London > Leeds Non Stop suggestion....

[Lee_Again]

With the new Bi Modes any reason why LNER can't offer a...

London>few stops>Leeds>non stop to London via Hambleton service
in return it could go...
London>Non stop Leeds via Hambleton>few stops>London

Would give an improved journey time from Leeds. A fast from Wakefield (albeit via Leeds).
Curious what the journey time might be...my [very]unscientific look at RTT suggest KX to Hambleton is <1h40, and then <20 to Leeds. Looks like a sub 2h is possible.

Overall journey time London to London would be about 4+ hours which is similar to London Edinburgh services...

 

[yorkie]

Which trains would you remove from the timetable to make way for these?

Or what infrastructure would you provide to add the capacity? Platforming at Leeds may be an issue as you'd be forced to use a through platform.

 

[Lee_Again]

Not sure about paths…. Just use existing ones, tweaked for non stop. It’s only the bit from Leeds to Doncaster that’s extra.
Platforms should be simple enough with the right will ‍♂️

 

[Bevan Price]

What about fast paths between Leeds, Micklefield & Hambleton ??

 

[Glenn1969]

Don't forget Leeds station is a bottleneck that can't cope with any more services as far as I know

 

[Lee_Again]

What about fast paths between Leeds, Micklefield & Hambleton ??

As above…with the right will it’s surely doable.

Don't forget Leeds station is a bottleneck that can't cope with any more services as far as I know

Didn’t say more. Keep the 2 trains per hour but just run one fast. There’s already talk of 3 per hour anyway, or at least there was.

 

[Bertie the bus]

Not sure about paths…. Just use existing ones, tweaked for non stop. It’s only the bit from Leeds to Doncaster that’s extra.
Platforms should be simple enough with the right will ‍♂️

You can't use the same paths if they are going a different route. If you mean use the same paths south of Doncaster then any reduction in journey time you have calculated wouldn't materialise and you wouldn't get any benefit at all.

The reason there aren't Leeds - London non-stop services is almost certainly that a slightly quicker journey (you calculate about 13 minutes quicker) from Leeds wouldn't attract enough additional passengers to make up for the loss of stops. If Leeds trains didn't stop at Grantham or Doncaster then either other services would have to or the reduction in services from those stations would drive people from those towns off the railway. There is a morning Leeds - London service that only stops at Wakefield aimed at business travellers. I used to catch the equivalent back in GNER days and that was a very busy service so not stopping after Wakefield made sense but during the day you are not going to fill a train with passengers only from Leeds.

 

[yorkie]

Didn’t say more. Keep the 2 trains per hour but just run one fast.

Which one, and which trains pick up the missed stops? or is the proposal for places like Grantham, Newark etc to simply lose services?

 

[A0]

Which one, and which trains pick up the missed stops? or is the proposal for places like Grantham, Newark etc to simply lose services?

A better question to my mind is what demand there is for a fast, non stop London - Leeds service. Look at the WCML, all Manchester services have at least 1 stop (usually more) en route and Manchester's a bigger market than Leeds.

 

[Peterthegreat]

The 07.00 from Leeds (06.30 ex Bradford) already does the journey in under 2 hours - and that with a Wakefield stop.

 

[Andyh82]

Ideally you’d try and get the journey time down to as near as 2 hours as possible (as 2 hours seems much quicker than 2 hours 15 does) but not non stop. You’d want to stop at Wakefield and Doncaster at least.

 

[HST43257]

Ideally you’d try and get the journey time down to as near as 2 hours as possible (as 2 hours seems much quicker than 2 hours 15 does) but not non stop. You’d want to stop at Wakefield and Doncaster at least.

I may be overestimating but I managed to get close even with added stops on what I judged to be Azuma times (no real allowances left in though)

 

[Sussex Ben]

IIRC the old VTEC (Virgin Trains East Coast) franchise bid included a broadly 2hr journey time on a 2tph all day service. Both called at Wakefield, then hourly at Peterborough and Doncaster. Of course, what can be done on paper for a bid may not be possible (or desirable) in real life.

 

[TheBigD]

IIRC the old VTEC (Virgin Trains East Coast) franchise bid included a broadly 2hr journey time on a 2tph all day service. Both called at Wakefield, then hourly at Peterborough and Doncaster. Of course, what can be done on paper for a bid may not be possible (or desirable) in real life.

As per this old thread from a couple of years ago...

