A Simpler LNER 2023(?) Timetable

[tbtc]

The critical thing is that this timetable is bad. People are trying to say it’s the best they can do but based on what I’m hearing from both WNXX and RailForums, it seems abundantly obvious that there is a lack of resource. If people aren’t in offices together they’re not collaborating and doing better. I think your comment “planning teams haven’t been immune” or words of the sort confirms that there hasn’t been enough resource to deliver a good timetable: offence taken if you must.

A timetable that doesn’t produce regular calling points, where a little old person can’t do their shopping in Northallerton and guarantee to get back to Thirsk every hour (and so on) is not good enough. Heads should be banged together and if that doesn’t work, heads should roll

I agree that there's a lack of resource - if, by resource, you mean a generally two track railway between Welwyn and Waverley - that's the resource that we could/should be focussing more on - how we provide loops or remove conflicts or generally increase capacity - e.g. we could move the platforms at Northallerton so that a Teesside bound service can stop there without crossing the southbound line on the flat - we could re-site Drem station onto the North Berwick branch so that the stopper wasn't occupying the two track ECML when it stops to serve a station with a hundred thousand passengers per annum - we could combine the services from Sheffield to Cleethorpes/ Hull so that they run as one long train that joins/splits at Staniforth/ Thorne and therefore only takes up one path as they cross the ECML on the flat at Doncaster, we could put some of the East Lothian stations on loops rather than being on the main line - we could abandon the sunk cost of Reston station - we've already spent a lot of money at Grantham and are doing the same at Dunbar to try to eliminate conflicting movements etc

Of all of the flows on the ECML, the "little old person from Thirsk doing their shopping in Northerllerton and wanting an hourly train home" would come fairly low down my list tbh

Given the number of Anglo-Scottish flights and the numbers on board long distance trains already, a decision needs to be taken about whether to speed up services to keep rail attractive and keep people off planes, or to slow down a service with "five hundred" people on board for the sake of the "five" people wanting to get from Thirsk to Northallerton

FirstGroup's new venture is focussing on the long distance passengers - nobody is starting an Open Access to tap into that apparently lucrative Thirsk to Northallerton market

The best solution, which was supposed to work, was for an XC Newcastle to only go to York.

That would have worked, and could have had a ‘shorter’ train on that; allowing the Scotland via Leeds to be suitably longer

Agreed - I think that something needs to be done with XC north of York - we don't have enough Voyagers but we generally had nine north of York at any point in the pre-Covid timetable which seems excessive, given the other trains on the line

Anyway, the reality is that you’re looking at a ‘cap’ of 4tph between Darlington and Newcastle and quite frankly that is absolutely sufficient

Four well spaced trains per hour would be better than six badly spaced ones, sure (to avoid situations like a five coach Plymouth - Edinburgh Voyager getting a hundred passengers boarding at Durham for the short trip into Newcastle, whilst a full length HST/ 225/ 800 is only five minutes behind and terminating on Tyneside, but passengers just jump on the first service to arrive)

A fifteen minute Newcastle - York frequency would get my vote

BUT, how do you battle the competing demands for regular through trains to Liverpool/ Manchester Airport/ Bristol/ Southampton/ London?

And, how do you keep these services evenly spaced if you insist that one of them picks up the Thirsk and Northerllerton calls each hour? You can have a well balanced timetable, or you can have one service per hour that picks up all of the "local" stops, but you can't easily do both

Same with Doncaster - London - you could have a well spaced four per hour (including services from West Yorkshire and Humberside), but how do you do this whilst ensuring that there's at least an hourly train between Doncaster and Retford, Retford and Newark, Newark and Grantham etc etc?

Unless you re-time everything to run at the speed of the slowest service on the line, in which case you can probably kiss lots of the anglo-Scottish passengers goodbye, because of the time penalty

 

[Starmill]

Quite a lot of resources have already gone into removing conflicts, taking out pathing time, making better use of grade separation etc in just the past 10 - 15 years, including at London Kings Cross, Stevenage, Hitchin, Werrington, Leeds, Doncaster and Dunbar, and then more on upgrading the power supply. You don't even have to go back as far as the Allington Jn work to find very major changes. If all of that has really delivers so little to bring end-to-end journey times down and reliability up, then you aren't making a particularly compelling case for extra platforms at York and Darlington, or grade separation and more platforms at Thirsk.

