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Department for Transport launches CrossCountry franchise consultation

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Towielad

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I think *** up in a brewery springs to mind, you would have thought that with the current furore over the department’s handling of just about anything they’d have their ducks in a row.... but clearly not!
 

jw

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Had a quick browse before the document disappeared, questions included:

Do you think Birmingham to Nottingham and Leicester should move to the West Midlands franchise?

Should XC stop serving smaller stops, enforce pick up/set down only or opt out of local travelcard products to alleviate crowding around large cities?

Should the once or twice per day destinations be pruned from the network? Examples being Guildford, Bath Spa, Aberdeen, Cardiff via Bristol, Bournemouth, Cornwall too. Expected that local operators will fill in the gaps

Given desire by other operators to run more services on the East Coast beyond Newcastle, should XC stop running one of the services as far? DfT envisage 2 hourly extensions to Glasgow to remain.
 

pemma

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Do you think Birmingham to Nottingham and Leicester should move to the West Midlands franchise?

So DfT have decided not to move them to the East Midlands franchise but may move the routes (currently operated by 170s) to the West Midlands franchise - a franchise planning to get rid of its 170s!
 

ForTheLoveOf

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So DfT have decided not to move them to the East Midlands franchise but may move the routes (currently operated by 170s) to the West Midlands franchise - a franchise planning to get rid of its 170s!
Who says it has to continue with 170s? But even if it does, their sister products, the 172s, still have a long future with the West Midlands franchise, having only been introduced in 2011/12.
 

47802

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Had a quick browse before the document disappeared, questions included:

Should XC stop serving smaller stops, enforce pick up/set down only or opt out of local travelcard products to alleviate crowding around large cities?

Should the once or twice per day destinations be pruned from the network? Examples being Guildford, Bath Spa, Aberdeen, Cardiff via Bristol, Bournemouth, Cornwall too. Expected that local operators will fill in the gaps

Given desire by other operators to run more services on the East Coast beyond Newcastle, should XC stop running one of the services as far? DfT envisage 2 hourly extensions to Glasgow to remain.

Well these sound like excuses to not provide much additional rolling stock over what's provided at present, on other franchises that have come up for renewal there seems to be an acceptance that capacity seems to be significantly upped, but perhaps not with XC it would seem, and clearly if you bin Bournemouth and Cornwall your substancially binning a lot of Holiday traffic, the reason for the frequent service to Scotland up the East Coast was the axing of XC up the West Coast. Sounds like some of the suggestions are utter crap and more of an apology for a train service and a franchise.

Nottingham should upgraded and integrated more with the main XC after all its partly on the core route with possibly some services extended to Newark and Lincoln. Leicester Stanstead should probably go to EMT
 
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pemma

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Who says it has to continue with 170s? But even if it does, their sister products, the 172s, still have a long future with the West Midlands franchise, having only been introduced in 2011/12.

It doesn't but the 170s still have life in them and by the time the new XC franchise is let there won't be such high demand for DMUs, so a new or add-on order might be harder to justify.
 

[.n]

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... and clearly if you bin Bournemouth and Cornwall your substantially binning a lot of Holiday traffic...

There is still on the services I can see at a reasonable amount of use to/from Bournemouth & Brockenhurst. I'm not sure how changing to Southampton will help, the SWR services are quite often full at those points already. though having said that at least I won't forever be kept waiting just outside Bournemouth for the XC to get off the platform!
 

Bletchleyite

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Had a quick browse before the document disappeared, questions included:

Do you think Birmingham to Nottingham and Leicester should move to the West Midlands franchise?

Yes.

Should XC stop serving smaller stops, enforce pick up/set down only or opt out of local travelcard products to alleviate crowding around large cities?

Yes.

Should the once or twice per day destinations be pruned from the network? Examples being Guildford, Bath Spa, Aberdeen, Cardiff via Bristol, Bournemouth, Cornwall too. Expected that local operators will fill in the gaps

Maybe. Perhaps the most worthwhile ones should receive a more frequent service i.e. 2 hourly.

