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Virgin Trains (almost) Non stop service

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thenorthern

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I was looking at Virgin trains timetables from Manchester to London and I happened to find this anomaly,

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P54575/2015/08/28/advanced

Is this for workers who commute from Manchester to London I wonder. Or is it for a different reason.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Sam :D

Yep its for workers who commute to London I think its a continuation of the Mancunian which was a train by the LMS.

The Stockport call is there for any business people who live in the South Manchester area such as Cheadle Hulme to get a fast early morning train to London and the pick up only at Stockport ensure more speed. Despite the speed and non-stopping nature of the service whenever I see it pass Stoke-on-Trent it mostly is moving fresh air about.
 

Mag_seven

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I was looking at Virgin trains timetables from Manchester to London and I happened to find this anomaly,

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/P54575/2015/08/28/advanced

Is this for workers who commute from Manchester to London I wonder. Or is it for a different reason.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Sam :D

Not an anomaly - there are a number of limited stop prime business morning services on both Virgin West and East Coasts. As well as the one you link to there is:

07.00 Lime St to Euston - non stop Runcorn to Euston
07.05 Wolves to Euston - non stop New St to Euston
05.40 Edinburgh to Kings Cross - non stop Newcastle to Kings Cross
06.30 Bradford FS to Kings Cross - non stop Wakefield to Kings Cross
 

dk1

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There is a headline grabbing timing side to trains such as this but also that they are also money spinning 'full fare' trains with a large proportion of Open tickets on board paying as much as ten times that of the lowest price advance fare causing crowding on off peak services. For example back in the 90s some INTERCITY services such as the Scottish Pullman (06:00 Edb-Kgx) stopping only at Newcastle & York arriving at 09:59 reguarlly had loadings of 140-First 85-Standard making it seem poorly loaded yet bringing in much revenue.
 

sprinterguy

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Yeah, there's one headline morning fast train to London from each of Manchester and Birmingham (and Liverpool as well according to the post above). The Birmingham train is the 07:05 from Wolverhampton which runs non stop from Birmingham New Street.

I think that they're a publicity stunt more than anything, so that Virgin Trains can draw attention to the fastest time between each of the two cities, but they do prove popular and useful with the commuting business crowd heading into London in the morning peak. I was very glad for the Birmingham train when I was using it most days to commute to London.

These fast trains are getting slower, however: The Manchester train started out at a running time of 1 hour 58 minutes and is now a round 2 hours, while I thought that the Birmingham train was originally 1 hour 10 minutes, but certainly was 1 hour 12 minutes when I used it and has now gained an extra minute. It rarely arrived on time as it was.
 
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thenorthern

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These fast trains are getting slower, however: The Manchester train started out at a running time of 1 hour 58 minutes and is now a round 2 hours, while I thought that the Birmingham train was originally 1 hour 10 minutes, but certainly was 1 hour 12 minutes when I used it and has now gained an extra minute. It rarely arrived on time as it was.

The Manchester one in particular seems to have particular trouble at Stoke-on-Trent partly because the speed limit through Stoke is rather low and even more so if the preceding Northern and EMT trains are even slightly delayed then it has to slow even more which adds quite a bit of time on.
 

30907

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The West Coast trains are a spinoff of the failure of the original upgrade proposals which would have had trains running at 140mph. Virgin insisted on the headline timings which IIRC were similar to the standard timings originally planned.

The 1630 Euston-Preston-Glasgow is another such train.

Wakefield-London non stop has a much older pedigree, back to Deltic days - and at one time in the HST era there was a morning Sheffield-London that omitted Leicester.
 

Bungle965

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Not an anomaly - there are a number of limited stop prime business morning services on both Virgin West and East Coasts. As well as the one you link to there is:

07.00 Lime St to Euston - non stop Runcorn to Euston
07.05 Wolves to Euston - non stop New St to Euston
05.40 Edinburgh to Kings Cross - non stop Newcastle to Kings Cross
06.30 Bradford FS to Kings Cross - non stop Wakefield to Kings Cross

Thanks for that did not realise that there is so many others.
Sam
 

backontrack

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Not an anomaly - there are a number of limited stop prime business morning services on both Virgin West and East Coasts. As well as the one you link to there is:

