Arriva CrossCountry contract extended through to October 2019

[Bletchleyite]

I don't quite follow the connection there - the routes were moved to VTWC intact, they weren't cut.

They were cut; under XC they operated through Birmingham to southern destinations. At one point one also operated beyond Edinburgh to Aberdeen.

 

[Richard_B]

To all the people complaining the direct award isn't enough, I sympathise with your view but think that any improvement to XC that doesn't double the train length in a lot of places isn't worth doing. All that the direct award being 3% improvement rather than 2% improvement increases overcrowding and brings you back to square 1. But to wait and spend the money on making it better after the rolling stock problems is sorted out, presumably whenever the meridians released is probably a better plan IMO.

Shuffling some services to a different operator really won't make a difference, unless the new management has a magic tree full of 125mph DMUs

 

[najaB]

They were cut; under XC they operated through Birmingham to southern destinations. At one point one also operated beyond Edinburgh to Aberdeen.

As I understand it - and I could be wrong as I wasn't that clued up on train operations back then - operationally they were a Scotland to Birmingham and Birmingham to wherever service.

The Scotland to Birmingham leg went to VTWC and the Birmingham to wherever legs either went to CrossCountry or were dropped.

 

[Bletchleyite]

As I understand it - and I could be wrong as I wasn't that clued up on train operations back then - operationally they were a Scotland to Birmingham and Birmingham to wherever service.

In crewing terms they might well have been, but in operating terms they were not. Passengers had through trains available to them.

It was (back in the day) Manchester-Brum that often stood alone.

 

[glbotu]

Who is the 'local' operator for Newcastle to Aberdeen?

VTEC realistically is the "local" operator for the ECML. It could take on the responsibility of the extra 1tph that runs as a XC service currently (to Edinburgh and extensions).

Or Birmingham to Newcastle via Sheffield? That's why CrossCountry exists - it has the 'problem children' routes.

That's sort of missing the point still. I'm not trying to get all the existing routes and "give" them to some operator. I'm looking at solving the issue of XC's reliability issues. I'm not trying to remove cross country, I'm reducing the potential impact that some of the routes have on the service, by replacing parts of those routes by alternative services that would have a "captive" route (like the ECML, the WCML etc). Is Birmingham - Newcastle such a popular flow that the trains are massively full all the way. Or do we in fact see a large volume of people on Birmingham - Derby, Sheffield - Leeds and York northwards. With the ECML North of York having 5tph to Newcastle at York, terminating the XC services at York would not have a significant interchange penalty on that journey, being more of a mild inconvenience.

And before anyone jumps on this, yes, I do understand that that would still mean the necessity for additional rolling stock for the other operators. I would posit that it would be politically more convenient to tack on a couple more IEPs for each of ICEC and ICGW than it would be to try and do another rolling stock order for ICXC, because those seem to be political poster-children (to mangle your analogy), compared with the myriad of connected lines that make up the XC network.

 

[daikilo]

In crewing terms they might well have been, but in operating terms they were not. Passengers had through trains available to them.

It was (back in the day) Manchester-Brum that often stood alone.

I wasn't involved at the actual privatisation, but shortly before the basic pattern was
1) NW (Liverpool, Mancheter) to ~50% South-Coast/50% West of England.
2) NE (Newcastle, Leeds) to mainly West of England with a few South Coast (Poole)
There was a lot of cross-Platform inter-change at hourly intervals in each direction and the NWs were generally loco swaps at New Street.
It is true that some Manchesters were terminators at New Street when there was no need for a South coast.

As I recall, all of (1) and (2) were 8 or 9 coach Mk1/2.

I cannot recall if any went further north than I quote above.

