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Why do long distance XC trains call at Tamworth or Burton?

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Starmill

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especially if a 100mph (vice 110mph) Clas 350 is used on the LNWR operated leg, having doner it myself and sweated on the connection.
This lower 100 miles/ hour restriction generally does not apply now, as a recent change.
 
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Starmill

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why do the fast northeast services that usually skip the 3 stations mentioned sometimes
This is what I thought. However, as I hinted early on, this is a contradiction with the facts. The reality is that these services almost never call at Chesterfield, Burton-on-Trent or Tamworth. I have already mentioned the 1830 and 2030 from Birmingham New Street. Does the OP have a real issue with these two services? They've not alluded to them specifically.
 

sd0733

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There is a fair amount of Interchange from MK, Rugby at Tamworth and on a two hourly basis the LNWR service does connect with the Scotland service - though its a bit tight especially if a 100mph (vice 110mph) Clas 350 is used on the LNWR operated leg, having doner it myself and sweated on the connection.

Yes it is a popular connection. Lots of Network rail staff use it to get between Derby and MK

On a seperate off topic point there are no 100mph 350s anymore.
 

Mag_seven

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By changing at Tamworth onto the 18.03 service to Derby off the 16.57 Euston - Glasgow (5 min connection) you can arrive in Derby at 18.29. Thats a London Derby journey time of 1 hour 32 mins just a few mins slower than most of the fast services from St Pancras.
 

swt_passenger

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This is what I thought. However, as I hinted early on, this is a contradiction with the facts. The reality is that these services almost never call at Chesterfield, Burton-on-Trent or Tamworth. I have already mentioned the 1830 and 2030 from Birmingham New Street. Does the OP have a real issue with these two services? They've not alluded to them specifically.
Yes, I think we’re on the same wavelength. I did have a check of the timetable, and would agree such calls are very much in a minority. Which led me to the possibility the calls the OP noticed might have been a temporary alteration for perfectly valid planned reasons.

I think any posts above referring to the ex-Central trains regional service normal calls, and the calls in the other NE service, are probably a bit of a red herring.
 
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I'm actually surprised XC and EM haven't considered stopping at Meadowhall which is a major shopping hub in its own right as well as offering tram connections and rail connections to Rotherham and Barnsley

For a few years during Xmas period, the EMT Meridan York - St Pancras did stop at Meadowhall for a few weeks.
 
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I have made Nottingham to either Lichfield or Stafford changing at Tamworth a few times in the last few years. There was one exception when I interchanged at Derby as XC were on diversion and stopping at Lichfield City not Tamworth - that was a quick journey!
 

Starmill

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I think any posts above referring to the ex-Central trains regional service normal calls, and the calls in the other NE service, are probably a bit of a red herring.
I thought including a little extra context might be of help or interest given the substance of the original question does not seem to entirely make sense. Perhaps I ought to have worded that more clearly. I could easily have posted in the general and without wider context, as other members whose contributions are no less valuable than mine often do, but that would have looked something like this:
Why does it call at these stations?
It doesn't.


Which led me to the possibility the calls the OP noticed might have been a temporary alteration for perfectly valid planned reasons.
A good point. Not that we'll ever know unless the OP comes back to enlighten us.
 

Killingworth

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Actually Chesterfield is a good interchange for getting on the long distance XC services when travelling from/to Nottingham, easier than Sheffield since you just stay on the same platform; I change there quite frequently.

We are digressing but Chesterfield serves as South Sheffield and North Peak District Parkway. The local population encompasses a much wider area than the town. I live nearer Sheffield Station but it takes longer to get there than Chesterfield where a southbound journey will be 10 minutes shorter.

I'm sure a lot of stations have similar chacteristics. Currently the faster service to/from Newcastle doesn't stop at Chesterfield, but the longer distance service via Leeds does.
 

70014IronDuke

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Yes it is a popular connection. Lots of Network rail staff use it to get between Derby and MK
.....

Just to add that the Tamworth interchange possibility was known about and used (when possible) half a century ago. I remember doing Derby - Tamworth, then Tamworth - Euston (I suppose, I can't actually remember where we got off) on a test run with early Mk2 carriage audio system back in the early 70s.

Of course, the service offering at Tamworth LL was appalling back in those days - one peak hour inter-city to/from Euston a day, IIRC, and an AM4 unit trundling between Rugby and Stafford/Crewe every 2 hours, I think it was.

I think whoever complained in this thread about the current "slow" services stopping at Tamworth upthread doesn't know they were born.
 

