Should XC services north of Leeds be scrapped to increase capacity?

[Manutd1999]

A controversial idea I am sure will be shot down quickly, but....

How about sending both XC's via Leeds? You could have a clock face,half-hourly service on the 'core' route, linking some of the UKs biggest cities:

Newcastle - York - Leeds - Wakefield - Sheffield - Derby - Birmingham

Journey times from York would increase, but the impact could be reduced by cutting out some of the intermediate stops in Durham/Chesterfield/Tamworth etc.

Doncaster would lose direct service to Birmingham, but easy connections are available at Sheffield.

Admittedly pathing would be difficult, but might be possible as part of a broader re-shuffle (i.e. scrapping Northern's proposed Leeds-Sheffield 'fast' and re-assessing the number of TPE services to York)

 

[JonathanH]

Journey times from York would increase, but the impact could be reduced by cutting out some of the intermediate stops in Durham/Chesterfield/Tamworth etc.

What is going to serve those stations instead?

How about sending both XC's via Leeds? You could have a clock face,half-hourly service on the 'core' route, linking some of the UKs biggest cities:

Newcastle - York - Leeds - Wakefield - Sheffield - Derby - Birmingham

XC wanted to do this but the line between York and Leeds has intermediate stations and no spare paths. Arguably more people want TransPennine services on the York to Leeds stretch than want services South.

It is rather missing the point though to some extent since it only improves services from Leeds to the south, nothing else.

 

[Clansman]

A controversial idea I am sure will be shot down quickly, but....

How about sending both XC's via Leeds? You could have a clock face,half-hourly service on the 'core' route, linking some of the UKs biggest cities:

Newcastle - York - Leeds - Wakefield - Sheffield - Derby - Birmingham

Journey times from York would increase, but the impact could be reduced by cutting out some of the intermediate stops in Durham/Chesterfield/Tamworth etc.

Doncaster would lose direct service to Birmingham, but easy connections are available at Sheffield.

Admittedly pathing would be difficult, but might be possible as part of a broader re-shuffle (i.e. scrapping Northern's proposed Leeds-Sheffield 'fast' and re-assessing the number of TPE services to York)

In all fairness, you have at least thought it through and justified why you thought it was a good thing with consideration for the pros and cons, so fair play.

Whilst I don't agree with it, it's not a bad idea compared to some people who'd rather see XC cut north of Leeds because of the Voyagers or other bizzare reasons. With cutting Donny, as JonathanH said, paths are a major issue. It'd be interesting to know what the demand is for XC services through Donny.

If it's primarily for Sheffield or to the north, then you can argue from a XC perspective that there is a case to have a rethink as to if it's worth using their own resources to cater for a market that is largely regionalised.

 

[Killingworth]

I read this thread with a feeling of despair. Crosscountry must be a nightmare to manage with all the conflicting stakeholders and fellow TOCs across the land. It duplicates services operated by others throughout, differentiated mainly by speed and calling pattern. In doing so it has gained an array of overlapping markets along the way, demonstrated every time any changes are suggested by the anecdotal experiences and objections we all throw in!

It's busy here or there at different times of the day, days of the week, times of the year. Then there's special events like racegoers to York or Cheltenham. I use XC from Chesterfield when going south, Sheffield when going north. I see significant numbers riding through both. If going to Newcastle I'll choose the Doncaster option, but would be quite happy if it missed out Doncaster as well as Leeds. The Sheffield-Wakefield-Leeds section could be covered by a fast Northen Connect (what happened to that?). At commuting times XC services all but empty at both Sheffield and Leeds.

When going through York to Scotland from Sheffield and the south the service should be as fast as possible, and that's via Doncaster. (HS2 isn't going to help from Sheffield, and has said so.) TPE now provide an alternative from Leeds.

The imminent arrival of East Coast Trains complicates the picture by adding further capacity where most demand is already well covered but that's an issue the new GBR systems will have to resolve.

Next week I'll probably be going from Chesterfield to Cheltenham by XC, fortunately at times I'll not have to change - most XC services currently don't stop at CHD. In the summer we'll be staying near Alnwick and may use XC from Alnmouth to Newcastle or Edinburgh. Both directions load well at the times we normally travel and we've met fellow travellers from Glasgow and Birmingham.

