Reduced frequency of Cross-Country services from Bournemouth to Manchester?

[The Planner]

The current edition of Modern Railways says that the long distance CrossCountry services will remain at New Street post-Bordesley chords, meaning that the more aerated Moor Street won't be used.

That was always going to happen though.

 

[Jimini]

I encounter this fairly often on the Reading <> Birmingham leg of this route — once again, upon reversal at Reading they’ve locked out the back four carriages prematurely, and wedged everyone in to the front four carriages for no apparent reason. Rear four scheduled to detach at Brum as usual. Always strikes me as a bit odd / lazy.

 

[paddy1]

I encounter this fairly often on the Reading <> Birmingham leg of this route — once again, upon reversal at Reading they’ve locked out the back four carriages prematurely, and wedged everyone in to the front four carriages for no apparent reason. Rear four scheduled to detach at Brum as usual. Always strikes me as a bit odd / lazy

XC do this often on the Birmingham - Manchester sector on a Sunday evening when I board at Stafford. Advertised as 9 car on station departure board, but one unit always locked out, usually the 5 car, and they cram everyone into the 4 car unit.

 

[class 9]

I encounter this fairly often on the Reading <> Birmingham leg of this route — once again, upon reversal at Reading they’ve locked out the back four carriages prematurely, and wedged everyone in to the front four carriages for no apparent reason. Rear four scheduled to detach at Brum as usual. Always strikes me as a bit odd / lazy.

Not odd or lazy, it's due to lack of staff, a set can't convey passengers without a staff member on that part of the train, frustrating for passengers though.
You say 'no apparent reason', things aren't done just for the sake of it!

 

[Jimini]

Not odd or lazy, it's due to lack of staff, a set can't convey passengers without a staff member on that part of the train, frustrating for passengers though.
You say 'no apparent reason', things aren't done just for the sake of it!

They all bundled out of the back set and sat in first class in the front set..

 

[class 9]

You say it's done at Reading, which I would guess going forward from there, there was only one member of staff on board.

 

[Liverpool 507]

It is frustrating to see that XC going forward are promoting a decline in their service offerings. Edinburgh - Dundee/Aberdeen was always well loaded (probably more so now with the likes of Leuchars and Cupar SR services calling all stops to Edinburgh) and even full and standing if 220s or 4 coach 221s were chucked into the equation. It is disappointing they have not reintroduced calls in Fife, other than Leuchars where each station had a good flow of passengers. South West wise, it's a shame tourism destinations like Torquay and Paington will receive only receive three trains per day where again, although fairly limited, the pre-COVID number of trains weren't exactly obliterating. As for removal of HSTs, they were good at swallowing large numbers of passengers. I hope common sense prevails and they take on ex Avanti Voyagers to supplement their own neglected Voyagers, rather than bowing down to the DfT, trying to decide their passenger numbers for them. A good saying from Phoenix Nights, build it and they will come.

 

[Jimini]

You say it's done at Reading, which I would guess going forward from there, there was only one member of staff on board.

Like I said, the TM and the catering person from the rear set both plonked themselves down in the front set for the journey north from Reading. The rear portion was due to physically detach at New Street, as usual.

 

[class 9]

It's frustrating for the staff too.
There's no 'bowing down' to the Dft, under the terms of the National Rail Contracts they make the decisions on virtually everything that involves a cost.
The withdrawal of the HSTs was eventually inevitable, but the fact there's no replacements for them is frankly a disgrace.

Like I said, the TM and the catering person from the rear set both plonked themselves down in the front set for the journey north from Reading. The rear portion was due to physically detach at New Street, as usual.

That doesn't seem right at all, when I've relieved double sets at New Street that are booked to have the back set detached, they've always been in use.

 

[william.martin]

God help us if what the title to this thread says is true, the 9 cars are already packed.

 

[py_megapixel]

God help us if what the title to this thread says is true, the 9 cars are already packed.

The title isn't talking about a plan to reduce them, rather about the fact that the service frequency has been reduced from what it was pre-Covid. You may wish to read the first few posts in the thread for more info on this.

 

[Halish Railway]

The title isn't talking about a plan to reduce them, rather about the fact that the service frequency has been reduced from what it was pre-Covid. You may wish to read the first few posts in the thread for more info on this.

But it seems like from May, capacity between Reading and Birmingham will be significantly reduced compared to pre-Covid.