 

[Bald Rick]

Seriously? So, they sit in an office and just go with an easy option or put something together, but then can’t be told when we know there’s going to be suitable complaint and possibly even a modal shift away from rail as a result of what they’re doing?

the people who write the timetable (the train planners) are not the people who decide on what the service specification is (ie frequencies, what stops where, etc).

 

[Mitchell Hurd]

I agree that there's a lack of resource - if, by resource, you mean a generally two track railway between Welwyn and Waverley - that's the resource that we could/should be focussing more on - how we provide loops or remove conflicts or generally increase capacity - e.g. we could move the platforms at Northallerton so that a Teesside bound service can stop there without crossing the southbound line on the flat - we could re-site Drem station onto the North Berwick branch so that the stopper wasn't occupying the two track ECML when it stops to serve a station with a hundred thousand passengers per annum - we could combine the services from Sheffield to Cleethorpes/ Hull so that they run as one long train that joins/splits at Staniforth/ Thorne and therefore only takes up one path as they cross the ECML on the flat at Doncaster, we could put some of the East Lothian stations on loops rather than being on the main line - we could abandon the sunk cost of Reston station - we've already spent a lot of money at Grantham and are doing the same at Dunbar to try to eliminate conflicting movements etc

Of all of the flows on the ECML, the "little old person from Thirsk doing their shopping in Northerllerton and wanting an hourly train home" would come fairly low down my list tbh

Given the number of Anglo-Scottish flights and the numbers on board long distance trains already, a decision needs to be taken about whether to speed up services to keep rail attractive and keep people off planes, or to slow down a service with "five hundred" people on board for the sake of the "five" people wanting to get from Thirsk to Northallerton

FirstGroup's new venture is focussing on the long distance passengers - nobody is starting an Open Access to tap into that apparently lucrative Thirsk to Northallerton market



Agreed - I think that something needs to be done with XC north of York - we don't have enough Voyagers but we generally had nine north of York at any point in the pre-Covid timetable which seems excessive, given the other trains on the line



Four well spaced trains per hour would be better than six badly spaced ones, sure (to avoid situations like a five coach Plymouth - Edinburgh Voyager getting a hundred passengers boarding at Durham for the short trip into Newcastle, whilst a full length HST/ 225/ 800 is only five minutes behind and terminating on Tyneside, but passengers just jump on the first service to arrive)

A fifteen minute Newcastle - York frequency would get my vote

BUT, how do you battle the competing demands for regular through trains to Liverpool/ Manchester Airport/ Bristol/ Southampton/ London?

And, how do you keep these services evenly spaced if you insist that one of them picks up the Thirsk and Northerllerton calls each hour? You can have a well balanced timetable, or you can have one service per hour that picks up all of the "local" stops, but you can't easily do both

Same with Doncaster - London - you could have a well spaced four per hour (including services from West Yorkshire and Humberside), but how do you do this whilst ensuring that there's at least an hourly train between Doncaster and Retford, Retford and Newark, Newark and Grantham etc etc?

Unless you re-time everything to run at the speed of the slowest service on the line, in which case you can probably kiss lots of the anglo-Scottish passengers goodbye, because of the time penalty

I suggested a similar thing regarding XC.

Basically run every hour to and from York and Southampton Central, with one train extending to and from Edinburgh. Leave that gap to and from York and Newcastle to be covered by LNER or ideally TPE. Result - extra capacity if LNER will be running the originally planned service that was replacing TPE!

 

[Senex]

the people who write the timetable (the train planners) are not the people who decide on what the service specification is (ie frequencies, what stops where, etc).

But they can't work in silos, can they? Surely the people who decide on the service specification need to have a clear understanding of what can practically be delivered on a given infrastructure?

 

[Starmill]

Surely the people who decide on the service specification need to have a clear understanding of what can practically be delivered on a given infrastructure?

