London to Glasgow Non-Stop

[ABB125]

Thanks - I use Windows, so I'm not sure if there's an equivalent

 

[hexagon789]

First part of the run 'dissection' - the TSR at Carstairs was anticipated to impact the run less than it did. It cost about 90 seconds apparently - what are the chances Network Rail can solve that one by next week?

 

[notlob.divad]

According to the tweets the OHLE did affect the train as they felt it wasn't at line speed going through the affected area

But from the updated timings refered to above, it appears to have gained 30s on its scheduled time through Stafford. -1/2 at Colwich and -1 at Norton Bridge. Now whether the schedule reflects line speed is obviously debatable.

Looking again at the updated timings, there seemed to be a bigger loss through Carlisle, (1 1/4 up to 1 1/4 down which would be 2 1/2 mins if accurate). Any idea what happened there?

 

[Statto]

It’s 400miles, there’s always some maintenance somewhere. Also lots of freight and a couple of sleepers in the way.

It could go ahead before the sleepers are due to depart from Euston, well the Glasgow sleeper anyway, think 10pm departure could well miss the sleepers & freight

 

[Horizon22]

Or just one or 2 issues, OHLE damage at Stafford just before the train went through which hindered the attempt, then going through Carstairs, i think it can be done without those issues & another attempt next week.

There's no guarantee there won't be another, new issue next week of course!

 

[jfollows]

It could have done it if it wasn't for a couple of issues, seems it had to slow down at Stafford for OHLE & speed & at Carstairs[not sure what the speed limit is through Carstairs for expresses, seemed to have to go slower than normal line speed], plus it failed by only 21 seconds, it is possible to do, needs a clear run with no issues such as OHLE.

Wonder if it's better trying an overnight run, one time if there's no maintenance taking place?

Carstairs is 90mph from before Carstairs South Junction (73m00ch), then 95mph past the station (73m35ch to 74m23ch) whence 100mph until past Lanark Junction.
Carstairs Station is at 73m49ch.

 

[Statto]

There's no guarantee there won't be another, new issue next week of course!

Of course but it was good fun following it though.

Carstairs is 90mph from before Carstairs South Junction (73m00ch), then 95mph past the station (73m35ch to 74m23ch) whence 100mph until past Lanark Junction.
Carstairs Station is at 73m49ch.

Cheers

 

[zwk500]

It could go ahead before the sleepers are due to depart from Euston, well the Glasgow sleeper anyway, think 10pm departure could well miss the sleepers & freight

Might need to be earlier than that to miss the 2-track south of Rugby.

 

[SansHache]

The scheduled time for today's run was 3 hours 53 minutes according to RTT so the train actually arrived 1.12 seconds late, not bad over 401 miles.
Unfortunately the APT record is 3 hours 52 minutes and 40 seconds so the train would have had to arrive ahead of schedule to beat it. I suspect the approach control into the platforms at Glasgow thwarted the attempt in the last mile.

 

[hexagon789]

Interesting point raised, as much as this was a record attempt - Avanti apparently have aspirations to follow suit with LNER and speed up the regular London-Glasgow timing by cutting stops from the hourly fasts. A staff member mentioned these aspirations - the fasts would call at only Preston and Carlisle mirroring LNER calling at only York and Newcastle to Edinburgh. No suggestion of the running time for that though.

 

[Trackman]

There was I believe a run where an HST was specially authorised 125mph on the WCML in some places and that was before even 110mph was permitted.

Well thank you for posted that as no-one believes me and I was on the train (if it's the same on). Now there's a story. Maybe for another thread...

FAILURE is confirmed! A time of 3 hours, 53 minutes and 1.12 Seconds.

I'll be rooting for the class 370 next week, not that I dislike 390's but at the time 370's were a big thing and I had a soft spot for them.

 

[hexagon789]

Well thank you for posted that as no-one believes me and I was on the train (if it's the same on). Now there's a story. Maybe for another thread...

No problem, there is a photo on Flickr of said train with details in the caption to that effect but my details originate actually from Modern Railways magazine. I believe the run was in 1982 but it might have been 1981, will need to review sources.

 

[Statto]

Might need to be earlier than that to miss the 2-track south of Rugby.

It could depart Euston 22.15/22.20 & pass the Highland sleeper around Crewe as the sleeper is at Crewe around 23.50, looking at the pathing, there's an AWC to Manchester at 22.00 next AWC is at 22.30 Wolves which use the FL, other departures are on the SL or DC, & no ECS movements timed around then either

 

[Watershed]

First part of the run 'dissection' - the TSR at Carstairs was anticipated to impact the run less than it did. It cost about 90 seconds apparently - what are the chances Network Rail can solve that one by next week?

