221127 at Cardiff Central 13/12/19 ~2130

iantherev said:

Doesn’t one come in from Manchester (via Birmingham & Bristol) about 21:00 and then go ecs to Barton Hill?

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PHILIPE said:

There is one in the opposite direction at 0700 which comes over empty from Barton Hill. They have been running for years

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Jez said:

Ive heard that on occasions a Voyager has done Cardiff to Nottingham but its very very rare.

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jamesnotts86 said:

I used to commute from Nottingham to Derby and on odd occasions a Voyager turned up instead of a 170, but yes it is extremely rare.

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Jez said:

In the days when Virgin had the XC franchise Central Trains operated the Cardiff-Nottingham service and it was 170s (which XC then inherited some of them from Central Trains) but occasionally a 158 or something else would turn up.

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Envoy said:

Yes, in Virgin days, Voyagers would run into Cardiff with some even using the direct route via Lydney and Gloucester before heading for the north-east & Edinburgh. One even ran all the way from Swansea to Edinburgh with the southbound service starting from Leeds. At the time, Wales & Borders were running from Cardiff into Birmingham New Street along with Central Trains. These trains thus skimmed off some of the potential passengers from the Virgin services - giving the impression that demand was less from south Wales than it was from Bristol. So, we ended up with the situation we have today with south Wales basically cut off from the main Cross Country Express network to the north-east. (Scotland can be reached quicker via the shorter Marches route via a change at Crewe. It is regrettable that no express services operates from Cardiff to say Edinburgh via The Marches).

Here is a Virgin Voyager leaving Cardiff for Edinburgh in March 2006:>

View attachment 71787

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coradiafan2000 said:

Yup. It's so awkward when I'm travelling from Cardiff to the North East and Scotland. I'd kill for a more direct service, as opposed to making sometimes too tight connections at Bristol parkway. In fact, when travelling to Edinburgh or even York, I prefer going via London, it's only a little bit slower, and it's a more comfortable journey.

Do you think it'd be worth having some of the Edinburgh to Plymouth trains running to Cardiff instead in the future? I'd settle for even just a handful of services at this point.

Also, some of the Central Trains services to Nottingham were extended to Lincoln in those days. I'd love to see that return as well. There's currently only one train per hour from Nottingham to Lincoln right? I'm sure it would be appreciated by the locals.

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Envoy said:

As I said earlier, the shortest & quickest route from Cardiff to Scotland (Edinburgh/Glasgow) is via The Marches (Hereford & Shrewsbury). The trouble is that the west Wales to Manchester trains on this route fulfil 2 rolls - one for long distance travellers and the other for people making short hops. So, I think that the ideal situation would be for say a 5 coach Class 800 bi-mode to run from Cardiff to Edinburgh as an express and vice versa. In addition, I would also like to see express services from Swansea to Cardiff > Newport > Gloucester > Birmingham > Derby > York & Newcastle.
(Gloucester being another place largely by-passed by the main Cross Country Express services).

Should you be travelling from south Wales to Scotland, then it usually pays to split the ticket at Crewe - otherwise, it is usually cheaper to fly from Cardiff or Bristol. (Yes, the greenest form of travel is actually encouraging people to fly this route due to high fares). See >https://www.traintickets.com

PS. From the heads of the valleys, it is probably best to go direct by road to Abergavenny for trains on The Marches route to the north rather than go down to Cardiff.

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Chris217 said:

Cardiff used to have a North East bound express train.
1335 Newcastle IIRC.
Ran via Gloucester,Birmingham,Derby,York.
That was back in the 80s though.

We also had an express to Edingburh as well running via Gloucester,Birmingham,Crewe and Preston.
We also had Manchester trains via Birmingham too.
These were all loco hauled services.
I think since most operators changed over to less expensive to run units,most services were curtailed short en route.

When I was at Stafford a few months ago,I noticed a Voyager on the Manchester to Cardiff service via Bristol TM.
It was the only direct train it had according to the timetable on the wall.

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Envoy said:

The darn trouble with the only Voyager out of Cardiff at 7am and a return around 9pm is that they go to Manchester via Bristol Temple Meads; that being so, anyone going between Manchester and Newport/Cardiff would find it quicker to use a Transport for Wales service via The Marches (Shrewsbury / Hereford). It would really be beneficial to the people of south Wales if it could go to/from Newcastle and at least provide one direct service per day between these cities as well as York & Sheffield. If it must go via Bristol, the perhaps it could stop wasting time going down to Temple Meads and then back up to Parkway and just go straight to Parkway - where anybody from downtown Bristol could easily reach by using one of the new GWR fast services to London if not a local stopper.

