Future routes for Open Access operators

[Iskra]

I

While it's an interesting Idea - Hull is a good potential market for OAO as a port and large city that's underserved to the wider country. However is the market big enough to sustain a service that covers the overheads? A separate OAO Toc takes on lots of admin cost that an extension of XC trains wouldn't need to worry about.

If a decent service was routed via Leeds I suspect any OA service from Hull would be off to a good start, as that’s an underserved route IMO.

- - - - -

A suggestion from me:

Scarborough
Malton
York
Leeds
Wakefield Kirkgate
Barnsley
Meadowhall
Sheffield
Chesterfield
Alfreton
Nottingham
Grantham
Peterborough
London King Cross

 

[zwk500]

I

If a decent service was routed via Leeds I suspect any OA service from Hull would be off to a good start, as that’s an underserved route IMO.

Potentially, although abstraction raises it's head there as TPE are (Supposed to be) running services on that line and I'm not sure how the test accounts for performance, if it does.

A suggestion from me:

Is that route starting from Hull or Scarborough direct?

Anything going MML-King's Cross is unlikely to offer attractive or competitive journey times so I'm not sure what your main markets would be on this. Are you going for Yorkshire-Nottingham corridor with a London extension or are you thinking there's vast untapped demand from Barnsley to London?
Scarborough-York-Leeds is TPE, Leeds-Wakefield-Sheffield is XC, Barnsley-Sheffield, Leeds-Sheffield-Alfreton-Nottingham is Northern, Nottingham-Grantham-P'Bro is EMR and Grantham/P'bro-KGX is LNER/GTR. Only new flows on that route are Scarborough/York/Leeds to Barnsley without changing Hudds (so it's still partially abstractive), and Barnsley-East Mids-London, which isn't going to be a particularly lucrative market against the MML for a service that will have no recourse to the public purse.

There's a reason Intercity trains take direct routes and don't stop at very many places, and regional trains stop more often but have much shorter overall routes (in general).

If you want Hull-Leeds the service probably would need to head to Manchester and then either Liverpool or Birmingham. If you want a new Yorks/midlands-London route it would need to not travel the long way round.

 

[Iskra]

Potentially, although abstraction raises it's head there as TPE are (Supposed to be) running services on that line and I'm not sure how the test accounts for performance, if it does.

Is that route starting from Hull or Scarborough direct?

Anything going MML-King's Cross is unlikely to offer attractive or competitive journey times so I'm not sure what your main markets would be on this. Are you going for Yorkshire-Nottingham corridor with a London extension or are you thinking there's vast untapped demand from Barnsley to London?
Scarborough-York-Leeds is TPE, Leeds-Wakefield-Sheffield is XC, Barnsley-Sheffield, Leeds-Sheffield-Alfreton-Nottingham is Northern, Nottingham-Grantham-P'Bro is EMR and Grantham/P'bro-KGX is LNER/GTR. Only new flows on that route are Scarborough/York/Leeds to Barnsley without changing Hudds (so it's still partially abstractive), and Barnsley-East Mids-London, which isn't going to be a particularly lucrative market against the MML for a service that will have no recourse to the public purse.

There's a reason Intercity trains take direct routes and don't stop at very many places, and regional trains stop more often but have much shorter overall routes (in general).

If the incumbent operator can’t meet its service specification, or provide adequate capacity, surely that’s a great opportunity for OA on the railway- it’s win win.

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Starting from Scarborough.

It restores some headline London links (Scarborough, Barnsley, Meadowhall, Alfreton), while mainly going for regional links providing more capacity than the franchised operators can in places where they are constrained by rolling stock, platform arrangements or infrastructure.

There are some popular journey pairs there , which are arguably underserved.

Scarborough-York
Scarborough-Leeds
York-Leeds
York-Sheffield
Wakefield-York
Barnsley-Leeds/Sheffield
Leeds-Sheffield (wouldn’t be constrained by use of P17)
Nottingham-Sheffield
Leeds-Nottingham
Nottingham-Grantham
London-various, although it might have to be cheaper to reflect slow journey speed from some of them, or perhaps compete on comfort/service. Sheffield/Nottingham to London could be fairly competitive.

Plus some new opportunites:

Scarborough-London (admittedly very slow)
Scarborough-Wakefield
Barnsley-York/Scarborough
Scarborough/York-Nottingham
Barnsley-London
Barnsley-Peterborough
Meadowhall-London (free parking compared to £20+ at Sheffield)
Meadowhall-York
Meadowhall-Peterborough
Alfreton-London
Alfreton-North of Sheffield
First class travel between many of those by using decent length train.

 

[Bartsimho]

Would a Huddersfield to London service work maybe?

Huddersfield
Barnsley
Meadowhall Interchange
Sheffield
Chesterfield
Ilkeston
St Neots/Sandy
Kings Cross

Looking at abstraction as it would give direct Huddersfield to London and would avoid the change at Manchester Piccadilly or Leeds
Direct Barnsley to London avoiding change at Leeds or Sheffield
Ilkeston to London if Morpeth counts as abstraction a place with double the population should do
St Neots/Sandy has slower trains to London and would connect with an EWR to Cambridge section developing it as a commuter town.

Run 5 car bi-modes on this service. The issue is threading it through the Penistone line single track sections but it probably could be done.

It skips Nottingham not to abstract from the MML too much as it already has Sheffield and Chesterfield.

 

[Iskra]

Would a Huddersfield to London service work maybe?