Roughly zero. That will have to wait until Carstairs is renewed!

 

[Failed Unit]

Interesting point raised, as much as this was a record attempt - Avanti apparently have aspirations to follow suit with LNER and speed up the regular London-Glasgow timing by cutting stops from the hourly fasts. A staff member mentioned these aspirations - the fasts would call at only Preston and Carlisle mirroring LNER calling at only York and Newcastle to Edinburgh. No suggestion of the running time for that though.

I would guess it would also be around 4h10. I remember back in BR days a number of services were timed do it in 3h59 between London and Edinburgh, I even rode some that did. Basically if you got through York and Newcastle ontime you were fine. The railway is lot more busy now, getting to York in 1h40 is easy, but getting onto the platform isn't. I expect WCML will have the same issues that are prevent LNER from going for a 4 hour service (which should be possible with the Azuma) 2 many trains getting in the way.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Interesting point raised, as much as this was a record attempt - Avanti apparently have aspirations to follow suit with LNER and speed up the regular London-Glasgow timing by cutting stops from the hourly fasts. A staff member mentioned these aspirations - the fasts would call at only Preston and Carlisle mirroring LNER calling at only York and Newcastle to Edinburgh. No suggestion of the running time for that though.

That was the plan for a long time, from Virgin days, as the NR WCML RUS describes.
But it was contingent on extra services running to pick up the missing stops (plus Crewe and maybe Rugby).
The Norton Bridge enhancements were part of that plan, freeing up paths south of Crewe.
But the DfT never let Virgin expand the fleet, and Avanti has chosen to deploy its new trains on an extra Liverpool service instead.
So we are left with a handful of Blackpool services which don't quite fit the bill (the Alliance/GA Open Access plans muddied the waters as well).
I think getting rid of diesels hauling freight over Shap and Beattock came into it too (no progress there ).
It's what might happen with HS2 though.

 

[Carlisle]

Carstairs is 90mph from before Carstairs South Junction (73m00ch), then 95mph past the station (73m35ch to 74m23ch) whence 100mph until past Lanark Junction.
Carstairs Station is at 73m49ch.

There’s been various TSRs around that area for well over a year at least, Good luck for next week .

 

[jfollows]

Interesting point raised, as much as this was a record attempt - Avanti apparently have aspirations to follow suit with LNER and speed up the regular London-Glasgow timing by cutting stops from the hourly fasts. A staff member mentioned these aspirations - the fasts would call at only Preston and Carlisle mirroring LNER calling at only York and Newcastle to Edinburgh. No suggestion of the running time for that though.

Looking at the 2014 working timetable, when 1S82 16:30 Euston-Glasgow only called at Preston, 1S82 took 1h38m between passing Crewe and passing Gretna Junction. The following hour's service, 1S90 17:30 Euston-Glasgow which called at Warrington, Wigan, Preston, Lancaster, Oxenholme and Carlisle, took 1h57m for the same distance.

So you'd probably save 15 minutes with stops at Preston and Carlisle only.

EDIT More accurately, comparing the pass-to-pass times between Crewe and Penrith for 1S82 and 1S90, there's 17 minutes' difference between calling at Preston only versus Warrington, Wigan, Preston, Lancaster & Oxenholme.

 

[Bald Rick]

It could depart Euston 22.15/22.20 & pass the Highland sleeper around Crewe as the sleeper is at Crewe around 23.50, looking at the pathing, there's an AWC to Manchester at 22.00 next AWC is at 22.30 Wolves which use the FL, other departures are on the SL or DC, & no ECS movements timed around then either

Two track railway starts 2230.

Besides as said (a few times now), there’s lots of freight in the way, with critical journey times, and not enough places to loop it.

And another thing, why would you want to do it at night? It’s a PR thing, and PR things generally happen in the day. Today shows how you can path it as a one off (or two off).

 

[hexagon789]

Roughly zero. That will have to wait until Carstairs is renewed!

Oh I pretty much knew that was the case but one can always dream!

That was the plan for a long time, from Virgin days, as the NR WCML RUS describes.
But it was contingent on extra services running to pick up the missing stops (plus Crewe and maybe Rugby).
The Norton Bridge enhancements were part of that plan, freeing up paths south of Crewe.
But the DfT never let Virgin expand the fleet, and Avanti has chosen to deploy its new trains on an extra Liverpool service instead.
So we are left with a handful of Blackpool services which don't quite fit the bill (the Alliance/GA Open Access plans muddied the waters as well).
I think getting rid of diesels hauling freight over Shap and Beattock came into it too (no progress there ).
It's what might happen with HS2 though.

They seemed to suggest it was in the short term pipeline but perhaps they picked up on the plans slightly wrongly?

