Future ECML & LNER Services

[43074]

Sorry, should have said that this is regarding the proposed timetable from May 2020 (see OP)

Now planned for December 2021 due to the King's Cross remodelling running late, which this timetable is dependent on. I agree on the skip stopping not being ideal and the spacing of services across the standard hour from Grantham/Newark to London etc particularly good either.

 

[greyman42]

However, I also wonder why the Edinburgh fast service stops at York every two hours. Wouldn't it be better to standardise on an hourly call at York or omit the call altogether?

So what are the stopping patterns for the Edinburgh fasts?

 

[ryan125hst]

So what are the stopping patterns for the Edinburgh fasts?

York every two hours, Newcastle every hour.

According to the document in the OP, the plan from May 2020 (now revised to December 2021) is as follows:

Kings Cross Departure A: Edinburgh; calling at York (every 2 hours), Newcastle and Edinburgh.
Kings Cross Departure B (every 2 hours): Middlesbrough; calling at Peterborough, York, Northallerton, Thornaby and Middlesbrough.
Kings Cross Departure C: Newcastle; calling at Stevenage, Peterborough (every 2 hours), Grantham, Newark North Gate, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham (every 2 hours) and Newcastle.
Kings Cross Departure D: Leeds; calling at Doncaster, Wakefield Westgate and Leeds
Kings Cross Departure E: Edinburgh; calling at Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham, Newcastle, Alnmouth (every 2 hours), Berwick-upon-Tweed and Edinburgh
Kings Cross Departure F: Harrogate/Lincoln; calling at Stevenage, Grantham and Newark North Gate, then Lincoln in one hour, Retford, Doncaster, Leeds, Horsforth and Harrogate in the other.
Kings Cross Departure G: Bradford Forster Square/Leeds; calling at Peterborough, Wakefield Westgate and Leeds, then Shipley and Bradford Forster Square every two hours.

What I suggested was to either add a make the York call on departure A hourly or remove it all together to make the stopping pattern standardised.

Then I suggested making the Peterborough call on departure C hourly, plus add Retford to give Retford a better service and provide connectivity between stations on the southern part of the ECML.

 

[VT 390]

Will the Edinburgh fasts be the ones which will continue to serve Aberdeen/Inverness or will these services be withdrawn?

 

[greyman42]

York every two hours, Newcastle every hour.

According to the document in the OP, the plan from May 2020 (now revised to December 2021) is as follows:

Kings Cross Departure A: Edinburgh; calling at York (every 2 hours), Newcastle and Edinburgh.
Kings Cross Departure B (every 2 hours): Middlesbrough; calling at Peterborough, York, Northallerton, Thornaby and Middlesbrough.
Kings Cross Departure C: Newcastle; calling at Stevenage, Peterborough (every 2 hours), Grantham, Newark North Gate, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham (every 2 hours) and Newcastle.
Kings Cross Departure D: Leeds; calling at Doncaster, Wakefield Westgate and Leeds
Kings Cross Departure E: Edinburgh; calling at Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham, Newcastle, Alnmouth (every 2 hours), Berwick-upon-Tweed and Edinburgh
Kings Cross Departure F: Harrogate/Lincoln; calling at Stevenage, Grantham and Newark North Gate, then Lincoln in one hour, Retford, Doncaster, Leeds, Horsforth and Harrogate in the other.
Kings Cross Departure G: Bradford Forster Square/Leeds; calling at Peterborough, Wakefield Westgate and Leeds, then Shipley and Bradford Forster Square every two hours.

What I suggested was to either add a make the York call on departure A hourly or remove it all together to make the stopping pattern standardised.

Then I suggested making the Peterborough call on departure C hourly, plus add Retford to give Retford a better service and provide connectivity between stations on the southern part of the ECML.

So York will loose its hourly non stop to and from London?

 

[Esker-pades]

Will the Edinburgh fasts be the ones which will continue to serve Aberdeen/Inverness or will these services be withdrawn?

There's no chance of LNER's service beyond Edinburgh being withdrawn.

 

[ryan125hst]

Will the Edinburgh fasts be the ones which will continue to serve Aberdeen/Inverness or will these services be withdrawn?

It's the slower Edinburgh's that will be extended to Inverness and Aberdeen.

 

[JonathanH]

The current Lincoln stopper, which will change from York to Harrogate in the alternate hour, will have it's Peterborough stop removed.

Is there a chance that, if demand on the Lincoln train picks up, running a 5-car stopping at Peterborough will overload it.

 

[TheBigD]

Is there a chance that, if demand on the Lincoln train picks up, running a 5-car stopping at Peterborough will overload it.

Journey time reductions for most services will be a big part of the new timetable. Lincoln for example will be just 1hr41 from Kings Cross compared to the current 1hr55. Additional/too many stops will slow services down and may affect the following services. Once this timetable comes in there will be an increase to 8 (*) LDHS paths every hour, in increase from the current 6 (**) paths most hours.

(*) 6 LNER, 2 open access paths one hour, 7 LNER, 1 open access the next hour.
(**) 5 LNER, 1, sometimes 2 open access paths

 

[VT 390]

It's the slower Edinburgh's that will be extended to Inverness and Aberdeen.

Why would this be, as the slower one will have to pick up more people from stations between Edinburgh and London so won't that service be a lot busier than the fast Edinburgh, as well as slower journeys for places north of Edinburgh to London?

 

[Failed Unit]

Why would this be, as the slower one will have to pick up more people from stations between Edinburgh and London so won't that service be a lot busier than the fast Edinburgh, as well as slower journeys for places north of Edinburgh to London?

I believe back when this was proposed a couple of things influenced it.

1. the service was planned to be 91s and Mk4
2. Loss of connectivity between Darlington / York and further north.

as point 1 is no longer true and LNER are looking at new stock they may reconsider this and send the fastest trains to Aberdeen / Inverness.

I remember in the current timetable consultation to keep paths the far north services were planned to go to the slower departures from Kings Cross. It didn’t happen of course.

 

[Senex]

York every two hours, Newcastle every hour.

Given that York is a significantly busier station than Newcastle in terms of passenger numbers, presumably this decision is based on revenue figures that are never made public, perhaps that the value of Newcastle's London traffic is markedly greater than the value of York's. Otherwise it seems to be a decision that makes little sense, given that with the new trains the cost of a 2-minute York stop should be no more than 3 minutes as an absolute maximum and there would be a significant amount of traffic to be served.

 

[transmanche]

Kings Cross Departure A: Edinburgh; calling at York (every 2 hours), Newcastle and Edinburgh.
Kings Cross Departure B (every 2 hours): Middlesbrough; calling at Peterborough, York, Northallerton, Thornaby and Middlesbrough.

So York will loose its hourly non stop to and from London?

But looking like it will be replaced in the opposite hour by a service calling at Peterborough only.

 

[VT 390]

So York will loose its hourly non stop to and from London?

I think there will still be the Grand Central services from York so depending on the times there may still be a roughly hourly service from York to London, with a few gaps.

 

[Failed Unit]

Given that York is a significantly busier station than Newcastle in terms of passenger numbers, presumably this decision is based on revenue figures that are never made public, perhaps that the value of Newcastle's London traffic is markedly greater than the value of York's. Otherwise it seems to be a decision that makes little sense, given that with the new trains the cost of a 2-minute York stop should be no more than 3 minutes as an absolute maximum and there would be a significant amount of traffic to be served.

If the cunning plan really works i suspect they hope they can fill the train with London - Newcastle passengers. Agree the skipping of the stop doesn’t save much with the speed limits at York but it is still at least 5 minutes.

As others have said York keeps the same number of trains per hour both hours (to London). It has a very frequent service to Edinburgh over the 3 operators.

I think this is more about grabbing headlines. I bet it is going to be a total pig to path.

 

[swt_passenger]

But looking like it will be replaced in the opposite hour by a service calling at Peterborough only.

Yes, the 2 hourly Middlesbrough service is intended to be pretty much one of the faster services to York.

But it all seems fairly self explanatory, if everyone reads the linked track access application, especially the route maps towards the end...

 

[James90012]

Of course though this was submitted by the then VTEC, which would have reflected its bid for the franchise. I suspect much of this will have passed over to LNER, but equally as things like the short 91 sets have fallen away I would suspect some aspects of this to also fall away or be revised.

I would guess that the key outputs such as a superfast Edinburgh and a two-hourly repeating pattern will prevail, but intermediate calling points will be subject to change.

 

[class26]

Of course though this was submitted by the then VTEC, which would have reflected its bid for the franchise. I suspect much of this will have passed over to LNER, but equally as things like the short 91 sets have fallen away I would suspect some aspects of this to also fall away or be revised.

I would guess that the key outputs such as a superfast Edinburgh and a two-hourly repeating pattern will prevail, but intermediate calling points will be subject to change.

The short 91 sets are being replaced by additional new trains so they shouldn`t "fall away"

 

[James90012]

My point is LNER have already moved away from parts of the plan they inherited from Virgin, so it is likely that the timetable plan for 2021 could equally be revisited.

 

[43096]

The short 91 sets are being replaced by additional new trains so they shouldn`t "fall away"

New trains that haven’t been ordered yet. Do the 91s stay in the interim?

 

[class26]

New trains that haven’t been ordered yet. Do the 91s stay in the interim?

I believe so

 

[harz99]

Just realised that Darlington to/from London will go from a fast tph and a semi fast tph, to a semi fast tph and an all stations slow tph, that won't be popular.

 

[hexagon789]

Just realised that Darlington to/from London will go from a fast tph and a semi fast tph, to a semi fast tph and an all stations slow tph, that won't be popular.

Given the semi-fast is to be sped-up to iirc 4h26 on average and given that's not hugely slower than the Edinburgh fast services at present I'm not convinced Darlington will be massively inconvenienced

 

[ainsworth74]

I actually think it might be quite interesting to see how it all pans out for Teesside. Assuming that the two hourly Middlesbrough goes ahead at some stage then that it's lined up to have quite a pacey path calling at Northallerton, York and Peterborough. Whilst the semi-fast Darlington service is York, Doncaster and Peterborough. Now those two are probably going to shakeout at not wholly dissimilar timings (and the Middlesbrough will certainly be faster than the semi-fast). It's a drag from Middlesbrough to Northallerton but once on the ECML that's a quick journey.

We'll have to wait and see what the timetables look like but I bet "door to door" it'll be quicker for me to drive to Middlesbrough (where parking is cheaper considerably cheaper too) and catch the LNER from there than it will be to drive to Darlington.

In any event, speaking as a local, the future proposed timetable doesn't particularly fill me with dread. Current timing is about 2hr 23m on the fast service. Even with the two extra stops on the semi-fast I'm not sure it'll be much slower once the Azumas are let loose with their own timetable and things like Werrington.

 

[James90012]

Indeed, Darlington acts as rail head for all of Teesside so if there's a direct train from there many current Darlington passengers in theory would switch to Middlesbrough. Thornaby station is going to get very cosy around the LNER trains as it's just off the A66.

The fast Edinburghs are all about getting to the magic 4 hour journey time, and York itself does add a lot of dwell time with passenger churn and baggage. That plus the need to find First Group some non-stop York paths means you could have an hourly path through York not stopping but with different operators doing the honours. The more challenging services to fit with these plans will be the Grand Central first stop York and Doncasters, would expect they will forever need pathing time throughout the non stop run.

 

[harz99]

I actually think it might be quite interesting to see how it all pans out for Teesside. Assuming that the two hourly Middlesbrough goes ahead at some stage then that it's lined up to have quite a pacey path calling at Northallerton, York and Peterborough. Whilst the semi-fast Darlington service is York, Doncaster and Peterborough. Now those two are probably going to shakeout at not wholly dissimilar timings (and the Middlesbrough will certainly be faster than the semi-fast). It's a drag from Middlesbrough to Northallerton but once on the ECML that's a quick journey.

We'll have to wait and see what the timetables look like but I bet "door to door" it'll be quicker for me to drive to Middlesbrough (where parking is cheaper considerably cheaper too) and catch the LNER from there than it will be to drive to Darlington.

In any event, speaking as a local, the future proposed timetable doesn't particularly fill me with dread. Current timing is about 2hr 23m on the fast service. Even with the two extra stops on the semi-fast I'm not sure it'll be much slower once the Azumas are let loose with their own timetable and things like Werrington.

I use the Bishop to Saltburn line to get into Darlo, not drive. In any case even for a car driver I'm not sure about the wisdom of swapping to a station with one tph to London, rather than one with 2tph plus the other opportunities for travel south if the ECML service starts to go awry.

 

[harz99]

Given the semi-fast is to be sped-up to iirc 4h26 on average and given that's not hugely slower than the Edinburgh fast services at present I'm not convinced Darlington will be massively inconvenienced

Don't understand your point, the existing services are 2h20m ish and 2h 40m ish, nowhere near 4h plus...

 

[class26]

Don't understand your point, the existing services are 2h20m ish and 2h 40m ish, nowhere near 4h plus...

I think he means as there is a general speed up coming even though these services will have more stops inserted they will not be much slower than present hence not "massively inconvenienced"

 

[hexagon789]

Don't understand your point, the existing services are 2h20m ish and 2h 40m ish, nowhere near 4h plus...

4h26 King's X-Edinburgh sorry, not to Darlington

 

[ainsworth74]

In any case even for a car driver I'm not sure about the wisdom of swapping to a station with one tph to London, rather than one with 2tph plus the other opportunities for travel south if the ECML service starts to go awry.

So if it goes awry hop on Northern to Darlington and proceed from there. Jobs a good'un!