Given desire by other operators to run more services on the East Coast beyond Newcastle, should XC stop running one of the services as far? DfT envisage 2 hourly extensions to Glasgow to remain.

Not sure. Would depend on context i.e. replacements.
 

pemma

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So possibly local multi-modal tickets will no longer be able to be used on Intercity services like XC and there could be specific long distance carriages on XC services with mandatory seat reservations.
 

Bletchleyite

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So possibly local multi-modal tickets will no longer be able to be used on Intercity services like XC and there could be specific long distance carriages on XC services with mandatory seat reservations.

They could be looking at my oft-proposed solution of unmarked seats in reserved carriages rather than marking reservations.
 

Bwlch y Groes

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Just completed the survey. Aside from getting in the standard comments about more seats, more legroom, Voyagers needing to be taken some place far away etc, I did find the more technical question about routes interesting to answer. Usually I use XC services to get home to Wales from York. As a semi-regular user of the Nottingham-Cardiff service, for me that has to stay intact and be expanded - it's a busy service as it is, particularly being popular with young people, and it's important for South Wales to maintain that link to the East Midlands. I'd love to see it become a Lincoln-Swansea service with a Voyager equivalent. However, with the leading questions, I'd be surprised if that happens - it sounds as if they may have already made their minds up. If they split it, that wouldn't go down well - that would mean changing at New Street instead of Derby or Cheltenham which would be a massive hassle with luggage

The other route I tend to travel on is down to the South West. From that, I wouldn't be too disappointed if they cut some station calls - journeys can get really bogged down with calls at Wakefield, Chesterfield, and Tamworth, and I'm not even massively in favour of so many services going via Leeds. However, it's absolutely imperative that Paignton services don't go. Torbay has a larger population than Exeter, and deserves far better than a half-hourly local service which doesn't go further north than Exeter plus the occasional London train (if they even survive). More Sprinter services to Exmouth would be no substitute for links to Birmingham and the North - the South West is getting cut off enough as it is

Also I found that question about "diverting" services north of Northallerton interesting - is that implying they would send some up the Durham Coast? Can't imagine Sunderland would complain too much about that, although it would increase the journey time and would be a loss for Darlington and Durham
 

pemma

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They could be looking at my oft-proposed solution of unmarked seats in reserved carriages rather than marking reservations.

They're talking about long distance carriages with a different internal configuration to other ones with features such as extra luggage space and only allowing those making long distance journeys sit in those carriages, with one idea of enforcing that being only those with seat reservations can use that carriage.
 

Bletchleyite

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They're talking about long distance carriages with a different internal configuration to other ones with features such as extra luggage space and only allowing those making long distance journeys sit in those carriages, with one idea of enforcing that being only those with seat reservations can use that carriage.

That sounds like bringing back the British Rail concept that gave the Voyagers their name. It was a dedicated coach with compulsory reservations, dedicated fares, lower density seating, at seat service from the buffet and free tea/coffee for long-distance passengers. I think they did it by putting the BSO in the XC HST formations backwards so the brake would separate it from the rest of the train.
 

lammergeier

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So DfT have decided not to move them to the East Midlands franchise but may move the routes (currently operated by 170s) to the West Midlands franchise - a franchise planning to get rid of its 170s!
Not all 170 routes, Nottingham - Cardiff and New St - Stansted look like they will be remaining.
 

tbtc

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Do you think Birmingham to Nottingham and Leicester should move to the West Midlands franchise?.

There's this awkward rump of services and I don't know which TOC they fit best into... BUT the news that Nottingham - Norwich is going to be a stand-alone service (rather than part of the Liverpool one) means I'd consider putting it into the same TOC as the two that you listed - that could be EMT but equally would make sense with XC (since they already run to Nottingham and East Anglia).

Should XC stop serving smaller stops, enforce pick up/set down only or opt out of local travelcard products to alleviate crowding around large cities?.

Ideally, but how?

They tried making Wakefield Westgate a "pick up" stop only on some services but it didn't work - Conductors can't get down a busy Voyager in the short duration, ticket barriers wouldn't know to reject anyone using XC on the kind of short flows I presume they are talking about (Manchester - Stockport, Birmingham - Wolverhampton, Leeds - Wakefield etc).

