a time in the late 1980s and early '90s, but since that route reopened it has usually gone that way, and that has saved a few minutes. It still occasionally goes via Toton if there are engineering works on the shorter route, though, and I guess there might be at least one train per day (or one per week) that's booked via Toton to keep up route knowledge.

 

[Magdalia]

I think that you are asking the wrong question.

The Norwich-Liverpool service is a child of the Regional Railways sprinter revolution that was baked into the timetable by the franchise system at privatisation. When it started, the key junctions that it travels through were much less busy than they are now.

Between privatisation and covid rail travel grew rapidly, but not on the eastern end of the Norwich-Liverpool service. This still trundles along with an hourly 2 car train, just like 30 years ago, taking up huge amounts of increasingly precious track capacity at places such as Ely and Peterborough.

In the post covid world I don't think that can be justified. I would be truncating the service to Liverpool-Nottingham, and completely junking the Nottingham-Norwich part.

The question I'd then be asking would be how to make better use of the capacity released by junking Nottingham-Norwich. One option I'd be looking at is an hourly Ipswich-Nottingham via Stamford, with the opportunity to also serve East Midlands Parkway for connections to Derby and Sheffield. In the fullness of time hopefully the released capacity on Ely-Norwich would be taken up by EWR trains to/from Oxford, in the meantime a few peak time extras Norwich-Peterborough or Cambridge will probably suffice.

 

[William3000]

Was there not a Liverpool, Birmingham, Leicester, Peterborough, etc. service back in about the 1990s. Ran about every 2 hours

The Liverpool to Lime Street to Stansted Airport was split in two. I presume partly because Liverpool Lime Street to Birmingham NS was fully under the wires whereas Birmingham NS to Stansted Airport only has Ely to Stansted Airport under the wires.

I think that you are asking the wrong question.

The Norwich-Liverpool service is a child of the Regional Railways sprinter revolution that was baked into the timetable by the franchise system at privatisation. When it started, the key junctions that it travels through were much less busy than they are now.

Between privatisation and covid rail travel grew rapidly, but not on the eastern end of the Norwich-Liverpool service. This still trundles along with an hourly 2 car train, just like 30 years ago, taking up huge amounts of increasingly precious track capacity at places such as Ely and Peterborough.

In the post covid world I don't think that can be justified. I would be truncating the service to Liverpool-Nottingham, and completely junking the Nottingham-Norwich part.

The question I'd then be asking would be how to make better use of the capacity released by junking Nottingham-Norwich. One option I'd be looking at is an hourly Ipswich-Nottingham via Stamford, with the opportunity to also serve East Midlands Parkway for connections to Derby and Sheffield. In the fullness of time hopefully the released capacity on Ely-Norwich would be taken up by EWR trains to/from Oxford, in the meantime a few peak time extras Norwich-Peterborough or Cambridge will probably suffice.

Ely to Norwich isn’t really in need of releases capacity. It’s relatively underused with very minimal freight and only the Norwich to Cambridge/Stansted Airport trains in addition to the Norwich to Nottingham/Liverpool LS.
There is talk of a second Norwich to Cambridge service per hour.

 

[Magdalia]

Ely to Norwich isn’t really in need of releases capacity. It’s relatively underused with very minimal freight and only the Norwich to Cambridge/Stansted Airport trains in addition to the Norwich to Nottingham/Liverpool LS.
There is talk of a second Norwich to Cambridge service per hour.

The capacity constraints for Ely-Norwich are at either end: the single leads at Ely North Junction and Trowse Lower Junction, and Trowse Swingbridge.

 

[dk1]

I think that you are asking the wrong question.

The question I'd then be asking would be how to make better use of the capacity released by junking Nottingham-Norwich. One option I'd be looking at is an hourly Ipswich-Nottingham via Stamford, with the opportunity to also serve East Midlands Parkway for connections to Derby and Sheffield. In the fullness of time hopefully the released capacity on Ely-Norwich would be taken up by EWR trains to/from Oxford, in the meantime a few peak time extras Norwich-Peterborough or Cambridge will probably suffice.