The plain fact is that ordinary rail travellers aren't much bothered about the colour and type of trains. They want to get reliably from A to B as quickly as possible, at flexible times, with as few changes as possible and at lowest possible fares. They aren't interested that there's no capacity to terminate or reverse trains at Leeds.

Pesronally, if I see I have to change, or the journey time lengthens (like when going north via Leeds) the more likely I'll be to use the car.

 

[david1212]

But it's not a zero sum game. For Leeds to Birmingham passengers to win, you don't have to lose services north of there.

XC doesn't exist to serve Birmingham to Leeds.

It exists, and several people on here don't seem to get this, to serve Scotland, the North East, Yorkshire and Lancashire to Birmingham, Bristol, the South West and the South Coast.

We can sit and argue about what it should exist to serve all day long. But today, before HS2 is built, that is what it exists to serve. You can't decide one day to simply stop serving some of those destinations.

.....

The plain fact is that ordinary rail travellers aren't much bothered about the colour and type of trains. They want to get reliably from A to B as quickly as possible, at flexible times, with as few changes as possible and at lowest possible fares. They aren't interested that there's no capacity to terminate or reverse trains at Leeds.

Pesronally, if I see I have to change, or the journey time lengthens (like when going north via Leeds) the more likely I'll be to use the car.

Exactly other than within reason I wonder if in ranking priorities ' as quickly as possible ' is below others? After all ignoring pathing to get the fastest Inter-city times neither Chesterfield or Cheltenham would be calling points just ... - Bristol - Birmingham - Derby - Leeds / York ... However the core issue is XC can not offer enough seats. Secondary is that they operate an all diesel only fleet.

Until both of these are resolved there has to be a compromise. If I had started this thread I would have picked York rather than Leeds. North from York the route is electrified, LNER services are no longer carrying a proportion of the passengers they started at Kings Cross with and TPE also run.

Hence while not ideal as I stated earlier to me the logical compromise is to cut, or as a halfway house significantly reduce, XC services north of Leeds / York to double up sets on more Leeds / York - South West and Manchester - South Coast services.

 

[Killingworth]

Exactly other than within reason I wonder if in ranking priorities ' as quickly as possible ' is below others? After all ignoring pathing to get the fastest Inter-city times neither Chesterfield or Cheltenham would be calling points just ... - Bristol - Birmingham - Derby - Leeds / York ... However the core issue is XC can not offer enough seats. Secondary is that they operate an all diesel only fleet.

Until both of these are resolved there has to be a compromise. If I had started this thread I would have picked York rather than Leeds. North from York the route is electrified, LNER services are no longer carrying a proportion of the passengers they started at Kings Cross with and TPE also run.

Hence while not ideal as I stated earlier to me the logical compromise is to cut, or as a halfway house significantly reduce, XC services north of Leeds / York to double up sets on more Leeds / York - South West and Manchester - South Coast services.

I'd say "as quickly as possible" includes speed of service and frequency combined. So when travelling from Sheffield to Newcastle, or the reverse, the availability of 2 tph gets me nearer the immediate availabilty of a car - but that takes me door to door starting at any time.

 

[Starmill]

I'd say "as quickly as possible" includes speed of service and frequency combined. So when travelling from Sheffield to Newcastle, or the reverse, the availability of 2 tph gets me nearer the immediate availabilty of a car - but that takes me door to door starting at any time.

Indeed. This is commonly known as 'Generalised Journey Time'.

 

[David Goddard]

Personally can not see the purpose of Cross Country serving the Leeds - York - Newcastle corridor, especially since Transpennine Express started their additional fast service which now operates through to Scotland, alongside the long standing Newcastle train, both of which are now using 125mph stock.

Based on comments in this thread so far, it is clear that there is a desire to maintain Cross Country services to Leeds (I don't dispute that) and likewise two per hour north of York (again agree). The current "core" SW-NE service running via Leeds creates a significant extension to journey time, and also creates a situation where two services which are at half hour intervals between Birmingham and Sheffield are just five minutes apart north of York.

As we are in the safe space of the speculative ideas section I post the below in the hope of not getting shot down.

