Summary for those who can't read the pdf for any reason.
No immediate changes to XC
No changes to Northern local services in North East, still 1tph to Morpeth
XC to serve Northallerton hourly and Northern just be aware Bishop Auckland services swap which half of the hour they are on. Newcastle to Morpeth services no longer head to / from Carlisle (though I accept this might have been split already).
Wrong decision regarding TPE in my opinion. Improving connectivity across the northern cities has been reduced in favour of more London bound services and giving preference to smaller, more polluting Voyagers over larger, cleaner IETs. This is simply too London centric. The Tories - levelling down since 1834.
Definitely London Centric
It is hard to figure this out to be honest,
I see the Aberdeen service is at 1600 for the last one, but the normal pattern is seems to be x03. (Like Stirling)
That will be to do with London Peak rather than anything else. (Also 18:00 and 19:00 for Scotland instead of 18:03 and 19:03) Not convinced LNER should be departing at xx03. Key Intercity services departing on memorable times helps to sell journeys.
The TPE services were really a ORCATs raid - I think that is why they are getting cut back. Manchester - Scotland passengers would always go on the WCML so the main losers are Huddersfield - North of Newcastle passengers. If they made Manchester - Edinburgh via WCML hourly the Northern objections would soon go. Yes the Leeds - Edinburgh cut-back to every 30 minutes may upset a few, but XC seems to be able to cope with this demand as it is. I know everyone doesn't want to go to London. I am sure the XC route Doncaster will be preferred, if they get a good path they may be able to shrink the journey Newcastle - Birmingham journey at last.
Also cut due to the service being either Contingent Rights, so last on the graph, or expiration of Access Rights too I guess.
Leeds to Edinburgh would have been in December 2019 timetable one TPE and one XC so surely will now be reduced from 30 minute to 60 minute frequency with TPE withdrawal? I personally would say a better use of capacity depending on train length for a 30 minute service Leeds to Edinburgh and 30 mins London to Edinburgh rather than the extra Newcastle service proposed.
Disappointed by the slightly earlier finish to services from London on a Saturday evening though.
Less southbound services from Edinburgh to London on Sundays though there's still 3 an hour south of Newcastle to London (similar to pre covid)
Will have a proper look at everything later...
The Saturday night problem will always apply due to perceived demand. East Coast tends to be less busy on Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings in my experience but busy Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon.
The Sunday timetable looks weak in terms of number of services from Edinburgh to London but LNER have not helped themselves since going for the 4hr 20min journey time removing many intermediate stops between London and Edinburgh so it has overloaded the remaining trains whilst the fast service, in my experience, is quiet south of York.
LNER are withdrawing their Sunderland service citing: "low passenger numbers since it was introduced by Virgin Trains East Coast" and "Sunderland continuing to have good connectivity with LNER services via Northern Trains and the Tyne and Wear Metro, as well as direct London services operated by Grand Central".
Its too late in the evening currently to be of use but looking at the timetable as proposed why not extend 16:33 Kings Cross to Newcastle service onwards when it arrives at Newcastle at 19:34. The morning train the same being too early, perhaps start the 08:27 Newcastle to Kings Cross back at Sunderland rather than at 05:39 as it is today.
And it will be what GBR wants that will dictate the future service patterns before long.
We should all be concerned if they call the shots - GBR is called Network Rail right now. Watch out for Less evening and early morning trains - more time for blocks which seem more important to NR than running trains.
For me personally now having looked I'm not sure this re-write is worth it. Like others have mentioned I don't understand why intermediate journeys between station pairs has been sacrificed, like Newark to Retford for example, travelling via Doncaster won't be an acceptable route for ticket purposes. Also should we be relying on Open Access Operators to provide franchised stops - look what happened when covid struck, some of the suggested alternatives in the consultation would be withdrawn overnight.
Also looking at the current service the London to Lincoln and the London to York have the same stopping pattern between Newark and London but doesn't on this proposed timetable, why?
At the moment I'm asking myself given the timetable which doesn't look all that great why not just extend the existing York service to Middlesbrough and the London to Leeds services get various extensions to Bradford, Skipton, Huddersfield, Harrogate instead?
Reston which seems to be served by a handful of trains a day perhaps this should have gone to TPE after all (proposed oddly enough) as an excuse to run their service between Edinburgh to Newcastle. One also wonders whether electric stock would helped with Newcastle to Morpeth in terms of timetabling or perhaps a local service between Newcastle and Edinburgh.