 

[glbotu]

The issue is that there are lots of journeys between key centres which overlap. To expand on your example you would have:

Penzance - Bristol
Plymouth - Birmingham
Bristol - Leeds
Birmingham - Newcastle
Leeds - Edinburgh
Newcastle - Aberdeen

There is no point at which the route could be 'cut' without removing a direct service between two major destinations. A possible way round this is to have a core X-shaped service with ends at Manchester, Leeds, Reading and Bristol, with extensions beyond the core in one direction only, The current Manchester - Southampton service is an example of this. The only passengers who would miss out are those travelling from beyond the core to a destination beyond the core. By that point you're looking at very long journeys and the number of passengers affected is likely to be small. In fact this is pretty much what we have now, apart from the Edinburgh-Plymouth service which extends beyond the core at both ends. Two XC trains per hour between Newcastle and York does seem excessive given the level of service replicated by other operators. One possible option is:

- Cut Plymouth-Edinburgh back to Leeds
- Extend Reading - Newcastle to Edinburgh
- Extend TP to Edinburgh.

Not perfect, but would free up some units.

Penzance (or more accurately Cornwall) - Bristol could easily be run by GW.

Plymouth - Birmingham is possibly one of the few flows that could pose an issue, but you could probably get away with an interchange at Bristol Temple Meads.

Bristol - Leeds I think is the correct sort of journey to remain as a XC service

Birmingham - Newcastle I think could be split at York, provided you maintain the service frequency North of York.

Leeds - Edinburgh same as above. Additionally, TPE is also looking to run direct trains.

Newcastle - Aberdeen sits nicely with EC, with a possible York - Edinburgh - Extensions service.

 

[najaB]

Newcastle - Aberdeen sits nicely with EC, with a possible York - Edinburgh - Extensions service.

I presume that also includes Glasgow Central?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

As I understand it - and I could be wrong as I wasn't that clued up on train operations back then - operationally they were a Scotland to Birmingham and Birmingham to wherever service.
The Scotland to Birmingham leg went to VTWC and the Birmingham to wherever legs either went to CrossCountry or were dropped.

No, they were fully integrated across Birmingham under VXC.
At the change to AXC, Manchester-Scotland went to TPE, SW/SE to Scotland via the WCML was split at Birmingham and all WCML running beyond Glasgow/Edinburgh was transferred to the AXC ECML services.
The current hourly Birmingham-Warrington-Scotland originally ran from Bristol/Reading or beyond.
AXC introduced a Bristol-Manchester service to go with the existing Bournemouth-Manchester.

The preference for services running into Scotland via the longer ECML route is still going on with the new TPE Liverpool-York-Edinburgh services.
All this because there isn't enough tilting rolling stock for the WCML (while 20-odd tilt-capable 221s are running about on AXC with their tilt systems disabled).

 

[Richard_B]

Penzance (or more accurately Cornwall) - Bristol could easily be run by GW.

Plymouth - Birmingham is possibly one of the few flows that could pose an issue, but you could probably get away with an interchange at Bristol Temple Meads.

Bristol - Leeds I think is the correct sort of journey to remain as a XC service

Birmingham - Newcastle I think could be split at York, provided you maintain the service frequency North of York.

Leeds - Edinburgh same as above. Additionally, TPE is also looking to run direct trains.

Newcastle - Aberdeen sits nicely with EC, with a possible York - Edinburgh - Extensions service.

You can't turn XC services from the north at Bristol without big changes to how GWRs HST services run. The service between Bristol and Exeter (for the first always-hourly HST from London) without the XC trains is terrible, barely more than a 2 car sprinter every 2 hours. bearing in mind quite a few GWR HSTs stop a Plymouth too, you'd have the laughable prospect of changing at Bristol, and Taunton/Exeter, and then again at Plymouth just to get over the Tamar!

The case for cutting back to York is far stronger.

 

[Tetchytyke]

As I understand it - and I could be wrong as I wasn't that clued up on train operations back then - operationally they were a Scotland to Birmingham and Birmingham to wherever service.

The trains were through. XC before Operation Princess was a mess of routes, but even after Operation Princess it tended to be Scotland-WCML/Manchester-Birmingham-South Coast. The first change was splitting the Manchester-Scotland service out into a standalone service, originally with Virgin XC, and then this was switched to TPE with the start of Arriva XC.

I think cutting XC back to York would be a step too far, there's huge through traffic Leeds-Newcastle-Edinburgh. But going beyond Edinburgh does seem a waste of resources, especially as XC only took over the Glasgow Central route because EC thought it a waste of resources too.

