thenorthern said:
Additional calls will also be added at Rugby, Nuneaton, Tamworth and Lichfield Trent Valley on some other services but I can't remember which ones.
I wasn't aware of the additional calls at Rugby. I have looked them up and they are very bizarre.
Northbound, the only additional service is the 12:10 Euston to Chester which has Rugby added as a calling point. This extends the journey time to Crewe and Chester by 3 minutes. [For the record, I'd like to see all xx:10 Euston to Chester services call at Rugby, because Rugby presently has a poor service to/from Crewe and a s**t service to/from stations north thereof.]
At Crewe this breaks the connection with the 13:59 to Winsford and Hartford (the connection becomes 9 minutes: the minimum connection time at Crewe is 10 minutes), but this connection can still be made by catching the 12:07 Euston to Liverpool instead, which lengthens the connection time at Crewe to over 15 minutes (which is the better option anyway: leave Euston 3 minutes earlier and have a considerably better chance of making the connection at Crewe).
At Chester, the connection with the 14:19 to Wrexham, Ruabon, Chirk and Gobowen is broken (becoming 3 minutes instead of 6 minutes: the minimum connection time at Chester is 5 minutes). However, as the Arriva Trains Wales departures from Chester to Wrexham, Ruabon, Chirk and Gobowen alternate between departing Chester at xx:19 (which is a tight connection with any train from Euston) and xx:30 (which provides a safe, but not excessively lengthy, connection with any train from Euston), it is understandable that Virgin might consider two-hourly journey opportunities from Euston to Wrexham, Ruabon, Chirk and Gobowen to be acceptable, and to leave it up to Arriva to provide better connections at Chester if hourly journey opportunities are desired.
Calling the 12:10 Euston to Chester, and only the 12:10 Euston to Chester, additionally at Rugby is bizarre because the 12:03 Euston to Birmingham, which calls at Rugby, remains unchanged, maintaining the clock-face timetable on the Euston to Birmingham route (which is a good thing!).
Southbound, the only additional service is the 10:40 Glasgow to Euston which has Rugby added as a calling point (as the only intermediate calling point between Warrington and Euston): arriving in Rugby at 14:23 and departing at 14:24. This is another bizarre change because the hourly Birmingham to Euston service which calls at Rugby currently arrives in Rugby at 14:22 and departs at 14:23, and from May will continue to arrive at 14:22 but will depart at 14:26, extending the arrival time into Euston by 1 minute. So the only additional southbound service Rugby is getting is one that will depart at the same time as the existing hourly service, with the existing hourly service retimed to depart 2 minutes later!
Has anyone any idea what Virgin is playing at here?
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snail said:
I think the phrase I'm looking for is "Are you being serious?"
I suspect it is simply an oversight on Virgin's part. They did something similar a few years ago with some of the xx:40 Euston to Manchester services, which were timed to depart
and arrive at Crewe at xx:11 (which is not in keeping with Cheshire East council's advertisements that the journey time from Euston is 90 minutes; it also broke a couple of connections at Crewe). Virgin fixed this quickly after they were notified (i.e. arrive xx:10, depart xx:11).
Having journey planners display journey opportunities involving multiple trains on Europe's "flagship" and "most frequent" rail route isn't ideal. Of course it isn't sensible to travel via Warrington: you'll most likely miss the connection!