An idea for improving Cross Country

[Philip]

The journey time between Manchester & Oxford/Reading is too long and a big reason for this is because it has to trundle through the West Midlands, potentially picking up delays. How much time would it save between Manchester & Oxford if the Manchester-South Coast trains ran non-stop between Stoke & Coventry, via Nuneaton, also skipping Banbury? If it's a decent time saving, would it be worth giving this a try on the provision of a new EMU shuttle (operated by either WMT or Northern) between Manchester-Birmingham New Street/Intl stopping at Stockport, Macclesfield, Stoke, Stafford & Wolverhampton; and also a new DMU shuttle from Oxford-Birmingham New Street/Snow Hill serving Banbury and then either via the NEC or via Solihull, to compensate for the re-routing of the Manchester-South Coast via the Trent Valley? It would also likely help ease overcrowding on the service, as currently it is overwhelmed by Manchester-Birmingham passengers.

What do you think?

 

[SynthD]

It would pick up delays being a non stopper surrounded by stoppers. Kenilworth is still a single track.

 

[JonathanH]

What do you think?

The passenger loads at Birmingham International and Birmingham New Street are too important to ignore. There are only limited paths to run extra services out of Manchester, through Kenilworth, on the Trent Valley etc.

The railway will no doubt have an understanding that is not available to the general public on how viable a service from Manchester to Oxford / the South Coast would be if it ran non stop from Stoke to Nuneaton then Coventry.

 

[6Gman]

The journey time between Manchester & Oxford/Reading is too long and a big reason for this is because it has to trundle through the West Midlands, potentially picking up delays. How much time would it save between Manchester & Oxford if the Manchester-South Coast trains ran non-stop between Stoke & Coventry, via Nuneaton, also skipping Banbury? If it's a decent time saving, would it be worth giving this a try on the provision of a new EMU shuttle (operated by either WMT or Northern) between Manchester-Birmingham New Street/Intl stopping at Stockport, Macclesfield, Stoke, Stafford & Wolverhampton; and also a new DMU shuttle from Oxford-Birmingham New Street/Snow Hill serving Banbury and then either via the NEC or via Solihull, to compensate for the re-routing of the Manchester-South Coast via the Trent Valley? It would also likely help ease overcrowding on the service, as currently it is overwhelmed by Manchester-Birmingham passengers.

What do you think?

Didn't you suggest this (or something very similar) a few months ago?

The number of passengers from Manchester, Stockport & Stoke travelling to Coventry, Leamington and Oxford (and points beyond) will not fill a train.

And telling New Street passengers to destinations beyond Oxford that they need to change at Oxford ain't going to be popular.

And then there's how to fit an extra train between Leamington and Oxford ...

But, yes, diverting a service away from its busiest station will reduce overcrowding ...

 

[Philip]

The service is far too overcrowded currently and the main reason for this is because it goes through Birmingham. I'm not suggesting cutting the Manchester-Birmingham frequency, but rather having it as a standalone service, so that people making longer journeys aren't affected by the overcrowding - it should also make it more reliable as less chance for picking up delays.
Manchester & Stoke to Coventry & Oxford are both still fairly big markets - I think if you ran this with single 4-car Voyagers then most of the trains would be well filled. This would also allow spare Voyagers to be used to strengthen the North East-South West services.

 

[swt_passenger]

A few years back there was an RUS proposal to run a CrossCountry type service from Manchester via the Trent Valley, Bletchley, EWR to Oxford and somewhere beyond (to be decided).

However, it was to be an extra service. There was no suggestion to remove the existing XC via Birmingham service, because that was the highest priority demand.

 

[dk1]

Wouldn’t be worth the effort.

The sole reason it’s not been done before

 

[The Planner]

It takes 32 minutes from Stoke to Nuneaton, the XC will be at Wolves in that time. Nuneaton to Cov is a slog so the existing XC will get to New St. Skipping Banbury would save 3-4 minutes. Apart from Wolves to New St, its not a trundle, its 100mph from New St to Coventry. It would be carting about fresh air whilst taking up paths across Colwich and at Nuneaton importing delays onto the WCML. What stock would be working the Bristol services as they interwork with the Bournemouth. Its probably also going to cause problems with the Northern Stoke stopper as well.

