Why have TPE extended some trains beyond Newcastle to Edinburgh?

[Brissle Girl]

I do question why TP needed to extend to Edinburgh other than as a rather massive ORCATS raid. Apart from Liverpool all the major cities served already have direct services to the city, with Manchester via the West Coast route being noticeably quicker than via the East Coast.

 

[hwl]

I do question why TP needed to extend to Edinburgh other than as a rather massive ORCATS raid. Apart from Liverpool all the major cities served already have direct services to the city, with Manchester via the West Coast route being noticeably quicker than via the East Coast.

Not enough capacity on the northern ECML provided by EC/VTEC/LNER and certainly nothing on the Leeds - York and further north axis, this is about Leeds - Edinburgh/Newcastle etc.. Given how advance fares pricing operates this lack of capacity enables/d the EC operator to lift prices when for a lot of the journey the train is comparatively empty.
Hence TPE and First East Coast are flooding the northern ECML with capacity which is genuinely good for both their passengers and LNER / XC in ticket pricing terms (for advances at least).

 

[Brissle Girl]

Not enough capacity on the northern ECML provided by EC/VTEC/LNER and certainly nothing on the Leeds - York and further north axis, this is about Leeds - Edinburgh/Newcastle etc.

I’m genuinely puzzled here. There are 2 full length tph from York to Edinburgh and in addition an hourly XC service from Leeds to Edinburgh. So hardly “certainly nothing”.

 

[geoffk]

Hence TPE and First East Coast are flooding the northern ECML with capacity which is genuinely good for both their passengers and LNER / XC in ticket pricing terms (for advances at least).

It's not "genuinely good" for passengers who want better local services and find there is no capacity for them. In a rational railway you wouldn't have more than two trains an hour between Newcastle and Edinburgh and three, maybe four, between York and Newcastle. Of course, none of them would have just four or five coaches.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Plus the upcoming First East Coast service (London-Edinburgh), making 5tph north of Newcastle in some hours.
Meanwhile the West Coast (Avanti/TPE, 3.3tph between them) still can't solve its balance problem between services to Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Glasgow remains over-served and Edinburgh under-served.

 

[SuperNova]

I do question why TP needed to extend to Edinburgh other than as a rather massive ORCATS raid. Apart from Liverpool all the major cities served already have direct services to the city, with Manchester via the West Coast route being noticeably quicker than via the East Coast.

1) It is in the Franchise Agreement
2) The need to get to Craigentinny so 802's can get maintenance.

 

[hwl]

I’m genuinely puzzled here. There are 2 full length tph from York to Edinburgh and in addition an hourly XC service from Leeds to Edinburgh. So hardly “certainly nothing”.

... provided by EC/VTEC/LNER. TPE and XC are not LNER!
Some of the medium distance flows Doncaster/Leeds -Edinburgh at certain times (not just peaks) can be quite large. Both DfT in the TP franchise planning and First with the Open Access operator recognised this.
This should help relieve XC especially for those going beyond Edinburgh.

 

[hwl]

2) The need to get to Craigentinny so 802's can get maintenance.

Prefaced with Hitachi @ Doncaster can't do everything hence some need to go to Edinburgh

 

[Class83]

It does seem more for operational convenience than passenger convenience, Liverpool-Edinburgh is still faster changing at Wigan. As mentioned all other combinations already have numerous services.

 

[Scotrail314209]

Plus the upcoming First East Coast service (London-Edinburgh), making 5tph north of Newcastle in some hours.
Meanwhile the West Coast (Avanti/TPE, 3.3tph between them) still can't solve its balance problem between services to Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Glasgow remains over-served and Edinburgh under-served.

Glasgow certainly isn't over-served. Most services heading south from Glasgow are normally very busy, particularly in mid-morning. I do agree about Edinburgh however, the Avanti services are normally full at weekends heading south from Edinburgh.

 

[geoffk]

Plus the upcoming First East Coast service (London-Edinburgh), making 5tph north of Newcastle in some hours.
Meanwhile the West Coast (Avanti/TPE, 3.3tph between them) still can't solve its balance problem between services to Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Glasgow remains over-served and Edinburgh under-served.

How is Edinburgh under-served? It has twice as many trains from London as Glasgow. I'm not counting the Avanti trains which go via Birmingham.

