Virgin Monopoly and old timetables

[Keithk2t]

Nuneaton is to lose almost all its virgin train service in the Dec08 timetable changes. The only thing left is the peak communter services to london in the Morning and back in the Evening plus a few extrame off peak services like the 05:35AM in the morning from Euston.

We have just seen the weekend timetable and that has massive holes. london Midland will provide stopping services but these are more designed for local travel. The south bound trains wait in Northampton for 10 minutes!

London Midland and open access operators are to be prohibited from offering us services via the direct route even though Virgin is not serving us for most of the day. We are chalanging the Moderation of compertition as it is just a to help virgin and not us.

A second tack is we would like to compare the 1 hour 47 min service offered with timetables of the past. We have been told that nuneaton to Euston took as little as 1 hour 32 min in 1938. Does anyone have a copy of old railway timetables from the 1930s or even before?

 

[Phoenix]

This is pretty stupid really that the whole trent valley is being litterally cut off.
Personally I think open access should be allowed on the trent valley route rather than letting all the statio0ns go to waste for the sake of Virgin getting what they want AS PER USUALL.

 

[djw1981]

Nuneaton is to lose almost all its virgin train service in the Dec08 timetable changes. The only thing left is the peak communter services to london in the Morning and back in the Evening plus a few extrame off peak services like the 05:35AM in the morning from Euston.

We have just seen the weekend timetable and that has massive holes. london Midland will provide stopping services but these are more designed for local travel. The south bound trains wait in Northampton for 10 minutes!

London Midland and open access operators are to be prohibited from offering us services via the direct route even though Virgin is not serving us for most of the day. We are chalanging the Moderation of compertition as it is just a to help virgin and not us.

A second tack is we would like to compare the 1 hour 47 min service offered with timetables of the past. We have been told that nuneaton to Euston took as little as 1 hour 32 min in 1938. Does anyone have a copy of old railway timetables from the 1930s or even before?

Your two aims are exclusive though. A faster service may require fewer stops. Thus the 1h32 timing may have been an express. Yes the Nuneaton calling pattern is being cut extensively, but it could be argued Nuneaton was previously overprovided for compared to similar sized and located towns, and the 'cut' has been too severe, but some pruning was required.

 

[Keithk2t]

We have have no southbound virgin trains between 8:45 and 21;03. we have no northbound Virgin trains between 6;40 and 18:13.

the London Midland services are not allowed to take the direct route to euston and have a silly 10 minute wait at Northhampton. Even keeping one train at 10am and one at 4PM would be a great help. with many years of track works most of us have had to drive elsewere at weekends. the daytime service has been removed.

 

[87015]

Euston-Nuneaton generally around 1hr10 with one stop in the early-mid 1980s (100mph timings)

Best off taking the 'rocket' to Cov for a fast from there, or at least hope London Midland are allowed to offer a lower price non-Virgin fare...

 

[90020]

What happened to the Manchester/vice versa Pendolino's stopping at Nuneaton as originally proposed?

 

[yorkie]

Yes, Nuneaton was overprovided given the relatively small population. But, as has previously been pointed out, it is useful for connections.

Rather than try to get the limited-stop Liverpool service to retain the Nuneaton stop, campaigners should focus on getting the LM service improved.

There should be an hourly service to Crewe, with one going to Preston every other hour and the other going to Liverpool every other hour. It should only call at Watford Jn, Milton Keynes, Rugby and then all TV stops, Stafford, Crewe. It should avoid Northampton in order to keep journey times reasonable. It would offer excellent connections (e.g. Nuneaton to Derby could easily be done via Tamworth instead of the slow way via Leicester).

 

[devon_metro]

Yes, Nuneaton was overprovided given the relatively small population. But, as has previously been pointed out, it is useful for connections.

Rather than try to get the limited-stop Liverpool service to retain the Nuneaton stop, campaigners should focus on getting the LM service improved.

There should be an hourly service to Crewe, with one going to Preston every other hour and the other going to Liverpool every other hour. It should only call at Watford Jn, Milton Keynes, Rugby and then all TV stops, Stafford, Crewe. It should avoid Northampton in order to keep journey times reasonable. It would offer excellent connections (e.g. Nuneaton to Derby could easily be done via Tamworth instead of the slow way via Leicester).

If you give a station a good service, how is it fair to virtually irradiate it? Do the Nuneaton services get used?

 

[87015]

If you give a station a good service, how is it fair to virtually irradiate it? Do the Nuneaton services get used?

Were always well used in days of proper traction (and cans and skodas), can't say I've used them since.

PS, any irradiation from failed DRS glow-ex in the area ?

 

[me123]

Personally, I don't see why one train per hour (Manchester is the most likely route) cannot stop at Nuneaton. I can't remember the new TT off the top of my head, but with 3tph to Manchester and the low journey times involved, I'd have thought one extra stop there wouldn't have made much difference; and I'm sure a few other stations are getting better services than they are statistically entitled to.

To virtually eradicate the Nuneaton-London service is crap for the local residents who now have to put up with considerably slower services.

 

[voyagerdude220]

Personally, I don't see why one train per hour (Manchester is the most likely route) cannot stop at Nuneaton.