 

[Philip]

Didn't you suggest this (or something very similar) a few months ago?

I've suggested running the Chiltern mainline services via Oxford to Paddington, with the services via Bicester to Marylebone starting at Banbury. If we combined the two ideas together then that would solve the Kenilworth issue as Birmingham-Oxford-Reading would be taken care of by the existing Chiltern intercity services.

Capacity at Nuneaton can't be too badly stretched as a potential new Shropshire-based OA company are looking at going this way in their route specification.

 

[Energy]

and also a new DMU shuttle from Oxford-Birmingham New Street/Snow Hill serving Banbury and then either via the NEC or via Solihull,

Oxford to Birmingham traffic would be better served extending GWR Oxfords to Birmingham Moor Street, and it would give Banbury/Leamington Spa/Warwick Parkway some proper fast London services now all the Chilterns are rather slow.

The journey time between Manchester & Oxford/Reading is too long and a big reason for this is because it has to trundle through the West Midlands, potentially picking up delays. How much time would it save between Manchester & Oxford if the Manchester-South Coast trains ran non-stop between Stoke & Coventry, via Nuneaton, also skipping Banbury?

The current XC service works well, the issue is the length not the service its.

You're proposal doesn't suite XCs operations (which are centred around Birmingham) and risk losing connectivity from the west midlands.

 

[Bald Rick]

it might be a couple of minutes quicker, mostly because the trains would accelerate more sportily as there would be barely anyone on them.

 

[Philip]

It takes 32 minutes from Stoke to Nuneaton, the XC will be at Wolves in that time. Nuneaton to Cov is a slog so the existing XC will get to New St. Skipping Banbury would save 3-4 minutes. Apart from Wolves to New St, its not a trundle, its 100mph from New St to Coventry. It would be carting about fresh air whilst taking up paths across Colwich and at Nuneaton importing delays onto the WCML. What stock would be working the Bristol services as they interwork with the Bournemouth. Its probably also going to cause problems with the Northern Stoke stopper as well.

This is my thinking:

1tph Manchester-Macclesfield, all stops Cheadle Hulme-Macc (Northern)

1tph Manchester-Birmingham Intl, same stops as existing XC with Congleton & Kidsgrove added, perhaps peak time calls at Stone & Penkridge (Northern/WMT)

1tph Manchester-Birmingham-Bristol, as it is now (XC)

1tph Manchester-Bournemouth via Nuneaton & Coventry (XC)

2tph Banbury-Marylebone, stopper & semi-fast (Chiltern Railways)

1tph B'ham Snow Hill-Paddington via Oxford (Chiltern)

1tph Snow Hill-Banbury via Solihull all stops (WMT)

1tph New Street-Coventry, all stops (WMT)

 

[The Planner]

This is my thinking:

1tph Manchester-Macclesfield, all stops Cheadle Hulme-Macc (Northern)

1tph Manchester-Birmingham Intl, same stops as existing XC with Congleton & Kidsgrove added, perhaps peak time calls at Stone & Penkridge (Northern/WMT)

Platforms at International will be the issue, you have 3tph terminating there already. Your Manchester Birmingham time has now been made worse and the journey less attractive. Its one of XCs most valuable revenue pairings, you are making it worse to trade off for a handful of Oxford and Reading passengers.

1tph Manchester-Birmingham-Bristol, as it is now (XC)

Will become hopelessly overloaded as its the fastest option now you have stuffed the existing train with more stops.

1tph Manchester-Bournemouth via Nuneaton & Coventry (XC)

See above for the issues this causes.

1tph B'ham Snow Hill-Paddington via Oxford (Chiltern)

No one would use that for end to end journeys. Why are you adding Chiltern into the Paddington mix? Is this taking over a GWR service from Oxford? It means anyone from the north bundles on to the Reading Newcastle at New St making that hopelessly overloaded.

