Cross Country history

[thenorthern]

Just a few questions on the history of CrossCountry, when did the CrossCountry brand start at British Rail and when did each of the CrossCountry services currently in service today start also what were the CrossCountry trains like before Virgin Trains took over in 1997.

Cheers to anyone who knows.

 

[Manchester77]

Before virgin voyager-ised the XC network trains were formed of mark II coaches hauled by 47s and 86s or HST sets. VXC launches operation princess to improve services but that went tits up: compare the 2002 map with the 2006:
02: http://www.projectmapping.co.uk/Reviews/Resources/Virgin lit 72002.jpg
06: http://www.projectmapping.co.uk/Reviews/Resources/Virgin lit 52006.jpg

 

[Greenback]

There's a long history of cross country trains even before the branding, which was introduced in the mid 1980's IIRC. I think it came in a sa result of the 'business led railway' initiative introduced by one of the Bob Reid's, but I could be wrong.

Even before BR existed, there were a lot of workings where the pre nationalisation railway companies worked together to run services such as the Port to Port Express, which ran between the north east and south wales for many years. There was also a through coach between Aberdeen and Penzance - it took almost a day to get to its destination I believe!

 

[thenorthern]

From what I gather the Cross Country mainline got much better when Virgin Trains took it over.

 

[Eagle]

What is the Crosscountry mainline though? There isn't really one. It's always been just the collection of Intercity routes that didn't serve central London (and mainly, later entirely, that went via Birmingham).

 

[thenorthern]

The Cross Country concept has done Birmingham very well as it has given it fast and better links to several Cities and in some cases better inter-city links than London has.

 

[43074]

What is the Crosscountry mainline though? There isn't really one. It's always been just the collection of Intercity routes that didn't serve central London (and mainly, later entirely, that went via Birmingham).

Technically its Derby to Bristol IIRC, although very few people refer to it as such.
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Just a few questions on the history of CrossCountry, when did the CrossCountry brand start at British Rail and when did each of the CrossCountry services currently in service today start also what were the CrossCountry trains like before Virgin Trains took over in 1997.

Cheers to anyone who knows.

The brand was established in mid 1980s, although cross-country services as such began in the late 1890s/early 1900s although very few services ran. A more common way of providing the services was the operation of through coaches, attached and detached variously throughout the journey. The North East/South West axis has been served by direct services since the 1950s, although it was the 70s that the idea really took off when an increased service pattern was established, centred on Birmingham. Prior to Voyagers, the trains were formed variously of 2+7 HSTs, 47s and 86s with Mark 2s.

 

[Taunton]

The Western Region built about 100 3-car dmus in the late 1950s that were officially known as "Cross Country", both Swindon works and Gloucester RCW built them, so this is probably the first official use of the expression. Ironically, they were never used at first on the Bristol-Derby line, although they operated all around it on other routes. They had significantly better seating than other dmus of the era. The Scottish Region also had some, but no other parts of the system bought them.

 

[IanXC]

There was also a through coach between Aberdeen and Penzance - it took almost a day to get to its destination I believe!

Still does

Something its easy to forget is that the pre nationalisation companies ran competing cross country services, as well as joint services.

The GWR operated joint services as far as locations such as Leicester, Sheffield and York. But also, for instance, ran Wolverhampton to Kingswear (via the North Warwickshire line, Cheltenham and Gloucester) from the opening of the relevant lines around 1910.

 

[Eagle]

Bournemouth to Birkenhead was another GWR route, created to rival the Midland's Pines Express (Bournemouth to Manchester).

 

[Bayum]

I remember being distinctly aware at the age of maybe 4 in '94 and early '95 the concept of 'Crosscountry'.

Whether this was as part of the branding for Intercity or not I don't know, as I distinctly remember the changeover from IC liveried trains to Virgin liveried trains

 

[flymo]

Just for interest, Attached are a couple of small photos from the '74, '84 and '98 timetables for Table 51 showing the route maps then.