Failed Unit

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I have changed at Tamworth in the past on a Birmingham New Street - Glasgow journey. Can’t remember why now. But it was one or both of the following. Speed or price. (I change onto one of the peak London - Glasgow services that stop there)

XCs stops are almost certainly legacy.

Back in BR days Lincoln - Birmingham was hourly with a 2 car 150/1. The XC service gave burton and Tamworth 2tph.

I suspect various franchise agreements have kept x inter-city services per hour at these stations dispite the increased frequency of the local service. Chesterfield similar.

When I was a student the chesterfield call was actually very well used. But like many of these situations someone may travel chesterfield- York direct (even the long way round) but drive if they needed to change at Sheffield.

As other posters have said it isn’t a huge number of calls.
 

Idon'tKnow

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I don't think enough cross country services stop at Tamworth considering Reading/Southampton - Newcastle services have lots of waiting time en-route (this is the only cross country service I don't regularly use so I have no idea whether it's too crowded upon leaving Birmingham to make tamworth calls viable, obviously its more important that all long distance passengers can physically board the train before we consider extra stops).However, Nottingham services are often 2 carriages at busy times and completely full between Tamworth and Birmingham. Also, lots of people do interchange between wcml and XC services at Tamworth.
 

Starmill

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I don't think enough cross country services stop at Tamworth considering Reading/Southampton - Newcastle services have lots of waiting time en-route (this is the only cross country service I don't regularly use so I have no idea whether it's too crowded upon leaving Birmingham to make tamworth calls viable, obviously its more important that all long distance passengers can physically board the train before we consider extra stops).However, Nottingham services are often 2 carriages at busy times and completely full between Tamworth and Birmingham. Also, lots of people do interchange between wcml and XC services at Tamworth.
I think it's in general slightly more likely that these services will be 4 car Voyager trains, and as such it is in general less likely they could accommodate the additional traffic. In terms of rolling stock the XC 'Turbostar routes' have been dealt a particularly poor hand.
 

edwin_m

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I think it's in general slightly more likely that these services will be 4 car Voyager trains, and as such it is in general less likely they could accommodate the additional traffic. In terms of rolling stock the XC 'Turbostar routes' have been dealt a particularly poor hand.
They would mostly be adequate if they didn't have to carry Birmingham commuter/shopping passengers from/to Burton, Tamworth and the three other stations some of them call at. Birmingham and Nottingham are the two largest cities in the Midlands and 1hr15min for a train journey which is only 50 miles by road isn't really good enough.

This route is the only Birmingham radial with no dedicated commuter service. The proposed trains from Moor Street serving Water Orton, Coleshill and possibly some new stations will help to some extent but can't be run without the Bordesley Curves are a long way from happening. Before then we might have HS2 where a connection at Toton (preferably for trains not just people changing) would halve Birmingham-Nottingham journey times.
 

MidnightFlyer

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I don't think enough cross country services stop at Tamworth considering Reading/Southampton - Newcastle services have lots of waiting time en-route (this is the only cross country service I don't regularly use so I have no idea whether it's too crowded upon leaving Birmingham to make tamworth calls viable, obviously its more important that all long distance passengers can physically board the train before we consider extra stops).However, Nottingham services are often 2 carriages at busy times and completely full between Tamworth and Birmingham. Also, lots of people do interchange between wcml and XC services at Tamworth.

I believe the works at Derby last year were supposed to enable some significant time savings for the torturous northbound leg of those Reading-Newcastles between Birmingham and Sheffield, though these have obviously fallen by the wayside with the troubles that have dogged the last few national timetable changes. Southbound the timings are much tighter between Sheffield and Birmingham, including only a six minute reversal at the latter, not enough time to insert one of Burton / Tamworth as a call.
 

BucksBones

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XCs stops are almost certainly legacy

If this were Wikipedia that sentence would have had a footnote added saying “according to whom?”

Tamworth is extremely well used as an interchange between the WCML and XC, as many others have said. I am sure CrossCountry are aware of this.

It’s not all about population size.
 

diffident

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I use the XC from Birmingham New Street to Burton regularly. There is no other service that stops there other than this, so if XC were to withdraw it, I could no longer get to Burton!

When outbound from Birmingham in the morning, its always the Cardiff - Nottingham 170's, but returning in the evening, I can generally time it to get an XC voyager, which then runs via Coleshill Parkway rather than the direct route to Water Orton.
 

swt_passenger

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I use the XC from Birmingham New Street to Burton regularly. There is no other service that stops there other than this, so if XC were to withdraw it, I could no longer get to Burton...
I think in the context of the OP this should be just about the long distance XC services, not the former Central Trains regional service. I don’t think anyone’s suggesting that they might be withdrawn, although I’ve always thought they should have been kept separate from the traditional XC routes and TOC.

