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London to Edinburgh/Glasgow Question

03_179

03_179

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Over the years I've made trips to Scotland by rail to both Edinburgh and Glasgow Central.

One thing that puzzled me was from Kings Cross the is pretty much a half hourly service yet the Euston to Glasgow Central appear to be be mainly hourly.

Is there a reason for that ?

Edinburgh is 392 miles approx.
Glasgow is 400 miles approx.
So it can't be because of mileage.

So how come Glasgow is only one per hour ?
 
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Barn

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Remember that the northern part of the ECML serves York and Newcastle, whereas the northern part of the WCML serves Preston and Carlisle. I'm sure the difference in size between those cities is part of the answer.
 
D6130

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Barn said:
Remember that the northern part of the ECML serves York and Newcastle, whereas the northern part of the WCML serves Preston and Carlisle. I'm sure the difference in size between those cities is part of the answer.
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Yes....and also, since the decline and demise of heavy industry on Clydeside, there is much less demand for business travel to and from Glasgow; whereas Edinburgh has easy and quick access to Scotland's two 'Silicon Valleys' in Fife and West Lothian....in addition to the massive tourist draw of Edinburgh itself.
 
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Grimsby town

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Like most services that run on busy GB lines, I don't think its demand for rail that limits services. There's millions of flights from the Central belt to London and its hard to believe that at least some of that demand couldn't be attracted to rail with more services.

A quick glance at Oxenholme and Morpeth station suggests the WCML has more freight services that will limit capacity. There's also a mixture of loca, freight on intercity services on the two track section north of Preston that the ECML doesn't really have north of Northallerton.
 
03_179

03_179

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Thanks to all.

I remember it being like that in the 90s and 00s as well.
Just strikes me as a bit odd.
 
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takno

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Grimsby town said:
Like most services that run on busy GB lines, I don't think its demand for rail that limits services. There's millions of flights from the Central belt to London and its hard to believe that at least some of that demand couldn't be attracted to rail with more services.

A quick glance at Oxenholme and Morpeth station suggests the WCML has more freight services that will limit capacity. There's also a mixture of loca, freight on intercity services on the two track section north of Preston that the ECML doesn't really have north of Northallerton.
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I suspect it's more to do with the large number of intermediate destinations which are off the line. The East Coast has Leeds which is roughly equivalent to Manchester in services, but then only has a few services to Hull, Lincoln and Sunderland, while the West Coast has to accomodate Birmingham, Liverpool and Blackpool, as well as having services turn off to Edinburgh.

Also worth bearing in mind that one of the hourly services is essentially only an extended Newcastle terminator, and Glasgow (used to) have the two-hourly Birmingham extension.

Ultimately Edinburgh is smaller but is growing rather than shrinking, and is richer and more intertwined with England and London, so it's always likely to sell more tickets at a higher price.
 
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Grimsby town

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takno said:
I suspect it's more to do with the large number of intermediate destinations which are off the line. The East Coast has Leeds which is roughly equivalent to Manchester in services, but then only has a few services to Hull, Lincoln and Sunderland, while the West Coast has to accomodate Birmingham, Liverpool and Blackpool, as well as having services turn off to Edinburgh.

Also worth bearing in mind that one of the hourly services is essentially only an extended Newcastle terminator, and Glasgow (used to) have the two-hourly Birmingham extension.

Ultimately Edinburgh is smaller but is growing rather than shrinking, and is richer and more intertwined with England and London, so it's always likely to sell more tickets at a higher price.
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Yes there's not really the capacity for additonal services south of Milton Keynes even if HS2 makes it Crewe, there still is only planned to be one train per hour suggesting the capacity issues are north of Crewe too.

Edinburgh will probably always have more services than Glasgow but Edinburgh is pretty under served by London trains too in my opinion. As you point out, the second service is about 20 mins slower than the fast service. Still it provides some useful extra capacity which the Glasgow service doesn't have.
 
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Bald Rick

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There‘s more demand to Edinburgh. Same for the air industry.

In 2023 Edinburgh - London had 2.8m passengers, Glasgow - London 2m.
 
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JonathanH

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Grimsby town said:
As you point out, the second service is about 20 mins slower than the fast service.
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Not everyone aboard is going to Edinburgh from London - makes sense for the second train to carry passengers from places south of York, but north of London.
 
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Edinburgh also has the advantage of providing better connections (and a handful of through trains) to/from places north of the Glasgow-Edinburgh axis - partly for geographical reasons (the bigger places are on the eastern side of Scotland) and partly because Edinburgh has ended up with a single main station, whereas most north-south journeys across-Glasgow involve a bus/walk transfer between Queen St and Central. Arguably the closure of Princes Street station and the concentration of services on Waverley was one of the "rationalisation" things that BR got right
 
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greyman42

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Barn said:
Remember that the northern part of the ECML serves York and Newcastle, whereas the northern part of the WCML serves Preston and Carlisle. I'm sure the difference in size between those cities is part of the answer.
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Not so much the size of the cities in the case of York and Preston, but the massive difference in tourists and day trippers in favour of York.
 
hexagon789

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Glasgow did briefly have a faster and more frequent London service than Edinburgh - from 1974 to 1978.