I couldn’t disagree more. Norwich merits an hourly service to Peterborough & is well used as a connection to the North. Ipswich on the other hand was a basket case when part of the wider Express network from launch in 1988. It never had the full service Norwich had & was soon dropped altogether to remain the 2-hourly local service that it continues to be today.

 

[High Dyke]

Some sections like Nottingham to Grantham have been slated for possible speed increases following resignalling but they've not yet happened.

Speed is never going to be a big consideration for using this route really.

And, as you are aware, the East Nottingham re-signalling meant less signals than we previously had when all of the intermediate signal boxes were open between Nottingham and Grantham. This impacts on signal headways for services.

 

[Trainbike46]

I couldn’t disagree more. Norwich merits an hourly service to Peterborough & is well used as a connection to the North. Ipswich on the other hand was a basket case when part of the wider Express network from launch in 1988. It never had the full service Norwich had & was soon dropped altogether to remain the 2-hourly local service that it continues to be today.

I agree scrapping Norwich-Peterborough would be a bad idea, however I do think the Ipswich should be hourly, at least until Ely. It was disappointing when the planned frequency increase didn't happen because of capacity restraints
I could see the case for running the Norwich-Liverpool service with 755s - specifically if their superior acceleration and top speed means the service can be sped up (even if that's only possible on the peterborough-grantham section!)

 

[dk1]

And, as you are aware, the East Nottingham re-signalling meant less signals than we previously had when all of the intermediate signal boxes were open between Nottingham and Grantham. This impacts on signal headways for services.

And considering how often a late presentation from Liverpool means the Norwich is following a stopper to Skegness, that doesn’t sound promising.

I agree scrapping Norwich-Peterborough would be a bad idea, however I do think the Ipswich should be hourly, at least until Ely. It was disappointing when the planned frequency increase didn't happen because of capacity restraints
I could see the case for running the Norwich-Liverpool service with 755s - specifically if their superior acceleration and top speed means the service can be sped up (even if that's only possible on the peterborough-grantham section!)

I think the only chance you would get is 755s to Nottingham as wouldn’t be enough to take over the entire route unless a follow on order is made. There were rumours of an hourly Ely service from Ipswich to assist with Soham but getting beyond to Peterborough is proving extremely difficult.

 

[RuddA]

I couldn’t disagree more. Norwich merits an hourly service to Peterborough & is well used as a connection to the North. Ipswich on the other hand was a basket case when part of the wider Express network from launch in 1988. It never had the full service Norwich had & was soon dropped altogether to remain the 2-hourly local service that it continues to be today.

I have to agree. When I went from Norwich to Edinburgh in July the train was full leaving Norwich. Needs longer trains with extra luggage space.

 

[Bartsimho]

Liverpool - Crewe - Stoke - Nottingham - Leicester - Peterborough - Norwich.

Speeds up end to end, provides new connections, takes it out of the castlefield corridor equation.

The service currently provides the only EMR connection from Nottingham to Sheffield which as they are both EMR managed stations in Major cities is quite important. Maybe some upgrades to the line and running the outgoing class 222's on the route as it also gets overcrowded at Rush Hour from Nottingham onwards. Maybe terminate this at Nottingham with a connection train onto Norwich and 20 minute dwell at Nottingham for both services for onward travel.

 

[dk1]

I have to agree. When I went from Norwich to Edinburgh in July the train was full leaving Norwich. Needs longer trains with extra luggage space.

It’s as if Covid never happened again on that route. Several of the morning services are now full & standing on departure if not from Ely. With weekend engineering works on the GEML & EMR only going to Sheffield because of Hope Valley improvements, the running of 4-cars right through has been most welcome too.

 

[Bartsimho]

It’s as if Covid never happened again on that route. Several of the morning services are now full & standing on departure if not from Ely. With weekend engineering works on the GEML & EMR only going to Sheffield because of Hope Valley improvements, the running of 4-cars right through has been most welcome too.

Would the demand be for 5 car units? I know Nottingham-Sheffield would warrant them on the route. Unfortunately there is no way to see the number of tickets from one station to another.