 

[NotATrainspott]

I think cutting XC back to York would be a step too far, there's huge through traffic Leeds-Newcastle-Edinburgh. But going beyond Edinburgh does seem a waste of resources, especially as XC only took over the Glasgow Central route because EC thought it a waste of resources too.

XC took over Glasgow via Carstairs because someone had to cover Glasgow to North East England.

It might not be as much of a problem now with the 5-car IEPs/AT300s but current, XC can do a better job of matching demand than the London IC operators. If there's to be 1tph between Glasgow and Newcastle/York for those passengers it's much better as a 4/5 car set than a full-length HST or IC225. The issue obviously with XC is that they don't have the capability to increase capacity in the core (e.g. Bristol to Newcastle) and now the capacity of a single 4-car Voyager is not enough for the extremities.

 

[Class 170101]

Having XC run beyond Plymouth and Edinburgh is a waste of resources.

Services running beyond Plymouth are in marginal time when they would otherwise sit on depot (early and late in the day). The same applies beyond Edinburgh with the exception of the Glasgow services.

So not really a waste I'm afraid.

 

[jayah]

To be fair, they are operating according the franchise specification. If they flouted that it would be understandable to have a good moan about XC but they aren't, so it's difficult to be too critical. I think you'll find that the attainment of profits usually takes precedence over just about everything in most companies !

I quoted from their franchise agreement on the previous page of this thread and they are not delivering on their contractual obligations.

Sadly the incompetent DfT who even itemise the rolling stock in said agreement and produce the passengers standing and PIXC figures by hub and by franchise have either not noticed or do not care they are spending taxpayers money for a service their contractor is not delivering.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I quoted from their franchise agreement on the previous page of this thread and they are not delivering on their contractual obligations.

Sadly the incompetent DfT who even itemise the rolling stock in said agreement and produce the passengers standing and PIXC figures by hub and by franchise have either not noticed or do not care they are spending taxpayers money for a service their contractor is not delivering.

Have you found the franchise agreement for the one just starting?
All I have seen is the DfT announcement which does not give fleet or service details.

 

[Masboroughlad]

Apologies if mentioned earlier.....

In the run up to privatisation, when BR had Train Operating Units (TOU), Cross Country was lumped with Midland Mainline.

Not sure why Midland Cross Country was split or why together in the first place. I guess it may have been centred on Derby???

 

[Kettledrum]

I quoted from their franchise agreement on the previous page of this thread and they are not delivering on their contractual obligations.

Sadly the incompetent DfT who even itemise the rolling stock in said agreement and produce the passengers standing and PIXC figures by hub and by franchise have either not noticed or do not care they are spending taxpayers money for a service their contractor is not delivering.

The paragraphs you referred to were:

"(b) provide passengers with a reasonable expectation of a seat:
(i) on boarding in respect of any Off-Peak Passenger Service; and
(ii) 20 minutes after boarding (or such other time period as the
Secretary of State may stipulate) in respect of any Peak
Passenger Service."

I don't know what figures the DfT has, but these clauses in the agreement would be very difficult to enforce, or even get the evidence to enforce.

I no longer have an expectation of a seat with XC.
I caught the 18.49 from New Street to Nottingham tonight. A 2-car class 170. Why on earth only 2 car? Loads standing or sitting on the floor.

I've no idea how DfT get the data to know whether passengers have seats or not. You'd struggle to even move along the coaches to count how many were standing.

Perhaps I ought to start taking photographs and posting on twitter to raise the profile of the issue, but I know there's bad over-crowding elsewhere too and not enough coaches to cope.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Those "pseudo-XC" regional express services would really be better as part of EMT or LM, who could probably resource them more effectively and flexibly.

The rest of XC needs the commuters taking off it, though the UK fare structure doesn't really, short of compulsory reservation, provide a means of actually doing that. (The German one would by means of the IC fare being higher).

 

[All Line Rover]

The rest of XC needs the commuters taking off it, though the UK fare structure doesn't really, short of compulsory reservation, provide a means of actually doing that. (The German one would by means of the IC fare being higher).