Since HSTs were introduced to the ECML in 1978, Edinburgh has consistently had the faster and more frequent service.
 
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InOban

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Everything mentioned above reinforces a greater tradition of Intercity travel from Edinburgh than from Glasgow. A further factor is the road network - the A(now M)74/M6 have been excellent for many years and are generally not crowded North of the Lake District. The A1 is still not fully dual North of Newcastle, and the A702 from Edinburgh to the M74 is not classed as a strategic priority route and has seen little improvement. Many people travelling to, say , Manchester Airport from Glasgow will drive, those from Edinburgh take the train - I believe that the load factor on the Edinburgh TPE services is much higher than on those serving Glasgow.

Nearly 60 years ago I was an occasional user of the 0800 from KX to Edinburgh. Almost empty at the start (there was a short, fast service to Newcastle ahead of it) it called, AIR, at Hitchin, Peterborough, Doncaster York Darlington ?Durham Newcastle and Berwick-upon-Tweed. It was well- loaded by Edinburgh.
 
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snookertam

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Most people travelling between Glasgow and London will fly.

Many Avanti services outside of Friday -Monday are lightly loaded north of Preston. The only reason Avanti run as much as an hourly service to Glasgow Central is for the convenience of using Polmadie as a stabling/maintenance location and the traincrew depot.

The vast bulk of passenger traffic at Glasgow Central is suburban, hence the Avanti ticket office having been earmarked for closure.
 
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Bald Rick

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InOban said:
A further factor is the road network - the A(now M)74/M6 have been excellent for many years and are generally not crowded North of the Lake District. The A1 is still not fully dual North of Newcastle, and the A702 from Edinburgh to the M74 is not classed as a strategic priority route and has seen little improvement.
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Agreed, this must also be a factor, albeit probably only for Edinburgh itself. Anyone aiming for / from almost anywhere else in the central belt, with the possible exception of East Fife, has good road access to the M74 that is much quicker to/from the south than using the A1 or A702.
 
dk1

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snookertam said:
Most people travelling between Glasgow and London will fly.

Many Avanti services outside of Friday -Monday are lightly loaded north of Preston. The only reason Avanti run as much as an hourly service to Glasgow Central is for the convenience of using Polmadie as a stabling/maintenance location and the traincrew depot.

The vast bulk of passenger traffic at Glasgow Central is suburban, hence the Avanti ticket office having been earmarked for closure.
Click to expand...

Back in 2019 Virgin Trains announced that they now had 29% of the rail/air share of the Glasgow-London market.
 
deltic

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dk1 said:
Back in 2019 Virgin Trains announced that they now had 29% of the rail/air share of the Glasgow-London market.
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Based on the recently published ORR origin-destination data rail in 2018/19 had 29% market share Glasgow to London, 38% Edinburgh to London, 23% Birmingham to Glasgow and 21% Birmingham to Edinburgh.
 
HST43257

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deltic said:
Based on the recently published ORR origin-destination data rail in 2018/19 had 29% market share Glasgow to London, 38% Edinburgh to London, 23% Birmingham to Glasgow and 21% Birmingham to Edinburgh.
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Poor percentages all round sadly imo. Though notably haven’t we also heard that despite Lumo’s arrival on the scene, LNER’s passenger numbers have risen compared to 2019? Sounds like the ECML is continuing to grow, and hopefully the London to Edinburgh rail market share is also as a result.
 
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HST43257 said:
Poor percentages all round sadly imo. Though notably haven’t we also heard that despite Lumo’s arrival on the scene, LNER’s passenger numbers have risen compared to 2019? Sounds like the ECML is continuing to grow, and hopefully the London to Edinburgh rail market share is also as a result.
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Far better percentages than 20 years ago, though. Rail’s market share has more than doubled, in a bigger market.
 
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I'd be inclined to treat market share statistics with caution. I've seen the rail share reported as a percentage of rail & air, ignoring coach & car. Air passengers numbers can also include connecting connecting passengers. Rail share will be far higher to central London than outer London or the rest of the South East. Data is available from the National Travel Survey and connecting passengers from CAA surveys. I did work on this for my thesis thirty years ago - things have moved on in the meantime.

One thing is for certain, the rail share of UK transport market increased from 6% to 11% from privatisation to prior to covid with a doubling of rail journeys (the overall travel market will have increased in line with population growth). The Ango Scottish market has grown in this time and the domestic air market has remained roughly constant or declined (partly due to more services from Scotland meaning less need to interchange at Heathrow). Road traffic has also remained roughly constant so undoubedbly the rail market share will have increased.

Looking at CAA domestic stats, the London Edinburgh market is larger than that to Glashow. This may partly be due to the siting of the airport, EDI is between the two cities, but there is far more business travel to EDI.