You would think that they would do. However...

 

[Bald Rick]

^^What he said. They don’t even work for the same organisation.

 

[Blurb]

I wonder how we measure the success/failure of the timetable for the East Coast mainline. Number of minutes taken off journey from London to Edinburgh? Rails % share of overall travel between the two cities. Number of trains per hour to Leeds? Number of journey opportunities destroyed or created,or made hopelessly time uncompetitive? Shifting travel from cars for more local journeys - say Peterborough to Nottingham (still 50 miles or so) that need ECML capacity. I agree with one of the previous comments that it’s impossible to please everyone, but the solutions shouldn’t just be about the long distance market and operators. Getting from London to Newcastle in under 3 hours is great, but is anyone going to be attracted by Retford to Nottingham taking 1hr45 for example. What does a “simpler” timetable mean? Is it one that looks neat and symmetrical and only addresses existing obvious rail markets?

 

[HST43257]

This isn't a 2023 idea, but almost a second phase service pattern as a progression from a 2023 timetable. Perhaps more Bimodes would be needed by this time.


xx00 1tph London to Edinburgh calling at York, Newcastle and Edinburgh.

xx03 1tph London to Leeds calling at Peterborough, Newark, Retford, Doncaster, Wakefield Westgate and Leeds.

xx06 1tp2h London to Glasgow calling at Stevenage, Peterborough, Doncaster, Leeds, Shipley, Bingley, Keighley, Skipton*, Appleby, Carlisle, Dumfries, Kilmarnock and Glasgow Central.

xx06 1tp2h London to Grimsby calling at Stevenage, Peterborough, Grantham, Newark, Lincoln, Market Rasen, Barnetby and Grimsby Town.

xx18 1tph London to Newcastle calling at Peterborough, Grantham, York, Darlington, Durham, Chester-le-Street and Newcastle.

xx30 1tp2h London to Bradford and Sunderland calling at Doncaster, from where the Bradford branch calls at Pontefract Monkhill, Wakefield Kirkgate, Mirfield Brighouse, Halifax and Bradford Interchange, and the Sunderland branch calls at York, Thirsk, Northallerton, Eaglescliffe, Stockton, Hartlepool and Sunderland.

xx30 1tp2h London to Hull and Middlesbrough calling at Doncaster, from where the Hull branch calls at Selby, Howden, Brough and Hull, and the Middlesbrough branch calls at York, Northallerton, Thornaby and Middlesbrough.

xx33 1tph London to Edinburgh calling at Peterborough, Newark, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham, Newcastle, Alnmouth (1tp2h), Berwick (1tp2h) and Edinburgh.

xx36 1tph London to Leeds calling at Stevenage, Grantham, Doncaster, Wakefield Westgate and Leed

xx48 1tph London to Nottingham calling at Peterborough, Grantham, Bingham and Nottingham.



More Clockface/Regular Interval services for Stevenage, Peterborough, Grantham and Newark. More frequent services nearly everywhere on the network. This also incorporates all open access (except Lumo, because I believe the LNER EDB express can take more people off flights if a fares reform brings prices down).

 

[Bald Rick]

I wonder how we measure the success/failure of the timetable for the East Coast mainline. Number of minutes taken off journey from London to Edinburgh? Rails % share of overall travel between the two cities. Number of trains per hour to Leeds? Number of journey opportunities destroyed or created,or made hopelessly time uncompetitive? Shifting travel from cars for more local journeys - say Peterborough to Nottingham (still 50 miles or so) that need ECML capacity. I agree with one of the previous comments that it’s impossible to please everyone, but the solutions shouldn’t just be about the long distance market and operators. Getting from London to Newcastle in under 3 hours is great, but is anyone going to be attracted by Retford to Nottingham taking 1hr45 for example. What does a “simpler” timetable mean? Is it one that looks neat and symmetrical and only addresses existing obvious rail markets?

For me, success is the best passenger satisfaction and the lowest call for funds on the treasury. Clearly there’s a balance between the two.