If they’d stayed with LM when it was a new franchise would we be having this discussion at all?
 

diffident

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I think in the context of the OP this should be just about the long distance XC services, not the former Central Trains regional service. I don’t think anyone’s suggesting that they might be withdrawn, although I’ve always thought they should have been kept separate from the traditional XC routes and TOC.

If they’d stayed with LM when it was a new franchise would we be having this discussion at all?

My point was that I would catch a voyager on the way back from Burton, which I found to be a far more pleasurable journey. It also means that there is a half-hourly service to Birmingham in the evenings, as opposed to an hourly service with the Nottingham-Cardiff's. From a passenger point of view, it offers better flexibility.
 

brompton rail

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I believe the works at Derby last year were supposed to enable some significant time savings for the torturous northbound leg of those Reading-Newcastles between Birmingham and Sheffield, though these have obviously fallen by the wayside with the troubles that have dogged the last few national timetable changes. Southbound the timings are much tighter between Sheffield and Birmingham, including only a six minute reversal at the latter, not enough time to insert one of Burton / Tamworth as a call.

Problem with speeding up Reading to Newcastle services is that they would conflict with ECML services at Doncaster and the preceding XC Edinburgh service at York.
Leaving Birmingham at xx.30 and running in southbound timings service could arrive Sheffield at xx.32; Doncaster at xx.56 and York at xx.20. The xx.03 Edinburgh departure from Birmingham doesn’t arrive York until xx.30.

Personally (living in Doncaster) I would applaud that!!
 

SoccerHQ

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Chesterfield could possibly do without a XC which of course is only one an hour. You have the Liverpool-Nottingham-Norwich service that stops there and also Leeds-Nottingham. Of course if you're coming from South-Midlands and want to get off it would ve very frustrating to speed through and have to get off at Sheffield. Probably be better to get off at Derby and wait for the London train to come in, think that's two an hour although no idea how long the connection is.

Tamworth can be useful ish in the evening. I live not far from Lichfield so much prefer to get off at Tamworth and catch either Virgin or LNR up to Lichfield Trent Valley and get the stopper than having to go via New Street. Only problem is if there's an evening delay it can be a struggle to get the one at 7pm although that is usually delayed aswell.

Probably of the three Burton is one I can see being removed in next 10 years. You would need CC line to be extended though.
 

MidnightFlyer

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Problem with speeding up Reading to Newcastle services is that they would conflict with ECML services at Doncaster and the preceding XC Edinburgh service at York....

I do not know the extent to which time was meant to be saved, nor what paths were looked at north of Sheffield when they got out in front of the EMT at Derby, but even if the time just ended up being whacked back in at Sheffield and Donny to resume their path up the ECML it would be better than the current fester at Derby!
 

The Planner

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Dwell at Derby will drop down to 2 minutes. I expect they will follow the EMT from Chesterfield and get to Sheffield around 5 or 6 minutes earlier than now, if they cut the Sheffield dwell down too then you could potentially get to Donny 10 minutes earlier and follow the York train.
 

chessie

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Sorry to digress slightly regarding Chesterfield but I live here and I think theres a couple of points to raise.

Chesterfields major employers have moved on, big example being Royal Mail which means over the years we are becoming more of a commuter town with Sheffield being the main destination, although others actually do the London commute. However, being over the border from Sheffield in Derbyshire we have no local services meaning especially in peak times we totally justify the xc stops.

The second point is my theory, lay on the service and the passengers will come, probably because we arent part of a local route we are really lucky with the destinations the trains reach compared to towns of our size such as Rotherham or Mansfield, its almost second nature here to just hop on the train for a day/night out
 
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Llandudno

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Yep, Chesterfield almost 2 million journeys per year.

Caught the XC train from York last Wednesday evening at 2036 arriving Chesterfield at 2146.
Approx 70 people alighted at Chesterfield!

No racing or other sporting events taking place en-route, not bad for a Wednesday night!
 

Scott M

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Sorry for the delay guys - I posted this as an off-hand question in another thread totally expecting to just get one reply explaining why. I now see it has been split into a new thread by a mod and generated quite a bit of discussion.

I have posted screenshots of the two trains I typically take each week - the outbound from New St to NCL missing all of those stations, whereas the inbound calls at all of them. Reason I felt they are 'minor' stops is because the other stations New St - NCL are all multi-platform, large stations where several people get on and off, whereas these are all 2 or 3 platform 'small' stations where not many people get on and off. Obviously Durham is only 2-platform but anyone living on the ECML knows this is a fairly major stop which is nearly always very busy, despite the large number of services which stop there.

