DarloRich
Veteran Member
oh and i forgot to mention that anyone who likes the Voyager is a misguided fool 
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What is wrong with CrossCountry?
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Andrewlong
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And of course is your average voyager train is 4 carriages. Well 3.5 if you take off first class. Well short of the 8 or so carriages in the pre voyager days. it's not a problem until you try and get a seat at Birmingham New Street without a reserved seat.
Having said that my son and I travelled from Reading to Southampton Uni last week on a voyager. The journey was quick and the air con worked well on a warm day. There are also 2 trains per hour each way out of Reading. They are still cramped and I would hate doing Reading to Leeds on one.
Assuming XC is for students and those not wanting to change trains many times ie leisure travellers, I cannot see the franchise holder doing anything to replace the voyager stock. Using mark 3 stock hauled by a class 67 is an alternative to provide extra seats but I don't know what the relative costs are and how many serviceable mark 3's there are about.
Having said that my son and I travelled from Reading to Southampton Uni last week on a voyager. The journey was quick and the air con worked well on a warm day. There are also 2 trains per hour each way out of Reading. They are still cramped and I would hate doing Reading to Leeds on one.
Assuming XC is for students and those not wanting to change trains many times ie leisure travellers, I cannot see the franchise holder doing anything to replace the voyager stock. Using mark 3 stock hauled by a class 67 is an alternative to provide extra seats but I don't know what the relative costs are and how many serviceable mark 3's there are about.
HSTEd
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All WCML XC services are timed for 110mph anyway.
So electric spine would enable them to all be replaced with Class 444 esque trains (assuming they can be made 110mph).
A 4 car Class 220 has ~200 seats and access charges 34.88ppm, it also burns something like 140p of fuel per kilometre. So ~259p/mile.
A 5 car Class 444 has ~334 seats and access charges of 46.68ppm, it however uses only 71.5p of electricity per kilometre, so ~161p/mile.
That is quite a big difference, and when you account for the increased seat count the cost of operating the service drops out at 1.3p/seat.mile and 0.48p/seat.mile respectively.
Which is a ridiculously huge difference. Assuming crewing and maintenance is the same in both cases.
So electric spine would enable them to all be replaced with Class 444 esque trains (assuming they can be made 110mph).
A 4 car Class 220 has ~200 seats and access charges 34.88ppm, it also burns something like 140p of fuel per kilometre. So ~259p/mile.
A 5 car Class 444 has ~334 seats and access charges of 46.68ppm, it however uses only 71.5p of electricity per kilometre, so ~161p/mile.
That is quite a big difference, and when you account for the increased seat count the cost of operating the service drops out at 1.3p/seat.mile and 0.48p/seat.mile respectively.
Which is a ridiculously huge difference. Assuming crewing and maintenance is the same in both cases.
Lot of sense in your posting Andrew.
Two things: as your report is up to date, may we assume the stinking bog syndrome of XC is over? Then, if XC is a sort of megabus (you mention the clientele as students and leisure) why are the fares so expensive and why are impecunious types willing to pay them?
I travelled on XC a few years ago and the bogs (well the coach) stunk and indeed there seemed a lot of single mothers and young people.
It's already well covered in this thread, the trains are already full to bursting.
If the ticket prices were reduced, where are all of these passengers going to fit?
SussexSpotter
Member
My honest opinion is that I think it is all down to the management, and whilst I would agree the fleet is inadequte and not exactly their fault....if you have the wrong people incharge to run a challenging franchise like XC then surely things can only go wrong????
The Guardian did an interview with XC's head of communications last year about the fares and the answers he gave were an absolute joke! See the thread below:
http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=63558
If they had better people to run XC, then maybe....just maybe things would improve!
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AlexS
Established Member
I can come up with a few.
The tickets are extortionately priced even for local journeys - the corridor between Birmingham and Peterborough is I believe one of the most expensive for the distance travelled in the country. I can't specifically blame this on XC as it's been the case for years, however they've done nothing to try and resolve it. This is ably demonstrated with the Nuneaton to Birmingham season ticket debacle of late where comparable tickets are far cheaper. They can't claim to offer a superior service to say London Midland over comparable distances to justify their prices being proportionally so much higher because both operators run class 170 units to a similar specification over the same distances on the more local journeys. I know some journeys are PTE subsidised but not all.
They've introduced the pathetic and confusing afternoon 'not peak, but not off peak' periods whereby 'off peak' tickets are valid, but 'off peak day' tickets are not, which thoroughly confuses the passengers and serves no real purpose other than putting a few pence more in XC's pockets. So much for simple, customer friendly ticketing.