It is widely suggested/ implied that the remaining 20 Voyagers with West Coast will move to Cross Country once replaced, and whilst not discussing the finer points of that here, I am assuming that this does happen, and so the core can be enhanced in several ways.
For a start, send the core Plymouth - Edinburgh service via Doncaster, or if space was constrained there then use the Pontefract route instead.
This would remove the Leeds diversion and deliver a faster journey to the North East, as well as enabling a more even spacing on the ECML.

With additional Voyagers in play, use some of these to bring in a third hourly service from Birmingham (possibly working through from Cardiff) which would then work to Leeds in place of the current diversion of the core train. West Yorkshire passengers will benefit from a virtually dedicated service, which will not already be full with passengers from the North East. If platform space is an issue then layovers can make use of the centre road between p11/12.

With three services an hour between Birmingham and Sheffield this should enable further speeding up of the Plymouth - Edinburgh service, by calling only at Derby between these points.

 

[The Planner]

I doubt XC would want the SW/NE via Donny. I would suspect if you could get a third train (which would be far from easy) then the current Reading Newcastle would go via Leeds for the connectivity.

 

[Purple Orange]

Personally can not see the purpose of Cross Country serving the Leeds - York - Newcastle corridor, especially since Transpennine Express started their additional fast service which now operates through to Scotland, alongside the long standing Newcastle train, both of which are now using 125mph stock.

Based on comments in this thread so far, it is clear that there is a desire to maintain Cross Country services to Leeds (I don't dispute that) and likewise two per hour north of York (again agree). The current "core" SW-NE service running via Leeds creates a significant extension to journey time, and also creates a situation where two services which are at half hour intervals between Birmingham and Sheffield are just five minutes apart north of York.

As we are in the safe space of the speculative ideas section I post the below in the hope of not getting shot down.

It is widely suggested/ implied that the remaining 20 Voyagers with West Coast will move to Cross Country once replaced, and whilst not discussing the finer points of that here, I am assuming that this does happen, and so the core can be enhanced in several ways.
For a start, send the core Plymouth - Edinburgh service via Doncaster, or if space was constrained there then use the Pontefract route instead.
This would remove the Leeds diversion and deliver a faster journey to the North East, as well as enabling a more even spacing on the ECML.

With additional Voyagers in play, use some of these to bring in a third hourly service from Birmingham (possibly working through from Cardiff) which would then work to Leeds in place of the current diversion of the core train. West Yorkshire passengers will benefit from a virtually dedicated service, which will not already be full with passengers from the North East. If platform space is an issue then layovers can make use of the centre road between p11/12.

With three services an hour between Birmingham and Sheffield this should enable further speeding up of the Plymouth - Edinburgh service, by calling only at Derby between these points.

I’d question whether 2 tph to the North East is required. Birmingham has 1 tph to Leeds, 1 tph to Scotland on the west coast mainline. Are 3 tph to Sheffield & 2 tph to Newcastle needed?

Perhaps it should be (assuming the 20 voyagers transfer too) 1 tph to Leeds, 1 tph to Edinburgh via Doncaster.

 

[David Goddard]

I’d question whether 2 tph to the North East is required. Birmingham has 1 tph to Leeds, 1 tph to Scotland on the west coast mainline. Are 3 tph to Sheffield & 2 tph to Newcastle needed?

Perhaps it should be (assuming the 20 voyagers transfer too) 1 tph to Leeds, 1 tph to Edinburgh via Doncaster.

Well that was my original, simple, proposal, but based on earlier comments about wanting to keep two to Newcastle I changed it to the more radical version above.

My original proposal version (which I still think would suffice) was for:
-Plymouth to Edinburgh diverted to operate via Doncaster.
-Reading to Newcastle diverted from Sheffield to Wakefield and Leeds.
This would actually need fewer units than at present, but would enable more journeys to run as pairs.

 

[RobShipway]

Personally can not see the purpose of Cross Country serving the Leeds - York - Newcastle corridor, especially since Transpennine Express started their additional fast service which now operates through to Scotland, alongside the long standing Newcastle train, both of which are now using 125mph stock.

Based on comments in this thread so far, it is clear that there is a desire to maintain Cross Country services to Leeds (I don't dispute that) and likewise two per hour north of York (again agree). The current "core" SW-NE service running via Leeds creates a significant extension to journey time, and also creates a situation where two services which are at half hour intervals between Birmingham and Sheffield are just five minutes apart north of York.

