Birmingham-Coventry stoppers

[Waverley125]

currently the stopping services between Birmingham and Coventry run through to Euston via Northampton, which seems to be a fairly wasteful use of capacity on the Southern WCML.

Given the electrification of Coventry-Leamington Spa, would a better option not now be to remove stops north of Northampton from these services so they can take the fasts between Rugby & Birmingham, and instead have the all-stops services divert to terminate at Leamington Spa, with two new stations at Kenilworth and Green Lane?

so a calling pattern of

2tph BIRMINGHAM NEW STREET, Adderley, Stechford, Lea Hall, Marston Green, Birmingham International, Hampton in Arden, Berkswell, Tile Hill, Canley, Coventry, Green Lane, Kenilworth & LEAMINGTON SPA

2tph BIRMINGHAM NEW STREET, Birmingham International, Coventry, Rugby, Long Buckby, Northampton, Milton Keynes Central, Watford Junction, LONDON EUSTON

 

[MidnightFlyer]

I'm not sure what you meant by 'take the fasts [Rugby-Birmingham]' - it's a two track railway for its entirety aside from at Coventry and Birmingham Intl stations. Also, I doubt you could get a half-hourly all stations service - unless you looped it at International you'd certainly have an express service up you backside by Tile Hill / Canley. Further, it also looks like you've got an extra service in there. AFAIK there are no spare paths between BHM and BHI currently, and only one between BHI and COV - if XC get their wish of getting the current via Solihull train via Coventry instead, where goes your extra train fit in.

Finally, if the calling points to London are as you say in the OP, how do you cover the lost services at Bletchley, Buzzard, Berkhamsted and Hemel (including Leighton Buzzard's non-stop hourly service)? Your proposals also give a 33% service reduction to the likes of Marston Green and Tile Hill, and arguably give them a less useful destination!

 

[tbtc]

Where's the space on the single track from Coventry to Leamington for an extra half hourly slow service? It can struggle with late running Voyagers every hour in between the freight.

Why reduce the number of services that places like Northampton get?

The LM/ Silverlink service from Birmingham to London is never going to beat the Virgin service for time - speeding it up slightly isn't going to tip the balance but it will inconvenience a lot of people.

 

[OxtedL]

currently the stopping services between Birmingham and Coventry run through to Euston via Northampton, which seems to be a fairly wasteful use of capacity on the Southern WCML.

Define 'fairly wasteful use of capacity' and what your proposal does to solve it.

 

[Waverley125]

Where's the space on the single track from Coventry to Leamington for an extra half hourly slow service? It can struggle with late running Voyagers every hour in between the freight.

Why reduce the number of services that places like Northampton get?

The LM/ Silverlink service from Birmingham to London is never going to beat the Virgin service for time - speeding it up slightly isn't going to tip the balance but it will inconvenience a lot of people.

There's space to redouble Coventry - Leamington, something I'd assume would happen under electric spine.

Also this obviously doesn't include Northampton - London services which terminate at Northampton or continue up the WCML, merely those that go on to Birmingham.

In all honesty I think it makes as much sense to terminate LM services from Birmingham at Northampton, and have the Northampton - London flow served by a) the Euston - Crewe LM service running fast south of Northampton, and b) a Northampton - Euston stopper.

 

[The Planner]

You will never get 2 all station stoppers on the Cov corridor, it won't work. That is why they skip stop as it is to make everything work down there. If Kenilworth gets off the ground by 2016 as the DfT has asked NR to look at the train will terminate there, the wires and train will not go to Leamington. No other station would be built on the branch and the cynical would say Kenilworth is only to appease for HS2. The only way you can make it work is to divert one of the current Brum - Northamptons to Kenilworth and turn it back there. The DfT would have to instruct LM to do that as I doubt they would be very interested in doing it.

 

[MK Tom]

Don't think of it as BHM-COV stoppers extending to Euston, wasting line capacity down here. All it is is BHM-COV stoppers, BHM-NMP stoppers and NMP-EUS services being run through as one working. If you took them out, another NMP-EUS stopper would still be needed down here. All you'd do is create unnecessary stock movements, and remove convenient through journeys.

What I will say is LM Birmingham services would be far more attractive to us down here if they only stopped at Cov and International. But the Virgin services don't allow for that any more. There's no space on a two-track line. Plus now you can get to Rugby faster on LM Crewe services from MKC-EUS and change there, going via Northampton no longer makes sense anyway.

 

[Trog]

There's space to redouble Coventry - Leamington, something I'd assume would happen under electric spine.

Redoubling from Coventry to Leamington Spa is a logical impossibility.

 

[route:oxford]

There's space to redouble Coventry - Leamington, something I'd assume would happen under electric spine.

Don't forget that Oxford to MK is reopening soon. It should relieve some of the freight pressure on Leamington-Coventry.

 

[gordonthemoron]

In all honesty I think it makes as much sense to terminate LM services from Birmingham at Northampton, and have the Northampton - London flow served by a) the Euston - Crewe LM service running fast south of Northampton, and b) a Northampton - Euston stopper.

Euston-Crewe LM services generally don't serve Northampton Monday-Saturday (except start/end of service)

 

[MK Tom]

Don't forget that Oxford to MK is reopening soon. It should relieve some of the freight pressure on Leamington-Coventry.

Well, that's still over four years away.

 

[sonic2009]

Was the plan for Kenilworth not to extend the Nuneaton - Coventry shuttle.

 

[tbtc]

Was the plan for Kenilworth not to extend the Nuneaton - Coventry shuttle.

That'd never have worked over the flat crossing on the Birmingham - Rugby line - no spare capacity there AFAIK

 

[BlythPower]

Was the plan for Kenilworth not to extend the Nuneaton - Coventry shuttle.

The plans for upgrading the Coventry-Nuneaton service involve a new bay platform in the car park at the western end of Coventry station. So definitely no through running to points south.