This isn't a 2023 idea, but almost a second phase service pattern as a progression from a 2023 timetable. Perhaps more Bimodes would be needed by this time.


xx00 1tph London to Edinburgh calling at York, Newcastle and Edinburgh.

xx03 1tph London to Leeds calling at Peterborough, Newark, Retford, Doncaster, Wakefield Westgate and Leeds.

xx06 1tp2h London to Glasgow calling at Stevenage, Peterborough, Doncaster, Leeds, Shipley, Bingley, Keighley, Skipton*, Appleby, Carlisle, Dumfries, Kilmarnock and Glasgow Central.

xx06 1tp2h London to Grimsby calling at Stevenage, Peterborough, Grantham, Newark, Lincoln, Market Rasen, Barnetby and Grimsby Town.

xx18 1tph London to Newcastle calling at Peterborough, Grantham, York, Darlington, Durham, Chester-le-Street and Newcastle.

xx30 1tp2h London to Bradford and Sunderland calling at Doncaster, from where the Bradford branch calls at Pontefract Monkhill, Wakefield Kirkgate, Mirfield Brighouse, Halifax and Bradford Interchange, and the Sunderland branch calls at York, Thirsk, Northallerton, Eaglescliffe, Stockton, Hartlepool and Sunderland.

xx30 1tp2h London to Hull and Middlesbrough calling at Doncaster, from where the Hull branch calls at Selby, Howden, Brough and Hull, and the Middlesbrough branch calls at York, Northallerton, Thornaby and Middlesbrough.

xx33 1tph London to Edinburgh calling at Peterborough, Newark, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham, Newcastle, Alnmouth (1tp2h), Berwick (1tp2h) and Edinburgh.

xx36 1tph London to Leeds calling at Stevenage, Grantham, Doncaster, Wakefield Westgate and Leed

xx48 1tph London to Nottingham calling at Peterborough, Grantham, Bingham and Nottingham.



More Clockface/Regular Interval services for Stevenage, Peterborough, Grantham and Newark. More frequent services nearly everywhere on the network. This also incorporates all open access (except Lumo, because I believe the LNER EDB express can take more people off flights if a fares reform brings prices down).

Your XX06 is going to run into the back of your XX03, and your xx30 into your xx18. And there’s not enough space for GTR services through Welwyn, or Freight anywhere south of Werrington, and I should imagine Grantham - Doncaster and a few other places wouldn’t work either.

 

[43074]

This isn't a 2023 idea, but almost a second phase service pattern as a progression from a 2023 timetable. Perhaps more Bimodes would be needed by this time.




More Clockface/Regular Interval services for Stevenage, Peterborough, Grantham and Newark. More frequent services nearly everywhere on the network. This also incorporates all open access (except Lumo, because I believe the LNER EDB express can take more people off flights if a fares reform brings prices down).

How is it clockface or regular interval with all that stuff running every 2 hours? And why Nottingham via the ECML? There's certainly a debate to be had about how the ECML timetable should look, but Glasgow trains via the S&C and Dumfries is not part of that...

 

[HST43257]

How is it clockface or regular interval with all that stuff running every 2 hours? And why Nottingham via the ECML? There's certainly a debate to be had about how the ECML timetable should look, but Glasgow trains via the S&C and Dumfries is not part of that...

The clockface/regular interval stuff refers to journeys to London

London to Stevenage
Every 30 mins nonstop

London to Peterborough
Every 15 mins nonstop

London to Grantham
Every 30 mins calling at Pbo only

London to Newark
Every 30 mins calling at Pbo only

(Some extra services exist for some of these places)


The Glasgow via S+C idea is an idea to provide a Leisure focused service for people in and around London and Peterborough seeing the scenery of the north, whilst giving Skipton and Leeds frequency upgrades for London services. It could include some calls in the day at the likes of Settle, Horton, Ribblehead and Kirkby Stephen. I tried routing it via Motherwell to Glasgow but I struggled to find paths.

Nottingham via ECML is to do with relieving the MML if needed, plus enhancing Peterborough's Nottingham connection.