Whilst XC (and TPE) operate trains between Newcastle and EDI I think that LNER picks up more intermerdiate traffic than Avanti trains that avoid Birmingham - those that go via that city will pick up traffic from Stafford & Crewe.

I've not had access to rail data for 15 years but when I did an exercide (an 'arc' enquiry giving total passengers on trains) there was just over twice as much traffic between EDI & NCL as Carstairs & Preston, but the WCML wasn't really a seven day a week railway then so that won't have helped.
 
LNW-GW Joint

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03_179 said:
Over the years I've made trips to Scotland by rail to both Edinburgh and Glasgow Central.
One thing that puzzled me was from Kings Cross the is pretty much a half hourly service yet the Euston to Glasgow Central appear to be be mainly hourly.
Is there a reason for that ?
Edinburgh is 392 miles approx.
Glasgow is 400 miles approx.
So it can't be because of mileage.
So how come Glasgow is only one per hour ?
Click to expand...
The northern ECML gets 3tph to Edinburgh, 2 from London and the XC from Birmingham/EMids/Yorks.
The northern WCML also gets 3tph to Carstairs, 2 from London (one via Birmingham) and the TPE from Manchester/Liverpool.
The WCML Birmingham and TPE services alternate between Glasgow and Edinburgh.
The NR view is that the WCML hasn't got the capacity for extra services, mainly because of the freight provision which doesn't apply to the same extent on the ECML.

Historically, the ECML route was preferred to Edinburgh and the WCML route to Glasgow, though both could and did service the other destination.
In fact, the WCML could provide the main Edinburgh service if desired in similar journey times to the ECML, and was planned to for HS2b (with combined trains dividing at Carlisle).

During BR times, the WCML lost its primacy for beyond Glasgow services (to Perth/Aberdeen/Inverness), because of the closure of the Forfar route and diversion of through services via Edinburgh rather than Coatbridge.
Virgin/Avanti were also not interested in running services beyond Glasgow/Edinburgh, and serve Edinburgh only indirectly via Birmingham.
The ECML now has the direct Stirling/Perth/Inverness service whereas until the HST era this was a WCML service.
With non-tilt bi-modes all the rage, there is nothing stopping those services going back to to the WCML one day.
 
MCR247

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LNW-GW Joint said:
The ECML now has the direct Stirling/Perth/Inverness service whereas until the HST era this was a WCML service.
With non-tilt bi-modes all the rage, there is nothing stopping those services going back to to the WCML one day.
Click to expand...
This does seem unlikely though as it is much harder to serve Glasgow on through services than it is Edinburgh.
 
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LNW-GW Joint said:
Historically, the ECML route was preferred to Edinburgh and the WCML route to Glasgow, though both could and did service the other destination.
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Indeed, and soon the WCML will continue to serve Edinburgh whereas the ECML will have completely abandoned Glasgow! (from London at least)

MCR247 said:
This does seem unlikely though as it is much harder to serve Glasgow on through services than it is Edinburgh.
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Yes, any WCML service going beyond Glasgow would need to reverse at Central, or miss the city altogether
 
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route101

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You just have to travel on the services to see the difference in the amount of tourists heading to and from Edinburgh compared to Glasgow. You still come across busy Avanti services to and from Glasgow at start of holiday periods.
 
Llandudno

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deltic said:
Based on the recently published ORR origin-destination data rail in 2018/19 had 29% market share Glasgow to London, 38% Edinburgh to London, 23% Birmingham to Glasgow and 21% Birmingham to Edinburgh.
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I wonder what market share percentage rail would have had on the London-Glasgow route if there hadn’t been any industrial action and Avanti could operate something resembling the published timetable?
 
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route101

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Llandudno said:
I wonder what market share percentage rail would have had on the London-Glasgow route if there hadn’t been any industrial action and Avanti could operate something resembling the published timetable?
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I have gone over to air from rail on this route due to more expensive fares and strikes.
 
LNW-GW Joint

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Falcon1200 said:
Yes, any WCML service going beyond Glasgow would need to reverse at Central, or miss the city altogether
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The classic (Caledonian/LMS) route was via Coatbridge to Stirling, but all the routes east of Glasgow are now wired (as far as Dunblane).
Reversing at Glasgow Central or Edinburgh is no harder than reversing at Manchester Piccadilly, which is what the cognoscenti have been telling us was the preferred solution for the HS2/NPR proposals (avoiding a through station).
 
fkofilee

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Some hours exists both a Edinburgh and Glasgow service from Euston

1713662443833.png

Believe it might be an extension of an old Scotland to Birmingham service...
 
TT-ONR-NRN

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fkofilee said:
Some hours exists both a Edinburgh and Glasgow service from Euston

View attachment 156795

Believe it might be an extension of an old Scotland to Birmingham service...
Click to expand...
It is, and therefore despite leaving fifteen minutes earlier, that Edinburgh service will get to its destination considerably later (1618) than the Glasgow service (1500).
 
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