Grand Central apply for Newcastle - Brighton direct

[sh24]

This feels more like a test to see how close they can push the revenue abstraction tests before the ORR say no.

 

[A S Leib]

I doubt it would make a difference by itself, but I think dropping planned Durham and Darlington calls and maybe going for Thirsk (depending on how difficult moving onto the slow lines would be) would make it less likely to be declined on abstraction grounds. Or they could keep playing speculative bingo and apply to run a Middlesbrough – Birmingham – Brighton service.

 

[Jan Mayen]

I doubt it would make a difference by itself, but I think dropping planned Durham and Darlington calls and maybe going for Thirsk (depending on how difficult moving onto the slow lines would be) would make it less likely to be declined on abstraction grounds. Or they could keep playing speculative bingo and apply to run a Middlesbrough – Birmingham – Brighton service.

Or, after reading Alan Williams in Modern Railways, Whitby to Brighton...

 

[Topological]

Well apart from the fact you'd probably be mandated to have ETCS on the units being used, and the fact that there's restrictions on what diesel-powered things can go into the Core (City Thameslink fire alarms?), you'd only be able to do it off-peak as at peak times the service ramps up. I'd also be interested to see how it all works with trying to send an Intercity-type train into the core which would need 2 minute dwell times at stations, rather than 30 / 60 seconds.

Not that they could run via the core in any way, but would Finsbury Park and London Bridge calls be possible? Alternatively if using the MML then St Albans instead of Finsbury Park. These would open up alternative routes and (assuming London Bridge could accommodate a train calling for 3 or 4 minutes) still give a London terminal for further interchange.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Not that they could run via the core in any way, but would Finsbury Park and London Bridge calls be possible? Alternatively if using the MML then St Albans instead of Finsbury Park. These would open up alternative routes and (assuming London Bridge could accommodate a train calling for 3 or 4 minutes) still give a London terminal for further interchange.

The whole point of the route they have chosen is because there is Thames Valley to Gatwick (and Brighton) demand that is currently going by road.

I.e they are competing with https://www.theairlineoxford.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Airline-booklet-sept24-v3-web.pdf

 

[JonathanH]

Not that they could run via the core in any way, but would Finsbury Park and London Bridge calls be possible?

If they procured some class 700s they could use the Thameslink tunnel. Just change the interior, and not go through at peak times. A better passenger experience on a class 700 would I'm sure be welcomed by many Brighton line passengers.

The whole point of the route they have chosen is because there is Thames Valley to Gatwick (and Brighton) demand that is currently going by road.

Is it? Isn't it just because they feel that is their best chance of getting the proposal past the first stage of assessment?

 

[Topological]

If they procured some class 700s they could use the Thameslink tunnel. Just change the interior, and not go through at peak times. A better passenger experience on a class 700 would I'm sure be welcomed by many Brighton line passengers.


Is it? Isn't it just because they feel that is their best chance of getting the proposal past the first stage of assessment?

I have often wondered about whether the 700s could go further. Though I tended to think more Leicester than Newcastle

The whole point of the route they have chosen is because there is Thames Valley to Gatwick (and Brighton) demand that is currently going by road.

I.e they are competing with https://www.theairlineoxford.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Airline-booklet-sept24-v3-web.pdf

That is no fun for the hypothesising about the Thameslink tunnel though.

Curve from the Elizabeth line to Thameslink

 

[MatthewHutton]

If they procured some class 700s they could use the Thameslink tunnel. Just change the interior, and not go through at peak times. A better passenger experience on a class 700 would I'm sure be welcomed by many Brighton line passengers.


Is it? Isn't it just because they feel that is their best chance of getting the proposal past the first stage of assessment?

Well if that was the case I think the arguments made here that another route is less duplicative is pretty compelling! I mean you can do Newcastle Reading already.

 

[Driver068]

How long does this process generally last, they have applied for Cleethorpes and now Newcastle to Brighton...both by Dec 2026 - So when would I definitive decision be made in order to apply the logistics side of things, ie extra traincrew and rolling stock?

 

[fandroid]

There's a perfectly good Oxford to Gatwick express bus service that takes in Heathrow as well. For passengers with bags there's even someone to load and unload them for you!

 

[Royston Vasey]

Well apart from the fact you'd probably be mandated to have ETCS on the units being used, and the fact that there's restrictions on what diesel-powered things can go into the Core (City Thameslink fire alarms?), you'd only be able to do it off-peak as at peak times the service ramps up. I'd also be interested to see how it all works with trying to send an Intercity-type train into the core which would need 2 minute dwell times at stations, rather than 30 / 60 seconds.

Their 180s have ETCS

 

[MatthewHutton]

There's a perfectly good Oxford to Gatwick express bus service that takes in Heathrow as well. For passengers with bags there's even someone to load and unload them for you!

True. But it takes 3 hours in the middle of the day

 

[Bletchleyite]

Their 180s have ETCS

I did wonder if this service might be intended to use their mobile* fire hazards once the 80x replace them on the mainline.

They also have two Voyagers, but given the length of that route two wouldn't suffice.

* Some of the time, anyway.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Well apart from the fact you'd probably be mandated to have ETCS on the units being used, and the fact that there's restrictions on what diesel-powered things can go into the Core (City Thameslink fire alarms?), you'd only be able to do it off-peak as at peak times the service ramps up. I'd also be interested to see how it all works with trying to send an Intercity-type train into the core which would need 2 minute dwell times at stations, rather than 30 / 60 seconds.

You would probably skip some stops. Probably at the very least City Thameslink and probably also Farringdon.

 

[djox]

The Oxford/Reading to Birmingham section will be a massive draw. No one wants to use XC anymore if they can help it unless you want to stand. This would be a great plan.

 

[JonathanH]

The Oxford/Reading to Birmingham section will be a massive draw. No one wants to use XC anymore if they can help it unless you want to stand. This would be a great plan.

Why not just run that then?

Realistically a few trains a day won't make a lot of difference to the need to use XC on this corridor.

 

[A S Leib]

The Oxford/Reading to Birmingham section will be a massive draw. No one wants to use XC anymore if they can help it unless you want to stand. This would be a great plan.

Do Chiltern still have plans for an hourly Oxford – Moor Street / Snow Hill service? That mostly solves that issue as well as being less abstractive (given Chiltern would be abstracting from themselves between Banbury, Leamington, Solihull and Birmingham) and probably more frequent.

 

[cle]

It's interesting in some ways, unrealistic in others.

Interesting:
Reading/Oxford to Brighton is definitely underserved and a little competition frankly welcome -Chiltern's Moor St service same principle.
Oxford-Gatwick is a fairly sizeable regional gap worth serving
Birmingham to Southern Home Counties / Gatwick / Brighton

Unrealistic:
Stopping pattern could deviate more from XC: e.g. drop Banbury, add Didcot.
Newcastle is too far north to be that interesting for the South / South Coast, and via Kings Cross is far better.
I would truncate this at Moor St, Nottingham or Sheffield. Leeds at a push - which is a far larger market than Newcastle.
If the route is full / pathing is impossible, as I wonder - then via EWR might be interesting - but then Bedford-Gatwick/Brighton is obviously direct and it'd fall down there (people could change and be there hours before).
If Olympia was chosen, where are you going on the WCML? I understood WLL->GWML fasts to be severed currently? But that would obviously be more direct to Reading (but remove Guildford - a big market) - and give Croydon/Clapham complications. You could call at Shepherds Bush though, which is appealing.

Overall, lots to consider. At minimum, it might spark XC to round out all the gaps - or Chiltern/EWR/GWR to start to think about innovation too.

 

[Topological]

Why not just run that then?

Realistically a few trains a day won't make a lot of difference to the need to use XC on this corridor.

Not that they would, but if this was using Voyagers then Moor Street to Brighton could be sufficient. 22x can be based in Central Rivers.

Can also fill in the Solihull stop that was removed from CrossCountry if going that way.

 

[driverd]

Surely this is going to fail the abstraction test. You can already do 75% of it on a single train.

Surely via Kensington Olympia would be more direct, and might fail the abstraction test slightly less embarrasingly?

I think they'd stand a better chance if they went from Oxford to Sheffield via Bedford, Leicester and maybe even the Erewash valley. That would probably pass the not primarily abstractive test.

Given GC and their bid team are a well established OA operator and have access to the appropriate demand modelling tools, they're not going to waste significant amounts of resource on a bid unless the industry standard tools (MOIRA in particular) is outputting something that looks vaguely sensible.

If you think about the route they're proposing, there's quite a lot of potential for revenue growth, especially considering XC hasn't reinstated a lot of paths on the same route, so I think there's a strong case to be argued that this service would essentially create new revenue (in the sense that, its gone since XC pruned their routes).

 

[zwk500]

You would probably skip some stops. Probably at the very least City Thameslink and probably also Farringdon.

