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East Midlands rural service improvements

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edwin_m

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That's not the case Werrington to Gainsborough Lea Road is covered by Lincoln signalling centre !! Its 24 hours and they seem to do a pretty good job of getting my Liner train round the joint at 02.10
That's why my post you quoted included the words:
but now it's been re-signaled trains can run during longer hours
I guess the Sleaford boxes have always been open longer hours for the Skegness service.
 
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Old Yard Dog

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Crewe - Derby used to be Manchester Airport - Skegness till it suffered near death by a thousand cuts. Now they plan to do something similar to Liverpool - Norwich
 

Failed Unit

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Where have you heard all this? Is it definite?

It is in the dft press release when the franchise was awarded.
I was comparing Grimsby times with Grimsby times.

You're hardly being fair though; if you are adding the ten minutes of Cleethorpes to Grimsby onto the "via Doncaster" journey time then it seems a little skewed to make the "via Lincoln" journey seem faster by only starting that journey at Grimsby.

For me, it seems pretty even to get from Grimsby to London via Doncaster/Lincoln if you were doing it in ideal circumstances - the only main difference will be how much connection there'll be at Lincoln onto the bi-hourly LNER service (i.e. between the two Lincoln - Newark trains) compared to the connection at Doncaster (which gets around four trains per hour to Kings Cross, so the connection time isn't bad).

I get that people want to promote the idea of an improved link and all that, but I don't think that "hourly service to Lincoln to connect onto a bi-hourly service" is going to be transformational for Grimsby passengers when compared to the existing "hourly service to Doncaster to connect onto one of four London departures per hour".

If anything, the Nottingham link should be of much better benefit to Grimsby passengers (esp given how poorly Nottingham is linked to places north of it).
Journey times as you say are about the same. Money talks however. Lincoln is significantly cheaper. Look even now the cheapest APs are available on the Lincoln terminators. This might be another selling point. You are first on the connection.

Back in BR days the fare via Doncaster was always higher. This was removed when the 153s were introduced to try and get demand off the route. (This failed so BR for a while missed the minimum connection time at Newark to discourage through travel)
 

Class 170101

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Crewe seems to be becoming less significant as time goes by. Just one train per hour towards Warrington/ Wigan/Preston/ Carlisle... huge gaps in the service beyond Chester (of up to four hours)... historically significant in the railway story but not as important as it once was IMHO.



Even if that does happen (which would mean the two Lincoln - Newark services departing fairly close to each other), is that going to be competitive for Cleethorpes/ Grimsby - Peterborough/ London journeys when compared to the existing option of changing from the hourly TPE at Doncaster? It's a shame that the Doncaster - Scunthorpe DMU isn't being extended through to Grimsby/ Cleethorpes under the current Northern franchise - it'd improve connections much better if it did (but sits in that awkward land between "Northern" and "East Midland" - on a line where TPE provide the services - so seems to be nobody's priority.

I'm just not convinced that there are enough people who'd do Grimsby - Lincoln - London (rather than via Doncaster) unless there was going to be enough of a time saving.

At the moment Grimsby - Doncaster is about an hour and Grimsby - Lincoln is about an hour... Lincoln to Newark is about half an hour and Doncaster to Newark is about half an hour... so it doesn't feel like a big leap forward (unless the two Lincoln - Newark services are to run within a few minutes of each other?). Handy if you live in places like Market Rasen, I guess, but population density between Grimsby and Lincoln isn't great.

Crewe should become more important due to HS2.

In terms of Northern extending its Scunthorpe service onwards to Cleethorpes whilst it looks awkard don't Northern have a plan to run York - Scarborough (via Malton) services over a route currently operated by TPE? Probably good for price competition but if running via this route can be dome why not between Scunthorpe and Cleethorpes too?

An hourly service lincoln to Grimsby service is better than now alot of people already use that service so it would be busy NOT for Newark connections but to get from Lincoln to Grimsby and as you said Nottingham is probably a good connection for Grimsby passengers. PS the only way a London service is going to come to Grimsby or Cleethorpes is via Lincoln (through LNER). But Doncaster is preferred I agree, vast majority or people use a connection via Doncaster than Lincoln because the latter has low frequency and only one service but I still feel that some may start going to Lincoln but most will use Doncasters still (plus a connection to Doncaster offers links to Edinburgh and York.

In the main I agree that Grimsby and Cleethorpes will probably only get a London service via LNER at Lincoln. However remember the IEP depot for East Coast is at Doncaster so maybe there could be some splitters / joining trains or starters / finishers that run to Cleethorpes instead.
 

Jorge Da Silva

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Crewe should become more important due to HS2.