Something even more radical: I even considered extending it to Manchester, calling at Alfreton, Chesterfield, Stockport and Manchester Piccadilly. This reinstates Alfreton's London service, gives Nottingham its express service to Manchester, and upgrades Peterborough's connections even more. Another consideration was calling at New Mills Central rather than Stockport, but I felt new mills would be better with a faster Sheffield train.

 

[4-SUB 4732]

The clockface/regular interval stuff refers to journeys to London

London to Stevenage
Every 30 mins nonstop

London to Peterborough
Every 15 mins nonstop

London to Grantham
Every 30 mins calling at Pbo only

London to Newark
Every 30 mins calling at Pbo only

(Some extra services exist for some of these places)


The Glasgow via S+C idea is an idea to provide a Leisure focused service for people in and around London and Peterborough seeing the scenery of the north, whilst giving Skipton and Leeds frequency upgrades for London services. It could include some calls in the day at the likes of Settle, Horton, Ribblehead and Kirkby Stephen. I tried routing it via Motherwell to Glasgow but I struggled to find paths.

Nottingham via ECML is to do with relieving the MML if needed, plus enhancing Peterborough's Nottingham connection.

Something even more radical: I even considered extending it to Manchester, calling at Alfreton, Chesterfield, Stockport and Manchester Piccadilly. This reinstates Alfreton's London service, gives Nottingham its express service to Manchester, and upgrades Peterborough's connections even more. Another consideration was calling at New Mills Central rather than Stockport, but I felt new mills would be better with a faster Sheffield train.

Any suggestion that leisure travellers want scenery is nonsense. They want to get where they need to go.

 

[The Planner]

But they can't work in silos, can they? Surely the people who decide on the service specification need to have a clear understanding of what can practically be delivered on a given infrastructure?

You would think that they would do. However...

^^What he said. They don’t even work for the same organisation.

I don't normally stray into conversations about the dark side (LNE) but those comments have made me laugh quite loudly this morning
The people that make these decisions then quite flatly refuse to make one if you ask them to make one too.

 

[EllieAquitrain]

For me, success is the best passenger satisfaction and the lowest call for funds on the treasury. Clearly there’s a balance between the two.

I understand it's difficult to measure, but surely ideally we'd look for satisfaction among the prospective users of the railway, as opposed to those who actually do? If someone might have used the railway but instead drove, due to eg price or journey time, I presume they wouldn't be included in passenger satisfaction statistics?

 

[Bald Rick]

I understand it's difficult to measure, but surely ideally we'd look for satisfaction among the prospective users of the railway, as opposed to those who actually do? If someone might have used the railway but instead drove, due to eg price or journey time, I presume they wouldn't be included in passenger satisfaction statistics?

I’d be interested to hear how to measure satisfaction for a service that you don’t use.

There’s a fair bit of evidence that good passenger satisfaction drives growth.

 

[Starmill]

The importance of satisfaction long-term has also increased. By definition, leisure travellers have the opportunity to travel some other way, or just not to travel at all, so if they're dissatisfied they're unlikely to return.

 

[Bald Rick]

so if they're dissatisfied they're unlikely to return.

That depends if their dissatisfaction with rail is less than other modes, which right now is quite likely!

 

[43074]

Any suggestion that leisure travellers want scenery is nonsense. They want to get where they need to go.

Not necessarily, but I'd suggest those who do want the scenery would probably start their journeys from Carlisle, Settle or Skipton anyway, so it doesn't and shouldn't need an Azuma away from their core routes for a good 24 hours to provide for that.

 

[YorksLad12]

Not necessarily, but I'd suggest those who do want the scenery would probably start their journeys from Carlisle, Settle or Skipton anyway, so it doesn't and shouldn't need an Azuma away from their core routes for a good 24 hours to provide for that.

Is it also the case that Hitachi only release sets for a certain number of hours before they need to return to a depot? That would restrict mileage and diagrams as well. It's still odd to me to see a Leeds to London set arriving from Neville Hill mid-afternoon, for example.

 

[Bald Rick]

Is it also the case that Hitachi only release sets for a certain number of hours before they need to return to a depot?

Yes, maximum of 36h between depot visits IIRC.