As we are in the safe space of the speculative ideas section I post the below in the hope of not getting shot down.

It is widely suggested/ implied that the remaining 20 Voyagers with West Coast will move to Cross Country once replaced, and whilst not discussing the finer points of that here, I am assuming that this does happen, and so the core can be enhanced in several ways.
For a start, send the core Plymouth - Edinburgh service via Doncaster, or if space was constrained there then use the Pontefract route instead.
This would remove the Leeds diversion and deliver a faster journey to the North East, as well as enabling a more even spacing on the ECML.

With additional Voyagers in play, use some of these to bring in a third hourly service from Birmingham (possibly working through from Cardiff) which would then work to Leeds in place of the current diversion of the core train. West Yorkshire passengers will benefit from a virtually dedicated service, which will not already be full with passengers from the North East. If platform space is an issue then layovers can make use of the centre road between p11/12.

With three services an hour between Birmingham and Sheffield this should enable further speeding up of the Plymouth - Edinburgh service, by calling only at Derby between these points.

There are many places even with just one operator, where there is more than one service in an hour. For instance from Reading to Bristol. Today GWR had at least three trains from London Paddington to Bristol between 12pm to 1pm, why the need for three? You have 12:24, 12:40 and 12:55.

Apologies, if people feel the comment above is off track from this discussion but I am using that as an example to show that the likes of GWR, XC, TPE etc.... would only be providing services if they felt that there was a need for those services from the public. So if the trains get at least half full with passengers, then even if XC has two trains per hour and TPE has 3 trains per hour through Leeds and the paths are available, then that shows there is a need for those services even if more than one operator is delivering 125mph services.

Plus many comments here have not thought about how many of the XC passengers starting with the train at either Bournemouth or Reading are travelling the full distance through to Newcastle? How many passengers are getting on at places like Birmingham on the XC services travelling to Newcastle? Of those passengers, how many are getting off at Leeds? How many are getting off at Doncaster and/or Sheffield?

Before you start re - routing trains, personally think the above questions need to be answered otherwise you may have two voyager units going through Doncaster doing a service with just 20 passengers and a single voyager going through say Leeds with all seats full and many standing passengers.

 

[Glenn1969]

Pre Covid the via Leeds XC was very overcrowded to the point that 1tph is clearly inadequate once leisure travel has returned to pre Covid levels. I would send both XC via Leeds to serve the West Yorkshire market with a better service and not send any XC services to Doncaster. Doncaster to Sheffield already has 3/4 tph including a TPE express and Doncaster to York/NE/Scotland is adequately served by LNER

 

[Bald Rick]

Pre Covid the via Leeds XC was very overcrowded to the point that 1tph is clearly inadequate once leisure travel has returned to pre Covid levels.

Or longer trains, which is what will happen.

 

[Purple Orange]

Pre Covid the via Leeds XC was very overcrowded to the point that 1tph is clearly inadequate once leisure travel has returned to pre Covid levels. I would send both XC via Leeds to serve the West Yorkshire market with a better service and not send any XC services to Doncaster. Doncaster to Sheffield already has 3/4 tph including a TPE express and Doncaster to York/NE/Scotland is adequately served by LNER

Or that too. In fact how much time is saved by not routing a train through York, Leeds, Doncaster and Sheffield and losing the Doncaster stop?

 

[cle]

Or that too. In fact how much time is saved by not routing a train through York, Leeds, Doncaster and Sheffield and losing the Doncaster stop?

It's not really about Doncaster itself though. Much like Crewe, the town, in rail terms, is secondary to the connections. It has feed from a lot of Humberside, Lincolnshire etc - and so a fast service to Birmingham at least, is important (after the London services of course).

I don't think the time saving by skipping it is worth the loss of connectivity. We're talking 1tph here. Only the fast Scotland misses Crewe, and this is of similar standing. But actually a bigger place itself.

If anywhere is over-served on the over-served trunk in question (York-Newcastle), let's look at Darlington.

