December 2021 Timetable change

[Ianno87]

But it does that’s just the point. You can no longer travel Manchester-Bristol or Newcastle-Reading for the majority of the day

Yes you can. You just need to change trains.

 

[dk1]

Yes you can. You just need to change trains.

Of course you can but that adds quite a bit to the journey time now & hardly encourages travel. Very poor show indeed from XC.

 

[Ianno87]

Of course you can but that adds quite a bit to the journey time now & hardly encourages travel. Very poor show indeed from XC.

People change trains left, right and centre all over the network. My wife is changing trains to get to Liverpool tomorrow, for example.

 

[dk1]

People change trains left, right and centre all over the network. My wife is changing trains to get to Liverpool tomorrow, for example.

You don’t say, but not on routes that have that can & should have restored direct services. Not quite sure why this TOC are dragging Covid out quite so much.

 

[FenMan]

Yes you can. You just need to change trains.

Passengers arriving in New Street on the southbound Newcastle - Bristol XC service have an hour wait if they're heading towards Reading. Which is about as passenger unfriendly as it gets.

 

[Starmill]

But it does that’s just the point. You can no longer travel Manchester-Bristol or Newcastle-Reading for the majority of the day & don’t even think about any direct services to Doncaster.

Might be OK if a suitable connection were provided for Bristol to Manchester or Sheffield to Oxford. But they're not, they're both an hour in Birmingham.

 

[dk1]

Might be OK if a suitable connection were provided for Bristol to Manchester or Sheffield to Oxford. But they're not, they're both an hour in Birmingham.

Not good.

 

[Starmill]

Passengers arriving in New Street on the southbound Newcastle - Bristol XC service have an hour wait if they're heading towards Reading. Which is about as passenger unfriendly as it gets.

Same for arrival from Bristol and travelling to Manchester.

 

[Watershed]

Same for arrival from Bristol and travelling to Manchester.

Indeed. XC ran these trains for a reason, not just for fun. The current pattern may nominally provide the same capacity (at least along the 'core' routes - lots of the extensions e.g. to Plymouth and Edinburgh have been curtailed). But it provides nowhere near the same connectivity or journey times.

The loss of the Newcastle-Reading via Doncaster service is particularly significant, as this overtook the preceding service via Leeds. Meaning that not only are frequencies lower but journey times, even on flows which still have direct trains, are now longer.

 

[dk1]

Indeed. XC ran these trains for a reason, not just for fun. The current pattern may nominally provide the same capacity (at least along the 'core' routes - lots of the extensions e.g. to Plymouth and Edinburgh have been curtailed). But it provides nowhere near the same connectivity or journey times.

The loss of the Newcastle-Reading via Doncaster service is particularly significant, as this overtook the preceding service via Leeds. Meaning that not only are frequencies lower but journey times, even on flows which still have direct trains, are now longer.

I just don’t understand why so many defend the continuing severe cutbacks XC have made to their network. We seem to be looking at May of next year at the earliest for any resumption of these popular routes.

 

[Watershed]

I just don’t understand why so many defend the continuing severe cutbacks XC have made to their network. We seem to be looking at May of next year at the earliest for any resumption of these popular routes.

They don't even intend to resume them in May

 

[43055]

But it does that’s just the point. You can no longer travel Manchester-Bristol or Newcastle-Reading for the majority of the day & don’t even think about any direct services to Doncaster.

Doncaster is still served as a couple of Newcastle - Birmingham - Banbury services run in the same times as the Newcastle - Reading services.

 

[dk1]

Doncaster is still served as a couple of Newcastle - Birmingham - Banbury services run in the same times as the Newcastle - Reading services.

At least it’s getting a token service & isn’t completely forgotten. Operational convenience too to maintain route knowledge.

 

[irish_rail]

Yes you can. You just need to change trains.

Trouble is, Birmingham New St is probably the least user friendly station on the network, and if travelling from the south west to the north west it is the only place you can realistically change at other than routing via London.
Oh for the days when XC provided a mix of destinations.

 

[Bald Rick]

Not quite sure why this TOC are dragging Covid out quite so much.

Because they are being told to. Welcome to the future.

 

[philosopher]

Because they are being told to. Welcome to the future.

Your comment suggests Crosscountry are going to make these changes permanent. If that is the case don’t Crosscountry have to consult on a new timetable?

 

[Starmill]

Your comment suggests Crosscountry are going to make these changes permanent. If that is the case don’t Crosscountry have to consult on a new timetable?

No? It might be viewed as wise and courteous to run a consultation, but they can just change it. As long as the Secretary of State meets their statutory duties under the Railways Act 1993.

 

[Bald Rick]

Your comment suggests Crosscountry are going to make these changes permanent. If that is the case don’t Crosscountry have to consult on a new timetable?

My comment was intended to suggest that Train Operators are going to be operating exactly what they are being told to operate, not necessarily that these changes will be permanent.