 

[Iskra]

It provides Huddersfield with a new direct link to Edinburgh.
It relieves the incredibly overcrowded XC Leeds-Edinburgh services and should provide some fare competition.
It relieves the incredibly overcrowded Manchester/Huddersfield/Leeds- Newcastle services.
On the rest of the ECML it's more capacity and fare competition.

 

[EastisECML]

It's not "genuinely good" for passengers who want better local services and find there is no capacity for them. In a rational railway you wouldn't have more than two trains an hour between Newcastle and Edinburgh and three, maybe four, between York and Newcastle. Of course, none of them would have just four or five coaches.

It seems like overkill for fast services leading to further supression of local services. With better organisation I think there would only need to be one non-stop service from Newcastle to Edinburgh every hour and a semi-fast calling at all the stations with full length platforms (Morpeth, Alnmouth, Berwick & Dunbar). And at both ends of the line a couple of local stoppers every hour from Edinburgh to Berwick and from Newcastle to Alnmouth.

From York to Newcastle every hour:

2 all stations (York - Thirsk - Northallerton - Yarm - Thornaby - Middlesbrough - Redcar Central / Stockton - Durham - Chester le Street - Newcastle)
2 semi fasts (York - Darlington - Durham - Chester le Street - Newcastle)
2 fast (York - Darlington - Newcastle)

The misuse of the mainline through Chester le Street (approx 25,000 population) and Cramlington (30,000) to ensure those towns barely have a service is very backwards for a railway that should be desperate to attract more passengers.

 

[SuperNova]

It seems like overkill for fast services leading to further supression of local services. With better organisation I think there would only need to be one non-stop service from Newcastle to Edinburgh every hour and a semi-fast calling at all the stations with full length platforms (Morpeth, Alnmouth, Berwick & Dunbar). And at both ends of the line a couple of local stoppers every hour from Edinburgh to Berwick and from Newcastle to Alnmouth.

From York to Newcastle every hour:

2 all stations (York - Thirsk - Northallerton - Yarm - Thornaby - Middlesbrough - Redcar Central / Stockton - Durham - Chester le Street - Newcastle)
2 semi fasts (York - Darlington - Durham - Chester le Street - Newcastle)
2 fast (York - Darlington - Newcastle)

The misuse of the mainline through Chester le Street (approx 25,000 population) and Cramlington (30,000) to ensure those towns barely have a service is very backwards for a railway that should be desperate to attract more passengers.

Northern were supposed to be running an hourly service at Chester-le-Street from December 19 that never materialised due to lack of rolling stock. As for north of Newcastle, I'm led to believe that there's the possibility for TPE to pick up more stops.

 

[tbtc]

The misuse of the mainline through Chester le Street (approx 25,000 population) and Cramlington (30,000) to ensure those towns barely have a service is very backwards for a railway that should be desperate to attract more passengers.

Agreed - the obsession with competing long distance services is a backwards move.

Great if you want some cheaper fares for jaunts out (and will then complain about TOCs requiring higher subsidy, because they aren't taking as much in revenue as they are engaged in a race to the bottom for the cheapest fares).

The finite number of paths on the ECML between York and Edinburgh are being badly used, with four coach XC services following five coach TPE services (three short trains from Leeds to Newcastle between them), meaning no space for some large places to get a better service (and poor services between local service pairs, e.g. in Northumbria).

I'm not convinced that there's a significant market for "Huddersfield to Edinburgh" passengers, I'm not convinced that TPE need an hourly service to Edinburgh just because of the operational convenience of a depot there - there are a lot of reasons cooked up to try to justify this retrospectively.

But IMHO, TPE and XC both have capacity problems on their respective "cores" (e.g. Leeds to Manchester, York to Bristol) without throwing several units at regular Edinburgh services all for the sake of that sweet sweet ORCATS pie.

For example, I keep seeing people saying that it'd be great to have more HSTs for XC because every additional HST would mean replacing a four coach Voyager with a five coach Voyager and replacing a five coach Voyager with a double up four car set etc etc... but people forget that there's the best part of *ten* Voyagers north of York for most of the day - if only half of these were used in the XC "core" then we've had a lot more seats on the busiest section through Birmingham (and LNER could pick up any slack on the ECML)

I appreciate the idea that running all of these other trains north of York will "receive" capacity on XC, but the busiest section on the XC network is south of York (and they'd be better being able to use more Voyagers south of York, instead of other TOCs running more services north of York alongside the existing XC ones).