Also, a worrying precedent - what if other LDHS TOCs try this approach (since they'd rather have lucrative longer distance tickets than cheapo commuters on PTE-subsidised fares) and dump passengers on local services that can't cope?

Should the once or twice per day destinations be pruned from the network? Examples being Guildford, Bath Spa, Aberdeen, Cardiff via Bristol, Bournemouth, Cornwall too. Expected that local operators will fill in the gaps.

  • Guildford - dump
  • Bath Spa - dump
  • Aberdeen - the one-a-day-at-lunchtime approach they previously proposed made sense - there's a lot of demand for longer distance services, esp at oil changeover times - but it means a unit being far from the "core", so using one in the middle of the day seemed a reasonable compromise
  • Cardiff via Bristol - seems a bit token, but does provide capacity into Bristol in the morning rush hour (well, 07:51), so that might require replacement
  • Bournemouth - keep
  • Cornwall - keep as an early morning/ late evening use of stock

Given desire by other operators to run more services on the East Coast beyond Newcastle, should XC stop running one of the services as far? DfT envisage 2 hourly extensions to Glasgow to remain.

Leeds - Newcastle is two/hour with TPE (four times more frequent than before Operation Princess), Leeds - Edinburgh will be hourly on TPE soon, I'd be okay if XC was only every two hours north of Newcastle, maybe even only hourly north of York - the stock is required elsewhere.

Well these sound like excuses to not provide much additional rolling stock over what's provided at present

Well, if the new EMT franchise requires bi-modes to replace 222s then I can't see where else 222s would go but XC.

XC don't need to provide (many) more services than they currently do - XC *do* need to provide longer services than they currently do.

the reason for the frequent service to Scotland up the East Coast was the axing of XC up the West Coast

The service north of Newcastle was three/day in BR days - like the current EMT service to Leeds, it was a southbound way of getting HSTs out of the depot in the morning and a northbound way of them returning late at night.

Operation Princess saw Virgin turned that into an hourly service, back when they were also running an hourly WCML service (bi-hourly via Warrington, bi-hourly via Stockport).

XC leaving the WCML route to Scotland happened years later.

From that, I wouldn't be too disappointed if they cut some station calls - journeys can get really bogged down with calls at Wakefield, Chesterfield, and Tamworth, and I'm not even massively in favour of so many services going via Leeds. However, it's absolutely imperative that Paignton services don't go

So you want them to keep serving the town of Paignton but not serve the city of Wakefield?
 

Bwlch y Groes

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So you want them to keep serving the town of Paignton but not serve the city of Wakefield?
I take the point, and I had thought that too. But I think the context is different - Wakefield has half-hourly services to London as well as a super-frequent service to Leeds. From a purely selfish perspective, I'd rather more XCs avoided Leeds and went direct between Sheffield and York - going via Leeds adds a lot onto the journey time and causes a lot of overcrowding on the trains, as people use it to do York-Leeds or Leeds-Wakefield rather than long-distance journeys

Meanwhile, Paignton and Torquay are gradually becoming more isolated from the network despite the combined population even out of season, let alone in summer. Paignton's sadly becoming quite run-down (due to the changes to holiday patterns and a lack of investment), and I have a feeling that will only become worse if rail links continue to get subtly pruned
 

XC victim

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I don’t understand why almost all the suggestions to improve the crosscountry franchise involve reducing and cutting services. Surely virtually all the issues affecting Crosscountry could be solved simply by increasing capacity on its services and increasing the number of train sets.

Although I do agree with the comments about people using Crosscountry services for short distance journeys. I travel from Aberdeen to Penzance every day and it really annoys me when you see people using these services between places like York and Bristol. THESE SERVICES SHOULD NOT BE USED FOR SUCH SHORT JOURNEYS!
 

