The only way that the services would get any busier with a half hourly service is that it will motivate more people to travel, which should be a good thing and something the TOCs are trying to promote. I have been on some pretty busy 8/9 cars recently tho but I don't think switching to the half hourly service with 4 or 5 cars would make much of a difference
But it will greatly assist with resroring direct journeys beyond Birmongham and serve Doncaster once again.
Oh I am firmly in favour of those journeys returning - selfishly I want the reading to Birmingham frequency back to half hourly since I am from reading, but also the through link will be key southbound as coming from north of Sheffield through to Oxford and beyond you have to wait at Birmingham for an hour which is horrible
Not selfish at all mate. It's the reason the service was like that before and why it needs to return asap.
I imagine train crew are following the government advice which is still to isolate.
I am sure there are some vacancies here and there still, and of course some ongoing training needs meaning not all of the crew are able to work a full set of routes, but it's largely because most TOCs in England aren't generally able to offer overtime any more. There are some places where they do if a historical rest day working agreement is still current.
A RDW agreement may not be in place at some TOCs but I am not aware they cannot offer overtime.
It's not that they cannot, it's that they can only do it with Department approval if there's any increase in the quantum of diagrams. In practice this approval has not been forthcoming at some operators unless there is a strong case made. CrossCountry was in a weak financial position before the pandemic and costs are rather higher than average so it's not too surprising that the Department are coming down harder on them than, say, LNER.
It’s a very strange way to operate a railway.
Crazy!!
I wouldn't expect it to be fine... Operation Princess (was it?) was a catastrophe because a more frequent service encouraged travel, but the trains were just single voyagers with the same capacity per hour. It exactly replicated BR's mistake putting 3 2-car DMU's an hour on to replace hourly loco-hauled trains between Liverpool and Newcastle.
Yes it was Operation Princess but lots of lessons have been learned since then. The normal XC timetable wasn’t far off good & with a couple of extra units which could happen soon, it will be very good indeed. Even Andy Cooper the ex-MD said that. This hourly, less direct routes with x2 Voyagers coupled is awful in my opinion.
It is incredibly difficult to "reserve" paths. Not even strategic paths allow that. You either have firm rights, contingent rights or none at all. I would be very surprised if they give the paths up.
They still have ALL their paths.
Not going back yet. Had the ECML timetable recast been implemented as planned (May '22) then we would be back to just about normal with Reading-Newcastle services back. Since we don't know what's happening in May '23 it's too early to say "not going back."
I very much doubt that. The paths for Reading-Newcastle still (largely) exist today and there is no timetabling reason why it couldn't have been reintroduced in May. The reason it hasn't is that XC do not have the (driver) resources to do so, in view of the DfT's reluctance to authorise overtime and any notable sort of ramp-up in training. There is also the issue of having to "shortform" other services to do so, though that's almost secondary.
You may well be right but as I said it's too early to say with certainty what's happening. Several driver training courses are planned to run this year and we've just had a few trainees pass out recently so there's plenty going on still training wise.
From the timetable change next month, there's a rejigging of Driver diagrams, according to management, they'll be 97 surplus Drivers!
Time to get back to normal and stop dithering then.
Tell me about it Grrrr!!
I was in Birmingham yesterday and there was a 3 hour gap between Bournemouth services,between 5 and 8pm.
I do wonder what the statistics show on passenger demand for journeys that can't be made because of the missing journeys between Bournemouth and Reading and further north.
It is the only rail link from the South Coast up to the Midlands and the north. If the services didn't run further than Reading then you go via London or its an awkward 2 or sometimes 3 change journey to the South.
Person hit by train near Hatton according to RTT.
