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December 2022 Timetable Changes

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JonathanH

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Where can I find details of the December 2022 timetable?
It would seem likely that it will start to appear on RTT (and other places showing the open data) in late August / early September. Until then, details are just in the hands of informed sources.
 

Chiltern006

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will it use St Mary Cray Junction from the Chatham Mainline to the Southeastern Mainline, or from Beckenham Junction to New Beckenham?
 

brad465

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Yes, there is a new Maidstone to Charing Cross service from December which is essentially in lieu of the proposed Thameslink services.
Wow this must be a rare time when a timetable change actually improves the service for a particular line/destination.

will it use St Mary Cray Junction from the Chatham Mainline to the Southeastern Mainline, or from Beckenham Junction to New Beckenham?
I would have thought the former almost certainly, although the latter might exist on a seldom basis to retain route knowledge for diversions (IIRC the Beckenham Spur is used by at least one late night service for this purpose).
 

Class 466

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Has this been officially stated, though? We all know it’s dead, but it doesn’t seem to have been confirmed as such, to the public at large.
In the train planning rules the bit about maidstone was crossed out in favour of 'Future potential Thameslink routes'
 

bramling

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In the train planning rules the bit about maidstone was crossed out in favour of 'Future potential Thameslink routes'

This is what I mean, as far as I can tell there has been no public statement to the effect that Cambridge - Maidstone isn’t happening.

Of course, we all know that certain things have happened behind the scenes, both in terms of Southeastern crewing arrangements and setting up the new Southeastern Maidstone service. But this all seems to have happened at the same time that the Thameslink service has remained aspirational, if not deliverable.

In any case, I’m not sure where the stock to work it would come from. The 700/0 fleet is pretty much fully subscribed.
 

Nicholas Lewis

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This is what I mean, as far as I can tell there has been no public statement to the effect that Cambridge - Maidstone isn’t happening.

Of course, we all know that certain things have happened behind the scenes, both in terms of Southeastern crewing arrangements and setting up the new Southeastern Maidstone service. But this all seems to have happened at the same time that the Thameslink service has remained aspirational, if not deliverable.

In any case, I’m not sure where the stock to work it would come from. The 700/0 fleet is pretty much fully subscribed.
There's always plenty of stock sitting in Three Bridges and Cricklewood during weekday daytime and thats not on a strike day.
 

gingerheid

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In the train planning rules the bit about maidstone was crossed out in favour of 'Future potential Thameslink routes'

"Changes to travel patterns post Covid" has done us all a favour, and in particular the person who has to explain why this terrible idea that nevertheless looks great on paper and would sound great to local politicians is being dropped.

And even if it's never acknowledged publicly, presumably / hopefully the lesson will be learned and people won't try to make overloaded infrastructure across a vast area of the SE of England sweat so much again!
 

bramling

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There's always plenty of stock sitting in Three Bridges and Cricklewood during weekday daytime and thats not on a strike day.

It might be the case now, but this wasn’t really the case pre-Covid. In terms of 700/0 any units stabled during the day would be off Luton-Orpington, Welwyn-Sevenoaks and possibly the odd 8-car on the mainly 12-car routes. Any slack in the 700/0 fleet seems to have been used to cover Rainham, which of course wasn’t in the original plan. Without working out the exact timings, Maidstone is going to be a minimum of 4 units for a half-hourly service, probably more, and I just don’t think they exist without robbing something else.
 

brad465

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It might be the case now, but this wasn’t really the case pre-Covid. In terms of 700/0 any units stabled during the day would be off Luton-Orpington, Welwyn-Sevenoaks and possibly the odd 8-car on the mainly 12-car routes. Any slack in the 700/0 fleet seems to have been used to cover Rainham, which of course wasn’t in the original plan. Without working out the exact timings, Maidstone is going to be a minimum of 4 units for a half-hourly service, probably more, and I just don’t think they exist without robbing something else.
There was also the issue that Chart Leacon needed to be reopened enough to accommodate extra space for SE units to move into, so 700s could use some of the Ashford Down siding space. I don't know what the situation is with Chart Leacon right now, but SE will have achieved some relief from covid reductions and by sending away the 465/2s for the first 707s (instead of trying to keep everything once more stabling was available), and when the remaining 707s do come over, the units they end up pushing out look set to be 377/5s. It will be interesting to see what stock forms this new CHX service being touted.
 