 

[Glenn1969]

Leeds has feed from a bigger area (the whole of West Yorkshire and a fair bit of North Yorkshire) so warrants more than the 1tph it gets

 

[SoccerHQ]

You would probably claw back around 15 minutes, but that doesn't matter if you cannot utilise it. You would probably just end up sticking a load back in as pathing time as you cannot get a better path.

Yeah I used to do Brum-Newcastle once a month a few years back and would never go through Leeds as it just takes too long, going v Donny is so much nice and faster.

The problem however was lag time at a couple of stations. For example train used to go from BNS at xxx30 and roll into Derby just after the hour. It then wouldn't depart until xxx16 waiting for a London train going up to Sheffield to come in and depart.

Just before lockdown they actually tweaked the timetable so trains went a couple of minutes earlier from New Street, hit Derby at 58 minutes past more or less and then departed swiftly so Brum-Sheffield was a minute or two over an hour in total which was excellent.

Same problems though at Donny. Had to wait just before junction for another London train going towards Newcastle to come in and then there's another 5 minute platform wait at York.

Problem to me is not alternating stops at stations like Tamworth ot Chesterfield but just frustrating lag time when a few tweaks of timetable and you can save 15-20 minute reasonably comfortably, I mean departing 2 minutes earlier than New Street shaved 10 minutes off the Derby dwell time so it can be done.

It was similar with Brum-South West. Train used to arrive into Brum at around 5 past the hour and then wait for 10 minutes with possible change of crew/food supplies etc and it will go out at xxx17 just after a cross city stopper had just departed. Again there was a change and it went more swiftly out at 12 past the hour so can then hit Cheltenham in 35 minutes no problem then.

Brum-Newcastle via Donny shouldn't be as long as three hours anyway, two hour and a half probably unrealistic as you'd need a perfect path out of each station so 2hr 40 is fair enough by omitting a few more Durham stops (which may have been happening anyway) if there's a London train just behind at Darlo or Newcastle which will stop there.

 

[tbtc]

To save having the same discussion/argument with different people, here's my view of XC (and XC through Leeds in particular); feel free to shoot it down...

At the moment there are the following long distance services north of Birmingham each hour

• Nottingham
• Nottingham
• ECML via Doncaster
• ECML via Leeds
• Manchester
• Manchester
• WCML via Wigan
• Liverpool
• Liverpool

...so that's nine trains per hour to the north

At the moment there are the following long distance services south of Birmingham each hour (excluding London services):

• Bournemouth
• Reading (bi-hourly to Southampton)
• Plymouth
• Exeter
• Cardiff

...so that's five trains per hour to the south

I'm not including the TfW services (since they were never Cross Country and are never going to be integrated with non-Welsh services) or the Leicester - East Anglia services (again, never Cross Country under BR, don't run cross-Birmingham)

Some of the services are part of the "proper" XC franchise, some of the services are part of the "ex Central Trains" franchise ( some people don't like to think Nottingham - Cardiff as "real" XC), some of the services are ones which were part of XC at one stage (Liverpool, WCML via Wigan).

There are also some places that had a direct Birmingham service post-privatisation but no longer have a direct Birmingham service under any operator (Bolton, Swindon, Brighton, Gatwick, Ramsgate etc)

So there's a clear imbalance between north and south. Everything becomes a zero-sum-game. If you are keeping everything simple clock face hourly (which seems necessary on today's modern railway - we can't fit lots of randomly timed paths through New Street.

Some of the services have changed several times - e.g. Virgin settled down to 3tp2h on the Newcastle - Bristol corridor and 3tp2h on the Manchester to Reading corridor, with a bi-hourly Newcastle - Reading service and a bi-hourly Manchester - Bristol service - but at other times there were no Mancehste trains to the South West as 75% of Bristol trains were to/from Newcastle and the other 25% were "WCML via Wigan". Links between places hundreds of miles apart were chopped and changed and the world kept turning.

If there are going to be five long distance trains per hour from one side of Birmingham to the other then some places are going to miss out entirely (e.g. currently Liverpool) whilst other places are limited to just one destination (e.g. Doncaster only has trains towards Reading, Nottingham only has services towards Cardiff).

