py_megapixel
Established Member
There are 3 trains per hour from Crewe to Birmingham - the stopper via Stoke-on-Trent (which, while slower than the others, isn't ridiculous to use for the full journey - only an additional 20 mins compared to the direct ones), the through service from Liverpool and the Avanti service from Scotland.
The problem is that two of these leave at exactly one minute past each hour, while the other one is only a few minutes earlier. So you have a list of departure times that looks like this:
09:52
10:01 x2
[gap of almost an hour]
10:52
11:01 x2
[another gap of almost an hour]
11:52
12:01 x2
[and so on]
To all intents and purposes, this reduces the frequency to a third of what it could be with the same resources. So why has the prospect of a close to every-20-minute service been thrown away in favour of this nonsense?
(Worse still, if you are coming through from Manchester, the direct CrossCountry arrives at BHM at a very similar time to the faster services from Crewe - removing the option of changing at Crewe to get to Birmingham if the direct services aren't conveniently timed)
The problem is that two of these leave at exactly one minute past each hour, while the other one is only a few minutes earlier. So you have a list of departure times that looks like this:
09:52
10:01 x2
[gap of almost an hour]
10:52
11:01 x2
[another gap of almost an hour]
11:52
12:01 x2
[and so on]
To all intents and purposes, this reduces the frequency to a third of what it could be with the same resources. So why has the prospect of a close to every-20-minute service been thrown away in favour of this nonsense?
(Worse still, if you are coming through from Manchester, the direct CrossCountry arrives at BHM at a very similar time to the faster services from Crewe - removing the option of changing at Crewe to get to Birmingham if the direct services aren't conveniently timed)
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