 

[Purple Orange]

If something had to give north of Newcastle (I’m not sure why it is an issue to be honest), I’d sooner see the XC services terminated at Newcastle. TPE is a far superior service these days and as has been said, XC needs capacity further south. I’d also terminate all XC routes at Reading and Bristol too, with those stations being interchange stations for Devon, Cornwall and Hampshire respectively.

 

[markymark2000]

For example, I keep seeing people saying that it'd be great to have more HSTs for XC because every additional HST would mean replacing a four coach Voyager with a five coach Voyager and replacing a five coach Voyager with a double up four car set etc etc... but people forget that there's the best part of *ten* Voyagers north of York for most of the day - if only half of these were used in the XC "core" then we've had a lot more seats on the busiest section through Birmingham (and LNER could pick up any slack on the ECML)

I think if anything, I would take XC out of Edinburgh (pax can use the Scotrail or LNER services). That admittedly only saves 1 voyager but it's better than nothing.

North of Newcastle, it depends on where the passenger flows are. Anywhere south of Newcastle is quicker to use Avanti and change at Birmingham. If TPE had more 802s, I would then suggest them extending their MIA-NCL route up to Edinburgh as that would make up for the loss of XC on much of the route and it would vastly reduce 'diesels under wires' (well, if the 802s can use electric all the way from York to Edinburgh)

 

[43074]

Agreed - the obsession with competing long distance services is a backwards move.

Great if you want some cheaper fares for jaunts out (and will then complain about TOCs requiring higher subsidy, because they aren't taking as much in revenue as they are engaged in a race to the bottom for the cheapest fares).

The finite number of paths on the ECML between York and Edinburgh are being badly used, with four coach XC services following five coach TPE services (three short trains from Leeds to Newcastle between them), meaning no space for some large places to get a better service (and poor services between local service pairs, e.g. in Northumbria).

I'm not convinced that there's a significant market for "Huddersfield to Edinburgh" passengers, I'm not convinced that TPE need an hourly service to Edinburgh just because of the operational convenience of a depot there - there are a lot of reasons cooked up to try to justify this retrospectively.

But IMHO, TPE and XC both have capacity problems on their respective "cores" (e.g. Leeds to Manchester, York to Bristol) without throwing several units at regular Edinburgh services all for the sake of that sweet sweet ORCATS pie.

For example, I keep seeing people saying that it'd be great to have more HSTs for XC because every additional HST would mean replacing a four coach Voyager with a five coach Voyager and replacing a five coach Voyager with a double up four car set etc etc... but people forget that there's the best part of *ten* Voyagers north of York for most of the day - if only half of these were used in the XC "core" then we've had a lot more seats on the busiest section through Birmingham (and LNER could pick up any slack on the ECML)

I appreciate the idea that running all of these other trains north of York will "receive" capacity on XC, but the busiest section on the XC network is south of York (and they'd be better being able to use more Voyagers south of York, instead of other TOCs running more services north of York alongside the existing XC ones).

Well even the LNER services North of York suffer from overcrowding at times so there's definitely demand there, in terms of XC the two services serve different markets anyway - that via Doncaster is more for Newcastle/York to Birmingham being about 20 mins faster than the service via Leeds, and the service via Leeds primarily serves the Leeds - Newcastle/Edinburgh and Leeds - Midlands and South West markets, and has quite high passenger turnover at Leeds itself.

In your ideal world no two places more than about 50 miles apart would get direct trains anyway so it's a good job you're not involved in service development/timetable strategy isn't it

 

[EastisECML]

Agreed - the obsession with competing long distance services is a backwards move.

Great if you want some cheaper fares for jaunts out (and will then complain about TOCs requiring higher subsidy, because they aren't taking as much in revenue as they are engaged in a race to the bottom for the cheapest fares).

The finite number of paths on the ECML between York and Edinburgh are being badly used, with four coach XC services following five coach TPE services (three short trains from Leeds to Newcastle between them), meaning no space for some large places to get a better service (and poor services between local service pairs, e.g. in Northumbria).

I'm not convinced that there's a significant market for "Huddersfield to Edinburgh" passengers, I'm not convinced that TPE need an hourly service to Edinburgh just because of the operational convenience of a depot there - there are a lot of reasons cooked up to try to justify this retrospectively.