For example, all Leeds services currently go to Plymouth, all Doncaster services go to Reading/ Southampton, no Yorkshire services go to Coventry or Bournemouth - that's just how it is - it's not because Reading people prefer to go to Doncaster than to Leeds, it's just a case of tying up two paths at Birmingham. I think that some people assume that, because a service links two places, there must be significant demand between two places, rather than just operational convenience

Look at Metrolink; there's no reason for the Oldham services to go to the Airport/ Bury/ Media City, it's just that there are a certain number of paths through Victoria and a certain number of paths through Cornrbrook and a certain number of paths through Piccadilly Gardens - but the number of people doing journeys like Ashton to East Didsbury will be pretty insignificant).

Same with TPE - there's no reason why Scarborough trains go to Liverpool rather than Manchester Airport or terminating in Piccadilly, or Middlesbrough trains go to the Airport rather than Liverpool or terminating at Piccadilly, or Hull trains just terminate at Piccadilly rather than extending to the Airport or Liverpool... it's just that there are long distance five trains per hour through the "core" and that's how the cookie crumbled

BR provided a lot of links, but BR had space on emptier lines to do these things. Like the way that they ran some Newcastle - Birmingham services via both Leeds and Doncaster (nice to have direct links to lots of places, but not very fast for longer distance passengers). But then BR used to do things like running Glasgow - Portsmouth via Liverpool (which is another awkward time penalty but presumably ticked a lots of boxes). We don't have space to do this kind of thing nowadays, we have clock face patterns on most lines so any XC services need to fit in around these - e.g. there's only one path an hour through Leeds at the moment so if you have an hourly service from/via Leeds to Birmingham then it can't really serve Gatwick/ Bournemouth/ Plymouth/ Cardiff - BR tried to maintain all of those links but it isn't feasible (in the way that Manchester Metrolink wouldn't work if you tried to give Oldham an hourly service to the Airport/ East Didsbury/ Eccles/ Trafford Centre etc)

We keep having these threads where people obsess about the links between places hundreds of miles apart, as if there's some huge reason why (e.g.) Leeds needs/ "deserves" a direct hourly service to (e.g.) Plymouth. IMHO the passenger numbers between Edinburgh/ Glasgow/ Newcastle/ Leeds/ Doncaster/ Manchester/ Liverpool etc and Bournemouth/ Plymouth/ Cardiff etc will be so low that it doesn't matter whether the hourly Leeds service ties up with the hourly Bournemouth service or the hourly Plymouth service or the hourly Cardiff service

Long distance journeys are great, but a lot more people do journeys of under ninety minutes - maybe you don't like the idea of an "InterCity" TOC doing something as mundane as Leeds to Sheffield (though these are, erm, cities), and we should skip various intermediate stations, but there's no necessarily going to be additional paths to replace the local links, and you'll just hit the next bottleneck, so your suggestion for avoiding Tamworth/ Burton/ Chesterfield etc will just mean an extra five/ten minutes waiting at Sheffield for the existing path north, whilst inconveniencing people at Tamworth etc.

XC have stated that Leeds - Sheffield is their busiest section (when applying for at least some of the "via Doncaster" services to be diverted via Leeds) - as someone who used to commute on that service etc day, I have no reason to doubt them! But Sheffield commuters like me or Leeds people wanting to use their only link to the Midlands are fighting for seats with longer distance passengers - running the Edinburgh trains via Leeds is a regrettable step, since it means a slower journey for Glasgow/ Edinburgh/ Berwick - Sheffield/ Derby/ Birmingham journeys (twenty minute time penalty) as well as pushing those passengers onto the already-busy Leeds service. Normally, if you've got two trains per hour on a route you try to balance out the passenger numbers (e.g. the Waverley - Falkirk High - Queen Street services generally stop at either Linlithgow *or* Croy, rather than one doing both stops which would mean unbalanced durations leading to unbalanced departure times and unbalanced passenger numbers)

So, do you run both services via Leeds (which would balance journey times to make it half hourly south of Newcastle, but mean all Newcastle/ York - Sheffield/ Derby/ Birmingham journeys are the longer of the two durations - and keep clogging up the ECML north of York - but you'll struggle for paths east of Leeds - maybe you'd have to cut at least one of the TPE services on that section)?

Or run both services via Doncaster (which would mean a half hourly service south of Newcastle and all journeys at the shorter of the two durations, but removing West Yorkshire from the XC map and leaving the West Yorkshire - Sheffield/ Midlands passengers crammed onto a Northern 158?).

