Idea: Could GTR's Great Northern services be extended to Doncaster?

The Scotland-London trains which stop at Newark are effectively slow trains which were extended from Newcastle a few years ago. Given that the following train nearly catches up with them by London the entire reason for their existence is to provide direct connectivity between points north and the various intermediate stops, and from the intermediate stops to London.

As to the intervals between trains, there are another 3 or 4 long distance trains each way an hour due to go into the timetable in the next few years, and given the huge number of level crossings which have to open for at least a bit of time you really couldn't fit many more trains in. Certainly if you could the trains you'd want to fit in wouldn't be ones that spent their time accelerating to less than line speed and stopped in platforms on the running line.

pt_mad said:

I bet there were many people during the project 110 on the West Coast who said LM could never run a Desiro up the fast line at 100 or 110. However, it's been done. Hourly.

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Not saying it's impossible on the ECML, however the WCML doesn't have anything like the amount of interweaving of stopping patterns and services like the south end of the ECML does, not helped of course by the Digswell-Woolmer Green section of course.

Even in the off-peak, there are currently 4x GN services per hour which need to use the fast lines between, at least, Woolmer Green and Finsbury Park, and a further 2x which sometimes do - either booked or at the discretion of the signallers. The Thameslink Programme intends to increase the aforementioned 4tph to 6tph.

The WCML has the big benefit that there is a virtually completely separate railway for the all-stations service from Euston to Watford Junction. ECML doesn't have this - the Welwyn and Hertford services largely monopolise the slow lines, meaning most faster services have to use the fast lines for at least part of their journey.

It seems the whole basis of this thread is the OPs belief that the ECML will receive its equivalent of the VHF timetable (which didn't even coincide with 390 introduction) when the Azumas are introduced which AFAIK will not be the case. As many have pointed out the ECML and WCML are very different

MCR247 said:

It seems the whole basis of this thread is the OPs belief that the ECML will receive its equivalent of the VHF timetable (which didn't even coincide with 390 introduction) when the Azumas are introduced which AFAIK will not be the case. As many have pointed out the ECML and WCML are very different

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It sort of does though. 8 long distance high speed paths per hour.

MCR247 said:

It seems the whole basis of this thread is the OPs belief that the ECML will receive its equivalent of the VHF timetable (which didn't even coincide with 390 introduction) when the Azumas are introduced which AFAIK will not be the case. As many have pointed out the ECML and WCML are very different

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Yes something like that probably could be a possibility at some point. And how is it known whether or not this is the overall aim of the DFT for the East Coast partnership or not? It could be. I don't mean 10 fast departures an hour. But possibly a clock face timetable with all Edinburgh services going fast to say Peterborough and York or fast to Doncaster or York that type of thing, in the future.

It's fairly likely they're going to want to reduce journey times to key cities and not add more stops on the existing intercity services as a post earlier suggested. As most new franchises seem to have commitments to reduce journey times, and the MML are reducing some stops in the not so distant future.

bramling said:

Not saying it's impossible on the ECML, however the WCML doesn't have anything like the amount of interweaving of stopping patterns and services like the south end of the ECML does, not helped of course by the Digswell-Woolmer Green section of course.

Even in the off-peak, there are currently 4x GN services per hour which need to use the fast lines between, at least, Woolmer Green and Finsbury Park, and a further 2x which sometimes do - either booked or at the discretion of the signallers. The Thameslink Programme intends to increase the aforementioned 4tph to 6tph.

The WCML has the big benefit that there is a virtually completely separate railway for the all-stations service from Euston to Watford Junction. ECML doesn't have this - the Welwyn and Hertford services largely monopolise the slow lines, meaning most faster services have to use the fast lines for at least part of their journey.

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A lot of info there, thanks.

It has been suggested a few posts up that another 4 ish departures an hour will run on the ECML at some point. Which suggests there are paths available.

Another alternative could be to extend the existing Great Northern service from Peterborough to Doncaster. And use that path south of Peterborough. And perhaps reduce some stops on that if it was needed to. Although either way connectivity would be greatly improved even with the same stops. Especially north of Peterborough.

And as I suggested earlier, there's already a class 90 set which runs at 110mph so why would 125mph be a necessity? A 110mph EMU should be adequate even if it were to run on the fast line and be a semi fast service. It could be pulled in at Retford or Newark for an overtake move if necessary, as part of the timings.

pt_mad said:

A lot of info there, thanks.

It has been suggested a few posts up that another 4 ish departures an hour will run on the ECML at some point. Which suggests there are paths available.

Another alternative could be to extend the existing Great Northern service from Peterborough to Doncaster. And use that path south of Peterborough. And perhaps reduce some stops on that if it was needed to. Although either way connectivity would be greatly improved even with the same stops. Especially north of Peterborough.

