Trivia: Rail Services which have been withdrawn since Privatisation

Jorge Da Silva · 2 Jul 2019

This thread is for Rail services which have been withdrawn since privatisation. When did they cease?

I’ll start with a few examples:

Liverpool-Stansted Via Birmingham (Cut at New Street in 200?)
Coventry to Skegness (Until 2004; replaced by Coventry to Nuneaton service)
Manchester Airport to Skegness (Until 2008; cut back to Crewe)
Lincoln to Birmingham?? (until early 2000?? Cut back at Nottingham?)
Worcester to Birmingham New Street (Central Trains: ceased in 2004)
Chase Line to Stafford (ceased in 2005)
Worcester to Gloucester (December 2008 to December 2009)
Manchester Airport to London Euston (until 1999)
Rochdale to London Euston (until 2000)
Birmingham to Nottingham via Leicester (cut back to Leicester in 2004)
Blackpool to Scarborough (cut to York in early 2000’s)
Bristol to Oxford (stopped in 2000 by SRA)

This includes services that were stopped but later reintroduced for example:

Shrewsbury to London Euston (stopped in 1992; Reintroduced in 1998 stopped in 1999; Reintroduced to Marylebone in 2008; Stopped in 2011; Reintroduced to London Euston in 2014)

RailUK Forums

Jamesrob637 · 2 Jul 2019

South West/South Coast to North West and Scotland via the WCML

Jorge Da Silva · 2 Jul 2019

Jamesrob637 said:
South West/South Coast to North West and Scotland via the WCML

Did that stop in 2007?

Saperstein · 2 Jul 2019

LHCS and later Voyagers from Brighton to points North, Birmingham, Manchester ect.

Most went via the West London Line, others via the North Downs Line via Oxford.

Ended in 2008

Saperstein

Edit: @Jorge Da Silva beat me to it with South Coast

WesternLancer · 2 Jul 2019

Jorge Da Silva said:
Did that stop in 2007?

This is helpful (entries for latter years)

http://www.1s76.com/

eg
http://www.1s76.com/1S76 2008.htm

December 2008 saw the end of through services from the Sussex Coast to Birmingham and beyond after nearly 30 years. The final years service was very imbalanced to early morning departures northbound. On Sundays there even some ECS moves between Three Bridges depot and Bournemouth and v/v! All services are substantially slower than 30 years earlier largely due to poor pathways on the Brighton line and the Great Western mainline. The promised speed up of services failed to materialize

Iskra · 2 Jul 2019

Leeds-Glasgow Central via Carlisle, withdrawn 2004ish.

Barnsley-London St Pancras.

Manchester- Wakefield Westgate

Saperstein · 2 Jul 2019

Wasn’t there a Brighton to Cardiff Central “Alphaline” at one point?

Saperstein

Mag_seven · 2 Jul 2019

Cardiff-Central to London Waterloo?

Iskra · 2 Jul 2019

VXC: London Paddington-Birmingham/Liverpool and also services to Swansea.

tbtc · 2 Jul 2019

Iskra said:
Barnsley-London St Pancras

...in which case also Matlock/ Burton on Trent - London St Pancras

I guess there's a difference between changes that happened due to passenger demand/ stock (e.g. the introduction of the 222s meant that they were too heavy to run the Matlock services that 170s used to do) and changes that happened due to remapped franchises (e.g. Sunderland losing its services to Leeds/ Manchester when TPE became a separate franchise).

Funny how some places have lost their link to large cities without much fuss (e.g. whilst people are outraged at the prospect of Milford Haven losing services through to Manchester, people forget that Milford Haven/ Swansea used to have regular Wales & West services to Birmingham).

You could probably fill a whole thread with places that used to be on the XC map (Ramsgate, Liverpool, Swansea...) and links that were lost when Central Trains was split up (given the plethora of eastern and western termini - e.g. Skegness/ Grimsby - Chester/ Aberystwyth/ Manchester Airport - some of these pairs of termini may only have been linked once a day or once a week, so I guess it depends how the OP wants to quantify things.

Is it worth noting that the Newcraighall services used to run to/from Bathgate/ Dunblane (before electrification of the Bathgate line)? Or was that just an operational convenience, linking two half hourly services on each side of Edinburgh? Same with the northern terminus of the Sheffield - Lincoln services (it was Huddersfield - Lincoln for a while but has also been Scunthorpe - Lincoln - Adwick... the Lincoln service now provided by a Leeds - Sheffield service).

Whilst people bemoan the lack of XC services on the WCML north of Crewe, were the handful of Aberdeen/Dundee services through Carlisle significant enough to mention? Or the Wales & West services from Brighton to Devon/ Cornwall?

Ianigsy · 2 Jul 2019

tbtc said:
Whilst people bemoan the lack of XC services on the WCML north of Crewe, were the handful of Aberdeen/Dundee services through Carlisle significant enough to mention? Or the Wales & West services from Brighton to Devon/ Cornwall?

In the first case, I'd say so as there's now no direct service between north-west England and Scotland north of the central belt. In the second, probably less so as one of the main flows on that route was naval personnel between Plymouth and Portsmouth.

Liverpool not only lost XC and Stansted, there were various through trains to the likes of Barrow, Morecambe and Windermere which have vanished.

Malcolmffc · 2 Jul 2019

Basingstoke - Norwich on Anglia connect. Not sure when.

Do routes they have closed count? Eg Moorgate-Farringdon

nr758123 · 2 Jul 2019

Iskra said:
Manchester- Wakefield Westgate

I could be imagining this, but was this Llandudno-Wakefield Westgate for a few years?

Saperstein · 2 Jul 2019

Did the Liverpool Lime Street [LIV] to Norwich [NRW] service exist under British Rail?

I remember it under Central Trains.