I'd personally like to see many more stopping at Tamworth. Why?:

A) It would allow me to have a good time spotting at Tamworth, &
B) I wouldn't have to change at New Street
C) I could get on a Pendo, vice 221, but still be able to enjoy a 220/221 ex Tamworth

 

[devon_metro]

Any economical region then?

They aren't going to fit the TT round some FC pax on AP

 

[voyagerdude220]

I should think not

 

[87015]

I'd personally like to see many more stopping at Tamworth. Why?:

A) It would allow me to have a good time spotting at Tamworth, &
B) I wouldn't have to change at New Street
C) I could get on a Pendo, vice 221, but still be able to enjoy a 220/221 ex Tamworth

Would you like a Tamworth Terminator then? Not sure if it signs Pendojunk though

Nuneaton always had more people using WCML services than Tamworth - thought a Preston calling Tamworth every couple of hours was about right myself - after all the pre-2004 timetable only had 30+ years of experience behind it but Virgin obviously know best....

 

[voyagerdude220]

Would you like a Tamworth Terminator then?

It would be nice to re-instate a few Preston terminators, even if they only ran every 2 hours, stopping at Warrington,Crewe,Tamworth,Nuneaton, Watford & Euston. (Or Something like that) - Note that i've ommited Wigan, as it already has 221's & local services- You could probably omit Warrington as well on the 221 basis.

Nuneaton always had more people using WCML services than Tamworth - thought a Preston calling Tamworth every couple of hours was about right myself

Although I don't know how my above proposal would fit into the new timetable.

Add on- VT should stop a few more at Tamworth, to go along with the aim of getting more passengers to change at alternative stations to Birmingham New Street. Especially those who couldn't use Wolverhampton, for stations through to the ECML. Although if the stopping service stopped at Crewe, they could get the Derby service, but that would still be one more change.

 

[A0]

Yes, Nuneaton was overprovided given the relatively small population. But, as has previously been pointed out, it is useful for connections.

Rather than try to get the limited-stop Liverpool service to retain the Nuneaton stop, campaigners should focus on getting the LM service improved.

There should be an hourly service to Crewe, with one going to Preston every other hour and the other going to Liverpool every other hour. It should only call at Watford Jn, Milton Keynes, Rugby and then all TV stops, Stafford, Crewe. It should avoid Northampton in order to keep journey times reasonable. It would offer excellent connections (e.g. Nuneaton to Derby could easily be done via Tamworth instead of the slow way via Leicester).

I'm not sure the comment about Nuneaton being 'useful' for connections really holds water in the context of the OP's remarks.

The complaint seems to be that Nuneaton is losing the fast Virgin service to London. So what are these 'connections' then ?

Coventry - well that will have a fast London service anyway.
Rugby - ditto Coventry
Leicester - EMT already providing a fast-London service and further east on that line users have Peterborough.

Birmingham area users will probably head for Intl or NS anyway.

So Nuneaton's case for Virgin services is pretty weak.

As for the suggestion of taking Northampton out of the London - Crewe LM service - that's a no-no. These are being put on to cover two issues

- the removal of TV locals whilst modernisation took place. And these ran to / from Northampton for a time.

- the removal of Inter City standard services from Northampton.

Essentially going north from Northampton there will be 3tph, 2 to B'ham NS and one to Crewe and that's been in the WCML RUS for a long time.

Also I suspect the fast lines from MK - Rugby will be fully occupied by the various Virgin services.
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This is pretty stupid really that the whole trent valley is being litterally cut off.
Personally I think open access should be allowed on the trent valley route rather than letting all the statio0ns go to waste for the sake of Virgin getting what they want AS PER USUALL.

If the WCML was 'open access' it would be with some fairly significant caveats around stopping patterns. Take a look at the Wrexham service which isn't allowed to make certain stops in the Birmingham area or Grand Central as an example.

You'd end up with key stops e.g. Watford Junc, MKC, Stafford or Crewe being disallowed.

Can you honestly say a service which ended up with a stopping pattern which omitted these stops would be a success ?

The stops would probably end up being something like:

Hemel Hempstead, Bletchley, Nuneaton, Atherstone, Tamworth Stone, Kidsgrove, Liverpool LS.

Somewhere along the line, I can't see too many punters wanting to travel from Hemel to Tamworth on a daily basis - can you ?

 

[thefab444]

Wasn't the FNW Rochdale/Manchester - London service a bit like that? It was fast from Tamworth to Euston anyway.

 

[yorkie]

The complaint seems to be that Nuneaton is losing the fast Virgin service to London. So what are these 'connections' then ?

People from Nuneaton want the fast London service. A few might want the fast Liverpool service.

One of the points they use to argue that they should retain a fast service is that other people, not from Nuneaton, do journeys such as Leicester-North West stations, and changing at Nuneaton is better than going up to Manchester and back out again along the Hope Valley.

 

[Dreadnought]

Coventry - well that will have a fast London service anyway.
Rugby - ditto Coventry

Rugby may have a fast service to London but it loses its regular fast services to Preston and beyond as VT will only serve Birmingham or its an all stations to Crewe via Stoke LM service.