In terms of Northern extending its Scunthorpe service onwards to Cleethorpes whilst it looks awkard don't Northern have a plan to run York - Scarborough (via Malton) services over a route currently operated by TPE? Probably good for price competition but if running via this route can be dome why not between Scunthorpe and Cleethorpes too?



In the main I agree that Grimsby and Cleethorpes will probably only get a London service via LNER at Lincoln. However remember the IEP depot for East Coast is at Doncaster so maybe there could be some splitters / joining trains or starters / finishers that run to Cleethorpes instead.

a local service between Doncaster and Scunthorpe might be a good thing as it may be popular and Cleethorpes may be a better place to terminate than Scunthorpe. My best guess is capacity I would think a service from Sheffield via Gainsborough might be more of a priority than Doncaster stopper.
 

Class 170101

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a local service between Doncaster and Scunthorpe might be a good thing as it may be popular and Cleethorpes may be a better place to terminate than Scunthorpe. My best guess is capacity I would think a service from Sheffield via Gainsborough might be more of a priority than Doncaster stopper.

Perhaps but a viaable interchange might be worthwhile at Barnetby if a through train can't be resourced as the Sheffield route is favoured.
 

VT 390

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Or could it be done seen as there is a passing loop which would allow two trains to pass on the section between Grimsby Town and Cleethorpes.
As the EMR service will be extended to Cleethorpes could Northern services from 1 or both routes terminate at Grimsby Town?
 

ChrisC

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Crewe - Derby used to be Manchester Airport - Skegness till it suffered near death by a thousand cuts. Now they plan to do something similar to Liverpool - Norwich

Manchester Airport to Skegness didn't really last that many years. However, before that it was always Crewe - Lincoln, and that was a much more useful service. This provided Lincoln passengers with connections at Derby for Birmingham and the SW and also Nottingham passengers connections at Crewe for the WCML, Chester and North Wales. The current services all require additional changes at Nottingham or Derby.

Crewe used to be a very good interchange for services from Nottingham to the NW and Scotland but these days there is only 1tph that calls at Crewe for Scotland. The connections are also not that good with only 10 minutes when travelling southbound from Scotland before the departure to Derby. WCML trains from Glasgow/Edinburgh are regularly delayed and the connection is missed. This happened to me this week but fortunately I was keeping an eye on the situation and changed at Preston and Manchester instead which got ne into Nottingham 30 minutes earlier than I would have done with a long wait at Crewe. Unfortunately you cant have this flexibility when travelling with Advance tickets and have to endure up to 1 hours wait in Crewe as the Derby train is not held. It is no easier travelling via Grantham as very few Edinburgh trains now call there.
 

VT 390

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Manchester Airport to Skegness didn't really last that many years. However, before that it was always Crewe - Lincoln, and that was a much more useful service. This provided Lincoln passengers with connections at Derby for Birmingham and the SW and also Nottingham passengers connections at Crewe for the WCML, Chester and North Wales. The current services all require additional changes at Nottingham or Derby.

Crewe used to be a very good interchange for services from Nottingham to the NW and Scotland but these days there is only 1tph that calls at Crewe for Scotland. The connections are also not that good with only 10 minutes when travelling southbound from Scotland before the departure to Derby. WCML trains from Glasgow/Edinburgh are regularly delayed and the connection is missed. This happened to me this week but fortunately I was keeping an eye on the situation and changed at Preston and Manchester instead which got ne into Nottingham 30 minutes earlier than I would have done with a long wait at Crewe. Unfortunately you cant have this flexibility when travelling with Advance tickets and have to endure up to 1 hours wait in Crewe as the Derby train is not held. It is no easier travelling via Grantham as very few Edinburgh trains now call there.
I would have thought that a 10 minute connection at Crewe would be the best possible connection as this is the minimum connection time, as any service could be delayed by any amount of time no matter how long you allow you could always miss the connection.
 

Jorge Da Silva

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As the EMR service will be extended to Cleethorpes could Northern services from 1 or both routes terminate at Grimsby Town?

EMR is terminating at Grimsby. Northern runs Barton every two hours to Cleethorpes, along with TPE every hour. So in theory the line between Town and Cleethorpes could deal with 2 train per hour or 2.5 trains per hour at max.
 

VT 390

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EMR is terminating at Grimsby. Northern runs Barton every two hours to Cleethorpes, along with TPE every hour. So in theory the line between Town and Cleethorpes could deal with 2 train per hour or 2.5 trains per hour at max.
I thought that EMR was planning to extend its Grimsby service through to Cleethorpes once it becomes hourly?
 

vlad

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Surely the 153s should still have a role when coupled to a PRM-compliant unit, as Northern does at the moment. Where are they going to end up (apart from the few being converted to bike carriers in Scotland)?

Target practice?
 
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