Pre-Covid:
1tph Bournemouth to Manchester Piccadilly (Single Voyager, mainly 220s)
1tp2h Southampton to Newcastle (Single Voyager, vast majority 220s)
1tp2h Reading to Newcastle (Single Voyager, vast majority 220s)

From May:
1tph Bournemouth to Manchester Piccadilly (Single Voyager, most likely to mainly be 220s)
5tpd Reading to Newcastle (Single Voyager, most likely to mainly be 220s)

I’ve only used XC to get from Birmingham to Oxford once, that was last Wednesday, however both services were nine carriage Voyagers and had almost all the seats taken for most of the journey.

 

[irish_rail]

But it seems like from May, capacity between Reading and Birmingham will be significantly reduced compared to pre-Covid.

Pre-Covid:
1tph Bournemouth to Manchester Piccadilly (Single Voyager, mainly 220s)
1tp2h Southampton to Newcastle (Single Voyager, vast majority 220s)
1tp2h Reading to Newcastle (Single Voyager, vast majority 220s)

From May:
1tph Bournemouth to Manchester Piccadilly (Single Voyager, most likely to mainly be 220s)
5tpd Reading to Newcastle (Single Voyager, most likely to mainly be 220s)

I’ve only used XC to get from Birmingham to Oxford once, that was last Wednesday, however both services were nine carriage Voyagers and had almost all the seats taken for most of the journey.

What makes you think that route will mainly be 220s?? I think you will find it will be the longer more intercity Plymouth to Scotland route which will be the 220s. Id bet my mortgage that the 221s will be used on the Reading to Birmingham route. What a shocking indictment of the modern rail system in the UK that extremely busy intercity routes are expected to cope with 3 and 4 coach trains (im excluding 1st class as few people use it on XC). Dft hang your heads in shame.

 

[JonathanH]

What makes you think that route will mainly be 220s?? I think you will find it will be the longer more intercity Plymouth to Scotland route which will be the 220s. Id bet my mortgage that the 221s will be used on the Reading to Birmingham route.

The Cross Country planners don't plan their service around the chance to spite the South West. Historically the distribution of 220s and 221s has never focused them on one route over the other, why are they going to start doing so now?

 

[Halish Railway]

What makes you think that route will mainly be 220s?? I think you will find it will be the longer more intercity Plymouth to Scotland route which will be the 220s. Id bet my mortgage that the 221s will be used on the Reading to Birmingham route. What a shocking indictment of the modern rail system in the UK that extremely busy intercity routes are expected to cope with 3 and 4 coach trains (im excluding 1st class as few people use it on XC). Dft hang your heads in shame.

Before the Pandemic XC concentrated 221s on the Edinburgh to Plymouth route.

 

[Some guy]

The rare thing I’ve never ever seen is 2 5 car voyagers joined together it always seems to be 9 cars or even 9 cars which is poor on a service that serves every major city outside of London

 

[JonathanH]

The rare thing I’ve never ever seen is 2 5 car voyagers joined together it always seems to be 9 cars or even 9 cars which is poor on a service that serves every major city outside of London

Two 5-car Voyagers don't fit very well at a few of the stations, where a 9-car formation fits.

Also, Cross Country have 38 4-car Voyagers and 20 5-car Voyagers so putting five plus five together isn't a good use of the fleet.

 

[py_megapixel]

Two 5-car Voyagers don't fit very well at a few of the stations, where a 9-car formation fits.

Also, Cross Country have 38 4-car Voyagers and 20 5-car Voyagers so putting five plus five together isn't a good use of the fleet.

Would a sensible strategy from May not be to not pair up the 5s at all but instead make as many pairs as possible out of the 4s? They really ought to do everything possible to avoid sending 4s out on their own.

Also, if they could consistently decide which services would be doubles rather than singles, they could sort of manage the crowding by varying the prices of Advances to persuade people to use the doubles rather than the singles. This sort of thing is supposed to be an advantage of so-called "yield management", but CrossCountry seem to be entirely ignoring it. On flows where Advances are available (I tried York to Birmingham and Oxford to Manchester for example), look a few weeks from now and they're the same price every hour.

 

[sprinterguy]

The rare thing I’ve never ever seen is 2 5 car voyagers joined together it always seems to be 9 cars or even 9 cars which is poor on a service that serves every major city outside of London

There are no booked 10-car workings, for reasons stated above, so they only occur at random when 4 and 5-car diagrams get mixed about.