 

[43074]

A History of CrossCountry rail travel can be viewed here, from it's origins in the 19th Century to privatisation in 1994.

 

[Condor7]

Funnily enough I had just been thinking about something similar last night.

One of my regular haunts is on the WCML between Oxenholme and Carlisle after moving to the area a few years ago.

One of the things that surprised me was the lack of variety of passenger trains. Virgin Pendelino's and Voyagers on the London/Midland to Scotland routes and Trans Pennine express class 185's on the Manchester Airport to Scotland routes. (some 350's are just being introduced to replace the 185's)
Apart from the occasional charter that is it.

I am not sure if the Cross Country brand actually used that route in the past but I remember there were long distance trains from other companies one of which was 'The European' from Harwich to Scotland.

I am surprised there are not now more long distance destinations using that route.

 

[steevp]

I remember that in about 1980 my girlfriend and I took our motorcycles from Portsmouth to Hull by train, changing at Southampton and Leeds. Can't remember if there was any branding of the train from Southampron, but wouldn't be allowed today. We also did a similar trip from Portsmouth to Exeter, changing at Salisbury. We only had small 50cc machines and so this meant that the long part of trips was done in comfort - happy days!

 

[thenorthern]

I am not sure if the Cross Country brand actually used that route in the past but I remember there were long distance trains from other companies one of which was 'The European' from Harwich to Scotland.

Virgin CrossCountry and for about 4 weeks Cross Country operated the Birmingham/Manchester to Glasgow/Edinburgh via Carlisle services along there I think.

I also remember before the Voyagers were introduced getting on at Stoke-on-Trent and having to do an engine change at Preston before going on to Oxenholme Lake District.

 

[Eagle]

I also remember before the Voyagers were introduced getting on at Stoke-on-Trent and having to do an engine change at Preston before going on to Oxenholme Lake District.

That's a hangover from the BR rule that loco-hauled services had to use electric traction under the wires as much as was practical.

(Is the XC franchise the only one that became all-diesel after privatization?)

 

[thenorthern]

That's a hangover from the BR rule that loco-hauled services had to use electric traction under the wires as much as was practical.

(Is the XC franchise the only one that became all-diesel after privatization?)

Chiltern is and I think Great Western, Wales and West, Valley lines and Thames Trains were as well.

 

[ainsworth74]

Chiltern is and I think Great Western, Wales and West, Valley lines and Thames Trains were as well.

They already were diesel operations. XC is the only one, that I can think of, that went from having some electric operations to only be diesel.

 

[thenorthern]

I suppose you may at a push you may be able to count Transpennie as pre FTPE I think First North Western and Arriva Trains Northern used electrics on some now Transpennie routes.

 

[Eagle]

Which Transpennine routes do you mean?

 

[Aictos]

The old Blackpool to Cambridge route, would that have been Cross Country or Regional Railways?

 

[sprinterguy]

The old Blackpool to Cambridge route, would that have been Cross Country or Regional Railways?

That was part of Regional Railways. To the best of my knowledge it was essentially a variant on the now-consolidated Liverpool to Norwich services, which used to have a wider range of origins and destinations beyond the "core" section of the service in the middle.

 

[CatfordCat]

Wasn't the North East - South West service branded as 'Heart Line' briefly?

I have a winter 1972/3 southern region timetable to hand, and that shows 3 trains a day on the Dorset / Hampshire - Reading - Birmingham corridor -

0928 Southampton to Liverpool (equivalent southbound train at 1520)
1125 Poole to Newcastle (southbound at 0655)
1629 Poole to Liverpool (southbound at 0720)

and on Sundays only one in each direction - 1545 Liverpool - Southampton and 1728 Southampton - Liverpool.

The Reading - Oxford - Birmingham route was mainly (from memory) through trains from Paddington in the 70s and 80s. I can't recall if any services from Paddington ran further north at that time.

 

[Taunton]

The Reading - Oxford - Birmingham route was mainly (from memory) through trains from Paddington in the 70s and 80s. I can't recall if any services from Paddington ran further north at that time.

I do recall a Paddington to Liverpool Lime St service, which was really nothing more than an operating convenience of stringing together a Paddington-Birmingham and Birmingham-Liverpool service, obviously suiting also passengers travelling across Birmingham.

I do seem to recall at this time that service on the Birmingham-Reading axis was broadly hourly, alternate trains continuing to Paddington or reversing towards Southampton. Similarly Oxford to Paddington was hourly, with alternate trains coming from Birmingham or Worcester. This meant that on the Oxford to Reading section, every two hours the Worcester to Paddington and Birmingham to Southampton trains were just a few minutes apart. All were full-length Class 47-hauled trains, generally with earlier Mk 2 stock.

 

[thenorthern]

Was the Nottingham to Glasgow Central train run CrossCountry?

One thing I never get is why Virgin Trains don't stop at Tamworth and Motherwell but CrossCountry regularly stop at both.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

There is a good book to be written here - there were through trains like the Bham - Brighton run jointly by the LNW / LBSC as far back as 1910. Things really took off in the 1970's. when work was done to regularize and improve Table 51 (sort of NE to SW via Brum) , incrementally to provide a sort of standard pattern with add-ons to places like Paignton and so on south of Bristol or Exeter. There were lots of one - off trains like the 0740 Cardiff -Newcastle and return - which had a proper diner ! , or the 1422 Swansea to Manchester (46 hauled no less !) . As efforts were made to make "Inter City" profitable -some routes were given over to Regional Railways DMU sets (such as Liverpool to Birmingham , or Birmingham - Cardiff - West Wales , - frequencies improved accordingly - albeit with non LHCS trains) - other routes abandoned like the infrequent Dover to Liverpool - by about 1990 , Cross-Country was aligned management wise with Midland Main line at a HQ in Derby - then split off and franchised and the Virgin bid gave us the 221 etc "standard pattern" in and after many changes we have we have now. A thing which (frankly) amazed me - was that the whole lot was "unprofitable" after 1994 thanks to Track Access charges and a basic leisure / commuting baseload traffic. Arriva - to be fair - pay a premium (whereas Virgin got a whopping subsidy) - and have held the line well as far as service frequency etc is concerned. Personally - I think there is some scope for more changes - such as using EMU sets.

 

[Eagle]

One thing I never get is why Virgin Trains don't stop at Tamworth and Motherwell but CrossCountry regularly stop at both.

XC inherited Edinburgh to Glasgow from East Coast in May 2011. IT was chosen to drop King's Cross to Glasgow as a regular route because the WCML upgrades of the 2000s had made it very unattractive; but the Glasgow extensions were tacked on to XC services to maintain the direct link between Glasgow and NE England.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

XC inherited Edinburgh to Glasgow from East Coast in May 2011. IT was chosen to drop King's Cross to Glasgow as a regular route because the WCML upgrades of the 2000s had made it very unattractive; but the Glasgow extensions were tacked on to XC services to maintain the direct link between Glasgow and NE England.

Spot on - Glasgow to the NE is quite a large flow - the EC mileage was recycled into the "standard" pattern. XC serve it hourly - as opposed to 2 hourly.

Some of the East Coast workings into Glasgow were jinxed with long turn rounds which blocked platforms at Central.

Motherwell is a problem - a balance between end to end journey times and frankly not much business on those WC journeys that called , probably not helped by very poor car parking for railheaders - and constraints with pathing and signal headways due to the large number of EMU workings around there.

 

[Zoe]

Spot on - Glasgow to the NE is quite a large flow - the EC mileage was recycled into the "standard" pattern. XC serve it hourly - as opposed to 2 hourly.

Looking at the timetable I can only see a 2 hourly XC service from Glasgow except for a 1 hour 10 minute gap between the 0750 and 0900. There's gaps of slightly less than 2 hours between the 0601 and 0750 (there's also the East Coast Glasgow to King's Cross service at 0650) and between the 1500 and 1652 but in the case of the latter there is then a gap of over 2 hours before the 1900.