DaiGog

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A few thoughts:
- Bin Guildford unless you can go back through to Brighton with it
- Keep one a day each way from Bath Spa - but start it at Bristol, and run via Swindon to Oxford and beyond
- Aberdeen worth keeping, even if it's on a 'lunchtime turnaround' basis, one a day
- Cardiff is probably worth serving in a greater capacity than the token one a day, which as stated above is mainly because it provides capacity into Bristol in the morning
- Bournemouth seems a strange one to consider dropping - but maybe cut it back to two hourly
- Keep Cornwall largely as it is now - extensions at the start and end of the day for the holiday traffic
- Add one a day to a couple of places currently not served e.g. Lincoln, Hull, Chester, Inverness via the WCML
- Return Liverpool, and Glasgow via the WCML, to the network with a few trains a day
- Remove some of the smaller stops e.g. Tamworth, Burton (use other TOCs to provide the commuter service to Derby/B'ham - see below) and Morpeth
- One per hour north of Newcastle is plenty (or even north of York)
- Remove the Birmingham - Leicester services from XC and put them somewhere else (along with an improved B/'ham - Nottingham commuter service)
- Cardiff - Nottingham extended to Norwich in place of the current EMT service from Liverpool? Alternate at the eastern end every other hour, sending every other one to Stansted?
 

DarloRich

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So you want them to keep serving the town of Paignton but not serve the city of Wakefield?

One per hour north of Newcastle is plenty (or even north of York)

From a purely selfish point of view i want XC services to both Wakefield and Darlo unchanged, especially on Friday nights/Saturday mornings during the football season ;) Personally i would like to see the numbers of services serving these stations from Birmingham and Tamworth substantially increased. I also have to go from Leeds to Glasgow on occasion so I would like a regular HST service on that section.

Places I don't go can be removed from the network, like Guildford/Bath/ Bournemouth. I want to see more stops at Tamworth and less at Burton especially on Friday nights/Saturday mornings during the football season. I would love a connection into every hourly LM train on the SW/NE route rather than with the Nottingham trains. I want to see more HST in use and less Voyagers, perhaps shunting them onto routes I don't use like the Stanstead runs.

The main point i would like to make is this: move the Voyagers away from services i use

Bin Guildford unless you can go back through to Brighton with it

it took lounger than i expected for Birghton to appear in this thread but it was coupled with a desire to return XC trains to almost every city in the UK, even if only once a day so extra points for a bingo! A far more sensible approach his to cut the extraneous towns and cites out and concentrate on the core NE/SW section of the network. Maximise capacity and frequency on this section where the real money is.

I'd rather more XCs avoided Leeds and went direct between Sheffield and York - going via Leeds adds a lot onto the journey time and causes a lot of overcrowding on the trains

Why are you going to agree to cut a major city like Leeds from your network ( along with the revenue that brings) and replace it with a once a day service to Lincoln or Chester or Inverness via the WCML? What would be the point? It is like commercial reality is a stranger to this board.
 

Bwlch y Groes

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Why are you going to agree to cut a major city like Leeds from your network ( along with the revenue that brings) and replace it with a once a day service to Lincoln or Chester or Inverness via the WCML? What would be the point? It is like commercial reality is a stranger to this board.

I wouldn't want to see Leeds removed entirely, obviously. But I don't think it needs as many XC services given that TPE are ramping up their services - it minimises the needs for a Leeds-Scotland XC service, which means that you're only left with a Leeds-Birmingham/the South need to cover off. It depends on what the more pressing need is - services linking Leeds with Birmingham, or linking Newcastle and Edinburgh with Birmingham. For me, I think the new XC franchise (under direction from the DfT) at least should be obliged to run more services via Doncaster, when until now precedence has been given to running more via Leeds at peak time
 

mallard

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Given that the EM ITT is clearly asking for the replacement of the entire MML IC fleet, where does the DfT expect the 222s to go if not to XC?

They're far too young to scrap and while they may not be multiple-working compatible with XC's current 22x fleet, they are similar enough that staff training shouldn't be too onerous and their Derby maintenance base is only 15 miles from the 220/221 base at Central Rivers and if anything, even better sited for the needs of the XC franchise.

If XC gets the 27x222 sets totalling 143 carriages, they should easily have enough 22x stock to solve their overcrowding issues and retire the HSTs.
 