1tph Snow Hill-Banbury via Solihull all stops (WMT)

1tph New Street-Coventry, all stops (WMT)

Why would that be a WMT service to Banbury? Its Chiltern. Is the 1tph all stop between New St and Coventry a new service on top of the extra Birmingham International service? You cannot make an all stations stopper service work now.

Capacity at Nuneaton can't be too badly stretched as a potential new Shropshire-based OA company are looking at going this way in their route specification.

They haven't proven that performance wouldn't take a nose dive, and it relies on someone else providing infrastructure improvements to allow it to work.

 

[6Gman]

The service is far too overcrowded currently and the main reason for this is because it goes through Birmingham. I'm not suggesting cutting the Manchester-Birmingham frequency, but rather having it as a standalone service, so that people making longer journeys aren't affected by the overcrowding - it should also make it more reliable as less chance for picking up delays.
Manchester & Stoke to Coventry & Oxford are both still fairly big markets - I think if you ran this with single 4-car Voyagers then most of the trains would be well filled. This would also allow spare Voyagers to be used to strengthen the North East-South West services.

The main reason the service is overcrowded is that the trains are too short!

And if you've committed Voyagers to this service how have you created "spare" Voyagers? (I now see you do this by turfing Manchester-Birmingham passengers onto ... well, what? 323s? That will call at various shacks en route. It might release a handful of Voyagers, but would shed a lot of passengers I suspect.)

 

[mangyiscute]

The whole idea of "oh this train is overcrowded the solution is to make it not go to the station that these people are trying to get to" is just daft - we want to encourage usage! XC just needs more/longer rolling stock to provide more capacity, its that simple, we don't need to play around with the routes. Besides, when EWR opens, this will provide alternatives to Oxford and Reading in the form of taking the existing fast trains from the North West which call at Milton Keynes where you will (hopefully) be able to change onto a direct service to Oxford.

 

[cle]

Oxford to Birmingham traffic would be better served extending GWR Oxfords to Birmingham Moor Street, and it would give Banbury/Leamington Spa/Warwick Parkway some proper fast London services now all the Chilterns are rather slow.

I don't think we need to put more into Paddington from that direction or Birmingham. Chiltern will revert to faster stopping patterns in time (Banbury-Oxford-fast London is far slower than a non-stop on Chiltern) - and separately Chiltern were exploring a Oxford - Banbury - Moor St hourly service which would help on some of the interim journeys.

As for additional to Manchester, the Reading/Oxford-EWR-MKC-Rugby-Manchester routing proposed way back would make a lot more sense. You could drop the MKC Manchester call from Avanti (and add Macclesfield for 2tph, or Congleton) - but still serve larger markets - and new pairings potentially like Bicester and some regular Trent Valley calls.

And if Handsacre happens, squeeze a faster Birmingham-Manchester 1-2tph that way for point to point. And slow the others down a bit to be more like the Birmingham-Liverpools.

 

[Philip]

It isn't just about relieving overcrowding, it's about reducing the journey time; 3.5 hours for Manchester-Oxford is ridiculously long when London takes just over 2. It should be more like 2.5 hours for the distance covered and I can't see any way to achieve this other than completely avoiding the West Midlands corridor. Perhaps the EWR idea to Milton Keynes mentioned above might work in shaving an hour off the current journey time?

 

[AlastairFraser]

The whole idea of "oh this train is overcrowded the solution is to make it not go to the station that these people are trying to get to" is just daft - we want to encourage usage! XC just needs more/longer rolling stock to provide more capacity, its that simple, we don't need to play around with the routes. Besides, when EWR opens, this will provide alternatives to Oxford and Reading in the form of taking the existing fast trains from the North West which call at Milton Keynes where you will (hopefully) be able to change onto a direct service to Oxford.

Well, exactly.
If XC took the remaining voyagers off Avanti, you could entirely avoid the the overcrowding issues on Manchester to South Coast and one other route of your choosing.