 

[Austriantrain]

Following the news that the ECML recast for summer 2022 has been delayed until at least 2023, I wonder if there is an opportunity to try and simplify the proposed timetable?

LNER proposed this basic pattern for the original 2022 consultation. Times are the departures from Kings Cross.

XX03 Peterborough, Newark, Doncaster, York, Darlington/Durham, Newcastle, Alnmouth/Berwick, Edinburgh + extensions to Aberdeen/Inverness
XX10 Peterborough, Grantham, Doncaster, Wakefield, Leeds + extensions to Harrogate (1p2h)
XX30 York, Newcastle, Edinburgh
XX33 Stevenage, Grantham, York, Northallerton, Darlington, Durham, Newcastle
XX40 Stevenage, Newark, Doncaster, Wakefield, Leeds
XX47 Peterborough, Retford, Doncaster, York
or
XX47 Peterborough, Grantham, Newark, Lincoln

There were aspirations to extend the XX47 to Middlesborough and add an extra Leeds service every 2 hours, presumably sharing a path with the open access operators.

The timetable achieves a reasonable balance between long-distance services and connectivity, but the result is a complex, two-hourly pattern. However, I think this could be adjusted to a more consistent hourly pattern relatively easily. Something like this:

- The XX03 calls at both Darlington and Durham each hour.
- Cut the 3rd hourly Newcastle service (XX33) to instead terminate at Newark, with extensions to Lincoln.
- The XX47 'stopper' operates to York each hour.This could still be extended to Middlesborough as planned.

XX03 Peterborough, Newark, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham, Newcastle, Berwick/Alnmouth, Edinburgh + extensions to Aberdeen/Inverness
XX10 Peterborough, Grantham, Doncaster, Wakefield, Leeds + extensions to Harrogate/Bradford (1p2h)
XX30 York, Newcastle, Edinburgh
XX33 Stevenage, Grantham, Newark + extensions to Lincoln
XX40 Stevenage, Peterborough, Doncaster, Wakefield, Leeds
XX47 Peterborough, Retford, Doncaster, York + extensions to Middlesborough

A few of the winners and losers:

+ All major stations get a consistent hourly service, compared to the proposed 2-hourly pattern.
+ The vast majority of connectivity is maintained.
+ Paths are consistent each hour, which could give some extra flexibility for other services north of Doncaster.
+ Some units are probably saved by terminating the XX33 at Newark rather than Newcastle (?)

- Newcastle doesn't gain the 3rd hourly service. However, is this really needed? Leeds/Sheffield/Nottingham etc all manage with 2ph to London.
- Northallerton loses service to London, although it is still served by TPE and/or XC with connections at York.
- Grantham loses service to York and Newcastle, but still has connections at Doncaster and Leeds.

I would also scrap plans for an extra Leeds train every 2-hours (via Hambleton). It seems like an added complication for minimal benefit. The Bradford and Harrogate extensions could be achieved using the existing 2ph service. This would also leave 2x spare paths for open access operators each hour, giving room to grow these services as required (e.g. hourly Hull, or extra 'Luma' trains to Edinburgh).

The Swiss (and up to a point Austrians) would probably go for a half-hourly service to Edinburgh with identical timings and an alternating stopping pattern (eg one half-Hour Peterborough, York, Darlington, Newcastle, Berwick; other half-hour Doncaster, York, Durham, Newcastle and alternatively Alnmouth and Dunbar) based on the idea that while the fastest headline timings will be slower, the ability to take a still very fast train every thirty minutes and the reduced waiting time incurred for the next train‘s departure would actually allow for faster journeys from actual origin to actual destination (I.e. not station to station).

Of course, distances (not necessarily journey times, though…) are much shorter in our countries. Still, the idea has some merit, I think.

 

[Manutd1999]

The Swiss (and up to a point Austrians) would probably go for a half-hourly service to Edinburgh with identical timings and an alternating stopping pattern

It's an interesting idea. IMO there would be merit to the idea if it enabled an extra path to be squeezed in between the XX10 and XX30. If there are too many other constraints, then there wouldn't really be much benefit.