07.00 Lime St to Euston - non stop Runcorn to Euston
07.05 Wolves to Euston - non stop New St to Euston
05.40 Edinburgh to Kings Cross - non stop Newcastle to Kings Cross
06.30 Bradford FS to Kings Cross - non stop Wakefield to Kings Cross

You can add the 16:30 Euston-Glasgow Central to that list as well, although in the other direction. It only stops at Preston.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
There are lots of other quirky services too. One of these is the one that serves places missed by the Flying Scotsman. It starts at Berwick, calls at Alnmouth, Morpeth and Newcastle (the Flying Scotsman passes it south of here, I think) then Durham, Darlington and York. It runs non-stop to Retford, and thereafter non-stop to Kings Cross. It is the only service on the ECML that serves Retford but not Doncaster, AFAIK.

I've also always wondered why the Highland Chieftain, when operating on a Sunday southbound service, doesn't call at Dalwhinnie. It calls at every other stop in the HML that day. It's just one of those things that I've wondered about, from time to time.
 

Bald Rick

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These fast trains are getting slower, however: The Manchester train started out at a running time of 1 hour 58 minutes and is now a round 2 hours, while I thought that the Birmingham train was originally 1 hour 10 minutes, but certainly was 1 hour 12 minutes when I used it and has now gained an extra minute. It rarely arrived on time as it was.

The Birmingham train is a direct descendant of the Birmingham Pullman from Intercity / Virgin Pre Pendolino days. 0733 off New Street, one stop (at International), and arrived Euston 0902 for an 89 minute headline time. From 1999 it was retimed to arrive 0905 (92 mins) as it was consistently late - I can state categorically as a commuter on it for nearly 4 years. It did, however, have the benefit of being one of the only Birmingham trains formed of Mark III stock, which was more comfortable and less noisy than the Mark IIs.

So the 73 minutes it is booked now is very definitely an improvement!
 

43074

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Another headline grabbing IC service would be the 07:40 Norwich - Liverpool Street and 17:00 return, the only Anglia InterCity services to run non-stop from Ipswich. Interestingly (to me anyway) there are no such non-stop services on the Great Western, although the First Great Western IEP timetable has regular non-stop runs from Paddington to Bristol Parkway, even off-peak. On EMT, the 07:55 Nottingham to London is the fastest train of the day from Nottingham to London, with a 1 hr 31 minute timing, but there is no corresponding Northbound working.

The below is way off topic but...
Avoided, sadly. Went some years ago, IIRC after a period with a Derby stop added.

For more background on the 'quirky' non-stop MML services: In the early 1980s, many London - Sheffield trains alternated between serving Nottingham or Derby, the Nottingham services being run primarily to serve the then relatively new InterCity parkway station at Alfreton. The time penalty for serving Nottingham was more significant than that to serve Derby, largely because of the reversal that was required. This and the fact that the majority of custom from Alfreton was to Nottingham anyway led BR to focus on running the St Pancras - Sheffield services via Derby, particularly after the HSTs were introduced. Provincial Sheffield - Nottingham (and later Liverpool - Norwich) services replaced them and connected into the InterCity services at Nottingham. The Sheffield - London services have been focussed on Derby ever since.

Since then, National Express MML operated a 1 hr 59 minutes timing from Sheffield to London (07:30 off Sheffield in 1999), non-stop from Chesterfield but this was rarely achieved. Nowadays the 07:29 Sheffield - London St Pancras completes the journey in 2 hr 4 mins making the omission of the Derby stop (which is lucrative in it's own right) virtually pointless.
 

Philip C

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Yep its for workers who commute to London I think its a continuation of the Mancunian which was a train by the LMS.

The Stockport call is there for any business people who live in the South Manchester area such as Cheadle Hulme to get a fast early morning train to London and the pick up only at Stockport ensure more speed. Despite the speed and non-stopping nature of the service whenever I see it pass Stoke-on-Trent it mostly is moving fresh air about.

In 1957 "The Mancunian" used to depart London Road at 0935 and run non-stop to Euston reaching there at 1305 (1320 on Saturdays). A few years later I remember it as having an 0940 departure. The return trip left Euston at 1800 and London Road was reached at 2140SX, 2150SO. Northbound the train called at Wilmslow (2114) and then on Saturdays at Cheadle Hulme (2124) and Stockport (2135). Southbound and, except on Saturdays, northbound it ran via the Styal Line.