And probably break the timetable in the process.

 

[djox]

Do Chiltern still have plans for an hourly Oxford – Moor Street / Snow Hill service? That mostly solves that issue as well as being less abstractive (given Chiltern would be abstracting from themselves between Banbury, Leamington, Solihull and Birmingham) and probably more frequent.

That would be great, the only mentions of that option have been on these forums from 3years ago, not seen in news or elsewhere.

 

[JonathanH]

If you think about the route they're proposing, there's quite a lot of potential for revenue growth, especially considering XC hasn't reinstated a lot of paths on the same route, so I think there's a strong case to be argued that this service would essentially create new revenue (in the sense that, its gone since XC pruned their routes).

XC would presumably have been losing money on its runs to Brighton back when it ran them in the early 2000s. Given Newcastle to Brighton via Birmingham and Reading must be the best part of a seven hour journey, you wonder how the stabling of the rolling stock and location of traincrew would work to have everything in the right place. It would seem to need to be spread across more than one location.

 

[BranstonJnc]

The Oxford/Reading to Birmingham section will be a massive draw. No one wants to use XC anymore if they can help it unless you want to stand. This would be a great plan.

It won't be a massive draw. A random, five trains per day, limited ticket operator is nothing compared to a simple DfT-mandated half-hourly service from Reading to Birmingham, in the form of CrossCountry. Look at the aviation industry to see what success looks like: frequency trumps most else.

 

[YorkRailFan]

Why is that such an important objective of threads started every few months?

I'd argue its true in this case, its far quicker for anyone doing Newcastle/York to Gatwick/Brighton to change between KGX and STP. Changing in London also offers greater flexibility with more frequent services.

I hope that the trains used for this service (if approved) have adequate luggage storage considering the stop at Gatwick, otherwise its a luggage nightmare waiting in the wings for passengers. (Pun not intended)

 

[Jan Mayen]

I hope it has a proper restaurant car.

 

[swt_passenger]

I'd argue its true in this case, its far quicker for anyone doing Newcastle/York to Gatwick/Brighton to change between KGX and STP. Changing in London also offers greater flexibility with more frequent services.

I hope that the trains used for this service (if approved) have adequate luggage storage considering the stop at Gatwick, otherwise its a luggage nightmare waiting in the wings for passengers. (Pun not intended)

I’m not sure if you’re agreeing this GC proposal is a waste of space as it will still be much quicker for passengers from the NE to change in London as they do now, than to go round the houses via Birmingham and Reading?

 

[Bald Rick]

Not sure where the unused capacity is York to Newcastle (especially post December 25) or around Sheffield and Birmingham New Street.

Or Redhill to Brighton.

Well apart from the fact you'd probably be mandated to have ETCS on the units being used, and the fact that there's restrictions on what diesel-powered things can go into the Core (City Thameslink fire alarms?), you'd only be able to do it off-peak as at peak times the service ramps up.

The only passenger rolling stock permitted through the core is Class 319s, 377s, 387s, 700s, and 717s. No diesels, and no trains with coaches longer than 20 metres.

 

[cle]

I’m not sure if you’re agreeing this GC proposal is a waste of space as it will still be much quicker for passengers from the NE to change in London as they do now, than to go round the houses via Birmingham and Reading?

The XXX-Reading-Leeds/Newcastle services are basically two services. Unlike the Manchester, it carries very few people across Birmingham. Even to Leeds. And it hasn't fully returned since Covid so I think the abstraction argument is flimsier - or should be considered in that anyway. XC may now defensively rush to reinstate the whole service, inc Southampton! Let's see.

So yes, end to end I think it's probably not that useful either. Sheffield to Reading can as quick via London, for instance. Let alone as a route to Gatwick/Brighton, with a connection at KX/StP (more so York/Donny etc which are faster to London and further from Birmingham)

As I said - if this was run out of Moor St, and hit Didcot / missed Banbury... I think it might be much more tight.

 

[MatthewHutton]

I'd argue its true in this case, its far quicker for anyone doing Newcastle/York to Gatwick/Brighton to change between KGX and STP. Changing in London also offers greater flexibility with more frequent services.

I hope that the trains used for this service (if approved) have adequate luggage storage considering the stop at Gatwick, otherwise its a luggage nightmare waiting in the wings for passengers. (Pun not intended)

The big advantage is that you don’t have to go via London which is typically cheaper and means you avoid going to London.

Avoiding London is a fairly big draw.