Future ECML & LNER Services

In the LNER Azuma thread this document was posted. It lists the service asperations (now) LNER planned for various timetables once the new Azumas are up and running. Although the timescales will have slipped, the base LNER service for May 2019 would have seen the following... Hourly Kings...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[Manutd1999]

It's a balancing act between achieving 'headline' journey times to London, but also providing connectivity to other stations on the ECML. In particular, places such as Peterborough offer useful onward connections to Norwich/Cambridge etc. In addition, a service every 30 mins (or close to) is desired, which is very hard to achieve if the 2x hourly to Leeds becomes 1x fast and 1x stopper. It's a similar conundrum for Edinburgh and Newcastle.

Personally, I would go for a half-hourly 'stopper' service to both Leeds and Edinburgh, calling at 3-4 stations enroute to London. This would then be supplemented by a 1p2h Lumo-style express. It's not possible with current pathing, but if the promised re-cast ever goes ahead it should be do-able.

Something like this:

London - Peterborough - Grantham - Newark - Doncaster - Wakefield - Leeds
London - Grantham - Newark - Retford - Doncaster - Wakefield - Leeds
London - Peterborough - York - Durham - Newcastle - Berwick - Edinburgh
London - Doncaster - York - Darlington - Newcastle - Dunbar - Edinburgh
London - (Hambleton) - Leeds // London - Newcastle - Edinburgh

That still leaves 2-3 spare paths for the services to Hull/Lincoln/Bradford/Middlesborough etc.

 

[30907]

Two separate issues here:
1. The stopping pattern south of Doncaster - umpteen discussions on this WRT the 2022 timetable plan, so nothing to add.
2. Leeds via Hambleton - useful for running through to Harrogate and Bradford (less so if you are splitting 2x5s though) - but it is the most congested of all the routes into Leeds with a basic 8tph including 2 stoppers.

 

[A S Leib]

London - Peterborough - Grantham - Newark - Doncaster - Wakefield - Leeds
London - Grantham - Newark - Retford - Doncaster - Wakefield - Leeds

Would either keep a Stevenage stop?

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Which trains would you remove from the timetable to make way for these?

Or what infrastructure would you provide to add the capacity? Platforming at Leeds may be an issue as you'd be forced to use a through platform.

Send it to Bradford?

 

[Manutd1999]

Would either keep a Stevenage stop?

I may be easier to add a Stevenage stop to one of my proposed Edinburgh services, as those have fewer stops south of Doncaster. Alternatively, Stevenage could be served by one of the 'other' services to Lincoln/Hull/West Yorks, which are not listed here.

 

[cle]

Eventually we should have 3tph Leeds (assuming HS2 to EMP will take forever/never happen) - a headline fast per hour and then two which cover a lot of the intermediate calls to Leeds/London and to each other.

London - Stevenage - Wakefield - Leeds
London - P'boro - Grantham - Retford - Doncaster - Leeds
London - P'boro - Newark - Doncaster - Wakefield - Leeds or similar. With extensions as needed.

 

[TheBigD]

Eventually we should have 3tph Leeds (assuming HS2 to EMP will take forever/never happen) - a headline fast per hour and then two which cover a lot of the intermediate calls to Leeds/London and to each other.

London - Stevenage - Wakefield - Leeds
London - P'boro - Grantham - Retford - Doncaster - Leeds
London - P'boro - Newark - Doncaster - Wakefield - Leeds or similar. With extensions as needed.

Over on the WCML the 3tph to Manchester all have a similar number of stops and a similar journey time.
Given the difficulties/compromises over the (now deferred) May 2022 timetable that had 2tph to Leeds, a similar journey time would be easier to timetable.
I'm not convinced that there is currently the capacity elsewhere on the southern section of the ECML for all the extra services that people want to see.

 

[cle]

Over on the WCML the 3tph to Manchester all have a similar number of stops and a similar journey time.
Given the difficulties/compromises over the (now deferred) May 2022 timetable that had 2tph to Leeds, a similar journey time would be easier to timetable.
I'm not convinced that there is currently the capacity elsewhere on the southern section of the ECML for all the extra services that people want to see.

I take your point. That is today though, and my thinking of a fast was more a sop to Leeds folks having lost HS2 - that a sub-2hr journey per hour would help. Especially if we ever got above 125mph.

Plus then the 2tph for the intermediates. Also seems to be more appetite for extensions. Certainly that KX-Grantham-Nottingham idea will be dead now.