DarloRich

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I wouldn't want to see Leeds removed entirely, obviously. But I don't think it needs as many XC services given that TPE are ramping up their services - it minimises the needs for a Leeds-Scotland XC service, which means that you're only left with a Leeds-Birmingham/the South need to cover off. It depends on what the more pressing need is - services linking Leeds with Birmingham, or linking Newcastle and Edinburgh with Birmingham. For me, I think the new XC franchise (under direction from the DfT) at least should be obliged to run more services via Doncaster, when until now precedence has been given to running more via Leeds at peak time

I take the point - however where does the money live? Leeds or Doncaster? I suspect the former and it would be hard to persuade a commercial operation to give up access to that money.
 

YorkshireBear

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The consultation seems to be almost written to direct you to, what do we do North of Northallerton. I simply said surely one of these long distance services could go to Sunderland/Middlesbrough. They are areas with limited connectivity which could really do with it. Appreciate there are infrastructure concerns but imagine what an improvement it would be for Middlesbrough to suddenly have 1tph to Manchester, Birmingham and the South Coast and with 1tp2h to London Kings Cross too. Be a game changer for the town certainly.
 

Bwlch y Groes

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I take the point - however where does the money live? Leeds or Doncaster? I suspect the former and it would be hard to persuade a commercial operation to give up access to that money.
Well quite. And in fairness, Leeds-Birmingham is an hourly service and it ought to be. I suppose the answer would be to try and squeeze another service every hour in, and start the Leeds services from Leeds:

1tph Leeds-Birmingham-South
1tph Newcastle-Doncaster-Birmingham-South
1tph Scotland-Doncaster-Birmingham-South

Given that Northern are due to be adding an extra fast Leeds-York service in December anyway, there's no decrease in service. The main constraint to get around would be on New Street. Perhaps you could combine one of them with the Nottingham-Cardiff? Firmly into crayonista realms with that
 

YorkshireBear

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Well quite. And in fairness, Leeds-Birmingham is an hourly service and it ought to be. I suppose the answer would be to try and squeeze another service every hour in, and start the Leeds services from Leeds:

1tph Leeds-Birmingham-South
1tph Newcastle-Doncaster-Birmingham-South
1tph Scotland-Doncaster-Birmingham-South

Given that Northern are due to be adding an extra fast Leeds-York service in December anyway, there's no decrease in service. The main constraint to get around would be on New Street. Perhaps you could combine one of them with the Nottingham-Cardiff? Firmly into crayonista realms with that
That would be poor for Leeds though losing its Scotland links until TPE get enough stock. And even then TPE were proposing additional capacity not replacing XC.
 

Bletchleyite

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- Remove some of the smaller stops e.g. Tamworth, Burton (use other TOCs to provide the commuter service to Derby/B'ham - see below) and Morpeth

Tamworth is a key connection with WCML semifast services. That one should not be removed. It should probably get an "u" and "s" to stop it being used as a Birmingham commuter service, though.
 

Bletchleyite

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Given that the EM ITT is clearly asking for the replacement of the entire MML IC fleet, where does the DfT expect the 222s to go if not to XC?

They're far too young to scrap and while they may not be multiple-working compatible with XC's current 22x fleet, they are similar enough that staff training shouldn't be too onerous and their Derby maintenance base is only 15 miles from the 220/221 base at Central Rivers and if anything, even better sited for the needs of the XC franchise.

If XC gets the 27x222 sets totalling 143 carriages, they should easily have enough 22x stock to solve their overcrowding issues and retire the HSTs.

This could well be the case, but I do really hope for something like 7-car 80x or even better an equivalent FLIRT (though the latter would need increased fuel tank capacity to be designed in). Third rail capability at lower speed would be a real bonus if the Bournemouths are kept.

The proposed Bombardier end-doored 125mph bi-mode may also be a good bet - essentially designed for XC.
 
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Bwlch y Groes

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That would be poor for Leeds though losing its Scotland links until TPE get enough stock. And even then TPE were proposing additional capacity not replacing XC.
Apologies, I assumed that that change wouldn't happen until TPE started running their services - when are the TPE extensions supposed to start? Thought it was supposed to be in the next year or so
 
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