Or extend the "via Donny" service to Scotland whilst cutting the "via Leeds" service at Leeds, thus putting all the Edinburgh/ Newcastle passengers on the Doncaster service, freeing up a lot of seats for Leeds passengers (esp as you'll free up around three Voyagers)?

I'd go for the third option - it's not perfect but it removes trains from the sections with too many trains per hour (east end of Leeds, ECML north of York) and puts more seats on the section with too few seats per hour. What's the alternative? Keep cramming long distance passengers through the east end of Leeds and on the busiest bit of the franchise through Wakefield whilst we wait for the eastern leg of HS2 to be built? Well, I admire your optimism...

I often wonder if XC could avoid Sheffield altogether and go via The Barrow Hill Line to Leeds or Doncaster?

I wonder what the time saving/penalty would be for that?

(I genuinely don't know - it's more direct to go straight down the Rother Valley from Chesterfield to Rotherham but I don't think it's a particularly fast alignment - but even if it wasn't, the crawl into/ through/ out of Sheffield Midland must be painfully slow for some longer distance passengers - I'm "lucky" in that I only see one side of it on my journeys)

 

[Glenn1969]

Donny- Scotland is adequately served by LNER though and the Donny- Midlands market surely is small enough to be served with a change at Sheffield. Leeds acts as an intercity rail head for Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, Keighley, Ilkley Harrogate, Skipton, Castleford et all none of whom have direct IC service to anywhere except London which is why I think it should have a better service

 

[daodao]

My original proposal version (which I still think would suffice) was for:
-Plymouth to Edinburgh diverted to operate via Doncaster.
-Reading to Newcastle diverted from Sheffield to Wakefield and Leeds.

I agree with this proposal. The service from SW England to Newcastle and Edinburgh needs to be as fast as possible to compete with air services, and should therefore NOT run via Leeds.

Donny- Scotland is adequately served by LNER though and the Donny- Midlands market surely is small enough to be served with a change at Sheffield. Leeds acts as an intercity rail head for Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, Keighley, Ilkley Harrogate, Skipton, Castleford et all none of whom have direct IC service to anywhere except London which is why I think it should have a better service

I disagree. Leeds already has a TPE service to NE England and Scotland. so removing XC from this route reduces unnecessary service duplication and diesel services running under the wires.

 

[Glenn1969]

It's the West Yorkshire- East and West Midlands and points south direct service that is inadequate

 

[tbtc]

Donny- Scotland is adequately served by LNER though and the Donny- Midlands market surely is small enough to be served with a change at Sheffield. Leeds acts as an intercity rail head for Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, Keighley, Ilkley Harrogate, Skipton, Castleford et all none of whom have direct IC service to anywhere except London which is why I think it should have a better service

It's not about Doncaster - Scotland particularly (although the Scottish services have had fewer and fewer Donny stops over the years, with the York - London "stopper" filling the gap somewhat) - it's about saving the Scottish passengers twenty minutes on their journeys to the Midlands and balancing up the passenger numbers (since the Leeds services are busy enough as it is, so putting the Scottish passengers on the Donny trains would even up the congestion)

Personally I'd classify a 125mph train doing Liverpool - Manchester - Leeds - York - Durham - Newcastle - Edinburgh as being "InterCity", so would argue that Huddersfield does have an InterCity service, but then people one here seem to define it as 'did BR classify it as InterCity or not' (and BR seemed to have a fairly haphazard approach to this) - hence us being stuck with these binary notions of "InterCity" / "not InterCity" - I'd suggest that the TPE service stopping at the six stations listed about was InterCity though

 

[TheBigD]

How close were XC to getting better paths for all the Reading-Newcastle services pre chinavirus?

A couple of them had the better xx28 path ex New Street before the service was largely withdrawn.

 

[Purple Orange]

It's the West Yorkshire- East and West Midlands and points south direct service that is inadequate

If available paths are scarce, what services do you remove in order to improve service provision from West Yorkshire to East/West
Midlands and points south?

 

[The Planner]

How close were XC to getting better paths for all the Reading-Newcastle services pre chinavirus?

A couple of them had the better xx28 path ex New Street before the service was largely withdrawn.