The class 170s are a grubby mess, and are seriously underinvested in - their failure rate over the last 2 weeks has been ridiculous, particularly the HVAC systems. I know the outbased fitters have been banging their heads against the wall over them. Onboard cleaning seems to have been reduced of late as well. They're far too small for many of the services as well - seeing the 0949 off Leicester to Birmingham creaking out wedged to the rafters as a 2 car every day is miserable, particularly as they sell a lot of itenaries for advances to holiday destinations, naturally conveying luggage.
They're the only long distance fleet I know where there are examples (170111-117) that have no bins on them, at all, thanks to their half baked refurbishment.
The timetable is hardly set up for convenience either - the last train east for the fairly significant local market from Leicester is at 2118. As they won't train Leicester crews beyond Syston, they can't do anything like a further out and back to Peterborough to give a later service back to the likes of Melton, which is always popular with people travelling to Leicester for a night out.
One thing I can't criticise with XC though is the staff. Generally speaking they have very friendly, pleasant people working for them and they're brilliant with the customers, both on the ex Central and Virgin side (with the usual fewexceptions you get everywhere).
Andrewlong
Member
I didn't detect any smelly toilets on our journey or they may have been less worse than experienced on my juniper SWT service from Winnersh Triangle to Clapham Junction where they can be 'ripe'.
As to fares, our Southampton trip was achieved with a Network and 16-25 railcards saving 1/3 off price so cost was about £12.85 return each. About a month ago, we travelled to Birmingham Uni for another open day and it cost my about £44 return for 2. I did use railcards and did some ticket splitting to save about £40+ quid.
Lampshade
Established Member
My biggest problem with CrossCountry is the extortionate fares that make splitting almost a necessity.
lukeobrien02
Member
the biggest problem I have is the amount of delays "Due to congestion" i realise that they do jump from line to line but often the delays are upward of 45 minutes and are frustrating if you have connections I try to leave 20 minutes between pre booked connections on long distance services, but if it is a connection from a XC service I will often miss the connection.
Some of the routes are better e.g. Bournemouth to Banbury but I find it all falls apart when you reach the Birmingham area.
As for the voyagers I do not have a problem with them they are clean and conformable. The main issue I have is they're not long enough travelling from Basingstoke to Birmingham you often have to stand at weekends unless you have pre booked a ticket.
Some of the routes are better e.g. Bournemouth to Banbury but I find it all falls apart when you reach the Birmingham area.
As for the voyagers I do not have a problem with them they are clean and conformable. The main issue I have is they're not long enough travelling from Basingstoke to Birmingham you often have to stand at weekends unless you have pre booked a ticket.
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If you were managing the company, what would you do? Your thoughts should reflect the limitations of the franchise with no chance of extra stock and already making a loss on their franchise.
SussexSpotter
Member
Well you would have to get a group of people together first and then debate on it.....but if it were just me on my own there are a few things that spring to mind......
1) Get someone to put together a better XC map than the one they currently have which in my opinion is pretty poor....the Virgin XC one was much better.
2) Make sure every station that is served by XC has at least 1 service per day in both directions or not at all, rather than only one way. A 1 way service with no return is totally pointless and a waste of resources.....why bother????
3) Some have complained on here about the lingering bad smell onboard some of XC's services which is coming from the toilets, well something would definitely need to be done about that.....
4) Not much can be done about the voyager fleet which is unfortunate, but I think better allocation of stock would be something that needs to be looked at. Maybe running the longest distance service between Aberdeen and Penzance as loco hauled rather than running it with a voyager, bringing some loco's out of storage. Then relocate the voyager stock to lengthen some of the most crowded services on the XC network. Arriva Train Wales use loco hauled on some services, and Virgin used to use 47's and MK2's when they held the franchise....so I think loco hauled would need to be looked at again as the next best option.....
5) Sort out the fares....HIGH PRIORITY!....a lot of people seem to be moaning about this on this thread and clearly the current system isn't working!
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The Planner
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Depends if they are doing a deal with another TOC to pick up a stop in their service level commitment, they do it with Lydney.
Short of re-writing the XC timetable to cope with loco hauled you couldn't do it. XC are too journey time centric to entertain that now.
And you'll pay for this how?
The HSTs effectively are the solution you propose, but as we know the leasing arrangements are an impediment on their use.
As for removing Voyagers from Aberdeen - Penzance, I'm not sure what difference 1 train per day would make! Also the passenger loadings outside the core wouldn't justify it. My experience is that a dogbox could cope with the passengers from Aberdeen to Edinburgh and Plymouth to Penzance on that service!