Would a sensible strategy from May not be to not pair up the 5s at all but instead make as many pairs as possible out of the 4s? They really ought to do everything possible to avoid sending 4s out on their own.

It'd have been a sensible strategy for the last year or so too, in order to reduce the chances of a lone 4-car turning up.

 

[TheBigD]

Would a sensible strategy from May not be to not pair up the 5s at all but instead make as many pairs as possible out of the 4s? They really ought to do everything possible to avoid sending 4s out on their own.

Also, if they could consistently decide which services would be doubles rather than singles, they could sort of manage the crowding by varying the prices of Advances to persuade people to use the doubles rather than the singles. This sort of thing is supposed to be an advantage of so-called "yield management", but CrossCountry seem to be entirely ignoring it. On flows where Advances are available (I tried York to Birmingham and Oxford to Manchester for example), look a few weeks from now and they're the same price every hour.

XC don't have enough Voyagers to make everything either 5 car or 4+4car sothere will be plenty of 4 car running.

From May (assuming all the services planned run) will require...

Hourly Edinburgh-Plymouth = 19
Hourly Manchester-Bournemouth = 11
Hourly Manchester-Bristol (+2xPaignton) = 8
The handfull of Reading to Newcastle services that run = 4
(Full hourly service would require 11)

That will require a minimum of 42 sets (less 2 that the HSTs currently cover).
I think 220019 is still long term out of service (damaged at Kenilworth quite a while back).

So a very rough calculation, of the 58 voayagers, a max of 51 sets avaliable for use daily, 1 is normally hot spare at New Street, so the most that can be 4+4 is around 10 diagrams, assuming XC fully diagram all the Voyagers. Obviously that will be less when the HSTs retire, and when Newcastle to Reading is restored to hourly.

 

[sufian123]

XC don't have enough Voyagers to make everything either 5 car or 4+4car sothere will be plenty of 4 car running.

From May (assuming all the services planned run) will require...

Hourly Edinburgh-Plymouth = 19
Hourly Manchester-Bournemouth = 11
Hourly Manchester-Bristol (+2xPaignton) = 8
The handfull of Reading to Newcastle services that run = 4
(Full hourly service would require 11)

That will require a minimum of 42 sets (less 2 that the HSTs currently cover).
I think 220019 is still long term out of service (damaged at Kenilworth quite a while back).

So a very rough calculation, of the 58 voayagers, a max of 51 sets avaliable for use daily, 1 is normally hot spare at New Street, so the most that can be 4+4 is around 10 diagrams, assuming XC fully diagram all the Voyagers. Obviously that will be less when the HSTs retire, and when Newcastle to Reading is restored to hourly.

Hi

220019 is back in service now.

 

[Halish Railway]

XC don't have enough Voyagers to make everything either 5 car or 4+4car sothere will be plenty of 4 car running.

From May (assuming all the services planned run) will require...

Hourly Edinburgh-Plymouth = 19
Hourly Manchester-Bournemouth = 11
Hourly Manchester-Bristol (+2xPaignton) = 8
The handfull of Reading to Newcastle services that run = 4
(Full hourly service would require 11)

It’s worth noting that the Manchester to Bristol/Paignton services will interwork with the Manchester to Bournemouth services, complicating any plans to run double Voyagers to and from Manchester.

Also the Newcastle to Reading services will use platforms 9-11 at Newcastle, which I don’t believe can fit anything longer than a 4 carriage Voyager.

 

[irish_rail]

I wonder is there any way Manchester to Bristol could be extended to Exeter to make it useful for the greater south west. Bristol is no good to anyone Taunton westwards. Yet if extended to Exeter or even Taunton you could connect into fast IETs for the south west. Would removing Paignton altogether create any spare sets that could make a clockface extension to say Taunton? Or , removing the Reading to Newcastle to become Reading to York give enough leeway to allow Manchester to Taunton. It really would be a game changer compared with Bristol, which is useless from a Devon and Cornwall perspective....

 

[TheBigD]

I wonder is there any way Manchester to Bristol could be extended to Exeter to make it useful for the greater south west. Bristol is no good to anyone Taunton westwards. Yet if extended to Exeter or even Taunton you could connect into fast IETs for the south west. Would removing Paignton altogether create any spare sets that could make a clockface extension to say Taunton? Or , removing the Reading to Newcastle to become Reading to York give enough leeway to allow Manchester to Taunton. It really would be a game changer compared with Bristol, which is useless from a Devon and Cornwall perspective....