But IMHO, TPE and XC both have capacity problems on their respective "cores" (e.g. Leeds to Manchester, York to Bristol) without throwing several units at regular Edinburgh services all for the sake of that sweet sweet ORCATS pie.

For example, I keep seeing people saying that it'd be great to have more HSTs for XC because every additional HST would mean replacing a four coach Voyager with a five coach Voyager and replacing a five coach Voyager with a double up four car set etc etc... but people forget that there's the best part of *ten* Voyagers north of York for most of the day - if only half of these were used in the XC "core" then we've had a lot more seats on the busiest section through Birmingham (and LNER could pick up any slack on the ECML)

I appreciate the idea that running all of these other trains north of York will "receive" capacity on XC, but the busiest section on the XC network is south of York (and they'd be better being able to use more Voyagers south of York, instead of other TOCs running more services north of York alongside the existing XC ones).

Those 4-5 car trains are a waste, I think we'd be better off with less but longer trains north of York.

Northern were supposed to be running an hourly service at Chester-le-Street from December 19 that never materialised due to lack of rolling stock. As for north of Newcastle, I'm led to believe that there's the possibility for TPE to pick up more stops.

I think they're going to be better off lengthening the platforms at Chester-le-Street to take full size inter city services. And alternate some IC services from calling at three of Northallerton/Darlington/Durham/Chester-le-Street.

Well even the LNER services North of York suffer from overcrowding at times so there's definitely demand there, in terms of XC the two services serve different markets anyway - that via Doncaster is more for Newcastle/York to Birmingham being about 20 mins faster than the service via Leeds, and the service via Leeds primarily serves the Leeds - Newcastle/Edinburgh and Leeds - Midlands and South West markets, and has quite high passenger turnover at Leeds itself.

In your ideal world no two places more than about 50 miles apart would get direct trains anyway so it's a good job you're not involved in service development/timetable strategy isn't it

Would it not be easier to cut back that XC service via Leeds into a Bristol - Leeds train and add an extra TPE service to Newcastle and Edinburgh? Or even just double up units on the TPE services?

 

[JonathanH]

Would it not be easier to cut back that XC service via Leeds into a Bristol - Leeds train and add an extra TPE service to Newcastle and Edinburgh? Or even just double up units on the TPE services?

Doubling up TPE services formed of the Nova fleet isn't going to work because of platform lengths (and of course the fleet isn't large enough).

The problem with turning XC at Leeds is platform capacity and turnaround times. They arrive from the south around xx00 and depart South at xx11 which wouldn't be long enough for a robust reversal. Similar at York.

 

[Wharfe106]

I do question why TP needed to extend to Edinburgh other than as a rather massive ORCATS raid. Apart from Liverpool all the major cities served already have direct services to the city, with Manchester via the West Coast route being noticeably quicker than via the East Coast.

But franchised operations (and indeed Open access even more so) aren't allowed to make "Massive ORCATS raids", the Dft tightly controls the revenue of an established operator against such competition so as not to jeopardise, at least in theory, the TOC's ability to keep to its premium/subsidy profile. A track access application for anew route would not be allowed, even if it was "policy" if the revenue extraction was forecast to exceed a set figure.

Liverpool-Leeds-Edinburgh is, as the first responder said, a franchise commitment, part of the spec, and, if nothing else, it's Scottish Government policy for more Anglo-Scots services, and 'Scotland' has to formally approve any such cross-border proposals.

 

[Glenn1969]

XC through Leeds is massively overcrowded for most of the day. They want to go to 2 per hour as far as I know but DfT insisted on one train continuing to serve Doncaster. I would say that they would welcome the TPE Leeds-Edinburgh train which takes pressure of them on a key market through one of the North's busiest stations

 

[Wharfe106]

XC through Leeds is massively overcrowded for most of the day. They want to go to 2 per hour as far as I know but DfT insisted on one train continuing to serve Doncaster. I would say that they would welcome the TPE Leeds-Edinburgh train which takes pressure of them on a key market through one of the North's busiest stations

You have slightly the wrong end of the stick, train operators don't want to do anything, they have a very comprehensive and tightly drawn contract to follow, and no reason at all to have any ambition. Two trains per hour on the Sheffield Leeds York axis is favoured by the regional bodies for example, but is stymied by lack of paths. And in the recent consultation for the now potponed XC franchise competition, the DfT suggested terminating the northbound XC services at either Leeds or York as a possible option.