Nicholas Lewis

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It might be the case now, but this wasn’t really the case pre-Covid. In terms of 700/0 any units stabled during the day would be off Luton-Orpington, Welwyn-Sevenoaks and possibly the odd 8-car on the mainly 12-car routes. Any slack in the 700/0 fleet seems to have been used to cover Rainham, which of course wasn’t in the original plan. Without working out the exact timings, Maidstone is going to be a minimum of 4 units for a half-hourly service, probably more, and I just don’t think they exist without robbing something else.
They were fully diagrammed in 2019 but certainly aren't now and unlikely to replicate the 2019 service pattern again. The Rainham service consumes at least 8 units for a half hourly service which was particularly wasteful and should have been run to Dartford maybe Gravesend.
 

Basil Jet

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They were fully diagrammed in 2019 but certainly aren't now and unlikely to replicate the 2019 service pattern again. The Rainham service consumes at least 8 units for a half hourly service which was particularly wasteful and should have been run to Dartford maybe Gravesend.
Maybe the whole point of the Rainham service is to use up the units that aren't needed now that they've given up on 24tph?
 

LNW-GW Joint

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What's the logic behind axing the 2nd Liverpool-Birmingham LNWR service?
Is it just to allow the new 807 service to London, north of Crewe?
The LNWR 2tph Liverpool-Birmingham was the backbone of regional services pre-covid, plus the Avanti West Mids-Scotland made 3tph Birmingham-Crewe.
What have I missed?
There's also no progress on fixing the 1tph Crewe-Preston, linked to accelerating the London-Glasgow directs (a feature of WCML RUSs gong back a decade or more).
 

OrangeJuice

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Doubling up of units on the residual 1tph Liverpool to Birmingham and the Birmingham to Crewe via 'wobbles' service?
But the Birmingham to Crewe via wobbles is basically pointless as it now takes so long doing Wolves to Brum that it's quicker getting the Liverpool train and changing at Wolves/Stafford for Crewe!

Stafford will then have gone from 3tph to Liverpool to one
 

Bletchleyite

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But the Birmingham to Crewe via wobbles is basically pointless as it now takes so long doing Wolves to Brum that it's quicker getting the Liverpool train and changing at Wolves/Stafford for Crewe!

It isn't, and never was, a service for people going from Birmingham to Crewe. The Liverpool (LNR) and Scotland (Avanti) trains provide 2tph direct on that.

The purpose of that train is connecting the "wobbly" bits to either end.

The above comment is a bit like "The train from Barrow to Carlisle via the Cumbrian Coast is pointless because it's quicker to change at Lancaster". It is, but that completely ignores the point of that service which doesn't involve people going from Barrow to Carlisle unless they want to spend a while looking at scenery.
 

OrangeJuice

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It isn't, and never was, a service for people going from Birmingham to Crewe. The Liverpool (LNR) and Scotland (Avanti) trains provide 2tph direct on that.

The purpose of that train is connecting the "wobbly" bits to either end.

Yes that's a fair point. I got sidetracked and confused over the two points I was making, as I had been thinking about the fact that going to Stoke the train is overtaken leaving Birmingham meaning it's better to get the Liverpool train to Stafford and then switch to the Crewe via Stoke service. I think that's what I was wanting to highlight and means whilst initially the via Stoke was great for those with fewer XC trains it's now less so and all results from slow reinstatement of the useful 2tph frequencies (I think that was the second point I was aiming to make but failed previously)
 

Watershed

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The latest public documents suggest that a return of a 2tph Birmingham-Liverpool service isn't totally off the cards (as it is for 6tph CrossCity, for instance), but that it is dependent on traffic levels. I would see that as code for "not really happening" but perhaps I'm being pessimistic there.

I agree, the WCML has suffered disproportionately from timetable cuts compared to most other lines. Many flows now have only half their pre-Covid frequencies (if that) and have no prospect of an increase - despite passenger numbers being near 100% of pre-Covid levels, particularly on weekends.