For what it’s worth I think a consultation would take place if these were proposed to be made permanent. As has already happened with SWR and Scotrail, and to a lesser extent Greater Anglia. I’d be very surprised if those were the last consultations we shall see.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the industry is broke. Passenger numbers are down 30-40%, which means revenue is down £4-5bn a year. That is unsustainable and there are going to be some difficult decisions to be made. I don’t much fancy being the person (people) that have to make and justify them.

 

[dk1]

Because they are being told to. Welcome to the future.

Seems so with some where as others are straight back to real life. I don’t get it.

 

[Bald Rick]

Seems so with some where as others are straight back to real life. I don’t get it.

Back to a near full service, not necessarily ‘real life’.

 

[dk1]

Back to a near full service, not necessarily ‘real life’.

I don’t know. Everything’s almost back to normal in my world bar a certain percentage of commuters in the work life.

 

[Starmill]

I don’t know. Everything’s almost back to normal in my world bar a certain percentage of commuters in the work life.

It is for some people. But a large proportion of those are people who never used railways, before or since the pandemic.

 

[Bald Rick]

I don’t know. Everything’s almost back to normal in my world bar a certain percentage of commuters in the work life.

It really isn’t back to normal in terms of passenger numbers on GEML / WAML services in the peak. Nor Stansted passengers. And those are the passengers that pay the bills (and our salaries).

 

[miklcct]

Back to a near full service, not necessarily ‘real life’.

I'm very disappointed that SWR is still operating only 1 train per hour at Branksome and Parkstone!!! It was 2 in the past! This is definitely not back to a full service!

Branksome is in the middle of a 400000-population conurbation with a retail park just next to it, how it doesn't warrant 2 trains per hour?! Also, don't people living nearby need to go to Poole for their daily shopping?

The same for Hamworthy as well. Don't residents there go to Poole in their daily life?!

 

[dk1]

It really isn’t back to normal in terms of passenger numbers on GEML / WAML services in the peak. Nor Stansted passengers. And those are the passengers that pay the bills (and our salaries).

Exactly what I said.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Oct 2021 ==

It is for some people. But a large proportion of those are people who never used railways, before or since the pandemic.

To be fair we where at record passenger numbers anyway.

 

[Austriantrain]

Passenger numbers are down 30-40%,

Really baffled by this. ÖBB reported 85% of pre-Covid passenger numbers this September and was expecting even more in October. I don’t think it is that much different in neighbouring countries. What is so different in the UK?

 

[Starmill]

Really baffled by this. ÖBB reported 85% of pre-Covid passenger numbers this September and was expecting even more in October. I don’t think it is that much different in neighbouring countries. What is so different in the UK?

The government spent an awfully long time asking people not to use public transport, putting up posters in stations and forcing people to confirm that their journey was essential before they could buy a ticket. That only recently ceased. The Prime Minister even asked people to drive to work if they could. This has affected all forms of public transport very severely, as they've lost market share.

Furthermore, there was a unique reliance on a very particular market segment, office commuters working in several districts of inner London, living in outer London and the rest of the East and South East of England. This sector was badly "overheated" before the pandemic, costing an awful lot in extra resources thrown at it and generating a vastly disproportionate amount of the industry's revenue. It is very unfortunate that the most important market, office commuters, is the worst hit by the permanent changes wrought by the pandemic.

Non-London intercity rail has been woeful for decades, Non-London city centre commuting was growing quickly but very poorly resourced, and regional journeys far from urban centres anywhere always pretty quiet. There are also worse staff and rolling stock issues than ever, and some industrial action.

To put it another way the railway has very very little scope for numbers or revenue growth on the journeys where the market is back.

 

[Bald Rick]

Really baffled by this. ÖBB reported 85% of pre-Covid passenger numbers this September and was expecting even more in October. I don’t think it is that much different in neighbouring countries. What is so different in the UK?

In broad terms, with such a large city, and a dense level of employment in the central activity area, I suspect that proportionally more people commute to central London by rail than commute to central Vienna / Graz / Salzburg / etc by rail.

Many more of these daily commuters are travelling long distance too (30-150miles // 50-250km), paying £4-10k a year for it, and taking up 2-4 hours of their day. That’s a pretty strong incentive to stop doing so, if you can earn the same money by working at home most of the time.

Then on the ‘push’ side, with central London office rents in the region of £750/Sqm, that’s a strong incentive for employers to downsize and encourage their staff to work at home.

The final point, which is a smaller effect but still worth noting is airport traffic. In 2019 around 2% of GB rail passengers were heading to or from a plane, and that has been slow to recover. It’s also important as it represents rather more than 2% of revenue.

 

[DDB]

In the case of EMR where the service collapsed after the May timetable change such that some routes have less services now than during the peak of the lockdown. There is also no outward signs of improvement six months later. This is encouraging people to find other means to get to work. I worry they will now be lost from the railway forever. I don't know how this compares to other TOCs.

 

[Bald Rick]

In the case of EMR where the service collapsed after the May timetable change such that some routes have less services now than during the peak of the lockdown. There is also no outward signs of improvement six months later. This is encouraging people to find other means to get to work.

Whilst this is true, and every passenger affected will be feeling rightly aggrieved, the number of passengers affected is almost negligible compared to the loss of central London commuters.