 

[mike57]

I think there would be a demand for a fast Leeds - London service with minimal or no stops, but the issue is the infrastructure to allow it to run. Leeds is already just about at capacity. Running via Hambledon makes sense until you consider that east from Leeds is at capacity, TPE/XC non stop services already get stuck behind stoppers on a regular basis, and can lose 15 mins, same problem would occur with London trains using that route. ECML is also at capacity.

So yes I think you would get the passengers, but there isnt the space to run the service. I think this highlights the wider problem, there are services which would be commercially viable/beneficial across the network, but there are no paths or rolling stock available. In addition 'rationalisations' carried out in the past are now becoming the bottlenecks. Crossgates station was 4 track with 2 centre through tracks, restoring the through tracks would help service reliability, but once infrastructure is lost getting it restored is a difficult. I suspect if the original 4 tracks from the east of Leeds to Crossgates had survived reliability on this strech would be better.

 

[MarkyT]

Eventually we should have 3tph Leeds (assuming HS2 to EMP will take forever/never happen) - a headline fast per hour and then two which cover a lot of the intermediate calls to Leeds/London and to each other.

London - Stevenage - Wakefield - Leeds
London - P'boro - Grantham - Retford - Doncaster - Leeds
London - P'boro - Newark - Doncaster - Wakefield - Leeds or similar. With extensions as needed.

Why miss out Wakefield on one? It's always going to be fairly slow through there due to curves on the approach viaducts from the south. Westgate, as well as serving the city itself, also acts as a well-established convenient parkway for wider West Yorkshire and south Leeds areas, much easier to access by car than central Leeds. IMHO, it was a mistake for the original HS2 route to ignore Wakefield, and the local authority were opponents of the scheme, unsurprisingly.

 

[JonathanH]

Why miss out Wakefield on one?

Isn't the idea that the third train would go via Hambleton?

For connectivity the suggestion doesn't work well. All trains to Leeds should stop at Doncaster. Having a train fast from Stevenage to Wakefield doesn't really help anyone.

I quite like the current ECML timetable - it wasn't obvious that the consulted timetable had significant improvements over what is currently in place.

 

[cle]

Isn't the idea that the third train would go via Hambleton?

For connectivity the suggestion doesn't work well. All trains to Leeds should stop at Doncaster. Having a train fast from Stevenage to Wakefield doesn't really help anyone.

I quite like the current ECML timetable - it wasn't obvious that the consulted timetable had significant improvements over what is currently in place.

It could do - but via Wakefield works too. Missing Wakefield would save 5 mins, it doesn't need all the stops.

As for Stevenage to Wakefield fast, that's not about that pair. It helps Leeds and Wakefield people specifically with a one-stop journey to London. They might need the outer-railhead, or connections to Cambridge, for instance. Stevenage folks are more likely to want Leeds fast, than drips of nothing ECML place (which they have via Hull Trains) - but in theory it could be first stop Doncaster, I suppose.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

What about London to Huddersfield, via Hambleton and reversing at Bradford to go via Halifax?

 

[JonathanH]

What about London to Huddersfield, via Hambleton and reversing at Bradford to go via Halifax?

Too slow to be of any use at either Halifax or Huddersfield - poor use of long distance rolling stock.

 

[class 9]

With the new Bi Modes any reason why LNER can't offer a...

London>few stops>Leeds>non stop to London via Hambleton service
in return it could go...
London>Non stop Leeds via Hambleton>few stops>London

Would give an improved journey time from Leeds. A fast from Wakefield (albeit via Leeds).
Curious what the journey time might be...my [very]unscientific look at RTT suggest KX to Hambleton is <1h40, and then <20 to Leeds. Looks like a sub 2h is possible.

Overall journey time London to London would be about 4+ hours which is similar to London Edinburgh services...

You wouldn't save anything running via Hambleton, Doncaster to Leeds it's about 33 mins running time, via Wakefield is 30, so missing the one stop you'll save 3 or 4 mins= 26/27 mins.
As previous posters have said, getting a non stop path from Micklefield to Leeds would be impossible, I work for XC and you very rarely get a good uninterrupted run in these days.
Also why deviate from fully electrified route to have to use diesel just to save an imaginary fews mins?

 

[TheBigD]

The 0740 departure from Leeds to Kings Cross on Saturdays is timetabled to do Leeds-Doncaster via Hambleton in 27 minutes, including 0.5 minutes pathing allowance.