 

[Trainbike46]

The journey time between Manchester & Oxford/Reading is too long and a big reason for this is because it has to trundle through the West Midlands, potentially picking up delays. How much time would it save between Manchester & Oxford if the Manchester-South Coast trains ran non-stop between Stoke & Coventry, via Nuneaton, also skipping Banbury? If it's a decent time saving, would it be worth giving this a try on the provision of a new EMU shuttle (operated by either WMT or Northern) between Manchester-Birmingham New Street/Intl stopping at Stockport, Macclesfield, Stoke, Stafford & Wolverhampton; and also a new DMU shuttle from Oxford-Birmingham New Street/Snow Hill serving Banbury and then either via the NEC or via Solihull, to compensate for the re-routing of the Manchester-South Coast via the Trent Valley? It would also likely help ease overcrowding on the service, as currently it is overwhelmed by Manchester-Birmingham passengers.

What do you think?

It sounds like a lot of effort to remove the main purpose of the service!

There have been much better suggestions for improving XC on this forum, most around improving capacity, often in ways that would reduce per-seat costs.

 

[cle]

Longer, bi-mode trains running the same (pre-pandy) 2tph X service is probably the easiest solve to deliver.

And incremental extensions of stock are available so that it can be Southampton-Newcastle and Exeter-Manchester each hour. Plus Bournemouth-Manchester and Cornwall/Plymouth-Scotland as today.

Maybe sneak Chiltern Oxford-Moor St in to add service on that trunk, especially if both XC run via Coventry - there will be a Solihull path to nab.

 

[Mzzzs]

My idea would be bring in all the 221 from Avanti and gc.
replace the 4/8 220 then reform the 220 into longers trains.

drop some xc extensions.
have a half hourly service on as many routes as possible

electrifications of the 170s routes in future.

 

[6Gman]

Longer, bi-mode trains running the same (pre-pandy) 2tph X service is probably the easiest solve to deliver.

And incremental extensions of stock are available so that it can be Southampton-Newcastle and Exeter-Manchester each hour. Plus Bournemouth-Manchester and Cornwall/Plymouth-Scotland as today.

Maybe sneak Chiltern Oxford-Moor St in to add service on that trunk, especially if both XC run via Coventry - there will be a Solihull path to nab.

Sadly though there's no incentive for the TOC to do that, and the DfT doesn't want to fund it.

 

[mangyiscute]

I've taken a couple of the Reading to Newcastle like,, services recently around Oxford, and what's struck me is how much quieter they are compared to the Manchester services. I'm not entirely sure why, because a lot of people are making journeys that could be done on either train, so perhaps it's just people have learnt their hourly timetable over the past couple years and don't want to change, but I think more needs to be done do try and get passengers to take these extra services - perhaps cheaper advanced for them etc. Although once (if) the service returns to hourly I imagine that'll help compared to just guessing which hours have the services

 

[RobShipway]

The journey time between Manchester & Oxford/Reading is too long and a big reason for this is because it has to trundle through the West Midlands, potentially picking up delays. How much time would it save between Manchester & Oxford if the Manchester-South Coast trains ran non-stop between Stoke & Coventry, via Nuneaton, also skipping Banbury? If it's a decent time saving, would it be worth giving this a try on the provision of a new EMU shuttle (operated by either WMT or Northern) between Manchester-Birmingham New Street/Intl stopping at Stockport, Macclesfield, Stoke, Stafford & Wolverhampton; and also a new DMU shuttle from Oxford-Birmingham New Street/Snow Hill serving Banbury and then either via the NEC or via Solihull, to compensate for the re-routing of the Manchester-South Coast via the Trent Valley? It would also likely help ease overcrowding on the service, as currently it is overwhelmed by Manchester-Birmingham passengers.

What do you think?

The issue you are seeing as others have stated, is that on many services where it is a four car class 220 Voyager, it needs to be a 6 - 8 car train to handle the capacity. So, even if the services where done as your post above, you would still have overcrowding and would have cut off people from Bournemouth from being able to travel directly to the likes of Birmingham and Manchester. As has been mentioned in other threads if the people travelling to Birmingham or Manchester are disabled in a wheelchair, do you really expect them to be changing trains at least 4 times to get from Bournemouth to say Birmingham, when they can travel direct on services they have now?