This service really needs to strengthen to at least 4 cars throughout though.

I caught it from Nottingham [NOT] to Norwich [NRW] in February and they turfed everyone off the last two cars (158) and terminated them at [NOT].

The two cars left were full and standing on departure from [NOT].

That day there were spurious mentions of disruption on the Wherry Lines (Via NRE ect) but nothing definite.

On arrival at [NRW] nothing was running on the Wherry Lines, so RBR to Great Yarmouth.

What a day to pick for engineering works, it was a major match at Carrow Road that day!

hexagon789 · 2 Jul 2019

Waterloo-Exeter services extending beyond Exeter to Paignton/Plymouth etc

Ianno87 · 2 Jul 2019

Manchester Airport to Skegness was only introduced in May 98 - after privatisation. Was Crewe to Skegness before that.

Ianno87 · 2 Jul 2019

Saperstein said:
Did the Liverpool Lime Street [LIV] to Norwich [NRW] service exist under British Rail?

I remember it under Central Trains.

This service really needs to strengthen to at least 4 cars throughout though.

I caught it from Nottingham [NOT] to Norwich [NRW] in February and they turfed everyone off the last two cars (158) and terminated them at [NOT].

The two cars left were full and standing on departure from [NOT].

That day there were spurious mentions of disruption on the Wherry Lines (Via NRE ect) but nothing definite.

On arrival at [NRW] nothing was running on the Wherry Lines, so RBR to Great Yarmouth.

What a day to pick for engineering works, it was a major match at Carrow Road that day!

Liverpool-Norwich has been roughly in the form of the current hourly service since about 1991/1992.

WesternLancer · 2 Jul 2019

duplicate post error

WesternLancer · 2 Jul 2019

manchester - Harwich Parkeston Quay (unles BR stopped it before privatisation?)

WesternLancer · 2 Jul 2019

Saperstein said:
Wasn’t there a Brighton to Cardiff Central “Alphaline” at one point?

Saperstein

Yes, think so - now cut back to Bristol most days.

fowler9 · 2 Jul 2019

Ianno87 said:
Liverpool-Norwich has been roughly in the form of the current hourly service since about 1991/1992.

If not before then, class 31 plus 4 carriages.

Quakers Yard · 2 Jul 2019

Swansea to Newcastle.

adrock1976 · 2 Jul 2019

I'll have a go with Derby - Sinfin Central, based on the date of privatisation being 1 April 1994.

Although towards the end of the Derby - Sinfin Central being in service, the last couple of years was by a rail replacement bus, with services being withdrawn circa 1998/99.

Still in the Midlands region but switching west, Smethwick Rolfe Street lost its services to Stourbridge Junction in 1995 when the section of the ex Shrewsbury & Birmingham Railway (Great Western Railway) reopened from Birmingham Snow Hill to The Hawthorns, with the original connection to the Stourbridge Railway reinstated with a new station at Smethwick Galton Bridge, providing interchange with the Wolverhampton local services.

Jorge Da Silva · 2 Jul 2019

What about Liverpool to Milford Haven? Crosslink and Stratford to London Paddington via Oxford.

Jorge Da Silva · 2 Jul 2019

Liverpool to Glasgow stopped in early 2000’s although TPE will return this by the end of the year

Jorge Da Silva · 2 Jul 2019

Mag_seven said:
Cardiff-Central to London Waterloo?

WesternLancer said:
Yes, think so - now cut back to Bristol most days.

Actually the service was axed by Arriva Trains Wales but SWT introduced a separate Bristol Temple Meads to London Waterloo service to replace it

LNW-GW Joint · 2 Jul 2019

Jorge Da Silva said:
Actually the service was axed by Arriva Trains Wales but SWT introduced a separate Bristol Temple Meads to London Waterloo service to replace it

Not to mention the related Manchester/Marches-Bristol and beyond (Wales & West).
Ellesmere Port-Warrington was reduced from hourly to a peak hour shuttle by North Western Trains.
There was a brief Chester-Crewe-Manchester Airport service operated by NWT (to compensate for late introduction of class 175).
North Wales-Chester-Crewe-Birmingham largely axed by ATW (diverted via Shrewsbury).

Most of these were franchise changes sponsored by the SRA/DfT/WG, or by the withdrawal of local funding.
Some were over and above the franchise spec, cut back by the TOC but not conflicting with the spec.

Through services from GWML/WCML via the West London Line were axed and caused a fuss because the statutory withdrawal process had not been followed.
Birmingham-Banbury-Paddington was cut back to Reading.
Norton Bridge and other small Trent Valley stations are still in limbo after local services were withdrawn for the WCRM project.
At some point Motherwell-Larbert lost its through trains (WCML-Stirling-Perth) but I can't remember when - probably when the highland sleepers were diverted via Edinburgh.
Recently, local services have been reintroduced on all the sections of this route to/from Glasgow and Edinburgh, but there are still no direct Carlisle-Stirling services.

Saperstein · 2 Jul 2019

Did Southern 377’s ever make it as far North as Crewe or London Midland 350’s as far south as East Croydon or am I imagining it?

ANDREW_D_WEBB · 2 Jul 2019

Jorge Da Silva said:
Actually the service was axed by Arriva Trains Wales but SWT introduced a separate Bristol Temple Meads to London Waterloo service to replace it

If I remember correctly the Waterloo -South Wales service reversed at. Newport to head for Manchester Piccadilly.

Jorge Da Silva · 2 Jul 2019

ANDREW_D_WEBB said:
If I remember correctly the Waterloo -South Wales service reversed at. Newport to head for Manchester Piccadilly.

Manchester Piccadilly-London Waterloo??????? What was the point in that? I had heard this before it was introduced by Wales and West?

Trivia: Rail Services which have been withdrawn since Privatisation

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