Class 170101
Established Member
- Joined
- 1 Mar 2014
- Messages
- 7,963
Stansted is in trouble as an airport. Three reasons:
1) A lot of its traffic was to/from Eastern Europe, which was transient labour and settled immigrants returning to see family and friends (and vice versa). Obviously, that market is reducing post Brexit.
2) it was trying to make much of being ‘the only London airport with spare capacity’ (which rather ignored Luton and Southend), and trying to do deals with transatlantic and Middle East airlines at cut price rates. Post Covid that opportunity has gone.
3) Luton, specifically the £200m+ it has invested in the DART. Suddenly Luton will be half an hour from central London (St Pancras), well under an hour from most of zone 1, with little pfaff. This will change the equation for people with a choice between the two.
I’d be surprised if Stansted sees its 2019 passenger numbers again any time this decade.
With the propensity of Brits to travel I think the 28.1m 2019 passenger figures returning will depend upon post covid restrictions and whether or not governments of all countries and the airlines make travel as a similar an experience as pre-covid 2020.
Infrastructure will also play its part. Stansted and Luton both have capacity on their current runways unlike Heathrow and I can't see 3rd Runway being built anytime soon especially as there seems to be a reluctance to support / build Heathrow Western and Southern Access by the private sector and limited public finance and heavy public debts currently.
I believe XC have been terminating at Cambridge for some of Covid 19 period.Now there's alternative services on the Cambridge to Stansted section I must say I agree there seems to be a good case for ditching XC on this section. This service does seem like a throwover from the time when this was the only service to Stansted from the north. Presumably there's space at Cambridge to accommodate the extra terminating services? Fitting in an extra tph to make Birmingham - Cambridge 2tph would seem to be starting to push things though.
XC have wanted to up the frequency by extending the Leicester terminator through to Cambridge for many years down but has always been refused pending the upgrade of Ely North Jcn. This can eventually operate along with the other service operating through to the airport as now & a win win for all.
Not as much room on Platforms 6 and 7 as you think.Would extending the second train from Leicester to Peterborough be feasible?
20 minutes at Cambridge isn't unreasonable I'd say but I must admit I can't believe that 8 minutes at New Street is ever acceptable. Pathing at Ely North is probably ok from Cambridge to Peterborough but the level crossings seems to be an issue that being said the 20:08/20:12 Norwich to Nottingham service was agreed.Given the current timetable, curtailing the Birmingham-Stansted at Cambridge would save the grand total of 1 unit, with a 50+ minute turnaround time at Cambridge.
To extend the Birmingham-Leicester through to Cambridge requires 4 units, 3 if you're feeling brave and want to go for 20 minute turnarounds at Cambridge alongside the 8 minute turnaround at Birmingham for the current xx14 arrival from Leicester to form the xx22 departure to Anglia.
And good luck getting the extra paths through Ely North Jn, fitting around the existing freight paths, and the mitigating level crossings risks etc etc...
Perhaps but then the question has to be asked should 3 car 170s be upgraded to 4 car Class 755s or similar but in a way carbon emissions I don't think should see a service curtailed. Under that argument the service should stop at Ely and not serve Cambridge.Platform 5 and 6 are pretty lightly used. XC went in there when they temporarily stopped running to Stansted (save for a few early late marginal time services) during Covid.
In the world of de-carbonisation, sending a diesel service past its key traffic destination duplicating an electric service is questionable at best.
(North of) Cambridge to Stansted is not the big flow relative to London.There certainly is a market for a 2tph Cambridge-Stansted service (which is what is really being served, but that is of course never as sexy as a long distance through train basically inherited from Regional Railways).
But having one of these originate from New Street and the other from Norwich just results in the service being uneven for Cambridge passengers. I'd argue that does not "work well".
Last edited: