ECML Dec 2010 Timetable

[me123]

Am I right in thinking that, albeit involving a change, connections between Motherwell and Edinburgh will be much better than at present once the Glasgow - Shotts - Edinburgh fast service commences?

YES it will. It will actually, IMO, provide a more efficient service. As I've said, the small market for passengers who need to make a cross Glasgow transfer could be adequately met by this train. It will offer a competitive journey time for those who make said journey (I believe around the hour mark). However, Queen Street services will remain superior because:

• The vast majority of the passengers, in my experience, travel between the two cities
• Those who transfer travel short distances, and generally use the Subway or North Clyde Lines
• Queen Street is more conveniently located for the city itself

The route via Carstairs is not able to compete with the main Falkirk route because of the Carstairs curve and because of platform capacity in Glasgow Central. All these wonderful destinations you all go on about have made the station pretty full.

My only problem is that direct services between Motherwell and Edinburgh are being lost. In my experience, most passengers actually get off at Motherwell, which has established itself as a small, but economically significant, commuter base for Edinburgh. But the new Caledonian Express will provide a better and higher frequency through service, albeit involving an extra change.

 

[route:oxford]

The suggestion that Queen Street is good for Scottish cities north of Glasgow is irrelevant as passengers for such destinations from the ECML would never go via Glasgow! They would change at Edinburgh.

That's my argument and I'm sticking to it!

Not sure about that one, I'd change at Falkirk (Grahmston) if I could - that way I wouldn't have to trail up and down stairs...

But to be fair to you, I, and my elderly parents, find it easier to change from Glasgow Queen Street to Glasgow Central when travelling south.

For me it's a 4/5 minute stroll between the stations that both have a good clear layout, good facilities and the opportunity to buy food or books at normal high street prices en-route.

For my parents it's the way they can get between the two stations with just two steps. One onto the bus, the other off the bus.

 

[MCR247]

It is rumoured that the East Coast franchise do not want to use 180s, and so will be trying to get the maximum utilisation of existing stock possible, hence Glasgow going over to Voyagers (but do XC have enough spare stock?). It is also rumoured that a swap deal may be offered to get Grand Central's HSTs and/or a transfer of HSTs from XC, although I can't see the latter happening if XC are asked to run more services to Glasgow!

I've heard the they dont want to use 180s aswell, but I'm not sure if the Lincoln trains are timed for HSTs or not, it said in the document. But the XC one might be closer to happening considering that apparantly XC are not going to use 2(?) sets after December09

 

[jon0844]

Elaine Holt told me FCC would get 180s over her head body, so now she's in charge....

 

[Spaceflower]

YES it will. It will actually, IMO, provide a more efficient service. As I've said, the small market for passengers who need to make a cross Glasgow transfer could be adequately met by this train. It will offer a competitive journey time for those who make said journey (I believe around the hour mark). However, Queen Street services will remain superior because:

• The vast majority of the passengers, in my experience, travel between the two cities
• Those who transfer travel short distances, and generally use the Subway or North Clyde Lines
• Queen Street is more conveniently located for the city itself

The route via Carstairs is not able to compete with the main Falkirk route because of the Carstairs curve and because of platform capacity in Glasgow Central. All these wonderful destinations you all go on about have made the station pretty full.

My only problem is that direct services between Motherwell and Edinburgh are being lost. In my experience, most passengers actually get off at Motherwell, which has established itself as a small, but economically significant, commuter base for Edinburgh. But the new Caledonian Express will provide a better and higher frequency through service, albeit involving an extra change.

I still don't see how these points are relevant to the NXEC service? It wouls still mean an extra change for passengers travelling from the NE and eastern counties. Also Glasgow central (I would have thought) would provide more appropriate onward connections. Speaking from a passenger point of view and living in Durham, a direct train would always be my first choice to Glasgow and beyond to Ayrshire, etc, rather than changing at Edinburgh onto a commuter service.
As an aside, which Glasgow station do the Oban, Fort William and Mallaig trains use?

 

[tbtc]

I always stay on to go to Central, even though you have to specify Central in order to get a ticket there these days.

It's more convenient for me, you know it's going to turn up and that you're not going to miss it (because you're already on it), you know you're going to get a seat on it (try getting on one of the peak time services via Falkirk, let alone with a bag and a case, let alone finding a seat) and moreover...

...the trouble is that your justification for keeping the Central service is that it's really empty (which it is, in my experience)... a waste using a 225 or even a Voyager on this route.

However, if the stock existed for the hourly XC service to Edinburgh to run in the path of this "semi fast" Shotts service, then you'd be talking

As for the rest of this thread; I think most of the proposals are improvements, but as usual we're arguing about a handful of obscurer routes (e.g. a minor improvement to the London - Edinburgh service is more important than withdrawing the Stevenage - Nortahllerton service - that's where the passenger numbers lie). I appreciate that there is a real need for some of these connections, but the railway can't solve everything, and I think it's generally better to concentrate on the major passenger flows, even if it means "direct" services like Doncaster to Motherwell are lost.

 

[90019]

As an aside, which Glasgow station do the Oban, Fort William and Mallaig trains use?

Queen Street.

 

[Spaceflower]

Yeah, I just checked
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

...the trouble is that your justification for keeping the Central service is that it's really empty (which it is, in my experience)... a waste using a 225 or even a Voyager on this route.

However, if the stock existed for the hourly XC service to Edinburgh to run in the path of this "semi fast" Shotts service, then you'd be talking

As for the rest of this thread; I think most of the proposals are improvements, but as usual we're arguing about a handful of obscurer routes (e.g. a minor improvement to the London - Edinburgh service is more important than withdrawing the Stevenage - Nortahllerton service - that's where the passenger numbers lie). I appreciate that there is a real need for some of these connections, but the railway can't solve everything, and I think it's generally better to concentrate on the major passenger flows, even if it means "direct" services like Doncaster to Motherwell are lost.

Yeah, that's the real argument. Is it well justified? As for concentrating on major flows, I think that all these major flows, if looked at in more detail, are made up of a huge array of different origins and destinations. This is why I think it is important not to neglect these interchange points.
TBH, a mninor improvement in journey time is not justified at the expense of these imo.

 

[Pumbaa]

Elaine Holt told me FCC would get 180s over her head body, so now she's in charge....

Vast difference in the rolling stock requirements of FCC and NXEC though.

 

[me123]

I still don't see how these points are relevant to the NXEC service? It wouls still mean an extra change for passengers travelling from the NE and eastern counties. Also Glasgow central (I would have thought) would provide more appropriate onward connections.

...but the vast majority of services currently do not continue through to Glasgow Central, and a lot of passengers will happily change onto a Queen Street service and cross Glasgow. The current services are not well used. They could be better if there was an hourly service, but the provisions are not there for it. I have to say that the "commuter service" (Caledonian Express) will provide a better option for people going to Glasgow Central than the current offering. I know you have to change, but most people do this anyway, and you now have more direct options between Edinburgh and Central.

 

[Spaceflower]

...but the vast majority of services currently do not continue through to Glasgow Central, and a lot of passengers will happily change onto a Queen Street service and cross Glasgow. The current services are not well used. They could be better if there was an hourly service, but the provisions are not there for it. I have to say that the "commuter service" (Caledonian Express) will provide a better option for people going to Glasgow Central than the current offering. I know you have to change, but most people do this anyway, and you now have more direct options between Edinburgh and Central.

Me, you can't say that passengers will be happy to change trains, again! They will put up with it. Myself, Yorkie and other posters in this thread have already stated they would not be happy with yet another change on an already long journey. We are the passengers. There is nothing more direct than a direct train. This will be nothing short of prohibitive for customers requiring, what is proposed to be 3 or 4 changes on such journeys (if theyre travelling from the eastern counties or many NE stations), bearing in mind luggage, etc. Surely if the train is terminated at Edinburgh there will be less direct options between the cities.

"commuter service"

Come on me, the last thing a long distance traveller wants to do is change onto a commuter service? It's added hassle. The fact that you state the current service is not well used is fair point but people do still use it and the network connectivity that seems to be being compromised by the proposed changes in favour of quicker journey times? or increased paths could lead to wider implications for the ECML other than whats immeadiately obvious. The ECML provides quality long distance travel that is currently competitive with the airlines.

 

[Failed Unit]

Looking at some of the comments on here, I have the feeling that this is not yet the finished article. For example it is planned to run a train to Cleethorpes yet none are show. The 0800 ex Waveley could still start from Glasgow Central with no alterations to its diagrams or requirement of extra stock.

Glasgow Central is an interesting on, people do prefer to use direct trains when possible. I travel from Newark - Edinburgh and will be a big winner but even now I will always use the 0737 because it is direct even when I don't need to be in Edinburgh that early. It is nice not to have to worry about connections when dragging baggage around. As anyone will tell you the space allocated to baggage on the Turbo stars isn't good to put it nicely! If XC took on the service that would compensate the majority of passengers with only Doncaster and Peterborough losing but Leeds gaining. That said do they have a spare 22x? Surely it would be better use to double them up. Also would it fit the paths between Edinburgh - Carstairs and Glasgow? I would ask the same question about extending the x30 services as well, but going South for both XC or East cost will be fine as they could use the existing path. The IC service from Central is a lot slower than it use to be, upto a few years ago it use to be timetable for 58 minutes southbound (only 8 minutes slower than QS). Its timekeeping was generally poor due to delays in Haymarket (Scotrail services always got priority) hence why an extra 10 minutes was added. I guess the hard fact is the SINGLE 91 set that axing Glasgow from the ECML for most of the day brings will be beter utilised on the core route unfortunately. Back in BR days the London - Queen Street HST service was only operated when the HST's would only otherwise be sat doing nothing.

I agree that it is odd that the first train from London is 0700, Yes is only slightly later than the current first departure but so what, why not do a 0600 departure and give a 1020 arrival from London, it may attract new users that currently fly! A 0600 fast departure would also get people into Newcastle for an early meeting!

General stuff.
It still has a lot of slack in the timetable so an hourly Peterborough call could be provided. It would use the same pattern as the current 11:00 sevice which currently does the route in 4:20. From December the 1500 will do the exact same stops in 4:13. However I understand that the current timetable has a lot of other trains that will prevent this from happening due to conflicts.

I can understand peoples from the Eastern counties annoyance, but Peterborough still has a train every 2 hours to Edinburgh so the connection can still be made. People stating they will now fly will know that there are only 3 easyjet flights per day from Stansted - Edinburgh so if the were going to fly they would probably already be doing it! However any reduction in services is never a good thing to the person that has to suffer it. I know myself living in Lincolnshire. The loss of the direct HST in 1992 meant people drove to Newark rather than used the replacement connecting service, but unfortunately I timetable will never keep everyone happy.

 

[me123]

Me, you can't say that passengers will be happy to change trains, again! They will put up with it. Myself, Yorkie and other posters in this thread have already stated they would not be happy with yet another change on an already long journey. We are the passengers. There is nothing more direct than a direct train. This will be nothing short of prohibitive for customers requiring, what is proposed to be 3 or 4 changes on such journeys (if theyre travelling from the eastern counties or many NE stations), bearing in mind luggage, etc. Surely if the train is terminated at Edinburgh there will be less direct options between the cities.

No, there will be more options because there's a new hourly service running between Edinburgh and Glasgow Central operated by Scotrail. It's a limited stop train. I imagine it will take about an hour and be about as along as the NXECs service, although I await the timetables before I can say that for certain. I was actually referring to the "commuter service" as a tongue-in-cheek quote of something someone else said. The Caledonian Express will provide a regular fast service between the two cities with limited stops. A two-hourly service between the two cities is being replaced by an hourly service. You need to change, granted, but since most trains don't go through to Glasgow, most people already change to Queen Street and there are so few direct trains anyway. The loss is rather minimal.

In my experience, a lot of passengers already change at Edinburgh. They change for stations to Inverness, Glasgow and Aberdeen regardless of the fact that there are direct trains to those stations. The same applies Southbound. I know they'd prefer a direct train, but getting the right fares and getting to the right place at the right time will often mean that passengers do this anyway. I find the Glasgow services are quite often lightly loaded. Not to mention the fact that timetables have occasionally been known to give the quickest option as a transfer at Edinburgh.

The big loss here is Motherwell. It's not well known, but anyone who's been on the 07:04 or 08:04 trains will know that it's a relatively well used commuter service from Motherwell to Edinburgh. They've now lost all but one train which arrives at about 10am; to me this is unacceptable. It's something that the Caledonian Express will not be able to replace.

 

[jon0844]

Vast difference in the rolling stock requirements of FCC and NXEC though.

The 180s were going to be used for the semi-fast Peterborough or fast Cambridge services (as part of the capacity review) so not too dissimilar needs. Okay, not the long distances of NXEC - but certainly services with fewer stops than most FCC services - which would have probably made them quite usable if they didn't break all the time.

She also considered HSTs, but there were presumably many issues (not least the fact that most people would favour electric over diesel wherever possible). The 321s seemed the perfect solution.

 

[tbtc]

The 180s were going to be used for the semi-fast Peterborough or fast Cambridge services

They were seriously planning on using diesels under this wired up line?

Another backward step...

 

[jon0844]

Considering is a different thing; they would have needed to source rolling stock and see what was available. I doubt diesel was ever favoured but if that's what the DfT told them they were getting...

 

[paul1609]

Me, you can't say that passengers will be happy to change trains, again! They will put up with it. Myself, Yorkie and other posters in this thread have already stated they would not be happy with yet another change on an already long journey. We are the passengers. There is nothing more direct than a direct train. This will be nothing short of prohibitive for customers requiring, what is proposed to be 3 or 4 changes on such journeys (if theyre travelling from the eastern counties or many NE stations), bearing in mind luggage, etc. Surely if the train is terminated at Edinburgh there will be less direct options between the cities.

Come on me, the last thing a long distance traveller wants to do is change onto a commuter service? It's added hassle. The fact that you state the current service is not well used is fair point but people do still use it and the network connectivity that seems to be being compromised by the proposed changes in favour of quicker journey times? or increased paths could lead to wider implications for the ECML other than whats immeadiately obvious. The ECML provides quality long distance travel that is currently competitive with the airlines.

I dont think thats right. The ECML has been losing passengers on The London to Edinburgh route to the airlines steadily. I would say this decline started in about 1990 and has now reached the point where most of rails remaining market is leisure traffic at uneconomic prices. Rail has all but given up on the London to Scotland market and concentrated on shorter journeys as a result many of the trains have extra stops inserted in to them and the lengthened journey times have made rail even more uncompetitive.

The fact is that there is huge over capacity on the route north of Newcastle whilst the cutting back of Glasgow services is a welcome start I fear it isnt nearly radical enough.
This rolling stock needs to be used down south to carry passengers not trundle around Scotland carrying fresh air.

 

[Failed Unit]

No, there will be more options because there's a new hourly service running between Edinburgh and Glasgow Central operated by Scotrail. It's a limited stop train. I imagine it will take about an hour and be about as along as the NXECs service, although I await the timetables before I can say that for certain. I was actually referring to the "commuter service" as a tongue-in-cheek quote of something someone else said. The Caledonian Express will provide a regular fast service between the two cities with limited stops. A two-hourly service between the two cities is being replaced by an hourly service. You need to change, granted, but since most trains don't go through to Glasgow, most people already change to Queen Street and there are so few direct trains anyway. The loss is rather minimal.

In my experience, a lot of passengers already change at Edinburgh. They change for stations to Inverness, Glasgow and Aberdeen regardless of the fact that there are direct trains to those stations. The same applies Southbound. I know they'd prefer a direct train, but getting the right fares and getting to the right place at the right time will often mean that passengers do this anyway. I find the Glasgow services are quite often lightly loaded. Not to mention the fact that timetables have occasionally been known to give the quickest option as a transfer at Edinburgh.

The big loss here is Motherwell. It's not well known, but anyone who's been on the 07:04 or 08:04 trains will know that it's a relatively well used commuter service from Motherwell to Edinburgh. They've now lost all but one train which arrives at about 10am; to me this is unacceptable. It's something that the Caledonian Express will not be able to replace.

From Dec 2009, Edinburgh - Glasgow Central will have both the NXEC and the Scotrail service for example betwen 0800 & 0900.

0810 NXEC arriving at 0922
0821 Scotrail arriving at 0954
0838 Scotrail via Motherwell arriving at 0959
0856 Scotrail via Shotts arriving 1009 (this will be take just over 1 hour most hours)

So the Scotrail extra is an improvement for Edinburgh - Glasgow passengers but no-way can be considered a replacement for people travelling from Newcastle. I agree with Yorkie as well Central is a lot better destination for people that are travelling beyond Glasgow, from 2010 people for place like Aidrie, Dalmuir, Balloch etc will be able to change at Edinburgh Waverley. In fact most places that have services from Glasgow Queen Street will also by 2010 have direct services from Waverley, Cumbernauld probably the execption. However change at Central and you have places like Kilmarnock, Ayr, Gourock and East Kilbride.

Going slightly off topic is the transport Scotland masterplan to have an hourly service via Motherwell, admiditly they don't state who will operate it but my understanding is that they dream of the following. 6 trains via Falkirk, 4 via Bathgate, 2 via Shotts and 1 via Motherwell. We will wait and see when the full timetable come off the press, but I am sure Motherwells services will be replaced by a EMU should ECML services really cease, they will have spare units with the stopping of the Airport link when the 380's come on line. (although I hear the 322's will return South as they are only sub-leased one this is over)

I dont think thats right. The ECML has been losing passengers on The London to Edinburgh route to the airlines steadily. I would say this decline started in about 1990 and has now reached the point where most of rails remaining market is leisure traffic at uneconomic prices. Rail has all but given up on the London to Scotland market and concentrated on shorter journeys as a result many of the trains have extra stops inserted in to them and the lengthened journey times have made rail even more uncompetitive.

The fact is that there is huge over capacity on the route north of Newcastle whilst the cutting back of Glasgow services is a welcome start I fear it isnt nearly radical enough.
This rolling stock needs to be used down south to carry passengers not trundle around Scotland carrying fresh air.

I sort of agree here loadings on the East coast are lot larger than on the west coast. XC trains carry a lot of fresh air around North of Newcastle, but most of the East Coast trains are fairly well loaded. Yes they are not carrying London - Edinburgh traffic, but the Edinburgh - York traffic is keeping the route earning its keep.

If you look at the current southbound timetable most of the journeys from Edinburgh between 0600 and 0930 take about 4:45 likewise in the evening after 1600 all trains take about 4:45, hardly going attract business travellers from London, even with the hastle of airports! Saying that the 1600, 1700 and 1730 all leave Edinburgh reasonably full.

 

[gingerheid]

For some journeys it's not about either one change, or even one extra change, which may be bearable. But two extra changes, which is pushing it, or even two extra changes + a transfer.

Consider these options:

Cambridge - Ely...........................Cambridge - Stansted Airport
Ely - Peterborough ......................Leave spare time to check in
Peterborough - Glasgow - Ayr........Hang around airport
Glasgow C - Ayr..........................Fly to Glasgow
................................................Bus to Paisley
................................................Train to Ayr

(Slightly more expensive)...............(Slightly cheaper)

Which wins?

Now consider these options:
Cambridge - Ely............................Cambridge - Stansted Airport
Ely - Peterborough .......................Leave spare time to check in
Peterborough - Doncaster..............Hang around airport
Doncaster - Edinburgh...................Fly to Glasgow
Edinburgh - Glasgow QS.................Bus to Paisley
Schlep across Glasgow...................Train to Ayr
Glasgow C - Ayr

Which one wins? (And I'm being extra fair to the train, because for this example you'd actually use CryingAir to Prestwick.)

I'm thinking that even with a longer journey time, my preferred option might be Cambridge - Birmingham New Street, Birmingham New Street to Glasgow, Glasgow to Ayr.

Slightly OT... I know that the winding line and resulting low lines peed is the reason for the slow service north of Newcastle. What speed would tilting trains be able to go at?

 

[Failed Unit]

For some journeys it's not about either one change, or even one extra change, which may be bearable. But two extra changes, which is pushing it, or even two extra changes + a transfer.

Consider these options:

Cambridge - Ely...........................Cambridge - Stansted Airport
Ely - Peterborough ......................Leave spare time to check in
Peterborough - Glasgow - Ayr........Hang around airport
Glasgow C - Ayr..........................Fly to Glasgow
................................................Bus to Paisley
................................................Train to Ayr

(Slightly more expensive)...............(Slightly cheaper)

Which wins?

Now consider these options:
Cambridge - Ely............................Cambridge - Stansted Airport
Ely - Peterborough .......................Leave spare time to check in
Peterborough - Doncaster..............Hang around airport
Doncaster - Edinburgh...................Fly to Glasgow
Edinburgh - Glasgow QS.................Bus to Paisley
Schlep across Glasgow...................Train to Ayr
Glasgow C - Ayr

Which one wins? (And I'm being extra fair to the train, because for this example you'd actually use CryingAir to Prestwick.)

I'm thinking that even with a longer journey time, my preferred option might be Cambridge - Birmingham New Street, Birmingham New Street to Glasgow, Glasgow to Ayr.

Slightly OT... I know that the winding line and resulting low lines peed is the reason for the slow service north of Newcastle. What speed would tilting trains be able to go at?

Depends how much you enjoy flying, but the changing is the issue. Take London - Edinburgh I am happy do that on the train as it is uninterupted working time the flight your have a lot of segments so you can't really do anything useful in any of them. I don't think the overall journey time will be much worse than today, but the change in the centre of Glasgow will put people off. Even national express can't make the train less pleasent than ryanair - but I agree with you point easy-jet could be more attractive. I suspect people would already be flying even now.

As for you point about the ECML and tilting trains north of Newcastle, Morpeth is the worse corner with a 50mph limit. Don't think the tilting trains would help here anyway. But I don't think tilting trains would make much difference on the ECML, the IEP will speed things up. South of Darlington tilt would be rarely used. Between Darlington and Newcastle you would just catch up with the next slow service more quickly

 

[me123]

Going slightly off topic is the transport Scotland masterplan to have an hourly service via Motherwell, admiditly they don't state who will operate it but my understanding is that they dream of the following. 6 trains via Falkirk, 4 via Bathgate, 2 via Shotts and 1 via Motherwell. We will wait and see when the full timetable come off the press, but I am sure Motherwells services will be replaced by a EMU should ECML services really cease, they will have spare units with the stopping of the Airport link when the 380's come on line. (although I hear the 322's will return South as they are only sub-leased one this is over)

We're going to be saturated with rolling stock quite soon, so the possibility of (say) a 380 running Glasgow-North Berwick via Motherwell hourly is not unlikely. Even with the 322s going home, there's a surplus of units because we're retaining the 314s to 2015 and GARL has been cancelled. I've not heard anything about this, but it's certainly possible and would be well used. Indeed, 4 cars Motherwell-Edinburgh would probably be ample, even in the peaks, considering Glasgow-Edinburgh passengers would probably opt for the main route more often.

 

[jopsuk]

O/T- any idea who's got first "dibs" on the 322s? Refitted as 321s and sent to East Anglia?

 

[Pumbaa]

O/T- any idea who's got first "dibs" on the 322s? Refitted as 321s and sent to East Anglia?

They'll be up to their ears in 321/2s soon! Northern are indicating interest in the remaining /4s that LM are still to get rid of, so I would say there is a distinct possibility that they could end up there.

 

[Aictos]

They'll be up to their ears in 321/2s soon! Northern are indicating interest in the remaining /4s that LM are still to get rid of, so I would say there is a distinct possibility that they could end up there.

I know Northern have 3 321/9s which operate between Doncaster and Leeds, how busy do they get?

Would the 5 322s be fine as they are to work the services there?

 

[paul1609]

For some journeys it's not about either one change, or even one extra change, which may be bearable. But two extra changes, which is pushing it, or even two extra changes + a transfer.

Consider these options:

Cambridge - Ely...........................Cambridge - Stansted Airport
Ely - Peterborough ......................Leave spare time to check in
Peterborough - Glasgow - Ayr........Hang around airport
Glasgow C - Ayr..........................Fly to Glasgow
................................................Bus to Paisley
................................................Train to Ayr

(Slightly more expensive)...............(Slightly cheaper)

Which wins?

Now consider these options:
Cambridge - Ely............................Cambridge - Stansted Airport
Ely - Peterborough .......................Leave spare time to check in
Peterborough - Doncaster..............Hang around airport
Doncaster - Edinburgh...................Fly to Glasgow
Edinburgh - Glasgow QS.................Bus to Paisley
Schlep across Glasgow...................Train to Ayr
Glasgow C - Ayr

Which one wins? (And I'm being extra fair to the train, because for this example you'd actually use CryingAir to Prestwick.)

I'm thinking that even with a longer journey time, my preferred option might be Cambridge - Birmingham New Street, Birmingham New Street to Glasgow, Glasgow to Ayr.

Slightly OT... I know that the winding line and resulting low lines peed is the reason for the slow service north of Newcastle. What speed would tilting trains be able to go at?

Why would you go via the ECML for Cambridge to Ayr? With the advent of VHF its about an hour quicker to go via London and the WCML. If you have a railcard you have the added flexibility of Virgins railcard concession. Okay you have the inconvience of the Kings Cross to Euston change but it takes me about 10 mins to walk with a large rucksack and if you couldnt manage that it would only be a few quid in a taxi!

 

[gingerheid]

WCML would be my first choice; I love it, but only when my work are paying!

Every time I travel I check both London - Glasgow and MK to Glasgow, but I've never seen a Virgin fare that was even remotely cheapish when I've wanted to travel.

The beggars wanted £125.40 single for the next time I'm going! Ryanair and Easyjet were somewhere around £50, and ECML was something like £34.

 

[Failed Unit]

O/T- any idea who's got first "dibs" on the 322s? Refitted as 321s and sent to East Anglia?

They are still leased by the East Anglia franchise, which has sub-leased them to Scotrail. I guess they will return to East Anglia first. (But nothing to stop them sub-leasing again). I think Scotrail have them until the end of National Express current run with East Anglia, which would make sense, a new operator may feel it needs 5 more units.

I know we have gone off topic but anyone know the differences between a 322 and 321 mechanically? (I know the seating spec is different.) Would a driver be able to sign them both or would they need a conversion course?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


I am hoping that the will see a recast of the Lincolnshire timetable as a result with some decent connection.

Lincoln - Doncaster could be hourly with 1 unit working very very hard. The current journey times are 52 minutes so you could having something like.

x.05 Lincoln y.57 Doncaster
x.03 Doncaster y.55 Lincoln.

The connection at Doncaster would provide Lincoln with decent connections to Scotland and Leeds, something the current service doesn't always do. The service is allocated just one unit now, and even every 2 hours would be a vast improvement to what we have.

Likewise the current Lincoln - Peterborough service currently takes about 1h24.

You could have.
x25 Peterborough arriving at Lincoln at y49 (which would have connected from the 0:30 ex KX)
x55 Lincoln arriving at Peterborough at y19 (which would connect into the 0:27 to London KX

It could even run direct to / from Doncaster.

Again an hourly service, with very tight turnarounds but there is a lot of slack on the joint line. We would get an hourly service with the same resources.

Nottingham - Lincoln should be totally recast, in an ideal world made into Nottingham - Grimsby.

It is always stated that one of the reasons for Lincolnshire irregular service is because of the ECML connections, if the ECML is going clockface it would be criminal not to do the same with Lincolnshire, but it doesn't seem to get an explicit mention in the report. I guess that is because routes like Lincoln - Doncaster don't conflict with the mainline to such a large extent as say Saltburn - Bishop Auchland.

 

[tbtc]

Lincoln - Doncaster could be hourly with 1 unit working very very hard. The current journey times are 52 minutes so you could having something like.

x.05 Lincoln y.57 Doncaster
x.03 Doncaster y.55 Lincoln

I agree with you about improving Lincolnshire lines to give a clockface timetable, something like that would be a big improvement.

However, with a 52 minute journey time, I think one unit would have to work very very hard indeed

 

[Failed Unit]

I agree with you about improving Lincolnshire lines to give a clockface timetable, something like that would be a big improvement.

However, with a 52 minute journey time, I think one unit would have to work very very hard indeed

I think all of us Lincolnshire passengers would be happy if they gave us every other hour to save the poor 153 from becoming a daily failed unit with all its timetravelling. As long as it connected with the trains to / from Edinburgh rather than Newcastle.

When the joint line get its improvements in line speed for the frieght, I wonder if the journey time could be closer to 45 minutes, it is only 35 miles afterall. I guess finding a path between the frieghts would be the problem then.

 

[paul1609]

WCML would be my first choice; I love it, but only when my work are paying!

Every time I travel I check both London - Glasgow and MK to Glasgow, but I've never seen a Virgin fare that was even remotely cheapish when I've wanted to travel.

The beggars wanted £125.40 single for the next time I'm going! Ryanair and Easyjet were somewhere around £50, and ECML was something like £34.

I think you are doing something wrong! The anytime single is only £115 from MK to Glasgow.
A off peak return (anytrain after 10.40) is £96.70 single £97.70 return. Even tomorrow there are £86 advance singles available for 2 trains before 10.40 and a week in advance there are loads available at £55.00.