It seems to me that south Wales is regarded as ‘a backwater’ by Cross Country. Of course, this all goes back to the days of ‘Operation Princess’ when Virgin ordered an inadequate sized fleet of new trains (Voyagers) which were/are of poor design. They even have narrow bodies to allow for tilting despite the fact that on the majority of the network they do not tilt. So, when they needed more capacity, they withdrew units from the south Wales run as they could not order more of these awful trains because Bombardier had destroyed the ‘moulds’. Maybe that was just as well.

Being as GWR now have 5 coach trains on the hourly Cardiff > Portsmouth route as well as 4 coach HST’s hourly between Cardiff and Temple Meads, I would have thought that this was sufficient without a Cross Country long distance express having to serve as a local commuter train between Cardiff & Bristol in the early morning.

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coradiafan2000 said:

Completely agree. I've gotten the 9pm Voyager arrival at Cardiff a couple of times, but mostly for the novelty of riding a Voyager into Cardiff. If I'm travelling from Birmingham to Cardiff, it's quicker to get the service to Bristol parkway and change to a GWR train, as it arrives ten minutes or so before the XC service. As you say it has to go down to Temple Meads, then act as a commuter service, calling at Filton, Patchway and Severn tunnel jn.

Is there any reason why XC favour running trains all the way down to Penzance and Plymouth/ Paignton as opposed to Cardiff and Newport? Is it somehow easier to fit a timetable around that or do they just think not enough South Wales XC passengers want go further north than Derby?

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sufian123 said:

Interesting about this train is starts at 0637 ? Nottingham-Bournemouth then Bournemouth to 1623 Manchester. Then 1705 Manchester to Cardiff via Bristol.

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swt_passenger said:

AIUI the Nottingham to Birmingham leg being operated by a Voyager was done to give more capacity for the early morning flow towards Birmingham, and allow the 170 that should have run in that service’s path to do something else. The Voyager would have previously run empty from Central Rivers to New St to enter service southbound, so it was a relatively easy change to provide for.

So Nottingham to Birmingham is really part of the “XC-lite” pattern on the Nottingham/Cardiff axis, and it’s joined to a New St - Bournemouth working for operating convenience. If it ran as 2 services with separate headcodes I expect nobody would ever have minded...

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PHILIPE said:

The SRA (at the time) decided, not XC

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coradiafan2000 said:

In that case why did the SRA decide it?

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PHILIPE said:

Because the DFT (previously SRA) do, not the TOCs

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coradiafan2000 said:

Yes, but I want to know what their reasoning behind the decision was, not who, as you've already explained who. If you don't know just say so.

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coradiafan2000 said:

Yes, but I want to know what their reasoning behind the decision was, not who, as you've already explained who. If you don't know just say so.

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In September 2002 Virgin Trains launched Operation Princess. This involved introducing a new clockface timetable with shorter trains running more frequently. However the new fleet suffered from a number of technical faults which coupled with infrastructure and capacity issues led to many problems.[11][12] Between September 2002 and January 2003 punctuality fell to 54.1%,[13] it was therefore agreed with the Strategic Rail Authority that certain services would be cut to improve reliability and robustness on the core network.[14]

When Operation Princess was launched in September 2002, Virgin CrossCountry served these destinations:

Code Route Fate
VT0 Birmingham New Street to Swindon via Cheltenham Withdrawn summer 2003 [15]
VT1 Glasgow Central, Edinburgh Waverley & Blackpool North through Birmingham New Street to South West of England Blackpool North withdrawn summer 2003[15]
VT2 Aberdeen, Edinburgh Waverley & Newcastle through Manchester Piccadilly and Birmingham New Street to Poole Services south of Bournemouth withdrawn summer 2003[15]
VT3 Liverpool Lime Street and Manchester Piccadilly, Manchester Airport, through Birmingham New Street to London Paddington, Portsmouth and Brighton Portsmouth and London Paddington withdrawn summer 2003, reduced frequency to Brighton, all Liverpool Lime Street withdrawn winter 2003[15][16]
VT4 Aberdeen and Edinburgh Waverley through Birmingham New Street to Cardiff, Swansea, Paignton and Penzance Services west of Cardiff withdrawn summer 2003[15

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