Derby remodelling unlocked a lot of it.

 

[YorksLad12]

As I accidentally started this thread I guess I ought to contribute something more...

I still believe that a 2tph local semi-fast York-Leeds-Sheffield(-Nottingham) would be better, and I'm not in favour of terminating XC at Leeds, for all of the reasons outlined above.

But ultimately this comes down to what XC is for. Franchising has muddied the waters; Manchester-Scotland should be West Coast not TPE but in a non-franchised world it shouldn't matter. Why does XC extend from Edinburgh to Glasgow - isn't that ScotRail?

If the new order looks at things dispassionately then we could well see both XC services running via Leeds, but not necessarily extending to Scotland (from Leeds you could do that via TPE, from York via LNER, from Birmingham via West Coast and from Sheffield... er, potentially via Leeds and the S&C ). That would mean TPE loses one service between Leeds and York... but TRU is being built for four fasts, two semi-fasts and two stoppers through the core. So that would be a circle in need of squaring.

Then there's the "regional" routes. If Nottingham-Cardiff and Nottingham-Birmingham are XC, why isn't (Norwich-)Nottingham-Liverpool?

So my answer to the question as posted in the title would be "no"; but the better question is "What is XC for?" A different thread entirely!

 

[tbtc]

Why does XC extend from Edinburgh to Glasgow - isn't that ScotRail?

ECML HSTs used to run through to/from Glasgow Queen Street (occasionally)

When the ECML was electrified, this was replaced by a bi-hourly Glasgow Central - Motherwell - Edinburgh - Newcastle - Kings Cross service. This was at the time when the Central - Euston service was only every couple of hours most of the day and quite lopsided (southbound in the morning, northbound in the afternoon)

But then (I forget if it was GNER or East Coast) needed more 91s for the increased services further south (Leeds being twice-hourly, plus bi-hourly Newark and York stoppers) and the Central - Motherwell - Newcastle link dumped onto XC instead - not that XC had spare Voyagers but the ECML franchise is more "important" so XC had to pick up the pieces

This is the problem with XC, it's a dumping ground - TPE was a dumping ground when they were expected to take on the WCML services from VT (a service that was once part of XC, but when it went from XC to West Coast the equivalent number of Voyagers transferred across, but when it went from West Coast to TPE the Voyagers were moved to the Chester - Euston service and TPE had to cover the Scottish services with their existing 185 fleet)

Now, the tables have turned, TPE are flush with new trains, enough to run two Newcastle - York - Leeds services per hour, which provides significantly more capacity than XC (rather than when they only ran a single 185 each hour until mid afternoon when the units were required elsewhere), hence my suggestion that Leeds - Newcastle is already pretty well provided for.

 

[Glenn1969]

At the moment there is only one tph running TPE Leeds- Newcastle and the Edinburgh extension is only twice a day. Does anyone know if/when that will change?

 

[Manutd1999]

This thread is a good example of how complex the XC franchise is.

From my point of view, the whole thing depends on 1x key question

"is there enough demand for a 'fast' service from Newcastle/York to Birmingham/Sheffield/Derby?"

If there is, then 1ph should run via Doncaster and 1ph via Leeds. There is no real need to run the Leeds service onto the ECML, as this is better served by TPE. Similarly, if the purpose of the Doncaster service is be a fast SW/NE link, then it should not be calling at Chesterfield/Tamworth/Burton. The Leeds service could pick up these stops, essentially becoming a 'slow' Leeds-Birmingham.

If the demand isn't there, or the ~20 minutes saving doesn't make enough difference, then you might as well send both XC's via Leeds, which is clearly a bigger market than Doncaster. In this case, they would both run to Newcastle and might as well skip-stop some of the smaller towns.

So you have either:
Birmingham - Derby - Sheffield - Doncaster - York - Newcastle
Birmingham - Tamworth - Burton - Derby - Chesterfield - Sheffield - Wakefield - Leeds

or

Birmingham - Burton - Derby - Sheffield - Wakefield - Leeds - York - Darlington - Newcastle
Birmingham - Tamworth - Derby - Chesterfield - Sheffield - Leeds - York - Durham - Newcastle

I would lean towards the first option, but I change my mind everytime I consider it