That is going to change from December (all 8 car and direct Stafford-Crewe). It's also the reason why the 1849 runs direct Stafford-Crewe.
That's also not the peak by any standard interpretation. It's VT's peak, which has nothing to do with demand and everything to do with price gouging.
The actual (busy) peak at Euston, certainly towards MKC, is roughly the period shown on LM's poster, i.e. about 1600-1900, with "shoulder peak" being up to about 1930.
By the way, the Crewes are not largely full of people avoiding VT peak restrictions (and they are full at most times of day); evidence of this is how quiet they are when you actually get to Crewe itself. They are well-used by people travelling to/from the stations only served by LM (or barely served by VT) in the Trent Valley. The Birminghams are to *some* extent, but a lot of VT avoiders are using the much faster Chiltern.
You really do have no idea whatsoever about south WCML operations, and I really do suggest some reading.
In my experience they are used a *lot* for journeys London to Stoke. I was very surprised taking a northbound service Euston to Atherstone just after the morning peak, a time generally fairly quiet for most trains heading out of London, and the train was absolutely crush loaded for the whole journey. All three others sitting at my table, all travelling independently, had London to Stoke tickets. Being that I was making a journey for which I had no alternative service, I was extremely unimpressed - especially knowing there would be two relatively empty Pendolinos making the Stoke journey each hour. I've found similar when making intermediate journeys on LM's Birmingham journeys. The high frequency helps, but they should be routinely attaching extra capacity for the section south of Northampton at least, but many journeys don't.
At least Chiltern have done quite a bit on enhancing capacity for their assault on the Birmingham to London market,although their trains can often be short and overcrowded at times too. LM's policy is to stuff a 4-car unit as full as possible - fine for those who want to make a bargain-basement journey, but not for those who don't have the luxury of choice. For this reason I won't be sorry to see LM go, although I bet the practice will continue, albeit hopefully with some extra capacity.
GN have cheapie fares for London to Peterborough, and it's another proverbial pain in the backside - especially at weekends when they don't run so many limited stop services, so the intermediate users suffer whilst VTEC has spare capacity. There seems to have been an explosion in weekend London to Peterborough journeys in the last couple of years - seems to be another undesirable London overspill related issue.