Polarbear
Established Member
One way of improving matters on XC would be to make more use of the HST's. I appreciate that there are issues with the costs of running these, but I really think someone, somewhere needs to bite the bullet.
My idea would be to use the HST's as a "crowd-buster" service, say between Sheffield & Bristol calling at most stations en-route. Off the top of my head, this would take around 3 hours each way so you should be able to utilise say 4 out of the 5 HST's daily during the peak hours. allowing voyager services to miss some of the intermediate stops & (hopefully) relieve some of the overcrowding issues.
Longer term, it may be an idea for some XC services to miss Birmingham New Street altogether. It may sound daft, but as I suggested in my earlier post, I think there are many separate markets that XC tries to serve. Aligned with a "crowd-buster" service, a voyager could travel via the Saltley - Kings Norton direct line, saving time & the usual scrum at New Street on the really busy services.
My idea would be to use the HST's as a "crowd-buster" service, say between Sheffield & Bristol calling at most stations en-route. Off the top of my head, this would take around 3 hours each way so you should be able to utilise say 4 out of the 5 HST's daily during the peak hours. allowing voyager services to miss some of the intermediate stops & (hopefully) relieve some of the overcrowding issues.
Longer term, it may be an idea for some XC services to miss Birmingham New Street altogether. It may sound daft, but as I suggested in my earlier post, I think there are many separate markets that XC tries to serve. Aligned with a "crowd-buster" service, a voyager could travel via the Saltley - Kings Norton direct line, saving time & the usual scrum at New Street on the really busy services.
VTPreston_Tez
Member
Voyagers have faster acceleration so would be more suited to the stoppers. The HSTs can then take on the plentiful amounts of passengers travelling between the bigger stops. Hopefully more passengers will then be inclined to use the faster, more comfortable HSTs.
With the current franchise set up the HST would only be brought into full service if the DFT would pay for the additional cost or specified it in the extension contract for XC (for which the DFT would end up paying anyway). Otherwise we could be in the long haul until the next franchise, and I would assume a large part of the next bid would focus on capacity, electrification and new stock.
How would you service the HST stock? They need to be based up north!
Missing Birmingham New Street!!!! That would be suicide! That's like removing the Victoria stop on the Victoria line as the trains are already full!
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route:oxford
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It's going to happen by default soon enough anyway on some routes...
Once Oxford-MK is open, I can't see route planners recommending using direct services for journeys commencing Oxford & South to Wolverhampton & Manchester
There'll be a time saving of around 30 minutes by changing at Milton Keynes.
Ideally there'll also be a new once a day Glasgow "parliamentary" service running on the electrified route into Paddington for diversionary route knowledge...
I would assume that from Oxford, there is more demand towards Birmingham than Manchester & Wolverhampton! Especially with the amount of commuters on that flow!
If I was managing XC, I would improve the journey time between Birmingham & Manchester!
If I was managing XC, I would improve the journey time between Birmingham & Manchester!
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HSTEd
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All long distance diesel franchise with small loadings on almost over all route-miles
Cost of running diesel addicted Voyagers + other costs > revenue received via ORCATS + other income direct to XC
Essentially all along the route there are local operators who for various reasons extract significant portions of the revenue which might be expected to go to CrossCountry (hence why you can often buy XC advances for a few pence less than the Any Permitted prices). Couple that with frequent services operated by Voyagers and the cost of diesel, and you get a picture of the problem (as I understand it!).
Another question. Could XC not take a coach from some of there 4 coach services creating a 3 coach service to be used on less utilised routes and then use the extra coach to form either a 5 or 6 coach formation to be used on more utilised routes?
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dysonsphere
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I think intergration of systems is a big problem probably requiring a software rewrite.
The Planner
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There is no proof that there are paths yet between Bletchley and MK so everyone is jumping the gun with this.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
They are fully aware of that one and are desperately trying for it, the problem is getting out infront of the northbound Pendo at Stone. Once Norton Bridge is done (possibly sooner if a different timetable tweak is found) then it will chop a chunk of time off that run.
Assuming it's technically possible without spending buckets of cash, precisely which 'less utilized routes' were you proposing to place a train with fewer seats than a 2-car 158 on?
Without travelling the entire XC network each day of the week I wouldn't know,
It was merely a thought I had based on the comments of some on here saying there a some routes more utilised than others.
Extremities? Yes some are quiet. Entire routes? No not throughout their length.
Okay, that answers my question.
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