Increasing the length of trains is well and good, but in many cases it is just providing the level of capacity for each train that should have existed years ago. Frequency is just as important, but this seems to have been just left as it is, without any commensurate recasting of the timetable to reduce gaps. A lot of it was done under the cover of Covid-related traincrew shortages, too, rather than there being any sort of public consultation about the cuts.

It doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the railway.
 

Starmill

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Doubling up of units on the residual 1tph Liverpool to Birmingham and the Birmingham to Crewe via 'wobbles' service?
The Crewe to Birmingham stopping service is very little used. An eight car isn't going to be necessary any time soon.
 

Bletchleyite

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The latest public documents suggest that a return of a 2tph Birmingham-Liverpool service isn't totally off the cards (as it is for 6tph CrossCity, for instance), but that it is dependent on traffic levels. I would see that as code for "not really happening" but perhaps I'm being pessimistic there.

There'll be a decision point on that at some stage when the 730s arrive. It was meant to be half hourly 5.730 (2+2 layout) which would likely fit the traffic well. Hourly 5.730 will be severely overcrowded, while if they want to use 8.350 something else will have to run as 730s. 10.730 would probably have length issues and be overkill.

Thr Crewe to Birmingham stopping service is very little used. An eight car isn't going to be necessary any time soon.

The whole reason the "wobble" service exists (and was separated from the Euston-Crewe) was that at Stone station going north an 8-car set would foul the mainline during a station stop, so unless 5.730 fits there's no scope to go longer.
 

Starmill

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The whole reason the "wobble" service exists (and was separated from the Euston-Crewe) was that at Stone station going north an 8-car set would foul the mainline during a station stop, so unless 5.730 fits there's no scope to go longer.
Indeed. And the level crossing at Alsager.
 

Watershed

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The Crewe to Birmingham stopping service is very little used. An eight car isn't going to be necessary any time soon.
And the diversion via Tame Bridge Parkway will only serve to reduce footfall further. The only people who will really use it are those making local journeys (e.g. Penkridge/Stone-Stoke/Stafford) or from the small stations (Alsager/Kidsgrove/Stone/Penkridge/Tame Bridge) to Birmingham, or changing at Stafford/Stoke/Crewe for connections.

However it is nevertheless a useful service and serves as a model for the kind of stopping service that is needed north of Crewe. With the scrapping of the Golborne spur, however, the prospect of that now seems even more remote.
 

JonathanH

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The Crewe to Birmingham stopping service is very little used. An eight car isn't going to be necessary any time soon.
Sorry, there should have been a comma, not an implication of 8-car working on the wobble service.

1tph between Liverpool and Birmingham because a) the residual Liverpool to Birmingham service is double length, and b) the presence of the wobble service, primarily reason a).

I thought the widely held view was that trains had got too frequent before March 2020 to be reliable and the new world would see longer, less frequent trains to rebuild reliability. This seems not to be happening in enough places, and where it is happening, people seem to be complaining.
 

Starmill

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I thought the widely held view was that trains had got too frequent before March 2020 to be reliable and the new world would see longer, less frequent trains to rebuild reliability.
This is just something which people like saying, rather than something which actually goes a significant way to improving the economics of rail services.

In reality the impetus to do it isn't reliability - it's saving train crew costs!
 

Bletchleyite

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This is just something which people like saying, rather than something which actually goes a significant way to improving the economics of rail services.

It might not do much for the economics, but lower frequencies certainly can do something for punctuality/reliability. There was, pre COVID, far too little slack in many timetables based on the infrastructure available. (The alternative is to do something about the infrastructure).

Unless you need the capacity it can also make sense to drop from a frequency that is messy to a slightly lower but memorable clockface one. St Albans is one of these in my view, and I believe that's happening for the daytime service. Because people will remember the time of the train, they might be more likely to use it. However I think this gets diminishing returns once you get past hourly.
 

Watershed

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I thought the widely held view was that trains had got too frequent before March 2020 to be reliable and the new world would see longer, less frequent trains to rebuild reliability. This seems not to be happening in enough places, and where it is happening, people seem to be complaining.
In some corridors this is certainly true but I don't think it can be claimed that 2tph between Birmingham and Liverpool/Manchester was too frequent, for instance.

The claim "we're improving reliability" has served as a convenient smokescreen for cutbacks which are the result of the Treasury's dogmatic position of knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing...
 
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