 

[Bigman]

Why is it that every train to Leeds has to stop at so many places? Can't we have 1 an hour that runs fast to Wakefield, and then 1 an hour that stops at all principal intermediate stops?

 

[JonathanH]

Why is it that every train to Leeds has to stop at so many places? Can't we have 1 an hour that runs fast to Wakefield, and then 1 an hour that stops at all principal intermediate stops?

The fast train would catch the slower one up. The current arrangement (sharing the stops south of Doncaster) makes much more sense from a timetabling and passenger load perspective.

They stop at fewer places than they did historically - eg one at Stevenage, Grantham, Doncaster and Wakefield and the other at Peterborough, Doncaster and Wakefield.

 

[Bald Rick]

Why is it that every train to Leeds has to stop at so many places? Can't we have 1 an hour that runs fast to Wakefield, and then 1 an hour that stops at all principal intermediate stops?

In a word, no!

 

[YorksLad12]

Why is it that every train to Leeds has to stop at so many places? Can't we have 1 an hour that runs fast to Wakefield, and then 1 an hour that stops at all principal intermediate stops?

Yes, but only at 07.00 and only in one direction
The previous-previous plan did propose stopping only at Wakefield and Doncaster/Peterborough (alternately) for a 2-hour journey time, with a third London-Leeds-Harrogate service every two hours, calling at more places and taking a bit longer. We'll not be seeing those for a while, if at all.

The fast train would catch the slower one up. The current arrangement (sharing the stops south of Doncaster) makes much more sense from a timetabling and passenger load perspective.

They stop at fewer places than they did historically - eg one at Stevenage, Grantham, Doncaster and Wakefield and the other at Peterborough, Doncaster and Wakefield.

Indeed. Although in the evening they still do stop at more places, and the 23.33 from London takes much longer to reach Leeds (at the moment by taking the scenic route via Knotingley). Slower-than-normal evening services I've always found annoying.

 

[Austriantrain]

It's an interesting idea. IMO there would be merit to the idea if it enabled an extra path to be squeezed in between the XX10 and XX30. If there are too many other constraints, then there wouldn't really be much benefit.

Obviously, any timetable that generates an additional path on the ECML is worthwhile in itself.

But that wasn’t the point: The question is if a regular, identically timed half-hourly service wouldn’t be more attractive than a slightly faster hourly one, when the second train per hour is so much slower that it becomes unattractive for end-to-end journeys.

To explain it:
- if the train is hourly, in the worst case you have to wait 59 minutes for the next one, on average 30 minutes
- if the train is half-hourly, the worst wait is 29 minutes, on average 15.

So on average you save 15 minutes. This applies on arrival as well of course, because in many cases you could leave half an hour later to attend, e.g. a Meeting.

Exactly this was done between Vienna and Innsbruck some years ago, albeit on an hourly service.

Every second hour we had a train running non-stop between Salzburg and Innsbruck with a Vienna - Innsbruck timing of 4h06. In the other hour, the train had three intermediate stops between Salzburg and Innsbruck and an overall journey time of 4h20. As a result, the faster service was full, the other one not so much.

This was changed to identical journey times of 4h14 every hour a number of years ago, with two intermediate stops between Salzburg and Innsbruck (one of these alternating) every hour.

There was some concern at the time about the loss of the headline timing of „approximately 4 hours“, but it has arguably resulted in a much more attractive service with more consistent loads, both because of the reduced average waiting time and because now, people „feel“ they have an hourly train whereas in the past they would disregard the slower services. Of course, having the same timings every hour also made timetabling easier.

With the proposed (but delayed) May 2022 timetable, I doubt anybody would chose the slower service to travel from London to Edinburgh and even Newcastle except on a very cheap ticket, so for all „lucrative“ passengers, it really will feel like a one-train-an-hour service, even though two trains an hour will run.

Anyway, it was just an observation, nothing more.

It’s actually what happens between London and Leeds as well and is certainly, in this case, more attractive than having one fast and one slow service every hour (Edinburgh, I recognize, is different than Leeds because you have the plane as a competitor, so headline journey-time is more important).