 

[DarloRich]

I think they're going to be better off lengthening the platforms at Chester-le-Street to take full size inter city services. And alternate some IC services from calling at three of Northallerton/Darlington/Durham/Chester-le-Street.

I don't. Chester should be served by local service only. It is, a best, a weak commuter town. I wonder how many people travel towards Sunderland/Washington for work rather than Newcastle.

Durham does a great deal of student business.

Northallerton is smaller but has much more money and does a decent London trade, especially since GC turned up. It doesn't need quite as many IC trains but does need good trains to York where many people work.

Darlo needs all trains, if only so i can get to the match.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

How is Edinburgh under-served? It has twice as many trains from London as Glasgow. I'm not counting the Avanti trains which go via Birmingham.

That's the whole point - I was talking about West Coast services.
It's the way trains alternate destinations that causes the imbalance.

 

[EastisECML]

I don't. Chester should be served by local service only. It is, a best, a weak commuter town. I wonder how many people travel towards Sunderland/Washington for work rather than Newcastle.

Durham does a great deal of student business.

Northallerton is smaller but has much more money and does a decent London trade, especially since GC turned up. It doesn't need quite as many IC trains but does need good trains to York where many people work.

Darlo needs all trains, if only so i can get to the match.

I agree Chester-le-Street should be served by local services, but there isn't much of one. Given its location it should have four services per hour in both directions. And if the number of IC services is going to supress local services, then they'll have to call there instead. I wonder if passing loops from Durham station to Chester-le-Street viaduct would allow for more locals?

p.s Darlington supporter I take it?

 

[tbtc]

The railway does seem to go in cycles.

For a while, the plan was rationalisation, one TOC per London terminus, splitting long established services to make supposedly "neater" franchises (e.g. Wales & Borders) - keep it simple, stupid.

But now, things are going the other way. e.g. whilst it makes sense to have a second Scarborough - York service per hour, I can't see the point in giving it to Northern (creating a second TOC on that line).

So we have a situation where TPE are being stretched into new markets (ECML north of Newcastle, Liverpool to Wigan) but then being backfilled by Northern taking a presence on TPE routes.

It'll go back in five/ten years time, and someone will decide that it'd be simpler to have just one TOC running north of Newcastle, and we go round and round...

Well even the LNER services North of York suffer from overcrowding at times so there's definitely demand there, in terms of XC the two services serve different markets anyway - that via Doncaster is more for Newcastle/York to Birmingham being about 20 mins faster than the service via Leeds, and the service via Leeds primarily serves the Leeds - Newcastle/Edinburgh and Leeds - Midlands and South West markets, and has quite high passenger turnover at Leeds itself.

In your ideal world no two places more than about 50 miles apart would get direct trains anyway so it's a good job you're not involved in service development/timetable strategy isn't it

As you've said yourself, the majority of passengers on the "via Leeds" service seem to get off/on at Leeds, so chopping the service there wouldn't inconvenience most passengers (and the passengers travelling from stations other than Wakefield would still have the faster "via Doncaster" journey) - there's two TPE services per hour from Leeds to Newcastle (hourly to Edinburgh), so removing the XC service north of Leeds would only be going back to the situation passengers were in before TPE doubled their Newcastle services.

Leeds would retain its hourly service to the Midlands, so really the only inconvenience would be Wakefield passengers heading to York/ Newcastle/ Edinburgh (who I'm sure exist but I'd put the needs of people crammed into Voyagers south of Wakefield above the need for ten Voyagers at a time being north of Leeds).

Those 4-5 car trains are a waste, I think we'd be better off with less but longer trains north of York

Agreed

Doubling up TPE services formed of the Nova fleet isn't going to work because of platform lengths (and of course the fleet isn't large enough)

There's a production line at Newton Aycliffe that'll be looking for work fairly shortly...

 

[Killingworth]

Agreed - the obsession with competing long distance services is a backwards move.

Great if you want some cheaper fares for jaunts out (and will then complain about TOCs requiring higher subsidy, because they aren't taking as much in revenue as they are engaged in a race to the bottom for the cheapest fares).

