Grand Union's proposed Stirling – Euston service now authorised by ORR

[anthony263]

Wonder now if getting this latest application approved grand union will sort rolling stock for the Carmarthen to London

 

[Doctor Fegg]

‘Spare’ 22x stock being allowed to go to someone playing trains rather than XC would certainly demonstrate how the powers that be have completely lost touch with the railway’s needs.

XC are apparently in negotiation for another five 221s.

 

[357]

Privatise or nationalise it; one or the other please!

We agree on that then!

This is also a very decent point. You might expect a new outfit to be expected to meet appropriate ‘green’ credentials as a basic minimum standard, given the political climate.

The electricity supply won't support any more electric trains than what's in the current Avanti plans. There is a similar situation on the East Coast too.

 

[DC1989]

Any idea on how long the full journey would be?

 

[Wolfie]

A new fleet of 125mph FLIRTs would be perfect! XC need a fleet of bi-modes too.

Who is paying for that? Meanwhile in the real world DfT/HMT balk at funding more than 1:1 replacement of XC's HSTs.

 

[tiptoptaff]

Gareth Dennis wrote in Rail mag some years ago that the plan to introduce faster non tilt speeds was imminent to accommodate TPE 125mph stock. So that got canned? Why?

Wouldn't trust that bloke if he told me the sky was blue. Likely it was never "imminent"

 

[notadriver]

Hardly playing trains if they have the hard cash to lease them.

Playing trains is people who drive miniature railways and call themselves train drivers, or those who think that XC should get Voyagers for free just because they have a fleet of them already, despite "the powers that be" refusing to pay for them.

‘Spare’ 22x stock being allowed to go to someone playing trains rather than XC would certainly demonstrate how the powers that be have completely lost touch with the railway’s needs.

Are all open access operators viewed as just ‘playing trains’ ?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Are all open access operators viewed as just ‘playing trains’ ?

Certainly Grand Central is - their legendary unreliability in particular. Personally I'd ban them until they get some suitable stock (e.g. 22x) in place.

 

[357]

Certainly Grand Central is - their legendary unreliability in particular. Personally I'd ban them until they get some suitable stock (e.g. 22x) in place.

To still be in business they must be turning a profit though - more than can be said for most "serious train operators"!

 

[Sealink]

Whifflet getting direct trains to London!

 

[60159]

From this thread

(Sorry if there's been a thread on this already – I couldn't find one when searching for it.)

What do you think the chances of Grand Union's proposed Stirling – Euston (four trains per day via Larbert, Greenfaulds, Whifflet, Motherwell, Lockerbie, Carlisle, Preston, Crewe, Nuneaton and Milton Keynes Central) services are?

It might get some traffic from the Scottish Central Belt as well as passengers from Stirling, Perth, Dundee and northern Scotland who'd prefer an easier change than Edinburgh or crossing Glasgow. I suspect that its main customer base would end up being those going from Nuneaton, Crewe and – especially, where LNR isn't an option – Preston and Carlisle to London, then north of Edinburgh – Preston, Crewe and connections from there.

I don't know if there's any other factors which led to Wrexham & Shropshire ending, but the fact that that called at Wolverhampton and Tame Bridge Parkway, which have better services to Birmingham than Larbert, Greenfaulds and Whifflet do to Glasgow / Edinburgh, doesn't make me massively optimistic about Grand Union. (Motherwell's only fifteen minutes from Glasgow but already has four trains per day to Crewe, eleven to Euston plus the Sleeper and five TPE services per day.)

 

[Towers]

Are all open access operators viewed as just ‘playing trains’ ?

Arguably some more than others, I would suggest!

 

[The Planner]

Gareth Dennis wrote in Rail mag some years ago that the plan to introduce faster non tilt speeds was imminent to accommodate TPE 125mph stock. So that got canned? Why?

I am of the belief that was just a propagated rumour that became "true". There was never any plan that I have seen.

Certainly Grand Central is - their legendary unreliability in particular. Personally I'd ban them until they get some suitable stock (e.g. 22x) in place.

Nothing to stop anyone putting in a bid to run an open access operation from what I can work out. If you wanted to run Bletchleyite Trains from Bletchley to Stourbridge Town, your proposal would still have to be considered even if you had no real means of getting rolling stock. Its not just Grand Union, GoOp haven't got anywhere and that very short lived, even if it was just a school project, from North Wales to London.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Nothing to stop anyone putting in a bid to run an open access operation from what I can work out. If you wanted to run Bletchleyite Trains from Bletchley to Stourbridge Town

Now come on, it really should be from Fenny Stratford, should it not?

 

[SeanM1997]

The ORR decision letter says Crewe (contingent rights only). What does this mean and could this lead to Crewe not actually being served by this new operator?

https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2024-03/2024-03-07-grand-union-london-stirling-decision-letter.pdf

 

[43106]

Whifflet getting direct trains to London!

This surprised me a lot! Can't understand why they would stop here and not (say) Coatbridge and Cumbernauld. I'm also surprised that GUT think a service to/from Stirling is worthwhile as GNER are going to withdraw their service to/from Stirling.

 

[hux385]

This surprised me a lot! Can't understand why they would stop here and not (say) Coatbridge and Cumbernauld. I'm also surprised that GUT think a service to/from Stirling is worthwhile as GNER are going to withdraw their service to/from Stirling.

One explaination might be to do with accessibility. I know Greenfaulds has a bigger car park, plus both Greenfauls and Whifflet are 'green' fully step-free stations, whereas Cumbernauld and Coatbridge Central are only 'amber' partially accessible stations.