Cross Country will be within the next 12 - 18 months be getting 7 class 221 units to enable it to cope with the capacity requirements. Time will tell as to whether, this helps services between Bournemouth, Reading, Oxford, Birmingham and Manchester.

I've taken a couple of the Reading to Newcastle like,, services recently around Oxford, and what's struck me is how much quieter they are compared to the Manchester services. I'm not entirely sure why, because a lot of people are making journeys that could be done on either train, so perhaps it's just people have learnt their hourly timetable over the past couple years and don't want to change, but I think more needs to be done do try and get passengers to take these extra services - perhaps cheaper advanced for them etc. Although once (if) the service returns to hourly I imagine that'll help compared to just guessing which hours have the services

It maybe that the services that are going to Manchester have started at Bournemouth, so would have picked up passengers from Southampton Central, Southampton Parkway, Winchester and Basingstoke prior to getting to Reading. But it does depend on what number of passengers are getting on the Manchester services at Reading. There is also the point that neither the services to Newcastle or York from Reading go to Manchester, for which there is probably more of a demand.

 

[Philip]

The issue you are seeing as others have stated, is that on many services where it is a four car class 220 Voyager, it needs to be a 6 - 8 car train to handle the capacity. So, even if the services where done as your post above, you would still have overcrowding and would have cut off people from Bournemouth from being able to travel directly to the likes of Birmingham and Manchester. As has been mentioned in other threads if the people travelling to Birmingham or Manchester are disabled in a wheelchair, do you really expect them to be changing trains at least 4 times to get from Bournemouth to say Birmingham, when they can travel direct on services they have now?

Cross Country will be within the next 12 - 18 months be getting 7 class 221 units to enable it to cope with the capacity requirements. Time will tell as to whether, this helps services between Bournemouth, Reading, Oxford, Birmingham and Manchester.

The issue about changing trains doesn't seem to be consistent; for example many services which used the Castlefield corridor and provided direct links have been truncated at Piccadilly with people now having to change; Bolton also had its Scotland service removed for many years bur people said this was alright as it suited the timetable.
However, in this case you're saying it's necessary to retain direct links between the South Coast & Birmingham which are probably no more important than some of the above examples where direct services have been removed.

I'll use the Scotland-Manchester again to make a different point. Currently there are pick up/set down restrictions at Bolton (with some services not stopping at all) to reduce overcrowding and make the journey more pleasant for longer distance passengers. Why not do the same for Wolverhampton on the CC Manchester services? A lot of passengers use the service just to make the B'ham-Wolves hop and the train gets overcrowded as a result. I bet there are some WMT services running lightly loaded between B'ham-Wolves, so why not fill these up by removing Wolverhampton from the Manchester-Bournemouth and reduce overcrowding on this at the same time?

 

[Tetchytyke]

Cross Country will be within the next 12 - 18 months be getting 7 class 221 units to enable it to cope with the capacity requirements

Will they? And even if they do, they’ll just replace the capacity lost from the HSTs.

Has that been announced anywhere? DfT to press have been extremely reluctant to fund any capacity increases. Which is why those spare 221s are currently with Grand Central.

 

[Trainbike46]

Will they? And even if they do, they’ll just replace the capacity lost from the HSTs.

Has that been announced anywhere? DfT to press have been extremely reluctant to fund any capacity increases. Which is why those spare 221s are currently with Grand Central.

yes, the DfT has agreed for XC to take 7 221s when they are released by Avanti to replace the HSTs

Source available here: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/7-extra-voyagers-for-cross-country.254798/

 

[Tetchytyke]

yes, the DfT has agreed for XC to take 7 221s when they are released by Avanti to replace the HSTs

That’s positive news, but depressing that it’s as few as 7.

 

[Trainbike46]

That’s positive news, but depressing that it’s as few as 7.

Fully agree that I wish they would have taken more, but at least it's better than nothing

 

[class26]

That’s positive news, but depressing that it’s as few as 7.

apparently there are discussions for a further 5