I would guess it would also be around 4h10. I remember back in BR days a number of services were timed do it in 3h59 between London and Edinburgh, I even rode some that did. Basically if you got through York and Newcastle ontime you were fine. The railway is lot more busy now, getting to York in 1h40 is easy, but getting onto the platform isn't. I expect WCML will have the same issues that are prevent LNER from going for a 4 hour service (which should be possible with the Azuma) 2 many trains getting in the way.

4h08 was what the Preston only limited stop was timed for iirc, so perhaps 4h13 for the Carlisle stop and a bit of contingency.

GNER also operated a 3h59 London/Edinburgh service each way in the late-1990s and again breifly in the early 2000s but timekeeping was so-so. BR operated 2 each way but punctuality was about 40% on average.

 

[Dave W]

But from the updated timings refered to above, it appears to have gained 30s on its scheduled time through Stafford. -1/2 at Colwich and -1 at Norton Bridge. Now whether the schedule reflects line speed is obviously debatable.

Looking again at the updated timings, there seemed to be a bigger loss through Carlisle, (1 1/4 up to 1 1/4 down which would be 2 1/2 mins if accurate). Any idea what happened there?

I'm not sure anything did - it was bang on time in the Penrith area and back to bang on time by Gretna - I wonder if the timings around Carlisle were left pretty vague?

 

[hexagon789]

Looking at the 2014 working timetable, when 1S82 16:30 Euston-Glasgow only called at Preston, 1S82 took 1h38m between passing Crewe and passing Gretna Junction. The following hour's service, 1S90 17:30 Euston-Glasgow which called at Warrington, Wigan, Preston, Lancaster, Oxenholme and Carlisle, took 1h57m for the same distance.

So almost 4 mins extra for each additional stop.

I'm not sure anything did - it was bang on time in the Penrith area and back to bang on time by Gretna - I wonder if the timings around Carlisle were left pretty vague?

I think it was the TSR at Carstairs that killed it.

 

[Dave W]

I think it was the TSR at Carstairs that killed it.

Certainly feels that way - perhaps this has already been answered but it seems that the Pendolino was simply not timed for an average speed as high as the APT managed through Scotland - what changed in this regard?

 

[Bald Rick]

Certainly feels that way - perhaps this has already been answered but it seems that the Pendolino was simply not timed for an average speed as high as the APT managed through Scotland - what changed in this regard?

It wasn’t allowed to break the speed limits!

 

[MadCommuter]

For those saying it was RT at certain locations, it left Euston 1 min early.

 

[Bald Rick]

For those saying it was RT at certain locations, it left Euston 1 min early.

A few seconds early, not 1 minute. The vagaries of train reporting.

 

[Failed Unit]

Looking at the 2014 working timetable, when 1S82 16:30 Euston-Glasgow only called at Preston, 1S82 took 1h38m between passing Crewe and passing Gretna Junction. The following hour's service, 1S90 17:30 Euston-Glasgow which called at Warrington, Wigan, Preston, Lancaster, Oxenholme and Carlisle, took 1h57m for the same distance.

So you'd probably save 15 minutes with stops at Preston and Carlisle only.

The old 1630 London - Glasgow used to crawl through Carlisle (as the 0540 Edinburgh - London does). I didn't use the former often but when I did, I wondered if the Carlisle stop could be done without impacting the end to end. We used to crawl between Motherwell and Glasgow for other services, so if it stops perhaps it would have just caught them up closer to Glasgow (or totally failed as another train would be in its path instead)

 

[cle]

Surely it is better for attacking the air market to have hourly services of Preston > X Call > Carlisle > Glasgow at a steady 4h15, vs one tenuous 4am 4h05m timing and the rest closest to 4h30.

The issue is whether future Blackpool services are enough to serve Warrington, Wigan and the Lancs/Lakes services - given more are slated for Liverpool too. Side thought - could the new Liverpool services be pathed via Warrington and cover that flow off, at least?

I would suggest they don't need many calls between themselves, due to the Birmingham and Manchester (& Liverpool) -> Scotland services which act for local flows.

 

[hexagon789]

Certainly feels that way - perhaps this has already been answered but it seems that the Pendolino was simply not timed for an average speed as high as the APT managed through Scotland - what changed in this regard?

Some of the EPS speeds are lower than the APT tilt speeds - APT 115 through Carstairs for instance, the limit is much lower today.

It wasn’t allowed to break the speed limits!

Some of the tilt speeds were higher back then and the APT-P did not really break the speed limits - it did not exceed the 125mph ceiling by much more than 5mph.

 

[Bald Rick]

I wondered if the Carlisle stop could be done without impacting the end to end.

It’s 20mph through Carlisle, so a stop with a 2 minute dwell time will cost 2’30”.