XC proposed something very similar for the Dec 2018 timetable consultation. All but the 0700 ex Paignton and a late evening to Paignton would have been withdrawn and the hourly Manchester to Bristol extended through to Exeter, along with an earlier 0612 Birmingham to Exeter and (I think) an extra evening return working.

it would have required an extra unit but that was accounted for by the extra Voyager being created by the transfer of the 2 driving cars from VWC and the reforming of 2 x 5 car 221 and 2 driving cars into 3 x 4 car.

The proposed withdrawal of the Paignton services was not well received.

There's a long thread on here somewhere with all the details in it.

 

[irish_rail]

XC proposed something very similar for the Dec 2018 timetable consultation. All but the 0700 ex Paignton and a late evening to Paignton would have been withdrawn and the hourly Manchester to Bristol extended through to Exeter, along with an earlier 0612 Birmingham to Exeter and (I think) an extra evening return working.

it would have required an extra unit but that was accounted for by the extra Voyager being created by the transfer of the 2 driving cars from VWC and the reforming of 2 x 5 car 221 and 2 driving cars into 3 x 4 car.

The proposed withdrawal of the Paignton services was not well received.

There's a long thread on here somewhere with all the details in it.

Its unfortunate as by the sounds of it, Paignton and Torquay complaining has led to a far bigger disbenefit to themselves and the greater south west. After all surely most people would prefer two fast trains an hour to the north (even if one of those trains requires a change at Exeter), compared with the current situation of one busy train per hour and the odd occasional extra train.

 

[dk1]

Its unfortunate as by the sounds of it, Paignton and Torquay complaining has led to a far bigger disbenefit to themselves and the greater south west. After all surely most people would prefer two fast trains an hour to the north (even if one of those trains requires a change at Exeter), compared with the current situation of one busy train per hour and the odd occasional extra train.

I see what you mean but those time honoured direct services to Torbay are popular and will be defended by local tourism.

 

[irish_rail]

I see what you mean but those time honoured direct services to Torbay are popular and will be defended by local tourism.

And rightly so I suppose. Personally I'd cut the Reading to Newcastle back to York, and im guessing that may make a spare set to provide Taunton to Manchester. Taunton really would be far far better than Bristol due to the intercity connections to the entire south west peninsular. Id liken stopping at Bristol as like stopping the north east side at Sheffield. A decent sized destination, but with poor onward connections to a large area. Surely York to Newcastle could afford to lose a handful of trains a day?

 

[Peterthegreat]

And rightly so I suppose. Personally I'd cut the Reading to Newcastle back to York, and im guessing that may make a spare set to provide Taunton to Manchester. Taunton really would be far far better than Bristol due to the intercity connections to the entire south west peninsular. Id liken stopping at Bristol as like stopping the north east side at Sheffield. A decent sized destination, but with poor onward connections to a large area. Surely York to Newcastle could afford to lose a handful of trains a day?

No. It's not Newcastle to York that suffers. It is Newcastle to Birmingham, Darlington to Derby etc that suffers. I guess these flows over the year are far bigger than those to/from Paignton.

 

[irish_rail]

No. It's not Newcastle to York that suffers. It is Newcastle to Birmingham, Darlington to Derby etc that suffers. I guess these flows over the year are far bigger than those to/from Paignton.

But I'm not talking about Paignton . I'm talking about the entire south west peninsular which would benefit hugely with a connection to the north west. Newcastle to Birmingham would still be hourly plus a simple change at York making it better than hourly. No one really losing out but gives a big boost to the south west and much needed connections with the North west (at present the connection at Birmingham for SW to NW is none existent. Giving a Taunton to Manchester service would be a game changer for people in both the south west and the north west.

 

[Bikeman78]

Birmingham to Manchester has some 125mph running on it.

110 mph EMUs would no doubt keep time. The class 387s have proved this on the Cardiff runs.

Not odd or lazy, it's due to lack of staff, a set can't convey passengers without a staff member on that part of the train, frustrating for passengers though.
You say 'no apparent reason', things aren't done just for the sake of it!

Can't is a very strong word. Plenty of other TOCs do it, e.g. 12 car non gangwayed EMUs. Claiming that crush loading half the train whilst the other half is empty is certainly questionable.