The finite number of paths on the ECML between York and Edinburgh are being badly used, with four coach XC services following five coach TPE services (three short trains from Leeds to Newcastle between them), meaning no space for some large places to get a better service (and poor services between local service pairs, e.g. in Northumbria).

I'm not convinced that there's a significant market for "Huddersfield to Edinburgh" passengers, I'm not convinced that TPE need an hourly service to Edinburgh just because of the operational convenience of a depot there - there are a lot of reasons cooked up to try to justify this retrospectively.

But IMHO, TPE and XC both have capacity problems on their respective "cores" (e.g. Leeds to Manchester, York to Bristol) without throwing several units at regular Edinburgh services all for the sake of that sweet sweet ORCATS pie.

For example, I keep seeing people saying that it'd be great to have more HSTs for XC because every additional HST would mean replacing a four coach Voyager with a five coach Voyager and replacing a five coach Voyager with a double up four car set etc etc... but people forget that there's the best part of *ten* Voyagers north of York for most of the day - if only half of these were used in the XC "core" then we've had a lot more seats on the busiest section through Birmingham (and LNER could pick up any slack on the ECML)

I appreciate the idea that running all of these other trains north of York will "receive" capacity on XC, but the busiest section on the XC network is south of York (and they'd be better being able to use more Voyagers south of York, instead of other TOCs running more services north of York alongside the existing XC ones).

Last month I travelled on XC between Newcastle and Alnmouth. In both directions they were full enough for some to choose to.stand. I've travelled from Alnmouth to Edinburgh on similarly full trains. Obviously every service isn't full but they aren't as empty as some may image.

 

[Purple Orange]

Last month I travelled on XC between Newcastle and Alnmouth. In both directions they were full enough for some to choose to.stand. I've travelled from Alnmouth to Edinburgh on similarly full trains. Obviously every service isn't full but they aren't as empty as some may image.

Yes, I read comments on here and the ‘carrying fresh air’ argument comes up frequently without any evidence to support the assertion, but it is used to claim that services in certain cities or regions are not justified, while the poster considers other cities or regions to be more deserving.

Unrelated, but equally confusing to me is the defence some people make for mistakes made by customer facing railway staff when there is simply no defence at all, or when some people suggest that the standard of a particular service should be downgraded to ‘regional express’ from IC, which is oddly levelled at Brum to Manc a lot. Finally ‘regional express’ means absolutely nothing to people in the real world - it is either a commuter standard train or a long distance intercity standard train, of which the former has a greater variation in quality.

Rant over

 

[Iskra]

Agreed - the obsession with competing long distance services is a backwards move.

Great if you want some cheaper fares for jaunts out (and will then complain about TOCs requiring higher subsidy, because they aren't taking as much in revenue as they are engaged in a race to the bottom for the cheapest fares).

The finite number of paths on the ECML between York and Edinburgh are being badly used, with four coach XC services following five coach TPE services (three short trains from Leeds to Newcastle between them), meaning no space for some large places to get a better service (and poor services between local service pairs, e.g. in Northumbria).

I'm not convinced that there's a significant market for "Huddersfield to Edinburgh" passengers, I'm not convinced that TPE need an hourly service to Edinburgh just because of the operational convenience of a depot there - there are a lot of reasons cooked up to try to justify this retrospectively.

But IMHO, TPE and XC both have capacity problems on their respective "cores" (e.g. Leeds to Manchester, York to Bristol) without throwing several units at regular Edinburgh services all for the sake of that sweet sweet ORCATS pie.

For example, I keep seeing people saying that it'd be great to have more HSTs for XC because every additional HST would mean replacing a four coach Voyager with a five coach Voyager and replacing a five coach Voyager with a double up four car set etc etc... but people forget that there's the best part of *ten* Voyagers north of York for most of the day - if only half of these were used in the XC "core" then we've had a lot more seats on the busiest section through Birmingham (and LNER could pick up any slack on the ECML)

I appreciate the idea that running all of these other trains north of York will "receive" capacity on XC, but the busiest section on the XC network is south of York (and they'd be better being able to use more Voyagers south of York, instead of other TOCs running more services north of York alongside the existing XC ones).

Huddersfield to Edinburgh is just a convenient bi-product. It's mainly about the Leeds-Edinburgh market and ORCATS. There is clearly demand, so I'm glad that it is being catered for.