I remember it as being the only regular 4-6-2 working to or from London Road, but it may simply be that I didn't see any others. At Primary School it always caused a distraction at about a quarter to ten, whilst coming back it would often interrupt prayers at the end of our Scout Meeting (on a Friday night) as it came round the curve off the Styal Line at Slade Lane Junction. The Scout Hut was gloriously placed at the bottom of the embankment and the Stanier Pacific leaning into the bend and working hard against the friction of reverse curves within no more than 15 yards of it meant there was no alternative other than to wait for the train to pass. I was brought up regarding the Lord's Prayer as having a main line train contribution mid-prayer! This is an arrangement I hope to rediscover beyond the Pearly Gates.

So two comments: (1) The Mancunian wasn't really an early morning express and (2) Whilst only on Saturday evenings the old way of serving Cheadle Hulme had much to commend it!
 

dk1

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Another headline grabbing IC service would be the 07:40 Norwich - Liverpool Street and 17:00 return, the only Anglia InterCity services to run non-stop from Ipswich. Interestingly (to me anyway) there are no such non-stop services on the Great Western.

For more background on the 'quirky' non-stop MML services: In the early 1980s, many London - Sheffield trains alternated between serving Nottingham or Derby, the Nottingham services being run primarily to serve the then relatively new InterCity parkway station at Alfreton. The time penalty for serving Nottingham was more significant than that to serve Derby, largely because of the reversal that was required. This and the fact that the majority of custom from Alfreton was to Nottingham anyway led BR to focus on running the St Pancras - Sheffield services via Derby, particularly after the HSTs were introduced. Provincial Sheffield - Nottingham (and later Liverpool - Norwich) services replaced them and connected into the InterCity services at Nottingham. The Sheffield - London services have been focussed on Derby ever since.

I worked the UP East Anglian this morning & well loaded it is too. We stop additionally at Diss these days as business is to good to ignore it.

As for FGW, Reading again is a massive revenue generator & with the current timetable again, so important. However there will be some regular all day fast trains here when full electric IEP services commence.

As for EMT & the Liverpool-Norwich, some peak trains used to omit Sheffield but call Derby with 2-hourly Blackpool-Nottingham services doing the honours. These changed so much 88-93 until settling more into the patterns we see today.
 

LNW-GW Joint

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"The Master Cutler"

The Master Cutler is a bit of a mongrel.
It started in 1947 as an LNER service from Sheffield Victoria to Marylebone.
In 1958 under BR Eastern it moved to King's Cross via Retford.
Then in 1968 to St Pancras from Sheffield Midland, so mainly an LMR service.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_Cutler_(train)

It would still be faster today via Retford and the ECML.
 

Tetchytyke

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The West Coast trains are a spinoff of the failure of the original upgrade proposals which would have had trains running at 140mph. Virgin insisted on the headline timings which IIRC were similar to the standard timings originally planned.

The 1630 Euston-Preston-Glasgow is another such train.

That explains why that one doesn't stop at Carlisle then.
 

Starmill

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There is kind of one on FGW, the 0844 from Penzance does Plymouth to London calling only at Exeter St Davids and Reading.
 

DarloRich

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headline grabbing 2 hour Manchester to London express aimed at walk up business travelers paying top whack - I bet the earnings even on a fairly empty train are quite good tbh!
 

berneyarms

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First Great Western also has "The Capitals United" (05:58 from Swansea) which links Cardiff Central with Paddington in 1 hour 59 minutes, which after Cardiff Central calls only at Newport, Bristol Parkway and Swindon.
 

HarleyDavidson

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The down Scotsman used to do Kings' Cross to Newcastle non stop both ways for a couple of years in the late 80's.

The up/down Cornish Riviera used to be non stop between Padd & Exeter SD and Plymouth, now it stops extra at Reading & Nabbot.

The up/down Cathedrals Express used to be non stop Oxford - Padd.

Timings have been seriously watered down in the meantime thanks to the passengers charter.
 

Bald Rick

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That explains why that one doesn't stop at Carlisle then.

It crawls through at 10?mph though, which is not much quicker than stopping!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
The down Scotsman used to do Kings' Cross to Newcastle non stop both ways for a couple of years in the late 80's.

I have a picture taken from the station footbridge at York, c1982, of two HSTs passing non-stop on the through roads (as there were then). It was my first time to York - indeed didn't go there again until I started working on the railway more than 10 years later - and didn't realise that it must have been quite a rare event.
 
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