Huddersfield
Barnsley
Meadowhall Interchange
Sheffield
Chesterfield
Ilkeston
St Neots/Sandy
Kings Cross

Looking at abstraction as it would give direct Huddersfield to London and would avoid the change at Manchester Piccadilly or Leeds
Direct Barnsley to London avoiding change at Leeds or Sheffield
Ilkeston to London if Morpeth counts as abstraction a place with double the population should do
St Neots/Sandy has slower trains to London and would connect with an EWR to Cambridge section developing it as a commuter town.

Run 5 car bi-modes on this service. The issue is threading it through the Penistone line single track sections but it probably could be done.

It skips Nottingham not to abstract from the MML too much as it already has Sheffield and Chesterfield.

Surely, you’d stop at Penistone? But yes, otherwise seems a reasonable proposal.

If Huddersfield is the core market however, going via Mirfield to Barnsley may be faster, is that what you intended?

 

[Bartsimho]

Surely, you’d stop at Penistone? But yes, otherwise seems a reasonable proposal.

If Huddersfield is the core market however, going via Mirfield to Barnsley may be faster, is that what you intended?

Yeah maybe stop at Penistone as you could try to advertise a gateway to the Dark Peak market.

I couldn't see a Mirfield route without reversal at Wakefield Kirkgate which while possible I wonder which one would be faster.

 

[Iskra]

Yeah maybe stop at Penistone as you could try to advertise a gateway to the Dark Peak market.

I couldn't see a Mirfield route without reversal at Wakefield Kirkgate which while possible I wonder which one would be faster.

You’d pretty much have to stop at Penistone anyway to pass something coming the other way, so may as well release the doors and gain a few passengers.

You’d have to skip Barnsley and go down the ECML like the GC service if you didn’t want to reverse

 

[zwk500]

If Huddersfield is the core market however, going via Mirfield to Barnsley may be faster, is that what you intended?

If Huddersfield is the core market you'd skip Barnsley and go Mirfield, Wakefield, Donny to the ECML.

Looking further south a potential viable market is Mansfield, with perhaps a KGX to Worksop via Grantham and Nottingham.

 

[Bartsimho]

If Huddersfield is the core market you'd skip Barnsley and go Mirfield, Wakefield, Donny to the ECML.

Looking further south a potential viable market is Mansfield, with perhaps a KGX to Worksop via Grantham and Nottingham.

Mansfield just has the major issue of the single track between Bulwell and Kirkby-in-Ashfield otherwise I could see it getting a much better service. I was trying to think about a Huddersfield/Barnsley core market which might cater to some more local journey at the Northern End as well as the passengers to London.

Also if Aldwarke junction was less conflicting Rotherham Central would be a good traffic source for OAO's but I'm trying to capture that at Meadowhall Interchange instead. Also if you could get from Rotherham Central to Beighton Junction without reversing it would be good for abstraction by avoiding Sheffield (easiest way would be restoring the Attercliffe Junction to Darnall West Junction curve)

 

[JonathanH]

Mansfield just has the major issue of the single track between Bulwell and Kirkby-in-Ashfield otherwise I could see it getting a much better service.

There have been considerations of going via Pinxton in the past to avoid the single track, but I am not convinced that Worksop > Mansfield > Ilkeston > Loughborough > Wellingborough > Leighton Buzzard > Euston is the stuff of a lucrative open access operator.

Mansfield only has an hourly service to Nottingham plus one extra train in each peak now as it is.

 

[Bartsimho]

There have been considerations of going via Pinxton in the past to avoid the single track, but I am not convinced that Worksop > Mansfield > Ilkeston > Loughborough > Wellingborough > Leighton Buzzard > Euston is the stuff of a lucrative open access operator.

Mansfield only has an hourly service to Nottingham plus one extra train in each peak now as it is.

via Pinxton might be looked ay better after HS2 to the East Midlands with the Hub being at Toton sidings. Although not a service to London more a Derby, Ilkeston, Mansfield, Worksop and maybe Lincoln.

 

[Bald Rick]

Would a Huddersfield to London service work maybe?

Huddersfield
Barnsley
Meadowhall Interchange
Sheffield
Chesterfield
Ilkeston
St Neots/Sandy
Kings Cross

Looking at abstraction as it would give direct Huddersfield to London and would avoid the change at Manchester Piccadilly or Leeds
Direct Barnsley to London avoiding change at Leeds or Sheffield
Ilkeston to London if Morpeth counts as abstraction a place with double the population should do
St Neots/Sandy has slower trains to London and would connect with an EWR to Cambridge section developing it as a commuter town.

Run 5 car bi-modes on this service. The issue is threading it through the Penistone line single track sections but it probably could be done.

It skips Nottingham not to abstract from the MML too much as it already has Sheffield and Chesterfield.

Sheffield will be the abstraction problem there. It would have to skip that too.

the other problem is that the market for Huddersfield to London is pretty small, hence why LNER pulled their proposed service.

 

[zwk500]

Sheffield will be the abstraction problem there. It would have to skip that too.

And with it the bulk of the revenue. I suppose you might rescue some of it back by doing a Lumo-style low price market and offering Meadowhall as a parkway-type option.

 

[stevieinselby]

A suggestion from me:

Scarborough
Malton
York
Leeds
Wakefield Kirkgate
Barnsley
Meadowhall
Sheffield
Chesterfield
Alfreton
Nottingham
Grantham
Peterborough
London King Cross

The point of the route being what?
From London to York would take about 4 hours, compared to 2 hours on a direct train – I can't see anybody using it from Scarborough to London given that time penalty.
Scarborough already has direct trains to York, Leeds (in theory) and Meadowhall/Sheffield. All of the other stations except Barnsley, Meadowhall and Alfreton have direct trains to London.
What journeys would this service facilitate that can't already easily be made on existing trains?