And as I suggested earlier, there's already a class 90 set which runs at 110mph so why would 125mph be a necessity? A 110mph EMU should be adequate even if it were to run on the fast line.

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It wouldn’t be feasible to use a GN path at peak times - many of the fast Peterborough services are already maximum length and leave with most seats taken. One suspects these services will increase in popularity over time as they will offer a more comfortable journey experience compared to class 700s.

Off-peak in theory both Peterborough GN paths are now handed to Thameslink, and call at too many stations to provide a useful London service from places further north - unless you’re thinking of there being some competition on price which I don’t see being desirable on a route with constrained capacity.

I’m not sure I see the merit in extending GN beyond Peterborough. The current VTEC London to Newark and York services effectively fulfil the same function, but offering Intercity stock instead of commuter. It’s already easy to feed into these at Stevenage or Peterborough. There would be some benefit in extending semi-fast GN services beyond Peterborough simply to give more through opportunities perhaps from places like Welwyn or Hitchin, but you’re still only offering Grantham, Newark, Retford and Doncaster, and at the cost of 100 or 110mph trains. You also have the issue of where the GN trains would be maintained or at least stabled at the country end.

Sure, journeys like Hitchin to Lincoln or Hatfield to Grimsby would become possible with one change instead of two, but are we really talking about a massive market?

The WAGN proposal cropped up at a time when the ball game was rather different. Not so many trains overall on the route, a structure which was more encouraging of competition, some brand new high-quality commuter trains many of which stood idle during the daytime, and perhaps a bit of a gap in the market. I think things have moved on and we now have basically the same thing but with VTEC instead. Find a way of stopping one IEP an hour at St Neots and Huntingdon and you basically have the same thing, but arguably better!

Yes very good point about stop at St Noets and Huntington with a York service and you have the same thing.

But the thing is, I can't see it happening, especially with the full introduction of the Azumas, and especially during the next franchise. As the general trend across the country seems to be to reduce stops not add them on. There's even talk on the GWR about 2 x hourly GWR services skipping Reading of all places. So I think it's perfectly feasible to think that Newark could be removed from the Edinburgh that stops there, as an example.

And as I say, if stops are ever reduced on Kings X to Edinburgh's due to want of speeding up London to Scotland's capital, then you would surely need something else to stop at Newark instead otherwise they would just lose stops.

And once the Azumas are fully introduced, are they removing the class 90 workings?

In the world of a bi-modes it via Lincoln and take over the EMT services.

Seriously however as many people have pointed out the 2 track section is a killer.

If you take Grantham as the starting point the only passing point is Retford. If you look at the current timetable the York train was the following x.30 service close by Doncaster. If the x.20 path is used and the York stopper waits at Retford to be overtaken i am sure it will disrupt the 0.30 path.

As for demand. The car parking charges at the ECML stations kills it off. But then as other have said the local service was very infrequent in the past because of skip stopping. Don’t see many getting off at Grantham from the Newark starters.

A0wen said:

But it's an interesting question whether there is the demand for a regular 'semi-fast' type service from York to London - giving the intermediate stations a regular service - the evidence from the WCML TV stations suggests potentially there is.

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There may be demand and potential for travel between intermediate stations on the ECML but even if a regular stopping service was introduced I didn’t think it would be used because of high fares and parking charges. There’s a huge difference in the cheapest off peak day return fares for local journeys between stations on the Trent Valley section of the WCML and similar distance journeys on the ECML from stations between Peterborough and Doncaster.

Lichfield to Nuneaton - £6.90
Tamworth to Stafford - £6.40
Nuneaton to Stafford - £7.20
Atherstone to Rugely - £6.50

Newark to Retford - £12.10
Retford to Grantham - £23.60
Grantham to Peterborough - £16.60
Newark to Grantham - £9.50
Newark to Doncaster - £23.30

ashworth said:

There may be demand and potential for travel between intermediate stations on the ECML but even if a regular stopping service was introduced I didn’t think it would be used because of high fares and parking charges. There’s a huge difference in the cheapest off peak day return fares for local journeys between stations on the Trent Valley section of the WCML and similar distance journeys on the ECML from stations between Peterborough and Doncaster.

Lichfield to Nuneaton - £6.90
Tamworth to Stafford - £6.40
Nuneaton to Stafford - £7.20
Atherstone to Rugely - £6.50

Newark to Retford - £12.10
Retford to Grantham - £23.60
Grantham to Peterborough - £16.60
Newark to Grantham - £9.50
Newark to Doncaster - £23.30

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Although surely prices like that are suppressing demand.