Not very helpful when XC serves markets such as Stoke to Birmingham, Stoke to Manchester, Derby to Birmingham, Cheltenham Spa to Birmingham, Banbury to Reading, etc, none of which could be described as long distance intercity commutes.

 

[Robertj21a]

The paragraphs you referred to were:

"(b) provide passengers with a reasonable expectation of a seat:
(i) on boarding in respect of any Off-Peak Passenger Service; and
(ii) 20 minutes after boarding (or such other time period as the
Secretary of State may stipulate) in respect of any Peak
Passenger Service."

I don't know what figures the DfT has, but these clauses in the agreement would be very difficult to enforce, or even get the evidence to enforce.

I no longer have an expectation of a seat with XC.
I caught the 18.49 from New Street to Nottingham tonight. A 2-car class 170. Why on earth only 2 car? Loads standing or sitting on the floor.

I've no idea how DfT get the data to know whether passengers have seats or not. You'd struggle to even move along the coaches to count how many were standing.

Perhaps I ought to start taking photographs and posting on twitter to raise the profile of the issue, but I know there's bad over-crowding elsewhere too and not enough coaches to cope.

One of the problems with those Birmingham - Leicester/Nottingham services is that quite a lot of passengers only want the first or second stops out of New St. Non stop to Nuneaton might help a bit.

 

[The Planner]

Not sure Warwickshire County Council would be best pleased if you started knocking out Coleshill stops, especially when they stumped up some of the cash to get it built in the first place.

 

[Kettledrum]

Those "pseudo-XC" regional express services would really be better as part of EMT or LM, who could probably resource them more effectively and flexibly.

The rest of XC needs the commuters taking off it, though the UK fare structure doesn't really, short of compulsory reservation, provide a means of actually doing that. (The German one would by means of the IC fare being higher).

I'm not sure the terms "London Midland" and "Resource effectively" go well together, given how many services they have cancelled due to lack of train crew. At least XC doesn't seem to have that problem.

EMT do a good job with the main London to Nottingham and London to Derby/Nottingham services, but the Derby/Stoke route is neglected, with often jam-packed 1 coach trains.

The biggest problem with XC is the chronic lack of rolling stock - something the extended franchise doesn't address sufficiently.

 

[glbotu]

I'm not sure the terms "London Midland" and "Resource effectively" go well together, given how many services they have cancelled due to lack of train crew. At least XC doesn't seem to have that problem.

EMT do a good job with the main London to Nottingham and London to Derby/Nottingham services, but the Derby/Stoke route is neglected, with often jam-packed 1 coach trains.

The biggest problem with XC is the chronic lack of rolling stock - something the extended franchise doesn't address sufficiently.

I mean, yes, I think that we've all noticed this. The reason for suggesting splitting services is to

a) Improve reliability
b) Allow the more "romantic" franchises to take on some of the burden, because XC seems to be the somewhat forgotten intercity franchise, while simultaneously allowing XC to focus on its core routes, rather than large extensions all over the place.

I'm certainly in favour as a whole, of division of labour within the railways (ie: letting intercity franchises deal with intercity routes and regional franchises deal with regional routes). They're almost entirely different modes of operation and business and ICXC is a little different from the other intercity franchises, because it largely doesn't have its own "mainline", (except Birmingham - Derby and Birmingham - Leicester).

 

[Bletchleyite]

The biggest problem with XC is the chronic lack of rolling stock - something the extended franchise doesn't address sufficiently.

Very true. What it really needs is a new fleet of bi-modes, perhaps 7-car Class 800s (with say 1.5 cars of 1st) or 8 or 9-car FLIRTs if those are successful.

Then some Voyagers could be used to make the "pseudo-XC" services a proper length, and the 170s go to another operator who needs them e.g. Northern or Chiltern.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Services running beyond Plymouth are in marginal time when they would otherwise sit on depot (early and late in the day). The same applies beyond Edinburgh with the exception of the Glasgow services.

I'm not sure I completely agree, the morning trains from Dundee and Aberdeen take two Voyagers north out of Edinburgh at exactly the time they'd be more useful heading south in the morning peak.

