1R22 07:15 Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston has a really bad timetable next week, booked Euston arrival 09:40 (
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:C34359/2022-03-01/detailed) and, with 1R18 07:00 remaining cancelled gives a relatively poor up morning service from Manchester. 1R22 is timed over 1 hour Rugby-Euston, which is pretty much 1966 standards (mind you, with a lengthy stop now at Milton Keynes)! 15 minutes of pathing allowance Stone-Euston.
Public timetable for next week at
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1R22 follows 1U20 07:14 Crewe-Euston 110mph all the way from Rugby to Euston. It used to arrive into Euston at 09:21 but now seems to be delayed at Colwich to follow 4E84 05:19 Seaforth-Doncaster (
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:H22540/2022-03-01/detailed) and therefore runs 6 minutes later from there than it used to, and then just continues to pick up delays from having lost its original path (it used to run 6 minutes ahead of 1U20 from Rugby, but now it has to follow 1U20)! And it's booked to pick up passengers at Milton Keynes at 09:03 so it's not going to be able to run faster if it's not held up by other trains anyway; it might end up sitting in platform 4 at Milton Keynes for quite some while as a result.
Nothing earth-shaking here, it's just something I find interesting to see and the obvious complexity associated with pathing trains over busy lines these days.
The 1932 (first off peak train) to Crewe via. Birmingham was packed to the rafters (according to the missus). Plenty of overspill into Standard Premium to the point of it being full and standing -- the TM apparently wandered from first class through SP to standard, realised he was on a hiding to nothing, then retreated post haste back to first, never to be seen again. No payments taken from anyone.
Avanti (maybe Virgin in the old days too?) drive me a little bit potty. Eye-watering fares throughout the peak. First off peak southbound is at half-ten from the West Midlands, barely getting you to town before midday. Then the blanket peak only from about 3pm until the infamous first off-peak departures at gone 7pm.
1H71, the 16:40/16:35 departure the same day was very quiet, almost nobody else in Standard Premium. Our advance tickets were relatively cheap and significantly cheaper than our previous day's 1A21 09:55 up Manchester-London, which is a train on which off-peak tickets are permitted. So it appears that loadings are up (if your busy train is anything to go by) and the peak/off-peak split isn't really matching demand. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about how quiet my earlier service was! 1A21 on Tuesday was relatively busy, including in Standard Premium.
On the other hand, the advance ticket pricing appeared to match demand in my case. I originally thought the 16:40 down would be more expensive and was thinking of having to travel later to get a lower price, but the 16:40 was perfect timing after a leisurely lunch and well priced too.
EDIT PS I note that 1R22 gets its old timetable back starting on 7th. March, with a return to an 09:21 arrival into London Euston (
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:C34359/2022-03-07/detailed).