If someone requires ramp access, it's easier to provide it from the stations GU is proposing, rather than creating workarounds with ScotRail to provide access. It also probably makes it easier for GU to reduce their station staffing levels to virtually zero at the these locations too.

 

[43096]

88s+MK5s?

No chance of 88s as they are 100mph.

 

[The Planner]

The ORR decision letter says Crewe (contingent rights only). What does this mean and could this lead to Crewe not actually being served by this new operator?

https://www.orr.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2024-03/2024-03-07-grand-union-london-stirling-decision-letter.pdf

It means it can stop there if it fits. If for whatever reason something with firm rights needs to be flexed or a timetable required for engineering work, GU will be at the bottom of the list for a Crewe stop.

 

[Peter0124]

This surprised me a lot! Can't understand why they would stop here and not (say) Coatbridge and Cumbernauld. I'm also surprised that GUT think a service to/from Stirling is worthwhile as GNER are going to withdraw their service to/from Stirling.

Whifflet also has better services than Coatbridge Central (eg the connection from the Carmyle Line) so it makes more sense to stop there, however Coatbridge Central is closer to the North Clyde line (eg Sunnyside) so that line loses out on a London connection by walking between Sunnyside and Central

 

[SamCam]

This may have been discussed at length already, but why has the northern destination been set at Stirling, rather than extending to Perth or even Dundee? Is it purely about diagrams with a minimal amount of stock or was it originally to do with where the electrification runs out (in which case they'd surely want to review that given they're resorting to 22x)?

 

[YorkRailFan]

If XC gets all of the remaining 221s, and GU can't wait for the 222s to become available, there's a few 180s in storage. It's not implausible, the founder of GU also founded GC you know.

 

[John R]

This may have been discussed at length already, but why has the northern destination been set at Stirling, rather than extending to Perth or even Dundee? Is it purely about diagrams with a minimal amount of stock or was it originally to do with where the electrification runs out (in which case they'd surely want to review that given they're resorting to 22x)?

Given the process they have had to go through to get approval, I'm not sure they would "surely want to review that". Better to get a service up and running asap and then worry about tweaking it. They will have a lot to do over the next year to be ready to start operating, and any uncertainty as to something as basic as to where they run to would make that much more difficult.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

This may have been discussed at length already, but why has the northern destination been set at Stirling, rather than extending to Perth or even Dundee? Is it purely about diagrams with a minimal amount of stock or was it originally to do with where the electrification runs out (in which case they'd surely want to review that given they're resorting to 22x)?

The Virgin/Avanti bids for the ICWC franchise in 2012/2018 were reported to have included services to/from Stirling, after electrification there.
Only 1tpd though, I think, much like the LNER service about to lapse.
That ICWC Stirling service never materialised, but maybe GUT picked up that the idea would get through the OA abstraction process - much more difficult with Perth/Dundee.

You'd maybe expect GUT to go for something like the LNER CAF trains recently ordered (based on TPE's 397s).
But they would need a decent access agreement length to make that work financially.

Newspaper reports say that GUT trains will have "more legroom" than competing services, and will be based in Scotland.
On the other hand the decision letter lists approval for an ECS move between London and Preston as well as the four tpd to Stirling.

 

[SamCam]

Fair enough - though I'd have thought the potential for new journeys between the bigger populations in Dundee/Perth and north-west England would be a plus rather than a minus as far as the ORR were concerned. I agree that the short access period makes anything requiring new stock prohibitive, so if Sterling-Euston is the longest journey that they can get two trips out of a set with then that would explain it.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The electricity supply won't support any more electric trains than what's in the current Avanti plans. There is a similar situation on the East Coast too.

That's a bit of a bummer, after a long and expensive NR project to upgrade power supplies on the WCML, using ATF.
That project was curtailed north of Cumbria because the freight TOCs wouldn't commit to use it.
But power supply weaknesses at Euston and Preston are hard to understand.

WCPSU Phase 3 converts the traction power supply on the West Coast Main Line (WCML) from a booster RC classic system to a 25-0-25kV Auto-Transformer system, between North Wembley and Carstairs

I think the assumption about MU speeds north of Weaver Jn was based on the idea that HS2 rolling stock would demand it (and pay for it).
That's at the very least delayed now (to 2034 or beyond apparently).
TPE might have wanted it, but unlike Avanti it was not a franchise commitment so never got on NR's to do list.
I know there have been studies of the issue for HS2, but that means nothing now.

 

[Scotrail12]

As an ex Coatbridge resident, it's fairly obvious to me why they've went for Whifflet over Central. Whifflet has a small parking area and is generally a better equipped, more well maintained station.

Coatbridge Central is a tiny station with very few facilities and is absolutely ghastly - almost looks derelict in places.

 

[The Middle]

Newspaper reports say that GUT trains will have "more legroom" than competing services, and will be based in Scotland.
On the other hand the decision letter lists approval for an ECS move between London and Preston as well as the four tpd to Stirling.

Points towards a Preston crew base and trying to reduce the lodging will inevitably be required for the crew to operate this. Next summer just doesn't seem realistic without any signs of a rolling stock deal or beginning of recruitment for train crew and wider functions unless anyone else knows differently?

 

[driver9000]

I am of the belief that was just a propagated rumour that became "true". There was never any plan that I have seen.

I guess all those 125mph test runs done for the 397s were for no reason at all? It was certainly mentioned many times during the early days of 397s being built and tested although it has since gone quiet. They are labelled for 125mph in the cabs too.

 

[Snow1964]

What is also interesting is the abstraction calculation that was accepted includes a factor for alternative to Glasgow-London air travel, per the 13 page decision letter.