The Glasgow service is a complete waste of time and resources, which is why East Coast got rid of it as soon as they could.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Remarkable how XC has reverted to being the Cinderella of the railways so soon after Operation Princess.

 

[quantinghome]

Remarkable how XC has reverted to being the Cinderella of the railways so soon after Operation Princess.

The clock struck midnight...

 

[The Ham]

Very true. What it really needs is a new fleet of bi-modes, perhaps 7-car Class 800s (with say 1.5 cars of 1st) or 8 or 9-car FLIRTs if those are successful.

Then some Voyagers could be used to make the "pseudo-XC" services a proper length, and the 170s go to another operator who needs them e.g. Northern or Chiltern.

By just getting all the 222s from EMT, then XC could reform the 22x fleets to form longer units.

A future fleet could look like:
- 7x9 coach trains (formed of 222s to replace the 5 HSTs and pairs of 22x's)
- 21x7 coach trains (formed of either 221s or 222s to replace the 5 coach 221s)
- 22x5 coach trains (formed of 220s to lengthen those 220s)
- a minimum of 7x5 coach trains (new 80x units to replace part of the 220 fleet or any of the 221s due to some 222s being retained by EMT, which coincidentally would be broadly the number of units required to run the Manchester to South Coast services which would have the most under the wire running)

The replacements for the HSTs would be broadly of the same capacity, otherwise all other replacements would be bigger as a 7 coach unit would have circa 350 seats vs 250 (plus 40%) and the 5 coach units would have either 250 or 315 seats vs 200 (plus 25% to 58%).

There would be a lot less need for doubling up of units, which would bring the staff overheads down but there would be a lot of end coaches in store/scrapped.

The number of coaches on lease would be 65 more than currently (421 vs 356) but without the need for the leasing of the class 43's, so lease costs shouldn't be too much more, but with the potential to carry a lot more people.

The track access charges would be higher because of the total number of coaches and due to the higher charges for the 22x's over the Mark 3's, yet there would be significant savings from not needing to run pairs of class 43's with each HST in service.

Therefore although costs would be higher overall it shouldn't be so much that it meant that XC wasn't viable.

The first step would be to buy the new 80x's early in the next franchise and reform all the 220's to be 5 coaches long whilst retaining the HSTs until the 222's can be released.

If EMT were to want to retain some 222s then that would be known (due to be being announced about 5 months before the ITT for the XC franchise) and so extra 80x's could be added into the bid which could allow the lengthening of the 221s to 7 coach units earlier.

 

[ScotTrains]

I'm not sure I completely agree, the morning trains from Dundee and Aberdeen take two Voyagers north out of Edinburgh at exactly the time they'd be more useful heading south in the morning peak.

The Glasgow service is a complete waste of time and resources, which is why East Coast got rid of it as soon as they could.

Why is the Glasgow section a 'complete waste of time'? The XC service is often standing room only leaving Glasgow. It's certainly well used. If anything they need more trains/services on this section. Also if you remove the XC Glasgow leg, then the only regular direct service to Newcastle from Glasgow is on the slow Scotrail train via Dumfries. Perhaps the new TPE services from Edinburgh could be extended to Glasgow instead. TPE already use Corkerhill depot in Glasgow.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Why is the Glasgow section a 'complete waste of time'?

Whenever I've caught it, and the EC predecessor, there's been a handful of people on it.

The reason why it is a waste of time is because it duplicates the Waverley-Queen Street route which is a) quicker and b) in the process of being upgraded to allow more, longer and faster trains to operate on it.

It is quicker to get off at Waverley, wait for the Scotrail express, and go to Queen Street than it is to ride the XC through to Central. Some of the "through" trains sit in Waverley for twenty minutes. It's pointless.

The reason why it is a waste of resources is because it ties up a Voyager unit for nearly three hours, a unit that would be better used elsewhere on the network.

EC binned the route because it swallowed up a 91 for three hours, a 91 they needed elsewhere, and the same applies with XC. When the Queen Street route modernisation is completed I'd bin it.