Interestingly, according to the official XC map (see attached) they deem all the stations I have referred to as indeed being minor, but also seem to place Doncaster in the same category, which is a bit of a surprise.

Regarding the points people have made, I appreciate only XC serve these stations and I am by no means suggesting their services are cut full stop. I was suggesting that, instead, could West Midlands Railway not run a local stopping service between Birmingham and Derby which would serve these stations. However, according to what people have said, there is not enough capacity to do this.

Another good point made is that my outbound service actually takes longer than my inbound service despite missing all of these 'minor' stations out, this is largely due to quite lengthy waiting times - we often spend around 15 minutes at Derby and Sheffield, and approximately 10 minutes at Doncaster and York.
 

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Scott M

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I don't think enough cross country services stop at Tamworth considering Reading/Southampton - Newcastle services have lots of waiting time en-route (this is the only cross country service I don't regularly use so I have no idea whether it's too crowded upon leaving Birmingham to make tamworth calls viable, obviously its more important that all long distance passengers can physically board the train before we consider extra stops).However, Nottingham services are often 2 carriages at busy times and completely full between Tamworth and Birmingham. Also, lots of people do interchange between wcml and XC services at Tamworth.

Is usually a 4-car voyager which is full to standing on leaving New Street at peak time. Not sure how busy it gets outside of peak hours.
 

Ken H

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Durham has a university and students generate a lot of passenger traffic.

I am intrigued by the idea of Tamworth as an interchange - I am struggling to think of any major flows that would be best served by this route, particularly as the only WCML trains that stop at Tamworth are the slow LNW services.
when I lived in Atherstone my parents used the XC to Tamworth and the local to Atherstone. Those were the days of 304's
 

43055

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Sorry for the delay guys - I posted this as an off-hand question in another thread totally expecting to just get one reply explaining why. I now see it has been split into a new thread by a mod and generated quite a bit of discussion.

I have posted screenshots of the two trains I typically take each week - the outbound from New St to NCL missing all of those stations, whereas the inbound calls at all of them. Reason I felt they are 'minor' stops is because the other stations New St - NCL are all multi-platform, large stations where several people get on and off, whereas these are all 2 or 3 platform 'small' stations where not many people get on and off. Obviously Durham is only 2-platform but anyone living on the ECML knows this is a fairly major stop which is nearly always very busy, despite the large number of services which stop there.

Interestingly, according to the official XC map (see attached) they deem all the stations I have referred to as indeed being minor, but also seem to place Doncaster in the same category, which is a bit of a surprise.

Regarding the points people have made, I appreciate only XC serve these stations and I am by no means suggesting their services are cut full stop. I was suggesting that, instead, could West Midlands Railway not run a local stopping service between Birmingham and Derby which would serve these stations. However, according to what people have said, there is not enough capacity to do this.

Another good point made is that my outbound service actually takes longer than my inbound service despite missing all of these 'minor' stations out, this is largely due to quite lengthy waiting times - we often spend around 15 minutes at Derby and Sheffield, and approximately 10 minutes at Doncaster and York.
Yes they may look minor but there isn't really a need for extra platforms for these stations as all the services are reassembly spaced out when passing or stopping. Looking at the DFT category for these stations Tamworth is classed as a important feeder (C2), Burton is Medium Staffed (D) and Chesterfield is Busy/City Station (C1). As with the pathing for a extra service I don't think it would be much of a issue outside of the Birmingham area and there would be a issue of finding the trains to run the service as well.

As with your services the xx16 from Derby wait for the EMT services from London to depart first at around xx09 which also stop at chesterfield and the waits at Sheffield, Doncaster and York are possibly for the same reason. These wait times are also helpful for bringing the train back on time as yesterday the 1130 ex Birmingham left 17 Late but was on time leaving Sheffield at 1252.

With the service back south stopping at all stations it is more down to the time of day it think as well. For Chesterfield the only services towards Derby really are Cross Country services as the EMT services normally go back Empty to Derby or continue to Leeds so by calling creates 2 services per hour to Derby instead of just 1. For Burton and Tamworth I am not sure but the last service from Nottingham to Birmingham leaves Derby at 2137 but this is only 16 minuets before your service.

Is usually a 4-car voyager which is full to standing on leaving New Street at peak time. Not sure how busy it gets outside of peak hours.
Depends on the service I think. The Southampton/Reading to Newcastle services are busy but normally have seats even with 4 car sets where the Scotland to Plymouth services can be full and standing from Birmingham.
 
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